I try to match everyone’s enthusiasm, but I feel… completely thrown off-balance, the ground unsteady underneath me.
But, with or without me, the game still begins, the plan set into motion.
It’s a blur of dares lobbed back and forth across the circle, truths spilling out of people’s mouths. Leah Thompson confesses to cheating on her bio final, and Brad Hammond eats a worm, and Jake strips down to his underwear and jumps through the bonfire like an actual lunatic.
I watch as he grabs a beer from someone, chugging the rest of it before spinning around and pointing the empty bottle at…
Blake. I hadn’t even noticed her come join us, my mind still spinning from her words a moment ago.
“Blake Carter,” he drawls, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Truth or dare?”
She crosses her arms, raising her eyebrows at him. “You know I’m always game for a dare, Jake.”
Jake laughs, an evil glint in his eye. Everyone goes quiet with a palpable excitement, watching the exchange, eager to see what the new girl will do. He points to the rusty lifeguard stand at the end of the dock.
“I dare you to jump off that. Into the water.”
Blake doesn’t even bat an eye. And she definitely doesn’t look at me.
Everyone cranes their necks to watch as she walks down the dock, some even stand up to get a better view. I watch her climb the rickety ladder up to the top, silently praying that she doesn’t follow through with her part in the plan.
Blake steadies herself, the stand creaking underneath her, and Jake starts a chant.
“Bla-ake! Bla-ake! Bla-ake!”
There’s a collective intake of air as she soars off the top, doubling down on the dare by flipping backward into the water, everyone clapping and cheering as she surfaces. As fearless as she’d been when we went cliff jumping.
So totally unlike how she’d been just a few moments ago in the woods. Her confession was scarier to her than this… but she did it anyway.
Kiera’s fingers dig into my arm, and I swing my head to look over at her. She gives me a big, excited smile, knowing what’s coming.
My chest feels tight as I watch Blake swim back to the dock, the mischievous smile I expect to see missing from her face, her words ringing in my ears as she pushes herself out of the water.
Try your luck on something real.
She pulls her wet hair into a bun as everyone crowds around her in excitement, her social status at Huckabee High cemented after one dare.
Don’t ask me. Don’t ask me.
I silently will her to pick one of them. To pick Matt, or Olivia, or anyone other than me.
She doesn’t, though. She pulls her hands away from her hair and looks directly at me, through the crowd of people, her wet shirt clinging to her upper arms and her stomach.
“Emily,” she says, my skin prickling when she says my name, so different from back in the woods. Everyone falls silent, turning to look at me. “Truth or dare?”
And just like that, it’s not a game anymore. How I answer this is a choice.
I look down at the grass surrounding the log I’m sitting on, wishing it would swallow me up. Wishing for a way out and…
There. In the grass.
A four-leaf clover.
I reach out, plucking it, and just like that the choice is made for me. I say the word I know will change absolutely everything.
“Dare.”
I look up and I know, because I know Blake, that she’s going to do it. I know she follows through, whether it’s backflipping off a rusty lifeguard stand or enduring a night of sleep in the back of a pickup truck.
“I dare you to kiss someone,” she says.
There’s a chorus of “ooo”s and someone shouting, “Don’t see any underclassmen here!” but it’s all background noise as I hold Blake’s gaze, her eyes darker than I’ve ever seen them, not giving anything away.
I stand up, my hand clenching around the four-leaf clover like it’s my lucky quarter, my connection to Mom, what she must have felt here on this spot so many years ago. My grip tightens until I feel a wave of every single emotion from this past summer.
But they aren’t about her at all.
The free fall of the cliff jump. The feeling of Blake’s hand in mine in the back of her grandpa’s truck. The achingly beautiful ceiling of stars above us. Her face when I walked away from her.
I want to throw this stupid clover away and choose her, and that terrifies me. I want to close that space and kiss her.
But that’s not why I’m here. Not why I started this list in the first place. I can feel the weight of everyone’s eyes on me. The weight of their expectations.
The weight of my mom’s expectations, the person I trust more than I trust myself.
So I need to trust her now, just like I have all summer long.
My feet find their way without any instruction, two steps, five steps, my movements feeling almost robotic.
Soon I’m on the other side of the blazing fire, my heart pounding loudly as I take a deep breath and look down at Matt. For a moment I watch the firelight dance across his face, his eyes nervous and hopeful now that I’m an arm’s length away from him. He stands slowly, taking a small step closer to me.
And then, before I can think about it anymore, I lean forward and kiss him.
He smells like his favorite cologne, the one he only wears on dates, and on Valentine’s Day, and when he’s got something planned. His mouth tastes like whatever beer Jake sneaked onto the bus in a duffel bag. His hand feels soft but firm as he finds the small of my back. It’s familiar. The same person I’ve kissed the same way since freshman year.
But just like every single kiss since freshman year, there are no fireworks. No rush of dizzying love. No puzzle piece clicking perfectly into
