Chapter 18 Dare
DARE
The past doesn’t let go just because somebody decided to grow up.
My father had become someone different. Someone better. And it’d only taken him seventeen years.
Gone was the man who spent most of my childhood sitting behind a newspaper or a computer screen, tossing me the occasional “Atta boy” like spare change.
In his place was this smiling, apron-wearing, family-man version of Clark fucking Griswold, and I didn’t know what to do with that.
I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to get to know this new dad.
Because let’s be honest, it wasn’t for me.
It was for Charlotte.
He came home from work on time now so he could have dinner with his family.
No more working through the weekend. No more barking phone calls or missed birthdays.
He took Charlotte out on dates, fired up the grill, being some suburban fantasy cliché while Tru swam laps in the pool, the favored son he’d always been.
And sometimes, when hell froze over, he even showed up for my soccer games.
He sat in the bleachers as if he belonged there. Like he’d always belonged.
Up until recently, I’d bet money the man couldn’t even tell you my jersey number.
At night, he made time to sit down with us and watch TV as a normal, functioning family unit. It was awkward as hell. Not because anyone did anything wrong. Just because I didn’t fit. I didn’t belong in the picture frame.
Everywhere I went in this house, I ran into someone I didn’t want to—my dad, Tru, with his soft voice and wounded eyes, moving through the house on silent feet, trying not to stir memories.
And Charlotte… God, Charlotte. She looked at me like she knew. As if she could see right through my skin, into the tangled mess I was trying to pretend didn’t exist. Not because I was invisible, but because she saw. Really saw.
Or she took the time to look. She always had.
Did she like what she found in there? Did she see the parts of me I hated? The parts I was trying to kill off?
I avoided her, too, because it was easier than wondering. Easier than imagining her disappointment. Easier than facing a truth I couldn’t even admit to myself.
I kept to my room. Not because I liked it, but because it was the only place I could breathe. My own personal holding cell. Different walls, same cage.
That’s where I was now, hiding again while my family gathered downstairs in front of the TV.
I reached for my journal, the one place I could still say his name without choking on it.
The cover was soft from years of being handled, corners bent, the spine creased enough that it opened to old wounds on its own.
My hands shook as I flipped through pages of dumb doodles, half-finished lyrics, and notes scrawled at two a.m. when I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t stop thinking about him.
I dismissed each page until I hit one that stopped me cold.
Tru’s laugh feels like home. If he ever left, I’d burn the whole place down just to follow him.
My breath stalled. Heat crawled up my neck until it burned behind my ears. My fingers dug into the paper so hard they left half-moon dents. The kid who wrote it was an idiot. Pathetic.
I tore the page out so hard it screamed, ripping straight through the binding.
It wasn’t enough. My chest burned like I was breathing fire, and if I didn’t do something, I’d explode.
So I kept going—ripping, crumpling, shredding.
The paper split under my nails, edges slicing my fingertips, graphite smearing my palms.
I wanted it gone. All of it. Every word I’d ever written about him. Every reminder that I’d been stupid enough to love him.
By the time I came up for air, the journal was unrecognizable, a gutted thing on the floor, pages scattered everywhere. My throat burned. My hands stung. I didn’t even remember dropping it, only the dull throb in my chest when there was nothing left to destroy.
And even with the proof of my feelings obliterated into confetti, the feelings remained inside, where I couldn’t reach, couldn’t rip them out and shred them as easily as paper.
It was taco night. Charlotte made it special, like she always did with homemade guac, the good chips, and a little candle in the center of the table trying to make this some cozy family memory we were all supposed to tuck away in a scrapbook.
My dad poured sparkling cider into wine glasses, a grin stretched wide across his face. That should’ve been my first warning. He was happy. That brand of proud-dad glow he wore like a new suit he couldn’t wait to show off.
“Alright,” he said, lifting his glass. “We’ve got some exciting news tonight.”
Tru glanced up from arranging his food, constructing a tiny taco city. Charlotte beamed across the table. I kept chewing, slow and suspicious.
“Since you boys are getting older,” Dad went on, “and you’ve been handling responsibility really well—” a lie, but okay “—we figured it was time.”
My stomach flipped. I sat up straighter, some traitorous part of me actually lighting up.
“You got me a car?” I asked too fast.
He laughed, shaking his head. “Not just for you, Son.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a single key. One. Just one.
Tru blinked, startled. I stared at the key as if it were a knife.
“You’re sharing,” Charlotte said, sounding chipper. “We thought it would be a great way to teach teamwork and—”
I stopped listening. The buzzing in my ears was too loud.
Share? With Tru? The kid who slipped into my life because it was always meant to be his, and left me standing on the outside of everything I used to call mine?
I looked at my dad. He was smiling like he’d just won Father of the Year. And maybe he had. For Tru. But for me? That key wasn’t a gift. It was a leash.
My appetite died right then and there. “You’re serious?” I muttered, pushing my plate away.
“You’ll work out a schedule,” Dad said, not even looking at me. “It’s about trust. Communication.”
I nearly laughed. Communication. Between me and him.
Tru stared at the key, quiet as ever. Of course he was. Always the perfect fucking golden boy, nodding and taking whatever was handed to him with that little grateful smile like it didn’t cost someone else something.
My chest burned.
“Excuse me,” I said, standing so fast my chair scraped loudly across the tile.
Charlotte’s voice followed me down the hall. “Dare, come on. Don’t be like that.”
Too late. I was always like that now.
Some days, sharing the car was just inconvenient. Other days, it was straight-up war. Every time he sat beside me, I felt I was driving straight into a storm I didn’t know how to survive.
It was bad enough that I had to split the thing like some child of divorce—whose turn was it, who used more gas, who left the seat reclined, but the days we drove to school together?
That was unbearable. Especially when we had to pick up Amira, which meant I got demoted to the back seat of my own fucking car.
Unforgivable.
I’d sit behind them, knee jammed into the passenger seat, watching them talk, joke, laugh like I wasn’t even there. Watching him turn toward her when he spoke, the same boy who used to turn toward me like that.
Every “Hey Amira” out of his mouth was a slap in the face.
And I hated her—hated her—for sitting in my seat as if it belonged to her. For knowing the version of him I no longer have. For earning and keeping his trust.
Then came the other thoughts. The unhinged ones. Did he take dates in this car? Did he kiss them in the driver’s seat? Blow them in the back? Did he laugh after, fix his hair in the mirror, and drive them home?
One night, the rage got so loud in my head, I did something stupid. Really fucking stupid. I climbed into the car, slammed the door, and jacked off all over the front seat. I didn’t even know what I was thinking. If it was about claiming territory or corrupting the space.
Maybe both.
It felt good for a second. Until the next morning when Tru tossed me the keys before school and said, “Your turn to drive.” I stood there frozen, stomach twisting, guilt and humiliation crawling under my skin as I slid over the crusty jizz.
But that didn’t stop the war. No, it just shifted battlegrounds.
I left the gas tank empty on purpose more than once. He’d do the same to me. We fought over air fresheners like they were flags in a country we both refused to surrender. He liked cherry. I liked wintergreen. Now the car smelled like cherry-mint hell, and neither of us would back down.
I fucked with his radio presets. He adjusted my mirrors and seat. We didn’t speak. We didn’t make eye contact.
But this silent war? It was the closest thing to intimacy we’d had in months.
The ride was only twelve minutes. But it felt like twelve years.
Tru sat in the passenger seat, scrolling on his phone, pretending not to notice me gripping the steering wheel. His knee bounced. Always with that nervous twitch, that quiet hum of anxiety buzzing off him like static. I used to think it was cute. Now it just pissed me off.
He didn’t say anything. He never said anything anymore.
And maybe that would’ve made things easier if the car didn’t smell like that goddamn cherry air freshener.
If his hair wasn’t still damp from his shower, curling a little behind his ears.
If I hadn’t caught him looking at himself in the mirror before we left, tugging at the hem of his shirt because he gave a damn how he looked.
He looked good, and he knew it, and that made it worse.
I turned the volume up louder than it needed to be. Punk rock. Angry guitars. Something with teeth. He flinched at the first screech of vocals, but didn’t ask me to change it. Just sat there, blinking like it hurt.
“You’re wearing cologne now?” I said eventually, not even knowing why I opened my mouth.
He looked at me sideways. “It’s deodorant.”
“Oh. Well, it’s strong.”
He didn’t answer. Just shifted in his seat, trying to disappear through the door.
We pulled up to a stoplight. The song changed. I reached for the volume knob again, but my hand brushed his when he reached first. Both of us pulled back like we’d been shocked.
The silence crackled.
I glanced at him, at his mouth parted slightly, as if he was about to say something. His eyes flicked to mine, vulnerable for the briefest moment. Then they went hard again. Cold. He looked out the window.
I tightened my grip on the wheel and muttered, “You don’t have to act like I’m fucking poison.”
He blinked slowly. Calm. Too calm. “And you don’t have to act like being gay is some sort of contagious disease.”
That one landed. I didn’t say anything right away. Couldn’t. My jaw clenched so hard it hurt. The road blurred a little at the edges. My heart thudded, not just from the words, but from the fact that he had the guts to say them. That he knew. That he’d always known.
I swallowed and forced my voice out evenly. “I don’t think that.”
“You act like you do.”
His voice was low. Not angry, just tired. He’d been carrying the burden of that truth for too long. I wanted to lash out, to deny it, to tell him he didn’t know shit about what I thought or what I felt. But the words stuck somewhere in my throat.
Because the truth was, no one knew me better than Tru, even after all the distance and the poison darts. Underneath the ugly exterior, I was still the same scared little boy he used to know.
He turned back toward the window, arms crossed tight. “Don’t worry. I’m not gonna breathe on you.”
“Tru—” I started, but didn’t finish. Because what could I say? That I hated how right he was? That I hated the version of myself I became around him?
The silence dragged. Thick. Choking. The cherry air freshener swung slightly from the mirror. As much as I hated that smell, right now, I hated myself more.
The second the tires hit the curb, I killed the ignition and yanked the keys out, choking the life out of the moment. Tru hadn't said a damn word. Not about the jacked-up radio. Not about our argument. Not even when I left the gas tank on E again.
Good. Let the silence rot between us. Let it stretch so taut it snapped and took one of us down with it.
I’d grown sick and tired of us, of what we’d become.
The forced proximity, the resulting tension, and the reluctant truth I’d buried deep down—I was grateful.
Grateful for any reason to still share the same air.
Because even in ruin, he was still mine in some small, sad way.
I threw the door open and stepped out just as Lauren spotted me across the lot. She was already halfway to the car, practically bouncing, all bright teeth and hair and lip gloss. Her skirt was ridiculous. She knew it too.
“Hey, babe,” she said, voice syrup-sweet as she wound her arms around my neck.
I barely had time to fake a grin before her lips were on mine.
And I let her. I kissed her like I meant it, hand on her waist, fingers splayed wide, anchoring myself to something solid.
Her lip gloss tasted like strawberries and plastic.
The kiss was shallow, but I tilted my head and leaned in, because I knew he was watching.
I could feel it. A hot spotlight between my shoulder blades. His eyes carried the sting of knives.
I welcomed the hurt.
Sliding my hand into her hair, I pushed my tongue deeper, devouring her, starved for it. She made this little sound—half giggle, half moan—and someone behind us whistled, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t doing this for Lauren. I wasn’t doing it for the crowd. I was doing it for him.
To remind him of what he’d lost. To remind myself of what I wasn’t.
When I finally broke the kiss, I didn’t look at Lauren. I looked straight across the hood of the car, straight at him.
Tru hadn’t moved. He just stood there with his backpack slung over one shoulder, staring at me like I’d just spit on something sacred. His eyes were wide, unblinking. Bruised.
I held his stare for a second too long. Then I smirked. One of those cocky smiles that I used to charm teachers or get me out of trouble. But this one was meant to wound. This one was meant to say I don't care.
Even if I did. Especially because I did.
Lauren grabbed my hand, lacing her fingers through mine. I let her, but I didn’t squeeze back because every part of me was still burning from the way Tru looked at me. As if I’d just ripped open every scar we never let heal.
I wasn’t just kissing her, I was punishing him. And maybe I was.
Maybe that was all I had left to give.