Truth or Dare

by Non Pratt

  Ever since her sister started preschool, Seren’s been getting ill, but she stresses about missing lessons and this is the first time this term she’s actually been off. It’s possible she’s not exaggerating about the plague.

  But I’ve my own problems to deal with – the video for TRUTH: When was the last time you picked your nose? was supposed to go up last night, but I spent so long on the dare video that it’s still not ready.

  “Rich…” I sidle up to him during registration and hold out my phone for him to read Seren’s message.

  “No worries. I’ll get a lift with Charlie after practice – he lives over Seren’s way.”

  I’d forgotten he had football. “You don’t have to—”

  “Shush now.” He pats my head. “Anything for my favourite girls.”

  The mug of tea I made when I got home has gone cold by the time I finish editing the video and I leave the file transferring to Sef for approval, padding downstairs to make myself another drink, wondering how many videos it takes to get good at editing…

  Deciding I deserve a treat, I pop a hot chocolate capsule into Dad’s posh coffee machine and pick my phone up from where I’d left it by the kettle.

  There are thirteen notifications – all from Seren.

  OH MY GOD CLAIRE!

  Rich came round with my homework.

  It was horrid. SO. VERY. AWFUL.

  He was all twitchy and he smelled like a scratch-and-sniff David Beckham advert and then he asked me if I liked him.

  Of course I like him, he’s my best friend, but then he said he didn’t mean it like that.

  (*One* of my best friends. You’re the other one.)

  Why aren’t you replying???

  Where are you???

  He said he has “feelings” for me and that he needed to get things out in the open.

  HE TOLD ME HE LOVES ME!

  “What?” I hiss in horror at my phone.

  So I told him that I loved him too, but he didn’t let me finish and then he tried to kiss me. (WHY? WHY WOULD HE DO THAT? I’VE GOT SNOT LEAKING FROM MY EYEBALLS! DID HE WANT ME TO ASPHYXIATE?)

  And then we had a fight and… I can’t do it like this.

  Can I come over?

  The last one is only a couple of minutes old and I tap back a message apologizing for going AWOL and saying of course she can come over. As I’m sending it, a message arrives from Rich.

  So, I cleared the air with Seren – atomic-bomb style. I don’t think we’re friends any more.

  Half an hour later and Seren is on my doorstep. There are dark bags beneath her eyes, two feverish flares of pink on her cheeks and she reeks of Olbas oil and sweat. It’s intoxicating – not in a good way – and I wonder if Rich was high on the fumes when he thought it was a good idea to kiss her.

  Up in my bedroom, windows open, I hand Seren a box of tissues and in between sips of the hot orange I made her, she tells me what happened. A longer version of what she said in her messages, essentially, but with more nose-blowing and shouting.

  “Are you OK?” I say when she’s done.

  “No.”

  I wait, but Seren can be very literal sometimes and won’t say anything more than you ask.

  “How do you feel?” I try.

  “Nauseated.”

  “I meant about Rich.”

  “Like I said: nauseated.” She gives me a weak little smile as she breathes out and collapses into her own lap. I reach over and stroke her back. “Why, Claire … why would he tell me all this? He knows – you both do. It’s not like that for me. I’m ace and I’m aro and … I don’t … ugh!” She pings back upright to blow her nose.

  Until Seren told us she was asexual, I didn’t know you could come out as anything other than gay or bi and I’m not always up on the terms she uses. I spend a lot less time on Tumblr than Seren does.

  “What does aro mean again?”

  “Aromantic. No interest in romance. As in, zero interest in having a relationship beyond the platonic variety and certainly not wanting to be accosted on my own doorstep.”

  “OK, but, wouldn’t you rather Rich was honest with you?” I try, wanting to defend him.

  “No,” she says, her voice quiet. “Honesty isn’t everything. His crush or love or whatever it is he thinks he feels, that’s his problem – all he’s done is offload it onto me.”

  I could weep for her, because that is exactly what I should have said to him. Only I didn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “You don’t have to be. It’s not your fault, is it?” She smiles, but it falters when she sees the way I’m looking at her.

  “I’m really sorry, Seren—”

  She’s shifted round out of reach. “You knew about this?”

  “I—”

  “How long? Have you been talking about it behind my back? Did you tell him he should do this?”

  “No!” I’m hurt by this. “I told him it wouldn’t change anyth—”

  “But it has!” she snaps, not listening. “It’s changed everything.”

  “It doesn’t have to, though, does it?” I say, trying to talk her down. “You could just take it as a compliment and—”

  Seren rises up out of her chair, a little wobbly, before she starts walking towards the door. “I’m not doing this. Not with you.”

  “What do you mean, not with me? I’m your other best friend.”

  She whips round and I’m shocked to see that she’s crying. “Exactly! Almost anyone else and maybe, yes, I could take it as a compliment, but you and Rich – you’re supposed to get it, you’re supposed to get me!”

  “Why are you shouting at me?” I’m wheedling and I hate it.

  “Because I thought you were on my side, but you’re acting just like everyone else, like asexuality isn’t real, that it’s something I’ll grow out of when I meet the right man or woman or whatever.”

  “When have I said that?” I yelp. “And what’s all this about sides? What battle do you think you’re fighting?”

  “I think I’m fighting this one!” She’s so upset that she’s shouting now. “I don’t want to do sex stuff with Rich any more than you want to do it with a giant squid.”

  “No one’s saying you have to do any sex stuff!” My voice rises to a squeak.

  “But they are – don’t you get it? Society thinks women are only good for sex and babies and I don’t want either.”

  Why does Seren always have to do this? Turn something as small as an unrequited crush into some giant conspiracy.

  “This isn’t about society,” I say. “It’s about Rich—”

  “And Rich isn’t like that,” she finishes for me, but with a lot more sarcasm. “You know he’s had sex with the last two girls he kissed at a party, don’t you?” I didn’t, and I wonder where she got that information from. “You really think if I agreed to go out with him, he wouldn’t want the same from me? And when he did, what would you say to him? Give it a go, she might say yes?”

  The parallel she’s drawing strikes me silent with horror.

  “That’s how people like me get ‘cured’ in some places.” Seren puts the tissues she was going to take with her down on the bed. “I’ll go now.”

  “Seren, please—” I find my voice.

  “I said I’m going.” She doesn’t look back when she says, “Please don’t call me.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Despite being nothing short of a walking, oozing corpse, Seren is back at school on Tuesday, too proud to give in to the temptation of hiding from her problems the way I would have done.

  She doesn’t sit with me in registration – not on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday – and it’s strictly business in lessons. If I get any of our native language out of her during French, it’s as clipped and civil as if she’s reciting it from the textbook, and in English, where we’re allowed to move tables, Seren’s taken to sitting with Oliver Martinez – the human Switzerland. She and Rich pass each other with the calculated disinteres
t of two rival cats and I’m fielding questions from half our class as to why they’ve fallen out.

  As I sum up to Gemma Brogan while we’re waiting together for Media Studies, “Rich did something stupid and Seren won’t forgive him.”

  I don’t add that I’m not forgiven either.

  Rich has been predictably infuriating about the whole thing.

  “Have you even tried to sort this out?” I ask him during Art.

  “Like she’d listen.”

  It’s hard resisting the urge to tip dirty paint water over his head. “So what if she doesn’t? You should still try.”

  “You weren’t there, Claire.” Rich glares at his attempt at a self-portrait. “Seren made it very clear she won’t be listening to anything I have to say ever again.”

  On Friday, I cave. If Rich isn’t going to try, I am.

  Hey. So I know you’re mad with me and I’m so so so sorry. Please can we talk about it? I hate leaving it like this.

  When she replies almost immediately, my heart soars so high it practically flies out of my mouth…

  I’m sorry you hate this, but I’m not in a talking place right now.

  Her message fires an arrow from my phone to my heart, catching it mid-flight so that it flops feebly onto the floor.

  I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me.

  Her reply isn’t so much a long-distance arrow to the heart as a volley of them fired at close-range.

  I don’t hate you, Claire. I just don’t want to talk to you. Please stop trying to make me.

  Seren’s message casts a cloud over my weekend and filming with Sef on Saturday feels a bit flat. He ploughs so much energy into trying to cheer me up, that by the time we’re riding back into town on the bus, I feel exhausted. Also disappointed – it would have made me feel better if he’d simply asked me what was wrong and given me a chance to talk about it.

  “Wish me luck,” he says, after we get off.

  “What for?”

  Sef mimes driving. “Got my test on Wednesday.”

  When I wish him luck, I mean it. It’ll be much easier once he can pick me up from my house.

  The brightest spot of the weekend emerges on Sunday when I visit Kam and learn that he’s been working with his speech and language therapist on basic communication skills. Although it feels like we might be getting on OK – Kam’s loud when I arrive and quiet once I’m reading – it can be hard to read his expression. The way Kam’s muscles hold his mouth open could be mistaken for a smile whether that’s what he intends or not and it’s not always easy to catch his eye when you’re looking down at the words in a book.

  Our attempts at Kam choosing what I read to him don’t quite work out, but he seems to enjoy having a chance to try. When I talk to the charge nurse after our session, she writes down his therapist’s email and encourages me to ask for advice ahead of our next session.

  “Kam’s been working hard on this.” The nurse on duty is younger than Nurse Goethe. “It won’t be long, I’m sure.”

  The accident robbed Kam of his voice, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t anything to say and I look forward to finding out what that is.

  Over the next week, the channel progresses, even if things with Seren don’t. Dare Boy and Truth Girl’s banter is breezy and flirtatious and our challenges cute enough to get a few thumbs-up from the people who watch us – an audience that is almost certainly down to Sef’s social-media offensive, posting across our accounts as one or other of us, signing off on comments as “DB” or “TG” – although if you read enough of them, you can guess who is behind them without the sign-off. Truth Girl is encouraging and unfailingly optimistic – she is also, like me, an emoji enthusiast, whereas Dare Boy is flirty, funny and has a sketchy approach to capitalization and exclamation marks.

  Two different characters, both played by the same person.

  Someone I get the impression he’s keeping me at arm’s length. The way he is on camera, the playful messages, it’s exactly the same as it was when I met him in the car park. The easy and open manner that tricked me into thinking we were closer than we are. Whenever I push for anything more substantial, Sef pushes right back. He never talks about his friends, or Laila. He never says much about his family.

  The weekend after Sef passed his test, driving home I told him I was looking forward to seeing Kam, but when I asked him how he felt about Kam’s progress communicating, he shut down in much the same way he did in the car park.

  “You’ll see for yourself tomorrow. Kam’s life, what he can do and that, isn’t always the same day to day. You know that.”

  And that was it.

  I guess Sef prefers to focus on things he can control, like making money – if only that was what we were actually doing.

  If I’d written down our strategy and handed it in to Miss Stevens, it would have come back with top marks. But the real world isn’t a Media Studies assignment, and for all our efforts, the channel isn’t working.

  My phone buzzes long after I should have been asleep, but Sef’s messaging doesn’t seem to follow any particular schedule.

  Videos are going up. Nice work this week.

  Thanks. But I replied while he was still typing.

  We need to mix it up. Film stuff outside the caravan.

  Despite the fact that I was just thinking the same thing, his suggestion ties a knot in my digestive tract.

  What if someone unmasks us?

  Lex Luther’s more bothered about Superman, tbh.

  I’m serious, Sef. We can’t film round here.

  Fancy spending Friday filming in London?

  It’s the day before half-term and we’ve got an inset day. Sneaking off to London would mean lying to my parents – and Rich. It would also mean spending nearly an hour on a train with Sef. No filming to focus our conversation, no mobile signal to hide behind. I wonder if the thought of actually talking to each other worries him as much as it does me.

  Friday it is. I type. And for better or worse, I press send.

  CHAPTER 12

  When we round the corner to face the gauntlet of street performers leading towards Covent Garden Market, I grind to a halt.

  I don’t think I can do this.

  Everything else we’ve done – from eating earwax to the blindfold spice test – has been fun, but this? This is scary.

  “Can we grab a coffee or something?” I say, meaning Can I lock myself in the toilets and never come out?

  “It’ll only get busier, more people to watch you…” Sef thinks he’s teasing me, but his words prickle like sweat beneath the surface of my skin.

  For all Truth Girl’s T-shirt, make-up and hairstyle transforms me on the outside, on the inside, I’m still Claire Casey, the girl whose boobs popped out of her bikini.

  My hands have turned clammy, vision weird and swoopy and I’m no longer in a busy city street, but back in the park. The murmur of surrounding shoppers has turned to laughter, cries of “Oh my God!” and “Nip slip!” and I’m transported back to that split second between knowing that everyone was looking at me and understanding why…

  “I can’t do this!” I say, my arms instinctively wrapped round my chest. “I’m not – I can’t…”

  Turning away, I hurry down the nearest, narrowest alleyway in an effort to escape the crowds, the dares, the humiliation and when I feel a hand on my back, I flinch away in surprise.

  “Claire! Stop!” And then, “Please.”

  I stop, keeping my eyes down, not wanting to look at him.

  “What’s going on?”

  I’m not sure whether to be pleased he’s forgotten what I said about the #MilkTits video or sad that he’s forgotten me.

  I fix my gaze on a cigarette stub trodden into the cobbles. “I can’t do this. Not in front of an audience.”

  “But all the stuff we’ve filmed—” he starts.

  “… has been in the safety of the caravan.”

  “And recorded for the whole world to watch.” Sef holds up the c
amera, drawing my attention away from the ground.

  “We have thirty-one subs, Sef.”

  Sef reaches out and turns me to face him, fixing me with a frown. Sharp kohl lines trace the shape of his eyes, lashes fanning out to frame his gaze. “We don’t have enough subscribers. We don’t have enough donations.” His voice is low and firm. “But you made me think we could do this and we can. You can.”

  “I can’t.”

  Sef lets out a huff of frustration. “We came to London because we need to be seen to be taking more risks. So why are you here if you aren’t even prepared to try?”

  I think of that moment in the cinema, when I saw Sef before he saw me, when I was ready to risk him laughing at me and I remember what kept me going.

  I’m doing this because I want to help Kam.

  No one sees us coming as I walk towards a silver man sitting on an invisible chair. There’s a semi-circle of disbelieving tourists studying him, a couple of kids daring each other to stand close enough for a photo. The statue man’s gaze is fixed on some point in the middle distance, the crowd too distracted to pay any attention to a masked teenage girl or the boy filming her.

  Breaking rank, I drop some coins in the box and lean in, half expecting the man to clout me with one of his silver hands. But he stays as still as … well, a statue – and I stick my tongue out, wide and flat and lick him all the way from chin to forehead.

  There’s a revolted groan from the audience and a flat tang of chemicals on my tongue and I’m off, not waiting to test the man’s commitment to his art as I dash away down the street, dodging in and out of the crowds, legs pounding like pistons, adrenalin fizzing through me in a rush of relief.

  I did it.

  “At least human statues don’t unload all over you.” Sef’s grumpy because it’s taken him half an hour to catch a pigeon in Trafalgar Square, his arms flapping as frantically as wings until a pigeon flew blindly at his face and he caught it mid-air – the exact moment it emptied its bowels.

  “We should order spare T-shirts.”

  “Or we could just wash the ones we’ve got.” Sef dabs ineffectually at the pigeon poo with a napkin as we queue to order some food.