Chapter 20 Tru
TRU
The worst part isn’t that he hates me. It’s that part of me that still hopes he doesn’t.
I told myself I wouldn’t go.
I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate—what, exactly? That we made it out alive? That four years of emotional warfare had earned me a paper diploma and a heart full of rot?
But Amira insisted. And when she showed up at my front door with glitter on her eyelids and a bottle of hairspray in her hand, there wasn’t much room to argue.
Now I stood under strings of backyard lights, fake laughter echoing in my ears, and a red plastic cup sweating in my hand. The damp grass soaked through my sneakers. Everything smelled like cheap beer and barbecue smoke and whatever body spray the soccer team had decided was “manly.”
I was doing fine. Smiling. Pretending. Until I saw him.
Dare leaned against the deck railing, beer in hand, wearing that tight black t-shirt that made girls stare and made me want to kick something. His date, Lauren, stood too close, laughing at whatever he said.
I didn’t look. I didn’t look.
Except I did.
When she leaned up and kissed him—just a short one, a smack of her glossy lips—I felt it punch through my chest.
I turned away too fast, heart a mess of heat and bile. Amira caught my arm and tugged me toward the drink table.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Fine.”
She gave me a look. “The kind of fine that means ‘I might torch this whole party’ or the regular kind?”
I didn’t answer. Behind me, Dare laughed. Not the fake sound he used on the soccer team. The real one. The one I used to know.
I hated how much I missed it.
Somewhere along the line, Dare and I had reached a kind of peace, or maybe just exhaustion.
We’d learned how to live with the distance between us, the silence, the careful avoidance.
It wasn’t forgiveness, but it was something close to survival.
A cease-fire built on the promise that it would all be over soon. Graduation. College. Distance.
But now, that illusion had gone up in flames. The hell we’d buried was back—fresh, raw, and seemingly endless. Every look, every breath between us stirred up old resentment like smoke from a fire that was never fully snuffed out.
I couldn’t take four more years of this bullshit. I wouldn’t survive it.
Why in God’s name had I applied to his second-choice school? He was right, the art program was second-rate. Not terrible, but there were other schools with better funding, better mentorship, better everything. So why had I followed him?
Was it habit? A leftover instinct from years of tracking his orbit?
Was it fear? Of going somewhere he wasn’t, where the ache might actually be louder than the silence we’d practiced?
Or was it something worse—something pathetic—like hope?
Hope that if we ended up in the same place again, he’d finally see me. Not the kid from the ramp. Not his father’s wife’s son. Not the version of me that reminds him of the many reasons to hate himself.
Just me.
I didn’t like the answer. It made my chest tight. Because the truth was simple:
I didn’t follow Dare to torture him.
I followed him because part of me still believed he might turn around someday… and I wanted to be close enough to catch it if he did.
Pathetic. Delusional. Stupid.
But also true.
Thunder cracked, and the sky split open. In seconds, I was soaked to the bone. Mom yelled about the patio table with the food being drenched. Everyone rushed inside, covering their heads. But I only saw Dare.
He stood on the deck, head tilted back, letting the rain plaster his hair to his forehead. His shirt clung to him. His eyes were closed, mouth open to taste the downpour.
Something inside me snapped. I heard my own voice before I realized I’d shouted it.
“Dare!”
He turned, water streaming off his lashes, and for a moment the whole world was that look in his eyes—surprise, challenge, hope?
I stalked him like prey, sneakers squelching in the grass. Lightning flickered. Thunder shook the sky. The party vanished behind us, its music and laughter muffled by the storm.
He held up his hands, palms bowed, as if daring me to come closer. “What do you want, Tru?”
I stepped forward until the rain was pounding on my face, and I could smell the chlorine from the pool, the smoke from the fire pit, and the metallic tang of fear in my own chest. “I want—”
He cut me off with a laugh that wasn’t mocking. It was soft, incredulous. “You want what?”
Words tangled in my throat. The split-second of bold daring and yearning that had straightened my spine crumbled under the steady beat of the rain. I took another step, close enough to see every drop on his skin.
“I want to stop doing this. Whatever this is.”
His mouth twisted. “You think it’s that easy?”
“No,” I said quietly. “But maybe it’s the only chance we’ve got before college turns into round two of hell.”
For a long moment, the rain was the only sound. Then his shoulders dropped, just slightly, enough for me to breathe again. “You should get inside,” he said, but his voice didn’t have any bite left in it.
“So should you.”
“I like it out here.”
“Of course you do,” I muttered, and immediately hated how small it sounded.
He looked up then, eyes glinting under the porch light, rain running down his jaw. “You always think I’m doing this to piss you off.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No,” he said simply. “I just don’t know how else to exist around you.”
The words landed somewhere deep in my chest and stayed there, vibrating against every pulse of thunder.
I swallowed, throat tight. “Then maybe we figure it out. Before college starts.”
“Maybe.” He took a step back, just far enough that the distance felt intentional again. “But not tonight.”
I nodded. It wasn’t forgiveness, but it was something.
He turned and walked toward the house, leaving wet footprints on the deck that disappeared as fast as they formed.
I stayed until the rain slowed to a mist, until my skin prickled cold and my drink was filled with water. Somewhere inside, Mom laughed at something. The party picked back up like nothing had happened.
But I knew something had shifted. Maybe not fixed. Maybe not even mended.
Just… unstuck.
The storm had knocked out the power, drawing the party to a premature end.
A single candle flickered on the counter, casting long shadows across the kitchen floor.
Empty pizza boxes stacked high on the island.
Beer cans and plastic cups lay abandoned like spent fireworks.
The storm had passed an hour ago, but the air still felt electric.
I leaned against the sink, chucking red Solo cups into a garbage bag. Every thunk echoed in the silent house—a countdown to something I wasn’t ready for.
Behind me, the back door creaked open. I didn’t turn around.
“Need help?” Dare’s voice was quiet.
Our parents had gone upstairs to change their wet clothes and still hadn’t come back down. The house almost felt lonely after hosting so much life.
I shrugged, keeping my eyes on the pile of plastic. “Sure.”
He moved to my side, popped open the lid to the garbage can, and without a word picked up a slice of cold pizza and tossed it in the bag. His T-shirt was still damp, clinging to his broad shoulders. His dark hair stuck up in spikes from the rain. He looked... normal. Human. It threw me off.
We worked side by side in silence for a moment. He swept up empty bottles; I wiped sticky countertops. The only sound was the candle wick hissing against the breeze from the open window.
Finally, I dropped a handful of cups and turned, voice low. “Why’re you doing this?”
Dare paused, cup in hand. He met my eyes, his dark pupils reflecting the tiny flame. “Because you looked like you needed it.”
I scoffed. “You don’t do anything ‘just because,’ not since forever.”
He set the cup down and wiped his hands on a dishtowel. “Maybe I’m tired of what we’ve become, same as you. You asked me to try. So this is me trying.”
We circled each other for another fifteen minutes in silence. Until my big mouth blurted... “You ever think about that night in the closet?”
The second the words left my lips, I wished I could snatch them back. My chest cinched tight, like I’d swallowed barbed wire, and it caught on the way down.
Dare froze. Not a muscle moved except the slow pull of breath in his throat. Then, almost as if it hurt to admit, he said, “Yeah.”
His eyes didn’t leave mine as he stepped forward, closing what little space was left. The air between us buzzed, alive and dangerous. One wrong move and we’d both burn for it.
“If you could go back and change what happened…” His voice came rough, half-dare, half-prayer. “What would you do differently?”
My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my fingertips. Candlelight shivered across his face, gilding the sharp lines of his jaw. “Everything.”
Dare didn’t even blink. “I wouldn’t change a thing.” It wasn’t a declaration. It was an eruption.
My heart crashed and burned in a fiery death spiral. For one breathless heartbeat, I almost believed him—believed that the cruelty and the silence and the years of pretending hadn’t been hate at all, but something twisted around love until neither of us could tell the difference.
Then doubt slid in, quiet and cold. Was he talking about the kiss… or the destruction that came after?
With Dare, every truth has splinters.
I swallowed hard. “Even if it ruined us?”
His voice cracked like thunder. “Especially then.”
He stared at me as if he was standing on a cliff’s edge, wind in his hair, seconds from falling. “That night… It’s the only thing I’ve never regretted.”
Something inside me bloomed—hope, heartbreak, both at once.
My hands shook as I grabbed an empty cup, pretending I cared about cleaning, about anything. Because if I didn’t, I’d reach for him. And I couldn’t. Not again.
The candle sputtered out, drowning us in darkness.
Just two shadows left in the aftermath, side by side, sweeping up red cups and unspoken truths, pretending we hadn’t just set fire to what was left of us.
Dare found LED candles in a junk drawer that provided enough light to finish cleaning the kitchen.
“You remember that summer we swam every night for two weeks straight?” he asked. “You said the pool felt different at night. Like magic.”
I swallowed. “You used to say the stars made it feel like we were floating in space.”
He laughed. “God. We were such losers.”
I turned slowly, arms crossed over my chest, hugging the memory close. “We were happy.”
He was closer than I realized, his face unreadable in the dim light.
“Were we?” he asked.
“You tell me.”
Something flickered in his eyes. “We were twelve. I hated that I liked being around you so much.”
“I hated that you made me feel like it was okay to want more.”
Neither of us moved. Then he stepped closer. One step. Another. Until I could feel his breath, his heat. His hand braced against the glass door beside my head. He didn’t touch me, but he didn’t have to. I felt him in every molecule of air.
His gaze dropped to my mouth, and for a heartbeat, I leaned in. Just barely.
Then he was gone. Two steps back. One breath away. He reached for the handle, and I stepped aside. Dare disappeared into the dark, and I stood there, watching the candlelight dance against the glass until his shape dissolved into shadow.
Moments later, a splash pierced the quiet.
Heart pounding, I stepped outside. The backyard was bathed in moonlight, the pool’s black surface rippling where he’d plunged in. He surfaced, droplets glinting off his hair. He looked back at me, lips curved in that reckless grin I thought I’d never see again.
“Come on,” he called. “One more night in space before we grow up and move away and become boring and responsible.”
I hesitated only for a second, then shrugged off my shirt and dove in after him.
The cold hit was shocking, but in that weightless world, the chaos melted away. I broke the surface, matching his grin.
He treaded water a few feet away, arms open. “Come on. Swim with me, Tru. No holding back.”
I drifted closer. The only sound was our breathing, the water lapping gently against the pool’s edge. He stopped, and I floated beside him, shoulders nearly brushing. Moonlight shimmered across his face and collarbone.
“Dare—”
He cut me off with a look. Softer than I’d ever seen.
“I’m serious,” he said. “We’ve got one night. Just us. No past. No future. Just now.”
I closed my eyes, tasting chlorine and something like hope. “Okay.”
We floated there, the world narrowing to the soft rhythm of our breaths—the fragile illusion of forgiveness wrapping around us like starlight.
Dare hesitated, his voice quiet, uncertain. “You think everything would’ve been different if we kissed again?”
I didn’t answer because my answer would’ve been yes. And I couldn’t survive him knowing that.
He turned and swam away without another word. And I stayed there, heart-wrecked and burning, mouth still aching from the almost.
I didn’t know what we were anymore.
Only what we weren’t.