Dare Me: The Pierce Boys of Georgia, Book One

by Brittany Tarkington

  A

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright: Brittany Tarkington 2022

  All rights reserved. Not part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Dare Me by: Brittany Tarkington

  Cover by: Callie Rae

  Formatting by: Callie Rae

  Editing by: Jessica at Diamond Editing and Proofreading

  You are more than a diagnosis

  & You are more than they say you are

  Chapter One Raquel

  Chapter Two Raquel

  Chapter Three Roman

  Chapter Four Raquel

  Chapter Five Roman

  Chapter Six Raquel

  Chapter Seven Roman

  Chapter Eight Raquel

  Chapter Nine Roman

  Chapter Ten Raquel

  Chapter Eleven Raquel

  Chapter Twelve Roman

  Chapter Thirteen Raquel

  Chapter Fourteen Raquel

  Chapter Fifteen Roman

  Chapter Sixteen Raquel

  Chapter Seventeen Raquel

  Chapter Eighteen Roman

  Chapter Nineteen Roman

  Chapter Twenty Raquel

  Chapter Twenty One Roman

  Chapter Twenty Two Raquel

  Chapter Twenty Three Roman

  Chapter Twenty Four Raquel

  Chapter Twenty Five Roman

  Chapter Twenty Six Raquel

  Chapter Twenty Seven Roman

  Chapter Twenty Eight Raquel

  Chapter Twenty Nine Raquel

  Chapter Thirty Roman

  Chapter Thirty One Raquel

  Chapter Thirty Two Roman

  Chapter Thirty Three Raquel

  Chapter Thirty Four Roman

  Chapter Thirty Five Raquel

  Chapter Thirty Six Raquel

  Chapter Thirty Seven Raquel

  Chapter Thirty Eight Raquel

  Chapter Thirty Nine Roman

  Chapter Forty Raquel

  Chapter Forty Two Raquel

  Chapter Forty Three Roman

  About Brittany T.

  I’m bored with my existence.

  My classmates spilled through the door, raving about their weekend plans as if their very existence depended on it. I zoned out because honestly, what dumb high school kids did over the weekend is only a small, ignorant part of our lives.

  That doesn’t stop them from trying to get my attention. Ignoring the waving hand in front of me, I clipped the end of my eraser between my teeth and stared in the other direction.

  Please don’t.

  I would rather punch a goldfish in the face than talk to anyone else today. I wouldn’t call myself antisocial. It’s just that nothing they say or do interests me.

  But the damn hand wouldn’t stop waving.

  Rolling my eyes, I flicked the tip of the eraser from my mouth and faced the hand. Emily Williams. If I could pick anyone in this world to be, I would choose her. She has that golden girl aura that draws you in. If I was the jealous type, I would fixate on her. Instead, I just think good for her, someone should pull in all the guys.

  At least she’s nice. And kind of my only friend. In a weird way.

  But then again, it would take a weird occurrence for me to find a friend.

  Her face lit with excitement when I turned my attention to her. She has this rare talent of making you feel like you were the only person she wanted to be around. Or maybe that’s what all normal people make you feel. If I bothered to socialize, I might know the answer to that. The only thing I’m sure of is that people usually scatter like ants whose bed was stomped on when I approach them.

  But Emily is different. She’s nice. I mean, as nice as a high school girl could be. Tucking her wheat blond hair behind her ears, her cheeks flamed with embarrassment when I stared at her.

  I have the perfect upturned nose, dark hair, and wolf blue eyes. Those were my only qualities that kept me on the favorite side of my teachers and principal. I’m fucking beautiful. I know it. They know it. Everyone knows it. But what the actual hell does that matter when I barely pull decent grades after busting my ass?

  I’m not dumb. I just have a few learning disabilities tucked inside of me and a mom who refused to do anything about it.

  But my disabilities don’t stop other girls from hating me for the face God cursed me with. The only difference between me and them? I know my face won’t take me anywhere, so I’ve busted my ass in the last four years to get good grades.

  “What are you doing this weekend, Rocki?” She asked.

  My fists clenched as I debated correcting her.

  First of all, it’s Raquel.

  My name is Raquel Hendrix, but my boyfriend, if we can even call him that, decided in junior high that I would be Rocki.

  “Hiding the body that’s been in my garage,” I deadpanned as I fixated on the smudged white board in front of us. It drove me crazy when teachers didn’t clean the board correctly. I don’t think it takes that much effort to wipe off the excess marker residue in the corner. Yet here we are, with yesterday’s lesson halfway staring back at me.

  “Rocki!” She slapped a hand over her mouth to contain her innocent giggle.

  Christ on a cross. “What?”

  “You were telling me about the body in your garage.”

  “It’s starting to stink.”

  I tore my eyes away from the white board, skimming over Emily, and landing on my notebook. I thumbed through it, finding an empty sheet. I didn’t take notes. I doodled. I wrote poems. I scribbled about the demise of the world. But I kept quiet, and at the end of the day, that’s all my teachers wanted from me.

  “You can’t avoid people forever, you know? And Aiden’s going out of town…”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. My boyfriend will be gone for three days. And I’m happy.

  I’m going to hell.

  Best case scenario, I’ve been told there’s a special place for me there. Hopefully a dark, secluded corner filled with notebooks and sharpened pencils. Clean white boards wouldn’t hurt either.

  “What do you have planned?” I asked her, sighing.

  She practically squealed. “Just a small get together at my grandparent’s lake cabin, just movies and snacks. You can come, right? Don’t make me beg.”

  I stared at her. I kind of wanted her to beg. And then I wanted her to fuck off and leave me alone, but I knew that wouldn’t happen.

  “Please. Please. PLEASE!”

  Oh, she did it. She did beg.

  Holding up my hand, she stopped. “You wore me down.”

  “The four sweetest words you’ve ever said to me. I’ll text you the details,” she said, and whipped around just as Mr. Jones walked in the small classroom.

  Aiden, Mr. Punctuality, jogged in late with a stack of books in his hand. His forehead wrinkled, giving me the impression, his mind was a million miles away, but he still grinned when he saw me.

  Aiden Bray. The town golden boy. Girls sat up straighter and boys nodded when passed. My boyfriend. To him, I’m just a bored, quiet, go with the flow prop.

  “Hey Rock,” he said as he took the seat to my right.

  “Hi.” I shot him a tight smile.

  “Athletics ran over.” He explained.

  I nodded and glanc
ed back at Mr. Jones. His long, thin fingers tapped the board to get our attention. Dropping my head, I traced my name on the blank page in front of me, pretending to listen and learn.

  I was good at pretending. A professional pretender if you will.

  My head shot up and I stared at Aiden. Sometimes when I thought horrible things, I panicked that I said them out loud. Aiden met my gaze, raising an eyebrow. His lips curled into a grin.

  Aiden doesn’t know I pretend to like him. The sun will rise again.

  Mr. Jones cleared his throat to get our attention.

  Right, robot mode.

  Dropping my head, I went back to tracing, to pretending.

  I didn’t excel at drawing, but I still doodled and wrote down whatever sentence popped into my head at the time. Mom was insistent that it helped me and before I knew it, my teachers handed me a notebook and pencils when I was in elementary. It was just second nature at this point. Fast forward to my senior year, I still used it as a security blanket to hide my disabilities behind.

  My journal is where my chaos comes to die.

  Reading and drawing.

  Drawing and reading.

  I kept my mind out of the real world.

  Before I tuned out everything, I let my eyes linger to Aiden again. His plush bottom lip drug through his teeth as he wrote down every word our teacher said. We’d been together since kindergarten, ever since I shoved him down on the playground. Apparently, that’s what had sealed the deal as far as our parents were concerned.

  Me being a bully.

  Insane concept, but okay.

  I guess I can't expect a lot from a small town. They told their inner circle all about our relationship and how we were “it” for each other. I wanted to throw up when they began their charade, but Aiden ate it up. He’s just too into himself to see how dull I am behind my face.

  Tilting my head back to my journal, I pushed him to the furthest corner of my mind. I gripped my pencil and began drawing again, hoping to forget everyone.

  People are so odd to me. It’s better to not dwell on them. Specifically, those of my hometown of Pinewood. They’re too comfortable being like everyone else. Graduate college, get a subpar job, marry your high school sweetheart knowing one of you will cheat. Buy a home, have a boy and a girl, and grow old together?

  Unhappy and unchanging.

  Whatever you do, don’t get too close to the edges of the box. Stay inside it. Be normal. Be like everyone else.

  I couldn’t pinpoint when that dream became a nightmare to me. Maybe it was dad’s late nights at the office, or mom's faint crying heard through our thin walls. I began to utterly loathe it here.

  But when I was younger, I craved normalcy. I feared becoming an outsider, but now to stay on this path would kill my ice-cold soul. A life full of living the same day over and over again like a cheap horror knock off of Groundhog Day.

  Gross.

  “Rocki?” Aiden’s blue eyes, full of questions, stared at me.

  “Yeah?”

  “That was the bell. You coming?”

  I looked between him and the books in his hand. He was standing by my desk. All of the students had left the room.

  His concerned face morphed into a playful one. I knew he hated the fact that I lived in my head, zoning the world out completely. But that was his problem, not mine. I preferred to live in my mind. I liked it here.

  Tucking my hair behind my ears, I grabbed my notebook full of doodles, slamming it shut before he saw. He thought my doodles and notes were odd.

  And I thought his opinions of me sucked ass.

  I scraped my bottom lip through my teeth. Does everyone loathe their high school sweetheart more as they get closer to graduation? Or is it just me? Maybe I’m just ready to get out on my own. Away from this town. Away from Aiden.

  I trailed behind him to my lock, dragging my feet to my locker.

  I jiggled the old handle until it gave in and swung open. A couple of loose pages slung out, and I reached for them, shoving them back inside with my textbook. Closing my locker for the last time of the day is about the most joy I’ll get at this place.

  “You should think about cleaning that out some time,” Aiden said.

  His smile was dazzling. Any other girl in this hallway would be swooning, but I only smiled tightly and adjusted my backpack strap.

  Because I knew it was an insult. He nitpicked me. He wanted me to be the girl he expected, and I was far from it. Growing further every single day.

  “I just keep thinking maybe you’ll get tired of looking at it and clean it for me,” I said, and his eyebrows shot up.

  “Don’t hold your breath.” He smiled, but I knew he would eventually cave. He always did. Whatever he could do to make me appear superior, worthy of someone like him.

  “So, what are your plans for the weekend?” he asked.

  I looked down at my white chucks. They were paint splattered and mom loathed them, but I thought they had character. That, and I liked to watch her face twist into disgust every time I left the house in them. When she’s actually out of bed, that is.

  Hm, maybe that’s why they’re my favorite.

  “Rocki?” He was grinning at me again.

  Right. I have to speak to him. Kill me.

  “Emily invited me over for a movie night,” I said, and he smiled.

  “Good. You need to get out more. I’ll text you when I get to my cousin’s dorm, okay?”

  He placed a kiss on my cheek. Inwardly cringing, I tried not to show him how much I hated any touch. Taking a few steps back, with a tiny salute, he turned and walked out of the side doors.

  The one good thing about Aiden? He didn’t push me to be physical. He knew I would run away screaming from most touches. I tried to meet him halfway, but damn, if I didn’t hate it.

  In a weird way, he wasn’t a typical boyfriend. He was a protector, a shield, a walking and breathing babysitter. But he’d played that role in my life for so long, I didn’t challenge it. It just kind of worked.

  For now.

  A dozen lower classmen were in the hallways still, working out their weekend plans I assumed, their eyes followed him before landing on me. I could always see it in their eyes. Sure, I was pretty, but my personality was about as exciting as watching paint dry.

  I rolled my eyes and left in the same direction as he did, hoping he would be gone by now. With eyes glaring into my back, I picked up my pace, show is over for the day. If I can get through Emily’s night, I can be alone for the weekend. My shoulders dropped in relief as I walked to my car. I don’t have to pretend when I’m alone.

  Emily is a liar.

  This isn’t a small movie night. She shot me an apologetic smile, her other friends in tow. I knew when I saw Caroline Finch and her minion, Maci, tonight wouldn’t be a simple movie night.

  They were the cliche of what a high school girl was in every cheesy chick flick. Tall, blonde, perfect, popular, and mean as hell. I never understood what made them think they needed to make snide comments to me., as if I needed another reason to want to stay away from them.

  Emily and I had always been close. As soon as we crossed town and stepped foot in the high school, she became a cheerleader. And me? I just stayed the same.

  Fast forward four years, Emily toed the line, ping-ponging between being my friend, as she had my whole life, to being friends with the popular crowd. When she meshed us together, like tonight, it never went as planned.

  So, when I showed up to Emily’s place and Caroline flipped her blonde hair back, hands on hips, and told me we were going to a party, I wasn’t surprised. I just shot Emily a look, hoping she understood why I never hung out with them.

  I’m no saint. I wouldn’t mind drinking at movie night, but when it involved other people, that’s where I drew the line. Nothing annoyed me more than being cramped inside a packed house equipped with sweaty bodies and drunk high school students. It was a
recipe for disaster. Best case scenario, cops would be called, and I would have to run home. Worst case, I’d have to speak to someone.

  “This is going to be huge!” Caroline practically squealed.

  “So huge.” Sarcasm was dripping from my tone. “Maybe if I close my eyes, I can pretend we’re having a movie night at your place, like you said.”

  “I’m just glad you came!” Emily’s eyes were already glazed over.

  When I showed up at her house, she pulled me in for a hug and spilled her drink down my tee. I took a step back, fanning my shirt as the ice-cold fabric clung to my skin. And now, an hour later, I stood in front of a different house with a damp shirt.

  “I came because I thought it was a few girls watching a movie.”

  She popped her tiny shoulder up. “Word got out.”

  “I’m sure it did.”

  I looked at the two-story home in front of us, grimacing. It was huge and screamed money. As a matter of fact, this whole damn town did. I hated venturing out over here. I’d only encountered pretentious, rich dicks.

  I could already hear the voices and music from the lawn. When Emily started walking, I followed her.

  “How do we know these people?” I asked.

  We were in Cape Pleasant, two towns over. I mean, we played against this school, but as far as I knew, we didn’t hang out with anyone from here. Because rivalry and all of that. Or so Aiden told me. My interests didn’t extend to finding out who our football team hated.

  Caroline rolled her eyes. “We don’t. I heard some guys talking about it in class.”

  I paused. “We weren’t invited?”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, she chuckled. She towered over me by at least four inches; she was physically intimidating but I don’t think she knew that. Because Caroline only cared about being an asshole with her mouth. But nobody called her out on it. She was perfect. Leggy, blonde, and perky. Basically, the total opposite of me. And she could be an asshole if she wanted.

  “Do you think they have a little door man with a clipboard?”

  I clamped my mouth together, counting in my head before I responded. We wouldn’t get anywhere if I shot a snarky comment that would shoot over her head. I glanced at Emily; I was doing this for her.