Outgoing Stories

Dare (Part 2)

An hour later, the ground floor is unrecognizable. At least thirty guests are wandering in and out of the house, half of them unfamiliar to me. Music blares from the portable speaker that has magically appeared in one corner, and a bunch of people are dancing in the dining room, the furniture pushed to the walls. There's a lot of yelling as people try to talk over the music. The floor is littered with empty pizza boxes and crushed beer cans. I even find Ronan Shaun making out with one of Christen's sisters in the back room.

It's perfect.

I drift through the chaos, bringing more drinks, taking the empty plates away, aglow with happiness. This is the right-and-wrong kind of party I have dreamt to hold—or even just to be invited to—for years. People who never talked to me at school are suddenly talking to me, even if it's just to ask me where the toilet is. I'm getting patted on the back and cheered at.

I'm no longer invisible.

And best of all, Bart is here. Talking to his friends, dirty-dancing with Jen, even silently helping me to gather the empty plastic plates and dump them into the trash. In this chaos, I can watch him unobserved, memorizing all his little gestures—how he stands, how he walks, how he laughs. His hands on Jen's waist, pushing her closer as they dance together—I wonder how those hands could feel on me. But no. There're limits to his friendliness. Perhaps I'll be able to at least shake his hand before he goes home?

It's already past midnight when I find myself sitting with the others in a circle on the dining room floor, playing truth-or-dare with an empty Coca-Cola bottle. Most have already left so there're about eight people present. I have somehow managed to position myself to Bart's left and now I'm more aware of his presence than of the game itself. There're questions and answers and bouts of laughter but what really matters is him sitting next to me, his shoulder brushing against mine each time he reaches out to spin the bottle. He mostly talks to Jen who's sitting to his other side, but I've gotten a couple of smiles, too. There have been so many during the evening that I have stopped counting.

"All right," says Ronan from the opposite side of the circle, his eyes heavy-lidded and sleepy. I can tell he's drunk too much. "Dare, Bart?"

"Shoot," says Bart.

"I dare you to kiss that gorgeous creature to your left," he says, pointing at Jen, and there are laughs and giggles around the circle.

"Wait, wait," someone says. "She's sitting to his right!"

"Oh?" Ronan blinks confusedly. "Oh, man, your left is my right, I meant..."

"So, it's David!" someone shouts. "David is sitting to his left! He must kiss David!"

The roar of laughter is louder than before, and all eyes are on me now, my face suddenly hot. Bart turns to me with an expression of mock horror, and then he's laughing with the rest of them, and I join in, too, because what else could I do?

"No!" He raises his hands. "Not doing that!"

"But that's the game!"

"I'm not playing, then! I'm not kissing another dude, man."

"Neither am I," I chime in, although nobody listens to me. "Ronan, what's wrong with you?"

"A mistake! A mistake!" Ronan raises his hands.

"No big deal," Bart says, and then he leans over to Jen and smacks her on the mouth. The sound of the kiss gets drowned by the cheers. I cheer as well, and when Bart sits upright again, I catch his gaze and roll my eyes, and he shakes his head and pats me on the back, and everything is all right again, except that inside, I'm crying for some reason.

It's another half an hour until they all begin to leave. We wake up Sam who has fallen asleep on the couch, and Cristen offers to give a ride home to both him and Ronan. I usher them outside and wave them good-bye. On my way back, I stumble into Jen who's coming out of the house.

"Nice party," she says, going past me and down the stairs.

"Thanks. Where's Bart?"

"Cleaning." She looks back and rolls her eyes. "I told him I'd rather wait in the car."

I find Bart on his way to the kitchen, a stack of empty pizza boxes in his hands.

"Come on, don't," I say. "I'll clean in the morning."

He shakes his head, placing the boxes on the counter. "I don't like leaving you to deal with this mess."

"It's okay, seriously. I have all Sunday to fix this before my folks come home."

"Fine." He turns to me, his face vague in the dark, the only light coming from the open doorway to the dining room. "Look, about that truth-and-dare game..."

I force a laugh. "Ronan's an idiot."

"Yes, but I just..."

Suddenly, he steps closer to me. Surprised by his movement, I stumble back, but encounter the fridge door.

"I just wanted to do this," he says, and then his hands are on my shoulders and his lips are on mine, and he's kissing me, and I can't believe it.

Then, he moves away and stares at me, his face as close as it is inscrutable. My mind is struggling to decipher the new serious look in his eyes. What's he doing? The truth-or-dare game is over.

"We're not playing now," I whisper.

"No," he says. "We're not playing."

And then he's gone. I just stand there as the front door swings shut with a bang. I remain there as the engine of his car roars to life outside, and the tires screech on the asphalt. Only when it's all quiet, I slide down to the floor and just sit there, stunned.

Perhaps the game isn't over, after all.

Perhaps it's only about to begin.

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