Chapter 22
DARE
I never thought I’d spend my first night of freedom sleeping next to the one person who never lets me breathe—my stepbrother.
Boxes and duffels littered the floor, half-unpacked like our lives had been dumped there and left for someone else to sort out.
The room smelled stale, old carpet and whatever died in the mini-fridge last semester.
I sat on my bed, unzipped my duffel, and pulled out exactly five T-shirts, three pairs of jeans, my workout clothes, and a box of cables.
Minimalist. Efficient. Emotionally detached.
Across the room, Tru’s side already looked like an art student’s fever dream.
A half-assembled lamp towered over a bare mattress, a leaning stack of sketchbooks threatened to collapse a caddy of art supplies, and there were enough hoodies scattered across his bed to open a thrift store.
He was unwrapping a framed photo of us barefoot in the driveway, both of us grinning like idiots. I’d forgotten that picture existed.
I cleared my throat. “Whoa. You bringing your entire life up here?”
He glanced over, eyes tired but determined. “Figured I’d need it. I wanted it to feel like home.”
That was the thing about Tru. He wanted roots. I wanted a clean break.
I stood, rubbing my palms on my jeans like I could wipe the discomfort off. “Alright, listen up. I made some rules.”
He blinked. “Rules?”
I pulled a crumpled notebook page from my pocket like I was unveiling the Ten Commandments. “Dare’s Rulebook for Room 213.”
His mouth twitched. “So we’re going by Dare now, not D?”
I shot him a look that said don’t test me, then read down the list.
Rule One: Don’t Touch My Clothes. “Your hoodies stay on your side. My jeans stay on mine.”
Rule Two: Keep Your Dates Out. “No bringing anyone in here. Especially not at two in the morning.”
Rule Three: No ‘Activities’ After Lights-Out. “This is a sex-free zone. Period. I better not hear, see, or smell you jacking off.”
He choked out a laugh. “Wow. Straight to the point.”
“Experience talking,” I muttered, ignoring the heat burning my ears.
Rule Four: Own Your Mess. “If I find your art supplies in my drawers, I’ll show you just how creative and artistic I can be.”
Rule Five: Shared Essentials Only. “We can split the mini-fridge. Everything else is sacred territory.”
I folded the paper, tossed it on his desk, and crossed my arms. “Questions?”
Tru leaned back in his chair, eyes gleaming just enough to be dangerous. “Your kingdom, your rules.”
“Good.” I pointed to my half of the room. “Then stay on your side of the border.”
He smirked, picked up a box, and dragged it over to his corner. “Fine by me.”
The tension in the room buzzed with charged energy, like the air before a storm. Neither of us smiled, but there was something in his eyes that made my stomach twist. Amusement. Challenge. Something worse—hope.
I grabbed my cables, turned toward the dresser, and busied myself with wires that didn’t need untangling. “Just remember, you asked for this. You could have picked any college.”
He flipped open his sketchbook without looking up. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I didn’t know if he meant it. I didn’t know if I did. But as I plugged in my lamp and the room filled with a soft glow, I felt the familiar prickle of panic crawl under my skin.
With Tru so close, it was too easy to remember everything I was supposed to forget.
And that was how our fresh start began—two stepbrothers, one room, and a line down the middle that wouldn’t save either of us.
I stomped back into the dorm after orientation, backpack slung over one shoulder and the relentless late-summer heat clinging to my skin.
Fall was late this year, typical for North Carolina.
Tru’s side was still a war zone with clothes draped over my half of the closet, shoes scattered everywhere, and sketchpads stacked on my dresser.
“Seriously?” I snapped, letting the door slam behind me.
Tru glanced up from his desk, where he was shading a charcoal portrait. “I unpacked. You said I could use half your closet.”
“Half,” I repeated, yanking one of his hoodies off my clothes rod and dropping it onto his side. “Your side starts here.”
He sighed and gathered the pile without a word, shoulders tight, quiet in that way that made me want to pick a fight just to break the silence.
My gaze snagged on the sketchbook. The portrait on top was of me—shirtless, drawn in careful strokes, the abs a little too idealized.
I raised an eyebrow. “You get bored or something?”
He met my eyes over the page. “Yeah. Guess so.”
I flipped it before I could stop myself. Another me—this time with a soccer ball, jaw set, eyes fierce. Even rendered in charcoal, it looked like I was daring someone to get too close.
“Don’t touch it,” he snapped.
I laughed, but it came out rough. “Fine. Just don’t expect me to pose for your next masterpiece.”
He set the sketchbook down, the movement slow and deliberate, like he was lowering a weapon. His voice softened. “Don’t touch my art,” he said quietly. “And don’t pretend you don’t care.”
The words exploded in a flashbang—bright and loud and way too honest. I looked at the floor because looking at him felt like looking into a mirror I didn’t want to recognize.
The room felt suddenly cramped, the air thick with the scent of graphite dust and things we’d never said. I paced from wall to wall, brushing against proof of his existence every few steps—hoodies, notebooks, pencils. Every piece of him taking up space I didn’t know how to breathe in.
He crouched by the dresser, lining up pens with surgical precision, then rested his palm on the sketchbook’s cover as if he could feel every heartbeat trapped inside it.
“You planning to wallpaper the walls with your feelings?” I asked cuttingly.
Tru froze. He didn’t look up, but he kept his hand there for a long second like I’d hit him somewhere tender.
I wanted to take it back, but the apology jammed in my throat. The words always came out wrong. It was easier to wound than risk being seen.
He finally let go of the sketchbook, tucked a pair of socks into a drawer, and pretended I didn’t exist.
“Didn’t mean it like that,” I muttered, but my voice barely reached him.
The silence stretched, heavy as humidity. I hated it. Hated how quiet hurt more than yelling ever did.
Because when he looked at me—really looked—there was still belief in his eyes. He saw the version of me I’d killed off years ago. He was waiting for the ghost to come back.
And I wasn’t sure it could. Or should.
Tru’s voice came soft but firm. “We made rules, D. Use ’em.”
I swallowed hard, stepping back to my half of the room like it mattered. The line between us glowed invisible and useless. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, flickering once, twice, a warning.
Because borders can’t hold everything.
Some things—especially us—were made to bleed through.
Late afternoon autumn light filtered through the blinds when I trudged in from my first lecture, textbooks in one hand, half-empty coffee tumbler in the other, ready to collapse on my side of the room. Instead, I froze.
My navy windbreaker hung over Tru’s desk chair. It wasn't just crossing the line; it was a full-on invasion.
I dropped my books with a thud. “What the hell?”
Tru looked up from his sketchpad, calm as if I hadn’t just walked in on a crime scene. “I needed somewhere to hang it.”
After he’d worn it? I stalked over and yanked the jacket free. “Rule number one, don’t touch my clothes.”
He blinked, unbothered. “They weren’t in your closet.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I snapped, holding the jacket out like it was contagious. “This is my side.”
He took the jacket, folded it like some damn peace offering, and placed it on his bed. “Fine.”
My eyes caught the next offense, his laundry basket, halfway into my territory. I jabbed a finger at it. “And that?”
“It was the only spot,” he said quietly. “You were gone.”
“Right,” I muttered, heat rising in my neck. “Because whenever I’m not around, this place turns into your personal storage locker.”
He met my glare evenly. “You said I could use half the room.”
“I meant half,” I snapped. “Not take over the whole fucking space.”
He shrugged, eyes dipping for just a second. “Same difference.”
My pulse kicked up, frustration clawing at the edges of my chest. “Look, I never wanted you here. Not like this.”
That got him. Tru’s expression flickered, quick and sharp, before he schooled it flat. His gaze dropped to the rule list I’d tossed on my desk. “Then why keep me?”
I couldn’t meet his eyes. “Because it’s not up to me.”
I shoved past him and slammed the door so hard the frame rattled.
Behind me, I heard him exhale—quiet, but it cut.
I sank onto my bed, my pulse still hammering. The border between “his” and “mine” felt like the only thing holding the walls up inside my head. The only thing I still had control over.
In the silence that followed, every sound was too loud—the hum of the mini-fridge, the creak of his chair, the faint scratch of pencil on paper again, like nothing had happened. I told myself I didn’t care. I told myself I didn’t want him here. Not really.
But my eyes drifted anyway—to the folded windbreaker now sitting at the edge of his bed. Neat. Respectful.
Like it belonged there.
Like he did.
I clenched my fists until my nails left half-moons in my palms.
Rules kept things clean. Kept me sane. Rules were the walls between what I could admit and what I couldn’t.
But looking at my jacket on Tru’s bed, I couldn’t tell if I wanted to throw it out the window or pull it over my head and breathe him in.
Maybe rules didn’t just cage freedom. Maybe they kept me from admitting what I was really a prisoner of.
That night, I lay in my cramped bed, staring at the ceiling fan spinning in lazy circles. I wished the hum could drown out the noise in my head. The itch under my skin. The memory of him standing in the rain at the graduation party, like the world had washed him clean and left me dirty.
I shoved a hand down my boxers and worked myself with slow, quiet, strokes, just enough to take the edge off. My breath came fast, uneven, the mattress creaking in protest.
I tried to picture something safe. Lauren’s goodbye kiss. The girl from the video yesterday, the one with the perfect ass and zero emotional complications.
The image didn’t stick.
Across the room, Tru shifted. The bedsprings creaked. Then the rustle of sheets, the soft pad of bare feet on carpet. The bathroom door clicked shut. A second later came the rattle of the shower curtain rings.
Shit. I thought he was asleep.
I froze, hand going still.
The pipes groaned, and the shower hissed to life. The quiet was deafening. My heartbeat filled the space.
Then, under the rush of water—barely audible—a sound.
A muffled breath. Shaky. Uneven. The kind you only make when you think no one’s listening.
No. He wouldn’t.
Except… he would.
Tru was quiet about everything. Always had been. But I’d know that sound anywhere. It was the same sound I’d spent the last two years pretending I didn’t hear at night.
The same sound that haunted my dreams.
My chest went tight, every muscle wired. I shouldn’t listen. I shouldn’t.
But my hand moved again before I could stop it. Slow. Testing.
His low, breathless groan was almost swallowed by the shower’s steady beat.
My body betrayed me. My grip tightened, my hips jerked, my breath stuttered.
And in the next heartbeat, I was gone.
Images I didn’t want—couldn’t want—hit me. Tru, standing in the rain, his hair slick and dark, lips parted like he was tasting the sky. His laugh, quiet and reckless. The way he used to look at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.
The orgasm hit like a sucker punch. My jaw locked. I bit down hard enough to taste blood, keeping myself silent.
When it was over, I lay there panting, chest heaving, shame crawling up my throat.
I grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and wiped fast, as if I could scrub the guilt away. But it stuck, heavy and burning.
I hadn’t just gotten off.
I’d gotten off thinking about him.
Again.
“Pathetic,” I muttered under my breath.
The shower cut off. A pause. Then soft footsteps on tile, the creak of the door. Steam curled into the room, bringing with it the smell of cedar and mint. His scent, clean and cruel and mocking.
The bedsprings across the room dipped as Tru slid under his covers.
I rolled onto my side, eyes shut, heart still racing, and pretended to sleep. Pretended the air didn’t feel thick enough to choke on. Pretended I wasn’t still hard from the sound of him breathing.
But the truth was there—hot, bitter, and unshakable.
I wasn’t just living with Tru.
I was haunted by him.