The Dare (North Woods University 2)

“You lied, and like liars always do, they continue to lie to cover up their existing lies.”

“What did I lie about?”

There’s a plea attached to her question and I’m too exhausted to continue fighting about this right now. She makes me weak, breaks down all my perfectly constructed walls, and leaves me bleeding, always bleeding.

“Everything. All of it. I’m worth the truth, after all this time I deserve it.” I sigh and start walking toward the stairs.

“I didn’t do anything…I didn’t lie that night…” she cries, but I continue walking, each step making my heart heavier, and the knot of pain in my stomach tighter. By the time I reach my bedroom door, there’s an inkling of doubt forming. And by the time I step into the shower, it’s swirling inside my head, conjuring up different thoughts, and no matter how much I shove it away, it keeps returning.

“Wake up, Vance.” My mom’s voice drags me from sleep. Wake up, we need to leave.” She sniffles and it sounds like she’s been crying. When I peel my eyes open and I look at her, the red rings around her blue eyes confirm it. A knot of dread forms in my throat.

“What’s wrong? Where are we going?”

“Don’t worry about that now, just get up and get dressed, okay?” She wipes at her eyes with the backs of her hands.

I do as I’m told, getting up and dressed in a hurry. Mom and Dad have already packed our suitcases and before I can object to it, or even mutter another question, we are in our car and driving down the road.

“What’s going on?”

My dad’s jaw tightens at my question and my mother’s sobs grow harsher from her spot in the front seat.

“As I’m sure you know, Laura caught Ava sneaking into her room last night?”

“Yeah, I know…we were just playing a game, it was stupid. What happened? Did she get in trouble? I’ll explain everything to her mom if you want me to?”

Silence settles over the car. My mom came and got me from the treehouse ten minutes after Ava left. She told me I was grounded for a month, which I didn’t even consider a punishment since Ava would have been there regardless. I didn’t really understand why I was being grounded. I had done worse things than sneak out of the house at nine at night.

I just assumed it was because Ava had been caught. Oh, how horribly wrong I was. I’ll always remember the next words that come out of my father’s mouth like they are burned into my memory.

“She told her mom that you forced her to do it. That you threatened her to steal some of Laura’s jewelry. Why would you do that, son? Why would you threaten her?” The disappointment in my father’s tone sliced through me.

Shaking my head, I will the memory away. She’s a liar. Through and through. I know what happened that night, and I know that it was her.

She did this to us, and she’ll pay.

Pay dearly.

Chapter Nine

Ava

The days pass in a flurry. My mother and Henry still haven’t returned home and every second I’m left alone inside this house with Vance, another piece of my thinly worn veil crumbles. He’s wearing me down, trying to smash me like a fly, and he gets a little closer to doing so every time he opens his mouth. A tongue may have no bones, but it can break a heart just the same and that’s what he does every time he speaks to me – breaks me, and my heart.

He insults me, filets me straight down the middle, gutting me like a fish until my insides are hanging out and my heart is gushing blood across the floor.

“Hey, Ava… wait up,” a familiar voice calls from behind me. I don’t want to stop though. I just want to keep walking, walk until I’m not alone anymore, until I start to feel whole again. It takes nothing more than a second for Clark to appear beside me and I’m forced to slow to a walk.

“Why the long face, A?”

“A? Is that a nickname or something? I wasn’t aware I had made it to that status of cool yet.”

“Maybe you haven’t in Vance’s book, but you have in mine.”

“Did he put you up to this?” I question, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. Clark circles me coming to stand in front of me. He’s just about as tall as Vance, but height aside, they couldn’t be any more different from each other.

He chuckles. “God no, he’s my friend, but he can’t dictate who I talk to. I’m a big boy… a very big boy, and I make my own choices.” He’s laying the flirting on thick, like icing on top of a cake, and even though I’m not in the mood to deal with that kind of shit, I can’t stop the smile from appearing on my lips. Clark brings a very small piece of happiness to my situation.