The Dare - b.b

Chapter 27

As much as you say that we won't decay The bombs went off a week ago The grass here is gray, been walking all day But I'm not sure we'll make it home

 -Glowing by D.A.

[Skylar’s POV]

I have odd ways of coping.

When I was 8, my pet fish died and I spent a week listening to Beatle’s songs and drawing pictures of me and my fish, Blubber, together.

When I was 12, my grandmother died from cancer and I spent two weeks making a scrapbook of pictures of me and my grandmother together.

Now, my heart was broken and I turned to the one man who I could always trust, John Hughes. I watched The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Say Anything with my good friends Ben, Jerry’s.

I was pathetic.

Beau and I weren’t even dating and here I was, feeling completely crushed.

I mean I had an extremely hot boyfriend who liked me even though I wasn’t popular and he was sweet and caring and a total gentleman…but he wasn’t Beau.

I knew it wasn’t fair to Max to be going out with him and know that I’m in love with Beau, even if I can never talk to him again because I was mad at him.

So, I broke up with Max saying that I thought we should just be friends and surprisingly, he was ok with it. He really is a good guy.

I didn’t tell anyone about our break up though.

It wasn’t their business.

I was watching one of my all-time favorites,  Sixteen Candles, and was listening as the dad on screen told Molly RIngwald, “That's why they call them crushes. If they were easy, they'd call 'em something else.” So true, I thought to myself, still feeling like my heart was cracked in thousands of pieces.

I watched the movie until it got to the part where Jake Ryan was leaning against his car, looking extremely hot, and waiting for Molly Ringwald to exit the church.

I flung myself down on the couch and wondered why my life couldn’t be like Molly Ringwald’s.

She always got the guy, in every 80’s movie she was in. I was pathetic.

[Beau’s POV]

I was an idiot; one big fat idiot and an asshole. And I wasn’t the only asshole in Skylar’s life. I knew something that would kill her if she knew and probably make her lose all trust in people.

First, she finds out her best friend’s a liar.

Secondly, she doesn’t know this yet, but her boyfriend’s a…cheater.

There, I said it. I saw Max at Starbuck’s with some blonde, skanky-looking girl and they were shamelessly making out in the middle of the café.

I knew something was wrong with that guy but I can’t tell Skylar about it. It would probably make her extremely angry at me because I knew and didn’t tell her right away.

Also, it would break her heart and I couldn’t stand seeing that broken look on her face again. I hadn’t spoken to Luke or any of the other guys since that day.

It’s been three days and I feel so lonely, even though I’m the one isolating myself. Luke has tried to talk to me a few times but I guess the look on my face – the look that said “Talk to me and I’ll punch you” – kept him away.

I heard a knock on my door and my mom walked in with a worried expression on her face. I gave her a weak smile before lying back down on my bed and studying my ceiling. My bed still smelled faintly of Skylar’s lavender shampoo, which is why I enjoyed laying in my bed so much.

Thinking to myself made me realize how creepy I sounded.

I really needed to get out more. “Honey,” my mom said, sitting on the bed next to me and rubbing my arm soothingly, “I’m really worried about you. You haven’t been eating or sleeping and you haven’t seen your friends in days. You’re avoiding your brothers like the plague and I haven’t seen you smile in at least a week. What’s bothering you?” I wasn’t going to tell her; I really wasn’t.

But when she turned her mom vision, a gaze full of concern and care, on full power, I couldn’t say no to her.

So I spilled everything to her; the dare, Max Parker, Skylar, and how I think I love her. When I was done, my mom just sat there in silence, rubbing my back. “You know what you have to do, don’t you?” my mom asked.

I shook my head; no I had absolutely no idea what I had to do.

Was I supposed to leave her alone or go after her? “Make it up to her. You can’t just apologize; you have to set everything right. She might never forgive you, but you have to try. If you don’t, you’ll never forgive yourself and she’ll hate you even more for it,” my mom told me before standing, ruffling my hair, and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

She walked out of my room and I resumed staring at the ceiling, trying to think about how I could get Skylar back.

Flowers? Chocolates? I was trying to think about any cheesy, cliché movies but so far, nothing was good enough. Noting would ever be good enough for Skylar, me included. Another knock sounded at the door.

“Come in!” I yelled at the ceiling, expecting my mom to walk in again. Nope. It was Luke. I was too tired to even glare at him so I just let him come in. And here, ladies and gentlemen, enters the boy that ruined my life.

“Beau, can we talk?” Luke asked tentatively and sat down on my couch. I sat up on my bed and glared at him, “Why, so you can mess up my life a little more?” I asked him challengingly.

“No, because you’re my brother and I want to help you,” Luke responded calmly, trying to keep the peace.

I took a deep breath to calm myself down and nodded for Luke to say what he wanted to say, “I’m sorry, okay? When we first made the dare, it was because I set you up.

I knew you were never going to be able to sleep with Skylar because you’re too good of a person to do that to her.

I knew who Skylar was; quiet and beautiful, inside and out and I knew you wouldn’t be able to hump and dump her because I was hoping that she would change you.

And she did.

She changed you for the better. You became less of an asshole and more of a kinder person,” Luke said and opened his mouth to continue but I cut him off.

“What if I hadn’t been the person you thought I was? What if I had just humped and dumped her?” I ran my hands through my hair, thinking about the guy I had been before Skylar; the asshole I had been. This just proved how good of a person Skylar and how much I didn’t deserve her.

“Then you wouldn’t be my brother. I know you’re a good person, even if you don’t think you are.

You’ll make it okay with Skylar, I know you will,” Luke said, giving me a reassuring pat on the shoulder before leaving the room.

I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling some more, trying to figure out what I should do about Skylar. Well, I guess the first thing I should do it tell Skylar the truth about Max.

I picked up my cellphone and called the one number I swore I never would call. “Hello?” a voice asked from the other side of the phone. “Yeah, Sam? I need your help.”