Chapter 23
TRU
If I ever wrote a book about this, I’d call it: How to Lose Your Best Friend and Still Breathe.
It started small.
One of my drawings disappeared from the bulletin board. When I found it later, it wasn’t shredded into confetti, just folded into an origami crane perched on my pillow.
Then my gym shorts went missing. They turned up the next day hanging from the ceiling fan. A day later, someone had squeezed an entire travel tube of paste onto my toothbrush and left it foaming in the cup. It tasted so strongly of mint it burned.
None of it was cruel. Just… Dare. A thousand little jabs, trying to prove he could still get under my skin.
I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t accuse. But every time I caught his eye, he was already looking away. The silence between us was a game he’d invented and was winning.
It was exhausting, walking on eggshells in a room the size of a shoebox. Every breath threatened to set him off. Every glance, every sigh, every second I spent just existing near him was trespassing on something private.
He didn’t seem to study much. I’d never seen him crack a book for more than a minute. Meanwhile, I was all in—first row in my classes, answering questions like a nerd, staying late to clean up the studio. I loved it. I loved being here.
But the moment I unlocked our dorm room door, it was as if the air got sucked out of my lungs.
At night, it was the worst.
There were only a few feet between our twin beds, the glow of my phone screen, and all the unspoken words suffocating me. This used to be the time we whispered stupid secrets, lay side by side and imagined our futures.
If ten-year-old me had told ten-year-old Dare that someday we’d share a dorm at the same college, he would’ve been ecstatic.
Now, I lay there in the dark, frozen. I hear him breathing.
Sometimes I hear him shift, because maybe he was awake too.
Sometimes I thought he was waiting for me to say something.
Tonight, I finally did.
My voice came soft, barely more than a whisper, as if the volume itself might scare him off. “What did you use to wish for? Back then. When we were kids.”
There was a long pause. I thought maybe he was going to ignore me like he usually did.
But then, quietly—so quiet I almost missed it—he said, “That your mom would adopt me.”
My heart twisted. Such a simple, innocent wish. Childlike and honest. And it hit harder than any jab he’d thrown my way.
“I never stopped being your best friend,” I said, staring into the dark. “Even when you hated me.” Even though you still do.
In the silence, I could almost hear him remembering—birthday candles, late-night movie marathons, afternoons under the skateboard ramp where it was just the two of us against the world.
And when I glanced sideways, he was already looking at me. His expression wasn’t sharp for once. His face was open, vulnerable, and for just a second, he was that boy again.
Then he blinked, and the shutters slammed closed. Dare rolled over, his back to me now.
The cold returned so fast it almost stung.
Sometimes I get the urge to talk to him.
Not the version of Dare who rolled his eyes, stole my gym shorts, or arranged my watercolor pencils into an L for loser. I meant him—the boy I’d trusted with every piece of me. The one who used to know I was upset just by the way I tied my shoes.
I guessed that version was long gone. So I wrote to him instead.
I’d been keeping the same journal since we stopped really talking.
I never planned it; it was born out of loneliness.
One day, I’d opened a blank page and started writing like he was still listening.
I’ve told myself a hundred times to stop writing, that he doesn’t deserve this space in my head.
But every night, my hand still reaches for the pen as if it remembers what it feels like to be wanted.
At first it was things I couldn’t say out loud.
“Why did you look at me like that today?”
“You left your hoodie in the backseat again, and now the car smells like you. Was that on purpose?”
“I miss how we used to laugh in the middle of the night.”
Then it turned into a habit, a ritual, a place to put all the things that hurt too much to carry. Sometimes it was a full one-sided conversation full of rambling.
You wouldn’t believe how hard that critique was today. Professor Haskell asked if I was afraid of honesty. I almost laughed. If she knew how much I wrote to a ghost every night, maybe she wouldn’t ask.
Sometimes it was smaller.
Wore the stupid pink Converse again today. The ones you said were identical to your cousin Chelsea’s. I thought of you. Still fits. Still hurts.
And sometimes it was just:
I miss you. I hate that I still miss you.
I was halfway through writing that one—pen hovering, tears prickling—when I heard the door click. My whole body jolted.
Dare walked in, kicking the door closed with his heel, tossing his keys onto his bed. I slammed the journal shut and shoved it under my pillow so fast I crumpled the corner of the page.
He didn’t look over right away. He opened the fridge we’d crammed between our desks, muttered something about needing more Gatorade, and then finally glanced in my direction.
“You jump every time I walk in like I’m the Boogeyman,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching like he half-meant it as a joke.
I forced a shrug. “Old habits.”
He stared at me a second too long, like he was going to say something else. But he didn’t. Just grabbed a granola bar, turned his music up too loud, and flopped onto his bed.
I didn’t touch the journal again that night. But I lay in bed with my fingers pressed to the cover, hidden beneath my pillow, as if I was still holding a lifeline. Still waiting for an answer that never came.
But maybe I didn’t want an answer. Maybe I just wanted proof he was still in there somewhere, remembering me, too.
From the second-story window of the arts building, I could see the soccer field sprawled out like a green stage.
Dare was out there, sharp and fast and magnetic in motion.
His jersey stuck to his frame, sweat-slick and clinging as he darted past defenders.
He moved like he had something to prove, like if he ran hard enough, he could outrun the weight of everything he carried.
I’d seen this version of him before. Focused, powerful, untouchable. But now, watching him from a distance, I saw something else too. Desperation. That he was playing for more than just a score.
My fingertips ghosted over the glass without me realizing, a quiet, ridiculous gesture, like touching it could steady him.
I worried for him more than I wanted to admit.
The scholarship that got him here wasn’t just a badge of pride; it was a lifeline.
And I knew Dare. Knew the way he coasted through academics.
Knew how fast he could unravel if he didn’t keep it together.
The pressure of keeping up academically, being in the pre-law track, and participating in sports was too much. I could see the toll it was taking on him, the dark bags under his tawny eyes, the restless nights, and the growing agitation.
Sometimes I imagined slipping my notes into his bag when he wasn’t looking, or sitting across from him in the library like we used to. But then I remembered the toothbrush. The pranks to get under my skin. The hot-and-cold cruelty he wielded like a shield.
He didn’t want help from me. Not anymore. But when he crumbled under the pressure of being what everyone wanted him to be, who would be there to pick up the pieces?
“Hey.” A voice behind me pulled me out of the moment.
I turned to see someone from my intro to color theory class—Brian, I thought his name was. Messy auburn curls. Freckles across his cheeks. Paint-stained button-down. The kind of guy who always looked like he lived in a studio, who sketched during lectures and didn’t care what anyone thought of it.
“You always watch the field after class?” he asked, stepping beside me to peek out the window.
I smiled faintly. “Sometimes.”
“Your boyfriend?”
The question hit hard. My throat went dry. I glanced sideways, expecting teasing in his tone, but he looked genuinely curious.
“No,” I said. “Definitely not.”
Brian shrugged. “Could’ve fooled me. You looked like you were drawing him with your eyes.”
Heat rose up my neck, and I turned back to the field just as Dare slid into a block and sent the ball soaring across the grass. Someone clapped from the bleachers.
Brian leaned against the window ledge. “I was gonna grab coffee at Midnight Oil later. Want to come with?”
My mouth opened, then closed. I hadn’t expected this… any of it. Not the offer. Not the ease. Not the timing.
“I—” I glanced down at the field again. Dare looked up at the building just then, squinting against the sun. For one strange, still second, I thought maybe he was looking at me.
Wishful thinking.
I stepped back from the glass. “Maybe,” I said quietly.
Brian grinned, clearly taking that as a yes. “Cool. I’ll save you a seat. If you want.”
He walked away with a nod, and I stayed there, still facing the window but not looking anymore.
The moment was cracked. Not broken, just…
fragmented. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t sure if the ache in my chest was still Dare or the life I kept putting off while I waited for him to want me back.
Because I had moved on, or at least I thought I had, but one midnight swim, one almost kiss, and a tentative truce had me right back circling his orbit again, the same familiar what-ifs churning in my gut.