Chapter 15
TRU
Some houses aren’t haunted by ghosts but by memories that never shut up.
The house was too quiet without the parents around. But it wasn’t peaceful. It was eggshell quiet. Where every creak sounded like a threat, every breath fell too loud, and every glance carried more weight than it should.
I’d have to endure a week of this, walking on pins and needles, constantly looking over my shoulder thinking I was being chased by shadows. Hell, who was I kidding? That wouldn’t end once my parents came back from their honeymoon. I had two more years of this now that Dare lived under my roof.
I sat cross-legged on the couch, flipping through channels. Amira curled at the other end, feet tucked under her, eating kettle corn from the bag. Her laugh came easily tonight. God, I needed that.
Until Dare showed up.
He thundered down the stairs like a storm cloud in joggers and that shirt I hated—tight around the arms, snug on his skin. His hair was a mess as if he’d just rolled out of bed, angry.
Without a word, he walked to the Bluetooth speaker and cranked the volume. Something aggressive and bass-heavy poured out, vibrating the floorboards.
“Jesus Christ,” Amira winced, pressing a finger to her ear. “Does he think this is a rave?”
“Apparently.”
Dare glanced our way like we were some blemish he had to suffer through. Then he smirked, mean and sharp.
“How long’s your little fag hag staying?” he asked, voice syrupy with venom.
I moved fast, too fast. My hands pressed against the couch, ready to vault over it and shove him against the wall. But Amira’s hand shot out, firm on my wrist.
“Not worth it,” she said, eyes locked on him like she could burn holes straight through. “Seriously, don’t.”
Dare didn’t wait for a response. He just turned and walked out, music still pounding, pretending he hadn’t just said something designed to taint the air in the room.
When he was gone, I dropped back onto the couch, fists clenched.
“The fuck is his problem?” Amira muttered. “He’s like, emotionally constipated. Or maybe just a dick.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare apologize for him,” she snapped. “This isn’t on you.”
She set the popcorn down and leaned in. “Don’t let him get to you, Tru. You know what they say, the best revenge is a life well lived.”
I stared at the wall hoping the answer was written there in the brush strokes.
“Do it,” she said. “Stop hiding. Embrace yourself. Live out loud.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means flirt. Date. Dress how you want. Paint your nails. Say yes to the things that make you feel like you. You’ve been living in the shadows of that boy for too long. Stop letting people like Darien Carter get the last word.”
I swallowed hard. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “Just start with who you want to be.”
The nail salon smelled of acetone and lavender, a weird combination of chemicals and calm that wasn’t doing much to relieve my anxiety.
I almost turned around twice in the parking lot.
First, when I opened the car door. And again, when I touched the glass handle of the shop. My hand trembled just a little.
Amira dragged me in by the sleeve as if I were a reluctant toddler at the pediatrician.
“They’re not gonna bite,” she whispered as we stepped inside. “They’re just gonna paint your nails. Relax.”
Easy for her to say. She walked into rooms like she belonged in them. I walked in like I was already rehearsing an apology.
We took a seat at the row of manicure stations, and a technician with silver glasses and kind eyes asked, “What color?”
I swallowed hard.
Amira nudged me. “Pick something dark and dramatic. Channel your inner villain.”
I scanned the little display rack filled with neon greens, pastel pinks, and glitter explosions, but the one that caught my eye was simple. Glossy black, the color of ink or spilled secrets. It felt honest and a little powerful.
“That one,” I said, pointing.
The tech nodded and gently took my hand. My fingers twitched instinctively. I wasn’t used to people touching me like this—soft, careful—like I wasn’t something avoidable or shameful.
The first swipe of polish was cool against my skin. My breath stuttered in my chest.
“You’re doing fine,” the tech murmured, not unkindly.
I watched as my nails transformed from bare and plain to sharp and intentional. Putting on armor, painted one finger at a time. A little boy, maybe seven or eight, walked by on his way to the hair station. He looked at me, and I stiffened.
He grinned. “Cool color.”
With my next breath, a knot loosened in my chest.
Amira saw it happen. “Told you,” she said, smirking. “You were born for this.”
“I don’t know,” I muttered, half-smiling. “It feels like I just tattooed ‘target’ across my forehead.”
“Or ‘don’t fuck with me,’” she said.
Later, at home, I kicked off my shoes by the door and headed to the kitchen, feeling lighter. Still nervous, still alert, but also something else. Proud, maybe. Taking up more space inside my skin.
Dare was already there, leaning against the counter, eating dry cereal out of the box. His head jerked up when he heard me come in. And then… he saw my hands.
His whole body stiffened, like a wire pulled taut. He didn’t speak right away. Just… stared.
“What the hell is that?” he finally said.
“It’s nail polish.”
“No shit. You trying to be funny?”
“Nope.” I reached for a glass. “Just trying to be myself.”
A pause. A breath-stealing, electric pause. I could feel the static sparking between us.
“So, this is what you are now?”
I didn’t answer. I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
He laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. “You do realize people are gonna talk, right?”
“They already do,” I said. “Might as well give them something to talk about.”
“You’re doing this for attention.”
I looked him dead between the eyes and held myself together. “Maybe I’m doing it to piss you off.”
That shut him up. But only for half a second. Then he barked out a sarcastic laugh and shoved the cereal box back onto the shelf.
“You know, I thought you were pathetic before,” he said, his voice full of contempt. “But this? This is something else.”
“I don’t care what you think,” I said, meaning it for once.
“Yeah, you do,” he said as he walked past me, shoulder-checking me hard. “You always did.”
And maybe that was the worst part. Because he was right. I cared too much.
I didn’t dress for him.
That’s what I told myself, anyway. As I pulled the pink shirt from the hanger, as I slid into jeans that hugged my hips tighter than usual, as I laced up my worn Converse and twisted the leather band around my wrist. I styled my hair, barely.
Just enough to make it look like I cared, but not too much. Not enough to draw fire.
But when I stepped into the kitchen after coming home and saw Dare at the counter, I knew.
He’d noticed.
He didn’t say anything. But he didn’t have to. His gaze raked over me in judgment. Then he turned away and grabbed a drink from the fridge, pretending I was invisible. As if I hadn’t walked into the room carrying a dozen quiet, brave decisions stitched together and worn like a second skin.
I slipped out of the kitchen and up the stairs to my room, and as I slid the shirt from my shoulders and replaced it on the hanger, my heart swelled with the small victory. Dare may not approve of my choices, but at least he felt something. At least he noticed.
Nervous energy bounced around inside my body with tiny electrons firing, and I had to find an outlet or I’d lose my mind. Reaching into my top drawer, I grabbed my Speedo, the navy blue one with white stars, and pulled the Lycra up my legs.
The hallway was empty, and so was the kitchen. I continued outside, grabbing a towel from the laundry room and tossing it onto a lounger near the pool.
The Speedo clung tight as I dove into the water. My body cut through it in clean, practiced lines. The silence underwater was everything. The weightless quiet gave me just enough space to breathe again.
I swam laps until my arms burned, and my legs felt weak. I swam until I had nothing left to outrun. But when I came back inside—hair wet, skin dripping—I found him waiting in the hall outside my bedroom.
Dare stepped into my path, blocking the way like a shadow dropped out of nowhere. I stopped short. He didn’t say a word, just stared at me.
His eyes flicked over my chest, down my torso, pausing where the fabric clung too tightly. My skin prickled with nerves. Water dripped down my ribs. His nostrils flared like he could smell the chlorine, or maybe something more.
Slowly, deliberately, Dare raised one hand and pressed against the wall above my shoulder.
Trapped.
I forgot how to breathe.
His eyes didn’t meet mine. They were everywhere else—dipping to the hollow of my throat, across my collarbone, my hardened nipples, over the stretch of bare thigh. His body was so close I could feel the heat rolling off of him, could see the flutter of his pulse in his throat.
My chest rose and fell in shallow, panicked beats. My voice failed me.
Was he going to hit me? Spit venom in my face again? Another slur? Another cruel joke? My knees locked. I didn’t dare move.
But Dare didn’t touch me. Not quite. He leaned in. Closer. Too close. And for one long beat, everything stilled.
He stared at my mouth.
His breath ghosted over my cheek. And in that second, I hated myself. Because I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted it more than I wanted to run.
My lips parted without thinking. I felt myself leaning forward, caught in a gravity that was stronger than sense. But then something shifted. A flicker in his eyes. A flash of recognition. Of panic.
Dare jerked back as if he’d been burned. His laugh was cruel and loud. I didn’t know if he was laughing at me or at himself.
“God,” he scoffed, “you were really gonna let me, weren’t you?”
I flinched, feeling his words cut like daggers.
He sneered, stepping back. “Desperate much?”
My stomach curled in on itself.
He walked away as if he hadn’t just almost kissed me. As if I hadn’t almost let him.
I didn’t even realize I was shaking until I tried to turn the doorknob to my room and missed. My hand slipped once, then again. I gritted my teeth and tried to focus, but everything was spinning—too loud, too fast, too fucking much.
I closed the door behind me with a soft click and leaned my back against it. The breath I’d been holding stuttered out of my lungs. I slid down to the floor and buried my face in my hands.
What the hell just happened?
Living under the same roof as him was akin to sleeping next to a ticking bomb and pretending I couldn’t hear the countdown. At some point, one or both of us was going to implode.
I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes, hoping the pressure might erase the heat still clinging to my skin.
My lips were burning. Not from contact—because there hadn’t been any—but from the memory of what almost was.
From the sick, pathetic way my body responded, like it didn’t know better, or care that he was going to weaponize it.
It didn’t care he’d already made a sport out of hurting me.
I wanted him to kiss me.
Even now, knowing what he did—what he said—I still wanted it. Still felt the charge of him leaning in, the promise of closeness, of something I’ve been starving for.
God, I was so stupid!
As if one little kiss could convince him to rewrite history, to choose me, to accept his attraction and stop denying his sexuality. The real world didn’t work like that. This wasn’t a rom-com.
I crawled across the floor on numb knees and grabbed my sketchpad off the nightstand, flipped to a blank page, and started drawing.
Not because I had an idea, or a plan, or anything worth saying, but because I needed to move my hand, needed to keep it busy before it betrayed me by knocking on his bedroom door. Forgiving him. Or worse, touching myself to the memory of him.
I don’t even know what I drew. It came out in dark, frantic lines, more pressure than art. Angled edges, sharp corners. Smudges where I pressed too hard and snapped the tip of my pencil. When I finally pulled my hand back, I realized I’d sketched him.
Not the Dare that laughed in my face.
The other one. The one from before. The one who used to look at me because I mattered. The one who used to see me. I stared at it until my eyes blurred. Then I ripped the page from the pad and tore it in half. And then into fourths. And then into shreds.
I dropped them in the trash and curled up on my side in bed, pulling the blanket up over my head even though it was too hot, even though I couldn’t breathe under there.
I needed the dark.
Because everything else hurt too much to look at.