Dare You To (16 page)

responsible enough to decide what trouble I want to get in and says if I go too far, I’m smart enough to dig myself out. He’s

encouraged me every step of the way with

baseball. More than most parents ever would.

Dad watches out for me and this… this is him looking out for me again.

I nod several times before speaking,

agreeing to something, but I don’t know what.

Anything to make this confusion stop. “Yeah.

It’s okay. This was on me.” I crumple the
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papers in my hand. “You’re right. This…” I lift the wadded paper. “It’s nothing. Stupid, even.”

Dad forces a smile. “It’s all right. Go in and tell your mom. She’ll be thrilled.”

I stand to leave and try to ignore the

emptiness in my chest.

“Ryan,” says Dad. At the door, I turn to face him.

“Do me a favor—don’t tell your mom about

the last round of competition. She’s been on edge lately.”

“Sure.” What would be the point of telling her? Mom has a way of knowing when I’m

untruthful, and I’m not eager to discover that the words I just uttered to Dad are a lie.

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THE CLOCK READS NINE FORTY-FIVE and Isaiah gets off work at ten. My finger, paused against the speed dial button, goes numb. The sun set a while ago, leaving the room dark. I haven’t moved from my spot on the bed. Scott hasn’t come in. Neither has Allison. Not to lecture me on school or to scold me for yelling at Allison or to call me to dinner.

I’ve dry heaved twice. Scott’s going to send Mom to jail. He probably already called the police. The ironic part of this whole

nightmare? I tried. I tried and I failed. Imagine that.

At ten, I’ll call Isaiah and tell him to come and get me. We’ll go to the beach. We’ll run away. Too bad I can’t convince Mom to go

with us. Isaiah and I could get her before the cops do.

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I raise my head and a wave of hope

floods my body, making me dizzy. I could

convince Mom to go. We could go away—

together.

Someone knocks on the door. I slip the

phone under the covers. “Yeah.”

Scott enters the room and turns on the light.

He wears a black T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. For the first time, I see a hint of the kid that took care of me when I was younger and, foolishly, my heart responds. I move off the bed. I have to tell him I’m sorry. “Scott…”

Focusing on the carpet, he cuts me off. “I’m not in the mood to hear you bitch. If you ever talk to Allison like that again, I’ll make sure you regret it. She’s my wife and I love her.”

I nod, but Scott doesn’t look at me to see it.

He pulls his wallet out and slaps a card onto the dresser. The name and number belong to Mom’s probation officer. “I talked to him this evening. Nice guy. Did you know your mom

will serve a ten-year sentence if she screws up probation? Ten years. That’s not even counting what they’ll charge her with when I tell them what I know. Your choice, Elisabeth. Either way you’re living here until you turn eighteen.

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Your actions decide if your mom goes to

jail.”

The relief sweeping through my body makes me weak. He hasn’t sent my mom to jail. Not yet. I still can make this work. The possibilities have my mind racing. I’ll have to find a way into Louisville, to convince Mom to leave with me, and then get Isaiah on board.…

“Last chance.” Scott breaks into my

thoughts. “I want perfection this time.”

He smacks his hand against the dresser and the last cigarette I bummed rolls out of a folder and onto the floor. Shit.

Scott crouches and stares at the cigarette before picking it up. He acts like it’s a joint instead of tobacco. Crap. It might as well be a needle full of heroin. “I can explain.” Actually, I can’t. But I heard Noah use that phrase with Echo once and it bought him time.

As he stands, his hand shakes. Dad’s hands used to shake. “This is bullshit. I bring you to my home.” He falters and I can see him trying to rein in the anger. It scares me that he won’t look at me. “I give you a home and you don’t even have the decency to try to follow my rules.”

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Quiet anger frightens me. The drunks, the idiots, the ones that rage easily—them I can handle. I know when to step out of their way.

It’s the ones that hold the anger in, the men that think about what they do and how they do it, that scare me. They’re the ones that cause damage. A small voice, a voice that sounds a lot like me when I was a child, sweetly

murmurs that Scott would never hurt me. That he was our protector. Once. I don’t know this man.

“I tried,” I whisper.

“Bullshit!” Scott yells so loudly that the crystals on the lampshade tinkle. I flinch and step back. “You’ve done everything you can to make Allison and me miserable.”

I swallow. Mom’s boyfriend, Trent, started this way. He walked into the apartment all calm and cool, with anger seething underneath.

Then he yelled. Then he hit.

Dad had this anger too. So did Grandpa. My heart beats wildly in my chest as Scott crushes the cigarette in his hand. For the first time, he looks at me. “Jesus, you’re shaking.”

He moves toward me and I take a retreating step. My back hits the window and my hands
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fly out, searching for something—

anything—to protect myself with. “Get out.”

The anger—it’s gone,
calls the little girl in my head, but I ignore her. She died along with my love of ribbons and dresses and life. She’s nothing but a ghost.

“I’m sorry,” he says slowly and places space between us. “I didn’t realize I scared you. I was mad. Allison was upset. I hate to see her cry and your teacher called…but I’m calm. I swear.”

I tried. Really, I did. I tried and this is where it got me. Trapped in a room full of windows with a man who resembles my father. Dad also used to say he was calm, but he never was.

“Get out!”

“Elisabeth…”

“Out!” My hands wave air in front of me,

motioning for him to leave. “Get out!”

Scott’s eyes grow abnormally wide. “I am

not going to hurt you.”

“This is your fault!” I yell and I want to stop, but if I stop I’ll cry. A strange wetness burns my eyes. My lip is so heavy it trembles. I can’t cry. I won’t cry. Embracing the anger, I open my mouth again. Damn him if he makes
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me cry. “You’re the one that dragged me

here. Is it not enough to take me away from home? You have to humiliate me at school?”

“Humiliate you? Elisabeth, what are you

talking about?”

“I am not Elisabeth! Look at me!” I grab at the clothes on my body with one hand and

yank my Calculus book off the bedside table with the other and fling the book straight at his head. He ducks and the book makes a loud

thud when it smacks the wall. “You want me to be somebody else. You don’t want me to be me. You’re just like Dad! You want me gone!”

My chest is heaving and I gasp for air. The silence that falls between us is heavy and I’m drowning under its weight.

“That’s not true.” Scott pauses as if he’s waiting for a reply. He picks up the textbook and sets it on the dresser. Right beside Mom’s parole officer’s card. “Get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

No, we won’t. He leaves for work before I wake for school. Scott gently closes the door. I race across the room, lock it, turn off the lights, then toss the covers off the bed, searching for the phone. My fingers shake as I press the
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numbers. My pulse beats in my ears in time to the name of the person I need: Isaiah. A heartbeat. Isaiah. The phone rings. Isaiah.

“Hey.” At the sound of his easygoing voice I lean against the closet door. “You had me worried. It’s five after ten. You’re late for our one-minute talk.”

Hoping my lip will quit trembling, I close my eyes and will the tears to stay away. It’s all in vain. If I speak, I’ll cry and I don’t cry.

“Beth?” Worry creeps into his tone.

“Here,” I whisper back and that one word is almost my undoing. Isaiah and I—we don’t do phone conversations. Never have. We watched TV. We partied. We sat next to each other—

existed. How do you just be on a phone? And that’s what I need. I need Isaiah to just exist.

“Beth…” He hesitates. “Is that Ryan guy

messing with you again?”

I swallow a possible sob. I won’t cry. I

won’t. “Sort of.” And Allison and my uncle and school and everything and I feel like the walls are caving in, an avalanche preparing to bury me.

Silence from Isaiah.

I bite my lip when one tear rolls down my
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face. “Do you want me to let you go?”

Dammit. Just dammit—I don’t cry. “Because I know you don’t talk. I mean us. We. We don’t talk.” I swear under my breath. My voice

shook. He’ll know I’m upset. He’ll know.

Silence again. Air crackling on the line.

When he lets me go, I’ll fall apart. I’ll have nothing to hold on to. Nothing to anchor me.

I’ll be exactly what everyone wants me to be—

nothing.

“I’m okay with silence, Beth.”

I’m still here in this house in the room with too many windows. I’m still exposed—raw—

and living in hell. But I have Isaiah and he’s anchoring me. I slide down the wall until I can curl into a tight ball on the floor. “I need you.”

“I’m here.” And we sit in silence.

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SITTING ON MY BED, I read the text message.

First the fight with Dad, then, at ten at night, Gwen sends me this:
Beth Risk???

She waits on the other end for my reply. At least when I play baseball, I can catch the balls beings thrown at me. Dad and Gwen? I’m

getting the hell pounded out of me.

I shouldn’t answer Gwen. I should pretend I never read the message. She loves drama. I love baseball. She hated my games and I hated hers. We stopped kissing and touching and dating, yet somehow, like that night at the dugout, we’ve never stopped the games.

I text back:
what about her?

The wait for her answer stretches into

eternity. I glance away from the phone as if that will make her respond faster. This summer, after Mark left, Mom repainted my room blue.

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She loves to redecorate as much as Dad

loves to build. They used to work together on projects, but that was before our world fell apart.

Gwen:
you tell me

I hate texting. You never know what the

person is really trying to say. I take a risk. One that will make me an idiot and her dangling monkey if she ignores my request.

Me:
call me

My heart picks up a few beats. Will she do it or will she leave me hanging? Since our

breakup, when we play the text game, I call her.

My cell rings and I smile. On the third ring, I answer. “Gwen.”

“Stone,” she says without much emotion.

“What’s going on?” It’s an awkward dance.

One I despise. We used to spend hours on the phone talking and now we overanalyze every word and pause.

“You knew who she was the entire time.”

There’s a hint of accusation in her voice.

I work at staying nonchalant. “And if I did?”

“You could have told me.”

I stare at the posters of my favorite teams.

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Why would I have told her that Beth is

Scott Risk’s niece? They share classes together.

They went to the same elementary school. She could have talked to Beth herself.

“Why did you nominate her?” she asks.

I hear ruffling. The sound is Gwen lying

back onto her pillows. She has five of them on her bed and she sleeps with every last one. I can picture her golden hair fanning out.

“You know how much homecoming queen

means to me,” she says.

I do. I used to listen as she rattled on about her dream of winning that sparkly tiara.

Actually, I faked interest, then pretended to listen. “You seconded the nomination.”

“Because I’d look like a sore loser if I

didn’t, and now I have to scramble for votes.

This would have been a lot easier if you told me sooner she was Scott Risk’s niece. Really, Ryan, I thought we were friends.”

“What do you care? No one knows her and

she doesn’t want friends.”

Her frustrated sigh sets my muscles on edge.

“She’s an instant celebrity and for some insane reason certain people think she’s cool. You nominated her and everyone at school knows
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you’ve asked her out, so you give her

credibility. If you had told me who she was from the beginning, I could have done some damage control. Befriended her or something.

Because of you, she has a shot at winning.”

We broke up and I shouldn’t have to deal

with this. I go with the old standby answer:

“I’m sorry for ruining your life, Gwen. The next time I do anything I’ll be sure to get your permission.”

Gwen blurts out, “She’s not your type.”

I blink. “What?”

“Beth’s a little, I don’t know, freakish. I mean, she is kind of pretty if you like the weird my-life-is-a-dark-room sort of pretty. I guess I’m saying you won’t be able to give her the attention she needs. You know, because of baseball. I guess I’m just saying… not her.”

Not her.
Anger strangles my gut. And we’re back to the conversation from the dugout—

baseball ruined our relationship. “We broke up and now you’re with Mike.”

I can hear Gwen’s smile. “But you promised we’d be friends. I’m being a good friend.”

Friends.
I hate that word. “You’re right.

Beth is pretty.”