I'm So Sorry

Chapter Twenty-Six

Jackson

Shannon thinks for a second, tapping her chin. "Fine. Tell us a secret...tell us something about one of us, if you think you're so clever."

I whip my head at Randy and then continue looking back and forth between the two of them. What the hell, Shannon?! That's not how this fucking works! Shit, what is Randy going to do, what secret is he going to reveal? Jesus Christ.

"Okay let's see. Something that no one knows? Well that doesn't exactly make sense now does it? Since I know the secret, and so does the person holding onto the secret. But I guess we can play around with that, now can't we?"

I begin to sweat slightly, and I look around the rest of the circle. Who is going to lose?

"Fine. If you all must know something..." Randy pushes his tongue around the inside of his mouth and puts on a wicked smile. "Ben wasn't recruited and isn't able to get into a school."

I let out a long sigh of relief.

Ben

"What?!" Jessie stands up and shouts at the same time. "What the fuck...he's lying, Ben, there's...you got in!"

"No." Randy pulls a cigarette out of his box and I feel the anger rising in me quickly and obnoxiously. "Buddy of mine is a friend of Coach Norris. He texted me after Ben here—" He points at me, and I glare back. "—left to come here."

"You son of a bitch!" I scream at Randy loudly. "I was supposed to tell Jessie that!"

"Then why didn't you?!" She shouts again. "If it was your job, if you're the one who was supposed to do it, then why didn't you tell me?"

"Because..." I trail off, realizing that I can't say it.

"Don't." She stands up and starts walking away from us, everyone watching her go.

I get up as fast as I can and make sure to grab Randy's cigarette from his mouth and toss it into the fire. "Thanks a lot, asshole."

Randy holds his hands up in surrender. "Don't blame me. Blame the game."

I roll my eyes and manage to grab Jessie before she can go too far down the yard. "Stop!" I tell her, turning her towards me.

Tears are already in her eyes and I feel my stomach clench tightly, seeing her face crumpling like this. "Don't!" She screams. The second I touch her she pulls her grip away from me. "I told you...the thing. And you couldn't tell me—No, you lied to me—about your scholarship! You told me you got it! Why did you even tell me that? Why did you lie when instead you could have said nothing or better yet told me the truth? God, Ben, what the fuck?"

"Don't you think this is affecting me too? Don't you think that this might be hurting me so much that telling people will kill me? Dad and Beth don't know yet!" I'm furious at her for fighting me on this, mostly because I know she's right. But I can't handle how upset I am at myself as well.

"Fuck you, Ben."

"I'm so sorry," I tell her. "Seriously. I'm sorry!"

She looks at me with clear disdain and anger. "We all have our secrets. But you didn't have to lie to me when you told me about the scholarship. Some things are just better left unsaid. You asshole."

Olivia

I don't know what I'm supposed to think right now. Am I supposed to be happy or upset that that just happened? Cause I'm kind of laughing.

Jessie sits back down with her arms crossed and Ben eventually does too, everyone silent again. This shit. These people. God they are just so fucked up.

"Alright Olivia, truth or dare?" Randy finally asks me.

I scoff. "I'm not scared. Give me a dare."

"You had a dare last time," he argues.

"I really don't care." Whatever he thinks he's doing he's not going to get to me. Nothing he says will. And none of these people will. They're all just...useless things. They don't mean a thing to me.

"Okay." He looks around, thinking. Then, reaches into his pocket. "Ever had one of these before?"

His cigarettes. He holds them out past Shannon to me, waving them around slightly. Silence falls over the fire pit once again, the cracking of the fire the only thing I'm aware of. I look at Shannon, like I expect her to help me. But what am I to expect from someone like her? What am I to expect from someone who doesn't care about anyone but herself?

I stare at the box again and I don't know what to do. I don't want to smoke. My mother smokes, I know what it smells like, and I know what it tastes like, years of inhaling that fucking disgusting taste. But I know that if she's as addicted to those things like Randy is, I might pick one up and never put them down ever again.

"Well?" Randy is waiting for an answer from me and I know I have to give him one. So I take a deep breath and swallow my pride.

"No," I say, honestly. "My mom smokes the same brand."

A smile breaks out on Randy's face. "Perfect," he tells me. "That's perfect. Take one. Light it. Smoke the entire thing until you can't anymore. That's your dare."

Surprisingly out of everyone, the person that comes to my rescue first is Sandra. "Randy, we all know you're fucked up but that's a really shitty dare, coming from you especially."

He leans in to Sandra and says to her, "We tied Mason up and he's quiet as a mouse. Are you telling me we've reached our limitations for how fucked up we're gonna act tonight?"

I feel the sweat on the back of my neck start to form and tightness in my throat, the air escaping from my lungs. For the first time, I truly can't breathe. I feel myself cracking. Why is this happening to me, why out of everything Randy could think of, he chose having me smoke a cigarette? I don't want to smoke this, I don't want to touch it with my lips, and I don't want to feel the burning that I know comes with smoking. He doesn't realize that I second hand smoke enough. I don't want that fucking stick in my mouth. What did someone call it earlier?

A fucking cancer stick.

Randy huffs out a laugh when no one answers him. We're doing a lot of that tonight, ignoring the questions that everyone asks one another. "Didn't think so," he tells her, and then tosses the box to me, landing on my lap. "Pick your poison."

Fucking literally, I think to myself.

I can back out of this dare. I should back out.

But I refuse to let anyone here think they can fight me, especially since they all think I'm such a bitch.

I take a cigarette from the box very carefully and I close the box and throw it back at Randy.

"You'll need this," he says, tossing one more thing at me.

The lighter.

Jackson

She can't seriously be about to do this. She's not even putting up a fight; she's not even trying to stop this. She's not doing...anything.

Olivia...what are you thinking right now? And why are you thinking it?