Dare (2 page)

Being slightly invisible at Hawthorne High was exactly what Brynna wanted.

“Oh my god!”

The kid that Brynna crashed into was an eyebrow taller than her, with unkempt dark hair expensively cut to look that way. His eyes were a dark brown-black, but his grin was warm. He narrowed his eyes at Brynna, and she immediately felt heat at the back of her neck.

“Sorry, I didn't see you—” she started.

He shook a finger at her. “I've never seen you.”

“What?”

“You're new, right?” He dashed out a hand. “Evan. Evan Stevens. Don't call me Even Stevens because it's already been done circa elementary school through three o'clock on Wednesday.”

Brynna's eyebrows went up. “What happened at three o'clock on Wednesday?”

“Not important. Who are you now?”

“Uh, Brynna. Brynna Chase.” She looked at Evan's outstretched hand. He immediately pulled it back.

“Not a shaker? Fine, I respect that. Supergerms and all.”

Evan paused, tapping a finger against his lips as he studied her. Anxiety started to creep up the back of her neck.

“Junior. Sixteen. Doesn't drive.”

It took Brynna a second to realize that Evan was talking about her. He raised his eyebrows and she stumbled. “Uh, yeah. How did you know that?”

“I'm a genius. And your student ID is sticking out.” He flipped on his heel. “Come with me.”

“Wait. What?”

Evan didn't answer. He kept walking with the sure step of a popular kid, and Brynna ran to catch up with him.

“Um, where are we going?” she asked once she caught up.

“You need to meet everyone. This way.”

Brynna hung back for a half second, her eyes raking over Evan. He gave her a quick, impatient look, and her mind spun, processing. He didn't look at her boobs or give her the easy, cocky smile she recognized from guys who wanted to hook up with her. She shrugged and continued following.

Evan wound Brynna around the school to the cafeteria. She paused, grimacing. Evan looked over his shoulder and cocked a brow. “Oh, cafeteria for losers at your old school?” He smiled. “How cliché.”

Brynna followed Evan to a round table littered with good-looking kids staring boredly into their Starbucks cups. He gave two small, tight claps.

“Everyone, this is Brynna something-or-other. Be nice; she's new.”

Evan took a chair, and Brynna was left to stand in the glare of three sets of eyes regarding her with mild curiosity. She offered a slow wave then immediately felt stupid, her hand dropping to her side.

“Um, I'm Brynna Chase. I just transferred here.”

“Isn't she a plum?” Evan asked the girl sitting next to him. “I discovered her.” He grabbed Brynna's wrist and pulled her down into the seat next to him. “Tell us everything about yourself.”

Brynna paused, her dark eyes scanning the group. She felt sweat pricking out above her lower lip, itching along her hairline.

“Where you from?” an incredibly thin girl with sharp features and a blunt-cut blond pageboy asked.

Evan pointed. “That's Darcy.”

“I'm from Point Lobos.”

There was a brief pause as the words came out of Brynna's mouth. She waited for them to recoil while a memory came together, to trigger that little something in their brains that remembered a news article, a tweet about the girl who survived while she watched her best friend die.
Wasn't that girl from Point Lobos?

But no one seemed to react much. Darcy nodded, and Evan swiped a paper cup of coffee from the girl sitting next to him. His eyes cut to Brynna. “This is my sibling, Lauren.”

Brynna raised her eyebrows at Evan's use of the word “sibling,” and when Lauren offered her a hand to shake, Brynna tried not to stare at Lauren's sweatshirt. She wasn't successful, because Lauren looked down at herself, the emblem of a hornet in a swim cap, the words
Hawthorne
Hornets
Swim
Team
in a circle around him.

“Do you swim?” Lauren asked.

The question shouldn't have caught Brynna off guard, but it did. “Uh, no.”
Not
any
more, not ever again.
“It's cool that you do though.”

Evan bumped Lauren's shoulder. “Women's 500 freestyle champ. Twinsie here got the athletic ability in the fam. I got everything else.”

“You're twins?” Brynna's eyes went from Lauren, with her glossy mane of Crayola-red hair and wide-set eyes, to Evan.

“Fraternal,” Lauren said. “Totally fraternal.”

“Aren't all boy/girl twins fraternal?” Brynna asked.

“Like I said.” Evan jabbed a thumb at Lauren. “Athletic ability,” and then he pointed back at himself. “Everything else.”

Lauren rolled her eyes, and an enormous, stereotypical jock with the name “Meatball” stitched on his jacket sat down.

It was a flash of a second, a nearly miniscule move, but Brynna could see Evan wilt.

“What's up, fags?” Meatball asked, a wad of breakfast sandwich lodged in his cheek.

“Hey, dude, shut the hell up.”

Brynna looked up to see another jock—judging by his letterman's jacket—who looked nothing like Meatball. He was slight, with close-cropped ink-black hair that looked like it'd curl if it got the chance. His eyes were an impossible sky blue and framed with lashes that Brynna would kill for.

Meatball turned his massive head up toward the new guy, shrugged, and lumbered off. The new jock slid into his vacated seat. “Sorry about that.” He swung his head toward Brynna. “I'm Teddy. I don't think I know you.”

“Teddy's our resident jock,” Evan clarified.

Darcy shot Teddy a withering glare. “I thought he was our resident gimp.”

Teddy turned to Brynna, completely unfazed, and pointed to his foot. “Os trigonum syndrome.”

Brynna blinked, feeling her cheeks redden. First, she was locked in the gaze of a hot guy, and second, she couldn't understand a single word he said.

“It means he's got an extra bone,” Evan said with a smirk.

“In his foot,” Darcy hissed.

“Ended my football career before it even started.”

Brynna smiled, and Lauren stood up, linking arms with her and pulling her up too. “Before you and Teddy go all touchy-feely on each other, how about I show you around a little bit? I'm pretty sure my sweet twinsie over there did a fab job but probably missed the important spots, like the girls' bathroom.”

Brynna said some hasty good-byes and let Lauren lead her out of the cafeteria. Lauren was nearly a head taller than Brynna, with wide, muscular shoulders that Brynna knew must be from swimming. She fluffed her red hair around her shoulders and narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing Brynna.

Brynna waited for the sinking feeling to start, the trickling guilt that always shadowed her, that held her tight like a second skin. As she and Lauren walked down the deserted halls, Lauren pointing out landmarks like the administration building and the bathrooms to avoid, Brynna began to let her guard down. It only took a millisecond of easing into a comfortable space for Erica's memory to breathe down her neck and for Brynna to feel like there were a hundred eyes watching her. She zipped up her hoodie and shrugged off a chill.

•••

It had been six weeks since Brynna's first day at Hawthorne High. People knew her now. They waved to her, asked her opinion, invited her out with “the gang.” Teddy squeezed in beside her at lunch, and Evan came over almost every day. Lauren and Darcy dragged her into the girls' room for major discussions, and Meatball gave her a wide berth, whether or not Teddy was around. She was happy to be just Brynna and happy that at Hawthorne High, her secret—her guilt—could stay buried.

When her parents first moved here, Brynna had wanted to be anonymous, disregarded—a shell of a girl, trying to get through her junior year only because she had no other choice. She figured she would dutifully attend her once-weekly therapy sessions and sit through the AA for Teens (she still had to go as a condition of her parole), where all the other vacant-eyed kids tried not to look at each other. She had self-medicated her way through Erica's memorial and dealing with life after that night. She had also self-medicated herself into a DUI arrest and a habit she couldn't stop on her own.

But she had actually begun enjoying her life in Crescent City, was even on her way to having a boyfriend. For as much as Brynna tried to stay guarded, Teddy tried to break in. He waited for her after class but still gave her her space; he texted her stupid jokes and googly faces but didn't force her to talk. Her walls were breaking down, and Brynna felt something for him, a tiny spark on its way to becoming a flame.

Pep rallies, football games, school plays—it was all kind of stupid, she admitted, but still it felt good to be normal again, with a social circle, party invitations, and even a green-and-white Hawthorne High ribbon in her hair. She was staring in her bedroom mirror, trying to get the bow to sit straight on her ponytail, when her tablet pinged
,
signifying a new tweet.

Brynna swiped her finger across the screen, ready to tell Evan that he could never pull off a cheerleader's sweater, even if it did fit him perfectly.

But the smile dropped from her lips.

Fear, like a heavy black stone, settled in her gut.

The tweet was from
@EricaNShaw
.

Brynna touched the screen, her finger shaking, her heart thundering. She touched the little animated icon, and Erica's message popped up:
Remember me?

Brynna snatched her hand back as if she'd been burned. The words swam in front of her eyes:
Remember me?

Heat crawled up her spine, swallowing one vertebra after another as blood pulsed in her ears.

“What the—?”

She was reaching for the screen as she spoke, ready to delete the tweet, but the little birdie icon blinked again.

@EricaNShaw has a new tweet for you!

Every fiber of her being seemed to pull in opposite directions. Her skin felt tight, her bones like they were about to explode. Everything told her to move, to run, to flee. Her stomach turned in on itself, but Brynna had to click. It couldn't be Erica—it just couldn't.

The second tweet popped up with a gleeful little jingle that made Brynna's heart drop a little lower in her chest.

Remember me?

The bird chirped again, but there was no new tweet—just Brynna's tablet screen filling with little blue rectangles, each with the same two words:
Remember me? Remember me? Remember me?

She mashed her fingers against the screen, her fingerprints blurring the tweets but unable to make them go away.

Remember me?

The screen kept pinging with new tweets, each note a drop of water slipping into an ocean, each word congealing into a sea of blame. Brynna was crying now, pressing her whole palm against the screen, swiping, clawing, screaming—anything to get the tweets to stop.

Erica was dead. She had been caught by the riptide and was dead
.
Wasn't she?

Erica's body had never been found, but there had been an official proclamation. Brynna couldn't forget—her mother picked her up from school, had taken Brynna's hand and squeezed it against her cheek.

“They're declaring Erica dead, honey.”

“Did they find…?”

“No.” A slight pause. “They've called off the search. It's been four days. There is no way…” Her mother's voice dropped off before she said it: there was no way that Erica could still be alive.

“Bryn?”

Brynna looked up, terrified. Her mother was standing in the doorway, one arm pressed protectively across her chest, her other hand slapped over her half-open mouth. Evan stood in front of her, his eyes impossibly wide, the little emerald H at his right eye ludicrously out of place.

“Brynna!” Her mother rushed in front of Evan and kneeled down, throwing her arms around her. “What's wrong?”

Stunned, Brynna looked down at the tablet she was still clutching. It was covered in smeared tears and fingerprints, but the screen was black.

“I got a—” She looked up at Evan, who hadn't moved from his space in the doorway. “Look.” She swiped the screen back to life, and it flashed on for a tenth of a second before the CONNECT TO POWER icon started flashing.

“No,” Brynna gasped, shaking her head. “It was just here. And I just took my iPad out of the charger.”

Her mother let her hand fall and scooched a few inches away from Brynna. She whispered, “Are you being cyberbullied, hon?”

Brynna's eyebrows went up. “No.” She dragged a palm over her cheeks and sniffed. “Sorry, it was nothing.”

Brynna's heart pounded against her rib cage, but her cheeks burned with embarrassment as she looked up at Evan. His eyes were still on her, but there was no expression on his face.

“I'm sorry,” Brynna said to the carpet. “It was just—”

What?
Something inside Brynna screamed.
It
was
just
what? Me going crazy? Me seeing things? Me getting a message from the dead?

Evan didn't know about Erica. He didn't know about Brynna. And now, sitting in her new room with her new friend and on the precipice of a new life, she desperately didn't want him to know.

She focused on Evan and forced a laugh that was supposed to sound nonchalant but came out tinny and weirdly high. “Sorry.”

He shrugged, his expression going back to classic Evan: unaffected. “No big. We all have our moments.”

Brynna cleared her throat, her eyes cutting toward her mother. “Um, Evan and I have to get ready for the game.”

Evan and Brynna watched Brynna's mother cross the room, toss a concerned look over her shoulder, and close the door only halfway. Brynna got up to nudge it shut, but her mother held firm, her hard brown eyes zeroing in.

“This door doesn't close. You've got a boy in your room and,” her eyes went to Bryn's tear-stained face, “well, you know.”

Brynna crossed her arms in front of her chest. “So,” she hissed, “now every time I cry or get upset, I'm drinking or smoking again?”

Her mother glanced over Brynna's shoulder at Evan, who was obliviously flipping channels on the TV.

“I'm your mother, Brynna Marie. I'm supposed to worry.”

A little niggling of guilt wormed its way into Brynna. She remembered the way her mother sat on the psychologist's couch, repeatedly smoothing the imaginary wrinkles in her skirt while Brynna sat icily silent, her father helpless in between, during the ten hours of state-mandated family therapy that Brynna—caught drinking and driving in her mother's car—had gotten nearly a year after Erica's accident.

“Sorry, Mom,” she said on a sigh. “I'm past that.”

Her mother's eyes flashed with something like hope.

“I promise,” Brynna said. “Can we just get ready now?”

She watched her mother leave and turned back to Evan, pasting on the coolest, most nonchalant smile she could muster.

“So, are you excited about the game?”

Evan blinked at her. “No, but football games are a required social construct for supposedly well-adjusted teens. And speaking of well-adjusted…” His eyes cut to the discarded tablet on the floor.

Brynna swallowed hard, the weight of wanting to talk to someone—and wanting just another day of not being “that girl”—pressing against her.

“Boyfriend trouble?” Evan said before Brynna could even respond. “Jealous? Stalker? That's sick and romantic.”

Brynna turned to the mirror and tugged on the end of the green-and-white Hawthorne High bow. “Yeah,” she said carefully, “something like that.”

Evan scooted closer to her, his dark eyes glittering. He pointed an index finger two inches from Brynna's nose and waved it. “I like you, Brynna Chase. You're dark. Mysterious. You've got secrets.”

Brynna's heart started to pound even as she managed to keep her face neutral. “Secrets?”

“I can read you like a book. There's something wicked in there.” He waved his entire hand now, indicating her as a whole.

Brynna's breath hitched. She stared at Evan, studying him.
There's something wicked in there…
His eyes were bright, his lips twitching up into a wry smile.

Did
he
know?

A cold sheen of sweat broke out all over her, and suddenly, the round collar of her T-shirt felt like it was strangling her. Brynna knew it would happen. She knew it was only a matter of time before someone at Hawthorne High figured out who she was, and the whispers would start all over again.

Everything Dr. Rother said, every breathing technique or calming technique that she had taught her, swirled in Brynna's head, rolling and tumbling in a gnarled mess. She didn't want to figure them out. She didn't want to calm down and “live through the moment” like Dr. Rother said. She wanted darkness. She wanted oblivion.

“It's not like it's going to kill you,” Campbell said, his eyes half-hidden by the scruff of sand-blond hair that rolled over his forehead. “They'll just calm you down a little bit. You know, sand away the rough edges.”

That's what Brynna's entire life was now: rough edges. Erica was gone. She couldn't say her best friend was dead; she wouldn't say it. It had only been eleven days and they hadn't found Erica, and somewhere inside, Brynna knew that Erica could still be alive. She had to be. Fifteen-year-olds didn't die.

“Just sands away the rough edges, huh?”

Campbell
nodded
and
smiled. “You'll have a break for a couple hours. No big deal.”

Brynna's mind still churned, that night, that dare flashing in front of her mind's eye. Every moment, she heard the splash of the water, the heavy silence as she and Erica went down, down. Every night, she dreamed of Erica, of the way she must have looked as all the air left her body.

“Do you have anything that lasts longer?”

“It's nothing,” Brynna said, trying her best to shrug off Evan's questioning stare. “There's nothing…wicked…about me.”

Evan digested that and narrowed his eyes. “You know you can talk to me. You know you can tell me anything.”

Brynna watched Evan's eyes as they went to the tablet. Instinctively, she reached out and grabbed it, slipping the thing into her top drawer. “I know, Evan, and vice versa.”

“You can even tell me what freaked you out so badly on the tablet.”

She let out a shock of air and wagged her head. “It was nothing. Like you said, old boyfriend. I was just…surprised to hear from him is all.”

“It's not always the worst thing in the world,” Evan said, brushing a hand through his hair, “if someone from your past wants to come back to you.”

Her heart did a little double thump and her stomach went to liquid. Evan must have noticed her face go pale, because he cocked his head. “Bad guy? Bad influence?”

“We should probably go.” She pushed herself to her feet, but Evan didn't budge.

“Come on, B. You can talk to me. Tell me one thing—one thing that's bothering you—and I can worry about it, okay?” He offered her a small smile.

Before Brynna could stop herself, she nodded. It was as if someone took over her body and bobbled her head, and her heart wedged in her throat as she thought of just one secret to tell Evan. The problem was, there wasn't just one. Brynna's cheeks singed as she listed them off.

I
killed
my
best
friend.

I
got
addicted
to
drugs.

I
drank
and
drove.

I
got
arrested.

I'm not a normal girl.

I
should
have
been
the
one
to
die.

“You know when I said I came here because there was a crazy drug problem at my old school?”

She swallowed when Evan nodded.

“I was the crazy drug problem. I had a problem.” Brynna looked at her hands in her lap. “A really big problem.”

Evan blew out a long sigh, his eyes steady on Brynna's. He reached out and squeezed her hand. “And the guy—he was part of that?”

She briefly thought of Michael, her boyfriend back at Lincoln, and the reason he became just as addicted as she was: because there was no other way to reach her. He stood by her and then hung by her until they were both oblivious shadows of their former selves, drunk, high, numb.

Brynna swallowed over the lump in her throat. “Yeah.”

There was a silent, pregnant pause, and then Evan smiled. “I still love you.”

“Thanks.”

“And seriously, you had me thinking you were some kind of ax murderer or something.” He batted at the air. “Drugs? Nothing. Half the student body is addicted to something, and the other half just wants everyone to think they are.” Evan's eyes shifted. “Not me, of course. I'm not stupid or a lemming.”

“Are you calling me a stupid lemming?”

Evan nodded. “Yeah. Back then. But come on, you're going to the school where a student killed another student
and
a teacher. And some other chick was like, on the run from the FBI or the German mafia or her parents kidnapped her or something. Drugs? Lame. So what was it? Oxy, Spice, Adderall, Lady X?”

Brynna sat back, a mixture of surprise and sudden comfort washing over her. She smiled. “Doesn't matter. It was lame and I'm over it. Now I'm addicted to cheap nachos, so can we please just get to this game?”

•••

Brynna's good mood was short-lived. For every inch of comfort she took knowing that Evan was cool with her past, a needling fear poked in:
He
doesn't know the real story. He doesn't know about the dare. About Erica.

She struggled through the football game, remaining seated when everyone jumped to their feet, cheering, her head a churning mess of Erica's tweets.

No
, she told herself.
Not
Erica's.

Erica was dead.

Maybe
not…

The thought flashed through her mind before she could stop it, and Brynna gritted her teeth, trying to keep the memory on her periphery, out of her mind. But it crept in—the sound of the water as it broke when Erica and Brynna crashed into it. The feeling of Erica's fingers gripping hers tightly, then slowly, slowly slipping through her palm, then slipping away. Brynna thrashed, salt water floating up her nose, dripping through her teeth as she smiled. She spun, looking for Erica, feeling through the water.

But it was silent.

Dead calm.

“Hey, ow!”

Brynna blinked as Teddy pulled his hand from hers and began massaging it.

“You've got a hell of a grip,” he said, his blue eyes playful.

Brynna's heart began to pound. Had she been holding Teddy's hand? Oh god, had she grabbed it?

“I'm—I'm super sorry,” she said, her ponytail bobbing against her cheek as she shook her head.