“No. I finally scored her home number the other week and her uncle told me you guys were out.”

I calculate how this affects the dare. “Did you tell Chris?”

“It’s not my business to tell. Did you take her into Louisville because of the dare?”

“Yes.”

“So the dare’s done. That’s why you’ve been ignoring her?”

Silence. Why is Lacy making me feel like a dick? Beth’s the one that screwed me over. She owes me this. “She treats you like crap, Lace. Why do you care?”

Lacy doesn’t live far from the community ballpark. I ease into her drive and watch the hanging ferns on the front porch blowing in the wind.

“She was my friend.”

“Was! She was…”

Lacy holds both her hands out. “Stop. Listen to me. I’m not you. I’ve never been you. You walk into any situation and it’s automatically perfect. I’m not perfect. I never have been.”

What is she talking about? If Lace only knew how broken my family is; how since Mark left we’re slowing dying. “I’m not perfect.”

“Will you shut up?! God, I can’t get you guys to say crap half the time and then anytime I try to actually SAY something worth saying, one of you interrupts me. So shut up!”

I gesture with my hand for her to continue.

“No one liked me, Ryan. Daddy moved us to Groveton when I was four and I knew then nobody liked me. My mom tried playdate after playdate and put me in preschool and no matter what, I was considered the outsider. I’m not you. I’m not Logan. I’m not Chris. I can’t trace my roots to the founding fathers. I can’t eat Sunday chicken with my grandma after church because she doesn’t live on the next property over, but three states away.”

I rub the back of my head, unsure if I should speak and if I do, what to say. Lacy never seemed to care what people thought of her.

“We never treated you different.”

She sighs heavily. “Why do you think I’ve hung out with you since sixth grade? Do you think I love baseball that much?”

I chuckle. “Don’t let Chris hear you say you aren’t a diehard fan.”

“I love him,” she says, and I understand that means that she also loves anything he loves.

“Anyway, the whole point is, Beth liked me. When Gwen was mean to me…”

My mouth opens to protest. She points at me and narrows her eyes. “Don’t say a word. One, I told you to shut up. Two, this is my monologue and not yours. Three, she’s a bitch.

As I was saying, when Gwen played to her true self and dropped the I’m-pretending-to-be-perfect-so-the-whole-world-will-love-me act, she made my life hell. I was labeled weird before I entered kindergarten, yet Beth liked me.

“When Gwen made me cry, Beth held my hand and told me that she loved me. When Gwen’s friends told me I couldn’t play on the swings, Beth pushed them off and told me the swings were mine. Beth taught me what it meant to have friends. I don’t know what the hell happened to her between third grade and now, but I owe her. Here’s the thing—I love you and I love her, but I swear to God I’ll kick your ass if you hurt her.”

Lacy has thrown out too much to process, so I focus on what I know. “You’ll kick my ass?”

She cracks a smile. “Okay, maybe not, but I will be pissed off and I don’t like being pissed off at you.”

I don’t like her being pissed off at me either.

“She’s coming with me to the party.”

Disappointment clouds her face. “Dare or date?”

“Dare.” I don’t lie to friends. “But Beth knows it.”

“If she knows, doesn’t that break the rules?”

I shrug. “We don’t have a rule book.”

The porch light flips on and the front door opens. Through the pouring rain, I barely see Lacy’s mom. I wave at her. A second later, she waves back.

“She thinks all Chris and I do is make out in cars.” Lacy’s hand flutters away any further discussion about her and Chris making out in cars, which is fine by me.

I’d rather think about Beth. Who is she? The girl Lacy swears is a true friend? The girl with blond hair who loved ribbons and fancy

dresses? The girl who crawls underneath my skin and stays? The girl strong enough to tell me what she really thinks of me? The girl who looks so small and defenseless at times that I wonder if she can survive in the world on her own? Lacy may hate me for these words, but they have to be said. “Maybe Beth isn’t who you think she is.”

“Funny,” Lacy says. “I was about to say the same thing to you.”

Beth

RYAN SWITCHES GEARS when the pavement ends and the Jeep’s wheels hit gravel. The wind whips my hair into my face and neck, stinging me like the tiny tentacles of a jellyfish.

He turns on the headlights when the sun sets lower in the west, causing the woods surrounding us to fall into shadows.

Besides the forced happy hellos we exchanged under my aunt’s watchful eye, Ryan and I have said nothing to each other since he picked me up. The things he uttered to me two weeks ago still hurt—I was nothing more than a dare.

The offers of friendship, the smiles, the nice words—all games. Deep down I always knew it, but part of me hoped for more. I allowed hope. Stupid Beth making another stupid mistake. Story of my life.

“You know, it’s rude to text while you’re out with someone else.” Ryan rests one hand on top of the steering wheel and leans cockily toward the door. “Especially when I saved you.”

I ignore Ryan and stare at my cell. Owing him, I agreed to spend one hour with him at the party. I never agreed to conversation.

The constant dipping and bobbing in his Jeep makes reading Isaiah’s texts nearly impossible. It’s the first time I’ve had the courage to open them. Every message says the same thing: I’m sorry.

So am I. I’m sorry I trusted him. I’m sorry he betrayed me. I’m sorry I thought I could read his texts without my heart throbbing as if a swarm of bees attacked it. I want the heaviness to go away. I want the hurt to go away. How can I forgive him for telling Ryan my secret? How can I forgive him for forcing me to leave my mom?

And even worse, how can I talk to him now that I know he loves me and I know, beyond words, that I don’t feel the same way? My throat tightens. Isaiah’s my safe. He always has been. He’s that place where I fall when the  world tumbles into chaos. There were times I thought maybe we could be more, but then…I’d freeze up entirely. Isaiah and I were meant to be friends and now I’m losing my only friend.

The phone vibrates in my hands. It’s as if he senses I’m finally on the other side. Call me.

Text me. Please.

I toss the cell onto the floorboard of Ryan’s Jeep. Texting Isaiah back will only increase the pain—for both of us.

Ryan concentrates on the road, looking deep in thought. I wish I had his life. No pain. No problems. Only lightness and freedom.

“You okay?” Ryan catches me staring. I remind myself that the sincerity melting in his brown eyes isn’t real. Jocks are good at pretending. His hair sticks out behind the baseball cap he wears backward. He shifts gears again and the muscles in his arms ripple with the motion. It’s kind of sexy. Not kind of—Ryan is sexy.

“Why are we on a dirt road? Did we officially reach the end of civilization?”

“It’s a gravel road,” says Ryan. “This is the way to my house.”

His house. Please. That bastard Luke from my old school “showed” me his house too. “I’m not fucking you.”

“And you talk so pretty. You must have had all the guys dangling from your fingertips in Louisville.” He flexes his fingers and regrips the steering wheel before speaking matter-of-factly. “This is the fastest way to the party.”

Ryan hates me and I don’t blame him. I hate me. What I hate more in this moment is that part of me likes Ryan. He stood up for me like the prince does for the princess in the fairy tales Scott used to read to me as a child. I’m not a princess, but Ryan is a knight. He just belongs to someone else.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You look pale.”

“I’m fine.” I hate how sharp the words come out. Fabulous. I yelled at him. Now I can feel like crap for that too.

Ryan breezes past what I assume is his house, a large one-story with a massive garage next to it, and switches gears again when we hit the grass. The Jeep jolts forward, tossing me in the seat like I’m on a roller coaster. I grab hold of the passenger grip on the ceiling and Ryan laughs. A crazy smile brightens his face and once again, I find myself drawn in.

No longer leaning away from me, Ryan sits straight, one hand on the steering wheel, another shifting gears as we hurtle down a hill to a creek. The Jeep accelerates as if it were a snowball on the verge of an avalanche. I can see the possibilities. The crashing. The water.

The jostling. The dirt. My heart pumps faster in my chest and for the first time in weeks I feel alive.

The engine roars and he presses harder on the gas. The Jeep hits the rocks. Ryan and I both whoop and yell as water sprays the truck and smashes onto the windshield, making us blind. He pushes the Jeep forward, faster, past the creek, over the rocks. Daring to continue even when I have no idea what’s on the other side.

The windshield wipers spring to life, clearing our view, and Ryan jerks the wheel to the right to miss a sprawling tree. He enters a clearing and kills the engine. I hear laughter and suck in a breath when I realize it’s mine…and his. Together. It sounds nice. Kind of like music.

Ryan has that smile again. The genuine one that makes my stomach flip. He had it at Taco Bell. He had it when Scott introduced us.

He does it with such ease and for a second I believe his smile is for me.

“You’re smiling,” he says.

I absently touch my face as if I’m surprised by the news.

“You should do that more. It’s pretty.” He pauses. “You’re pretty.”

My heart does this strange fluttering. Like it’s stopping and starting at the same time. Heat creeps up my neck and flushes my face. What the hell? I’m blushing again?

“I’m sorry.” Ryan keeps the enduring smile, but it turns a little repentant and his eyes cast down in a shy way.

“No, it was fun.” The most fun I’ve had in weeks. The most fun I’ve had sober in…my mind ticks back and I come up empty. Life sucks sober.

“Yeah.” His eyes become distant and the grin stays on his face, but I can tell it’s a little forced. He blinks and the smile becomes natural again. “Yeah. The creek. I should have told you that was coming. Or slowed down.”

Why I can’t hold eye contact with him for longer than a second, I don’t know. The uncharacteristic bashfulness causes me to feel inadequate and a little…girly? I lace my hands together and focus on them. “Really. It’s okay.

I had fun.”

“Beth?” He hesitates. “Can we start over?”

I eye him—head to toe. No one’s offered me a do-over before. I guess no one thought I was worth it. A strange tugging inside me lifts my lips and causes a floating sensation for about three seconds. Well aware that everything in life is short lived, I feel the smile drop and the heaviness return. Still, I accept the offer.