Chapter 24
DARE
Some things bruise deeper than fists. Tru’s words broke something I didn’t even know was still whole.
I knew I shouldn’t follow him. Should’ve turned around the second I saw them. But I didn’t.
I stood across the quad, half-hidden behind the library steps, watching Tru lean into a guy I’d never seen before.
He was tall, artsy in a tree-hugging way, and wearing a polo shirt and jacket resembling some model from a men’s fashion catalogue.
They were laughing, close enough to brush shoulders.
The guy said something, and Tru touched his wrist. Not his shoulder. Not his chest. His wrist.
Something about that made me lose my mind.
I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I didn’t need to. It was written all over Tru’s face—the easy smile, the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. He looked happy. With someone else.
Quickly, I turned and bolted, almost tripping over my own feet. I pushed through a crowd of underclassmen and took the stairs two at a time to get back to our dorm.
The second I slammed the door, I went for his side of the room. I wasn’t thinking clearly, my rage boiling so hot it made my ears ring. I wanted to wreck something. Leave proof that I still mattered. That I still had the power to touch him, even if all I ever did now was ruin things.
That’s when I saw it.
The sketchbook. No—journal. Tucked under the pillow, pages fraying at the corners. I yanked it out, thumbed it open… and froze.
My name stood out at the top of the page like a flashing neon sign.
Dear Dare.
No. No, no, no.
I meant to throw it. Slam it shut. But my eyes snagged on the words, and I couldn’t look away.
Sometimes I still dream about you. And when I wake up, for a few seconds, I believe we're still friends.
I don’t know what I did to make you hate me.
If you ever came back, I’d probably forgive you. Isn’t that pathetic?
You kissed me, and then you erased me.
I kept turning pages. My hands shook.
There were entries from middle school. From freshman year. Sophomore. All of it—his loneliness, his anger, his shame, his wanting. Even now, he was still writing to me. As if I were the only one who ever mattered. He couldn’t let go.
The worst part? I felt it. All of it.
My throat burned. My eyes stung. And yeah, okay, maybe I was the villain in this story. But I didn’t ask to be.
I shoved the journal back under his pillow, harder than necessary, and flopped down on my bed, heart sprinting.
I tried to study, even opened my laptop and pulled up the reading assignment for Ethics, or whatever class I was supposed to pretend to give a shit about.
My eyes glazed halfway down the first paragraph.
Needing things simplified, I pulled the chapter outline from my backpack.
That’s when I saw the notes. Little pencil edits.
Clarified points. A restructured thesis line.
I hadn’t written them. But I knew that handwriting. It belonged to Tru.
That little shit had gone through my paper and made sure I didn’t fail. He didn’t even tell me. My eyes burned the longer I stared. I swiped at my face before the tear could fall, but it didn’t matter. It slipped out anyway, burning hot down my cheek.
“Fuck you, Truen Jameson,” I hissed. “You don’t get to be the hero in our story. Or the victim. You’re the one who started this shit.”
But even I didn’t believe that anymore.
I stayed in bed long after the screen went dark. Didn’t turn on music, didn’t check my phone, didn’t even bother with the lights. The room was still. Too still. A quiet that makes you start thinking in the places you usually keep locked up.
I stared upward, counting the cracks in the plaster. The pinholes in the tiles. The flickering red glow of the power strip near Tru’s bed. In my head, I could hear him laughing again—the one I hadn’t earned since the seventh grade.
When he used to run beside me on the soccer field.
When he used to reach out his hand to me in bed during thunderstorms.
When he kissed me like he meant it, and I let him think I’d be brave enough to stay.
And maybe I could’ve if I hadn’t hated myself so damn much. If I hadn’t feared what others might think of me. I chose them over him. I chose me.
I’d thought it was self-preservation, but it wasn’t. It was cowardice and stupidity and pure selfishness.
I rolled over and faced the wall, biting the inside of my cheek hard enough to hurt. The sting didn’t even register. I kept seeing Tru’s hands on that guy. The way he smiled at him as if it was easy. Natural. Not a war zone of guilt and denial and wanting and regret.
Tru wanted that bullshit. The dating. The flirting. The kisses. He was moving on. Getting over me. Living out loud.
Meanwhile, I was still stuck. Still listening for his footsteps in the hallway. Still smelling his shampoo in the steam after he showered.
Maybe I wanted to hurt him. To sabotage him. Agitate him and mess with his stuff. Because if he hated me, I wouldn’t have to hate myself as much.
I kicked the blanket off, climbed out of bed, and walked to the mini fridge. When I popped it open, bright light spilled into the room.
Half a bottle of Gatorade, an apple, leftover fries, and one stupid-ass pink sticky note stuck to the inside.
“I bought you this one since I drank the last. - T”
I stared at it like it was a threat. It was too much. Too kind. Too forgiving.
It was going to make me cry again, and I couldn’t let that happen. So I peeled it off, crumpled it in my fist, and chucked it across the room. I missed the trash, but that didn’t matter.
Because even as I slammed the fridge shut and crawled back into bed, I knew what would come. Same as always. The sounds of Tru’s soft breathing. The rustle of his blankets as he turned toward the wall. The echo of every word he’d ever written in that journal.
“You kissed me, and then you erased me.”
And when I closed my eyes, the feel of his soft lips against mine in a dark closet.
I buried my face in the pillow and whispered, so quiet I almost couldn’t hear it myself, “I didn’t mean to.”
I couldn’t take it anymore.
Not the silence. Not the way he moved around me like I was some wild animal he was trying not to spook. And especially not the damn kindness.
He was halfway out the door—headed to some study group or maybe his new boyfriend’s dorm—when I grabbed the edge of the door and slammed it shut.
“Hey.” He turned, startled. “What the hell?”
“You really think you can just… fix me?” My voice shook with something bigger than anger. “With your little edits on my paper? Sneak your way into my head like I’m some kind of fucking charity case?”
Tru blinked. “I wasn’t trying to fix you.”
“Bullshit,” I hissed. “You went behind my back. Touched my stuff. What the hell gave you the right?”
He took a breath. “You were gonna fail. You’ve been distracted, and I thought—”
“You thought what? That I’m too fucking stupid to do it myself? That you’d save me so you could feel better about yourself?”
“No.” His voice dropped. “I just didn’t want you to lose your scholarship. I was trying to help—”
“I never asked for your help.”
“Yeah,” he snapped. “Well, I never asked to fall in love with someone who hates me, but here we are.”
The words hit like a brick to the chest, stealing my next breath. We faced off against each other in silence, each fuming, our breaths ragged and heavy. His eyes were shining.
Shit. No. Not that. Not tears. Not now.
“Fuck you,” I muttered. “You don’t get to say shit like that.”
“Why?” he asked, voice shaking. “Because it’s true?”
I shook my head. “Because I can’t keep pretending I didn’t hear it.”
He stepped closer. Just one step.
I backed away like the floor burned.
Tru nodded like he understood. “That’s what I thought.”
And then he walked out, shutting the door behind him so gently, it made me hurt all over. I stood there, fists clenched, chest heaving. The air felt different. Denser. Like he’d taken all the oxygen with him when he left.
"Shit," I breathed. I ran a hand through my hair, pacing, feeling caged.
That line—“I never asked to fall in love with someone who hates me.”
It echoed. Pounded. Lingered like smoke in a locked room.
He said it so plainly. It was a fact. As if he’d rehearsed it in front of a mirror, or scribbled it in his journal a hundred times before finally saying it to my face.
And me? What the fuck did I do?
I lashed out. Bit him like a wounded dog. Because that's what I was around him, wounded. Unraveling. And the worst part was he’s the only one who’d ever been able to touch the wound.
I stared at Tru’s bed, at the corner of the pillow where the edge of the journal stuck out again. I shouldn’t, but I already did once, and I couldn’t stop myself again.
My ass sank into his mattress. My fingers hovered just an inch from the journal before curling into a fist. But I didn’t open it. I didn’t need to. I’d already seen enough to know the truth. Tru never stopped caring when I gave him every reason to.
Even now, I could still feel the warmth of his words. The way he wrote to me as if I was still in there, somewhere beneath the bitterness and the bile.
I used to think Tru was soft. Weak. Maybe I was just scared of how strong he had to be to keep loving me anyway.
I buried my face in my hands. And then I did the one thing I swore I wouldn’t.
I let myself miss him.
Not the way things used to be. Not just the summer nights and the sleepovers and the stupid inside jokes.
I missed the way he looked at me like I mattered.
Like I wasn’t just an unwanted son trying too hard to be someone he wasn’t.
I missed being seen. Accepted. And now? Now he was gone, and I was still the asshole who couldn’t even say thank you.
Couldn’t even say I’m sorry. Or worse… I feel the same way.