Chapter 34
DARE
You think you know someone, but they’re hiding a whole alternate identity like a walking comic-book twist.
I spotted the first one near the science wing taped to the wall randomly. A comic-book sketch of two guys, back-to-back, all shadow and attitude. One had flames curling off his hands. The other held a cracked shield.
There was no name. Just shades of graphite and a smudge in the corner where someone dragged their hand across it too fast.
I stopped and stared. If not for Tru, I probably never would’ve noticed, but it was good—really good.
“You good?” someone muttered behind me, trying to pass.
“Yeah,” I said. I peeled the sketch off the wall, folded it once, and tucked it into my notebook.
At the library, I found Tru tucked into his usual corner. “Look at this,” I said, dropping the sketch on his open notebook.
He raised an eyebrow, then flicked his eyes down. “Cool.”
“Just cool? Come on, this is sick. Whoever’s doing these? They’re legit.”
Tru shrugged like it was nothing, but I caught the edge of his smirk. The kind of smirk he made when he was hiding something, like when he stole my hoodie and acted as if he didn’t know where it went for three weeks.
“You’ve seen others?” I asked.
He shrugged again. “A couple.”
“You think it’s a student?”
“Dunno. Probably.”
Maybe someone in his class. He flipped back to his notes, but I watched his hand. His fingers tapped the pen, as if he was fighting the urge to draw. Interesting. I tucked the sketch back into my binder.
By the end of the week, I’d found five more. One stuck above the water fountain. Another behind the fire extinguisher sign. I pulled them all down, every single one. They ended up pinned to the bulletin board over my desk, right next to my soccer medals. Right where I could look at them.
Tru kept catching me watching him. Not the sketches—him.
Was he impressed that I’d tuned into something that mattered to him? Or did he think I’d finally lost my mind, collecting random art and pretending I understood what it meant?
I met with the career counselor on Wednesday.
“You don’t want to study pre-law?” she asked, blinking down at my file.
“No.” I leaned back in the plastic chair. “That’s my dad’s thing.”
“What’s your thing?”
I opened my mouth, closed it again, then drummed my fingers on my thigh.
I liked the outlet sports gave me, even if soccer wasn’t my dream. I liked the way Tru’s art made people feel something. Maybe I wanted that too—to do something that mattered. Something that didn’t make me feel like a fraud.
“I don’t know yet,” I said finally. “For now, let’s stick with the prerequisites until I figure it out.”
She smiled like that was enough. I didn’t believe her.
Friday after lunch, I spotted Tru talking to Fuckface. That guy from last semester. The one Tru said was “nice”. He was leaning into Tru’s space, smiling like he thought he had a shot.
“You still owe me that coffee,” he said, voice slick.
I knew that smile. Hell, I’d invented it.
I slowed down, watching. Tru laughed, but it was tight. Then his eyes flicked up and found mine. I didn’t even have to say anything. I just shook my head once, and it was enough.
“No thanks,” Tru said quietly. “I’m good.”
I didn’t stop walking, but as I passed, I shouldered the guy hard enough to knock his backpack sideways.
“Hey,” he snapped. “Watch it.”
I didn’t bother replying. The look I gave him said everything before I turned to Tru. Mine. Fuck off.
Tru didn’t scowl. He didn’t smile either. Just watched me walk away.
I had news for him. Fuckface was not a nice guy. And neither was I.
Later, Tru slipped into our room and tossed his backpack onto the bed. I was at my desk, one of the sketches pinned above it.
He stopped. “You kept that?”
I glanced over my shoulder. “Why wouldn’t I?”
He shifted, biting the inside of his cheek. “It’s dumb.”
“No, it’s not.” My tone came out sharper than I meant. “Whoever’s doing them, they’re talented as hell. They should put their name on them or something.”
“Not really the point,” he muttered. “Maybe they’re not trying to get noticed.”
“Then why keep leaving them all over school?”
He hesitated. “You ever gonna admit you know they’re mine?”
I turned in my chair. “You ever gonna admit that guy with the cracked shield is me?”
Tru flushed hard enough to make me dizzy. “Wasn’t supposed to be,” he mumbled.
“Bullshit.” I grinned, reaching for him, tugging up the hem of his shirt. “Where’d you get all those muscles, Captain Firehands? Been hiding a gym membership from me?”
He swatted me away, flustered, which only made me want to try harder.
We were close now. Close enough for me to see the freckles under his left eye. The way his throat moved when he swallowed.
“You’re jealous,” he said softly.
“Yeah.”
“You shoulder-checked a guy.”
“Yeah.”
He took a step closer, like the air between us wasn’t enough anymore. “Why?”
I stood and tilted his chin up with my fingers. “Don’t let him talk to you like that again.”
“Like what?” he whispered.
“Like I don’t exist.”
We were breathing the same breath. My fingers still on his jaw. I didn’t think; I just kissed him. Hard. Fast. Full of possession and ugly green jealousy.
He gasped like it was the first breath after drowning, grabbed my hoodie, and kissed me back like I was oxygen.
When I finally pulled away, Tru was looking at me like I’d just rewritten his world.
He sat on the edge of the bed. “You don’t have to keep pretending you’re not scared, too.”
“I’m not pretending.”
He was quiet for a long time. Then, without looking at me asked, “Are we ever gonna stop hiding?”
It fractured something open inside of me. Not because I didn’t expect it, but because I’d been asking myself the same thing, every night, behind every wall I built to keep him out.
“I want to,” I said, voice low but steady. “I just don’t know how yet.”
Tru turned to me. “You don’t have to know everything, Dare. You just have to stop acting like you don’t feel anything.”
The words hit hard. I’d told my dad I wasn’t following in his footsteps, and it felt like the end of the world. But this—this felt even scarier.
“You think it’s easy for me?” he asked. “You think I don’t get scared, too?”
“I don’t want it to be hard for you,” I whispered.
“I don’t want to pretend you’re just my stepbrother,” he said. “I don’t want to walk past you in the hall and act like you’re nobody. Like you don’t know every version of me.”
My heart pounded. I reached out and took his hand before I could stop myself. “Then don’t,” I said. “Not with me.”
His fingers tightened around mine. The silence stretched, but it wasn’t heavy anymore. We were standing on the edge of something real, and for once, I almost felt brave enough to fall.
“If we stop hiding,” he said, “everything changes.”
“I know.”
“Are you sure?”
I turned fully toward him. “No.”
He laughed, quiet and wrecked. “God, I hate how honest you are sometimes.”
“I hate how much I want to kiss you right now.”
His breath caught. “Then do it.”
And I never could resist a dare.
That night, after he’d fallen asleep in my bed, curled up as if he’d always belonged there, I sat at my desk and opened my laptop. My fingers hovered over the keys before I finally typed:
How do you tell your best friend he’s your entire future when you don’t even know who you are?
I didn’t hit enter. I just stared at the blinking cursor. Waiting for an answer that didn’t come.