Truth or Dare

by Non Pratt

“Slow down, all right?” Danny laid a hand on my arm and I stared at the chapped skin of his knuckles. “What are you on about? This isn’t anyone’s fault.”

  “You saying it’s his?!” Was Danny pulling an Auntie Iffat? I tried to stand up and failed, got my legs tangled in the bar stool.

  “No, that’s not—“

  But anything Danny was saying had stopped making sense, like I could only hear the things I expected him to say, my own guilt projected onto one of the two people in the world who might know what it felt like.

  “I’m the one. Me.” I still couldn’t disentangle myself from the bar stool. “Didn’t you see the sign?”

  “You’re not making any sense, mate – shit – I knew I shouldn’t have let you have another. Sef?”

  “You should have stopped him!” I yelled.

  “Sef – stop shouting.”

  “It’s my fault!” I finally broke free of my stupid bar stool and stumbled forward, arm out to balance – I’d fallen off a cliff. A bridge. Alcohol impacting on my brain the same way the rocks had smashed into Kam’s…

  I felt hands pulling me up and I was yelling at Danny to stop him – them – me? – finding myself bundled outside, my arms wrapped round his neck so that I was sobbing into his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

  As the words looped in my ears, around my brain, out my mouth, I cried harder and harder until I had to push away from Danny to throw up in one of the beer-barrel planters by the door.

  Apologies mean nothing.

  JANUARY

  CHAPTER 24

  So much of my holiday had been spent on the same circuit: Instagram, Twitter, our channel, Moz’s video, the donations page, Instagram, Twitter… The only time I felt like I could relax was once Claire was back. As if being with her gave me permission to stop.

  Whereas school got in the way.

  “I’ve been standing here for thirty seconds, you know.”

  I assumed whoever it was couldn’t have been talking to me.

  “Hello…? Sef?” A hand swept back and forth between my gaze and the screen. Small. Brown. Gold rings and red nails. Laila.

  “What?” I looked up fast enough to catch the disapproval she tried to hide.

  “We’ve got English.”

  “Have we?”

  This time she let her exasperation show. “It’s been the same time every Thursday since September. Come on.”

  I looked at my phone. Moz had posted the second video to bait his viewers into donating more for a chance to be part of the food fight and I hit refresh on the donations page – to find it snatched from my hand. Laila took a step back, fingers wrapped round my phone casing as she waggled it, like a bone to a dog.

  “Give it back, Laila.” I held out my hand, barely able to keep the irritation from my voice.

  “No … you have to –” she glanced over her shoulder to navigate her way across the room – “come with me to lessons.”

  “What are you, my mum?”

  That hit its target. She stopped smiling, her arm slowly coming down. The look on her face wasn’t one I recognized, not even after years of being friends, months of being something more. Puzzled and hurt. Embarrassed. We weren’t the only people in the common room – other people who had frees were still there, some bell-stallers for the next lesson. Helen, who had English too, waited by the door, shaking her head.

  “I’m just trying to get you to come to English, Sef.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s where you’re supposed to be.”

  “So? Isn’t it up to me to decide whether I go to lessons?” I snapped my fingers for my phone. “Give. It. Back.”

  “Come to English.” Laila tightened her grip on my phone, hugging it to her chest.

  “Give me the phone, Laila.” I stepped over and she stepped back – a parody of the sort of fight I might have had with Kam or Amir – and I darted in to snatch it back.

  Missed.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Every last trace of humour had drained from her face, eyes wide, not quite believing what she was seeing.

  “Nothing! Just give me my phone and fuck off to your lesson.” I was shouting now, the whole room stopping what they were doing to stare as I told one of the most loyal friends I’d ever had to fuck off.

  “Fine.” Laila’s voice was quieter than mine, but it hurt so much more to hear. She held out my phone and, without hesitation, I plucked it from her grasp, tapping in my passcode to check for views.

  When I looked up, she’d gone.

  Fame brings misfortune more assuredly than it brings anything else and as the comments multiplied on our channel, so did the venom. Cruel comments on Claire’s body and her face, stuff that she showed a remarkable resilience to until the cinema incident with her friend Seren reminded me that Claire had already had practice at this. Practice at pretending – didn’t mean it wasn’t cutting her beneath the surface and I took every care to make sure she knew that whatever was being said, it wasn’t real. I’d kiss the skin that winked between her T-shirt and her jeans, tell her that she was gorgeous.

  Show her what I meant by that.

  It was a surprise, up in the caravan, my hands all over Claire’s body, taking things so much further than I’d felt comfortable doing with Laila. A surprise at how easy it was. How enjoyable. How having Claire that close felt safe when the thought of letting anyone else in felt so dangerous.

  But there were other dangers out there. Comments that couldn’t be kissed away. Not about her, but about me.

  Claire called me in tears during my shift and I had to sneak into the staff room to take it, pissing off the guy I was working with.

  “What is it? Are you OK?”

  “No…” She just kept crying, worrying me with every sniffle until she blurted out, “Someone’s left some more horrid comments on the TRUTH: Coupled Up? video.”

  I didn’t understand. I’d done a comment sweep a few hours ago and there’d not been anything to raise the alarm.

  “About you,” she whispered.

  “Oh,” I said, staring at the broken padlock that hangs off my locker. She meant those ones. “That. Racist troll in internet shocker. Be sure to get the Daily Mail on that, yeah?”

  I was surprised it had taken this long.

  “It’s awful.” I could picture her then, knew exactly what Claire looked like when she was appalled by something.

  “I know, but I’m at work, so…” I could feel myself getting irritated.

  “I was worried you might have seen it.”

  “Of course I’ve seen it.” I rolled my eyes and started pacing the room. “It’s not the first time I’ve been called those things, Claire.”

  Diet, heritage, birthplace. Terrorist leanings. All fair game for bigots.

  An anonymous weasel bashing away at a keyboard bothered me a lot less than an angry mob of snot-nosed runts following me down the street. Or an old lady shouting at my mum in Tesco. Or the people in my class who shouted up to defend free speech while shouting down my right to be offended by it.

  Claire was asking if I was OK, annoying me because it wasn’t really about me being OK at all, it was about making her feel OK.

  “People are racist. Shit happens.”

  “I’m not racist,” she said in a small voice. But whatever Claire wanted not to be, she couldn’t help being privileged. Couldn’t help but see something awful aimed at me and feel upset about it herself.

  “I know,” I said, trying to be patient. “But I’ve had a lot of practice at this, OK? So … can you maybe let me get back to work before Brian starts hurling justified abuse at me for being a skiving bastard?”

  It wasn’t the funniest of jokes, but it got her off the line.

  CHAPTER 25

  It was Moz who decided that Claire should kick things off for the food fight.

  Me???

  You. Viewers have seen more (too much) – winky face – of Dare Boy. Time we sa
w Truth Girl get her hands dirty.

  We’d been on a group chat, but Claire was sitting curled into the crook of my body as we lay on the bed in the caravan, not-quite-watching a movie on her laptop, and I recognized the panic burning in her eyes as she showed me the message on her phone.

  “You’ll be fine…” I’d murmured. Jealous as I was, there’s never been any point arguing with Moz. What Moz wants, Moz gets.

  I’d kissed her bare shoulder, pressed my face into her skin and wrapped my arms around her body, wondering whether I could make her feel safe too, or whether it only worked one way.

  I felt so proud of her when she clambered up onto the table, fist raised like she was starting a revolution, but as soon as the first bun was fired, I lost sight of her, too immersed in my own battles, my arms aching from throwing food at my ten-second friends, people whose names I didn’t need to know to get off on the high of fighting with them.

  When the whistle went, Moz was near enough to slip across the spaghetti-strewn floor to deliver a straight-to-camera shot, his hair matted with what looked like ice cream, a tomato-sauce handprint smeared across the side of his face like sweet and sticky blood.

  “And so the fun begins…” He blew a kiss to the camera, winked at me and ran.

  I waited until the last possible second to run so that it felt more like fleeing, a rocket of adrenalin tearing through my body, burning brighter, hotter, faster than anything I’d felt before – on the car roof in London or even on Valley FC’s frosted football pitch. It was the closest the dares had brought me to the rush I’d felt the moment I stepped off the viaduct. I wondered if this was the last thing Kam had experienced before his life crashed in on him.

  The world flipped the wrong way up and I exploded on impact, my armour blasted off to leave me bare.

  Driving back, I found it hard to keep within the speed limit, the need to escape weighing down my foot as it rested on the accelerator, making me impulsive as I pulled in front of that car or tried to make it through those lights…

  Claire might have asked me to slow down but I’m not sure I heard her until she let out a frightened little squeak when I misjudged the roundabout leading off the motorway.

  “I’m sorry…” I’d barely remembered she was there.

  The girl who’d brought me hope.

  When I met her, Claire had turned down going “For a ride in a strange car driven by someone yet to pass their test” – she’d been someone who sculpted her life around doing things right, pleasing other people, avoiding getting into trouble. If you watch the early videos, you can see it there, under the smiles and the jokes, the banter we’ve got, a tremble of fear that she is doing something wrong.

  The channel had made her bolder, brought her strength, whereas I felt it was about to bring me face to face with my weakness.

  The food fight was the biggest dare we’d done, but the thing I was running from now was the fear – the certainty – that it wasn’t going to be enough.

  When I pulled over, Claire was out before I had a chance to say anything in reply to her goodbye, but when she walked round to my side of the car, I wound the window down in time to catch the sleeve of her coat.

  “Come here…”

  “What?” She leaned on the sill of my window, hat pulled down over her ears, skimming the line of her eyebrows. Her nose was red from the cold and there was a rash of small red spots on her chin that had flared up from under her foundation.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “What for?”

  “For all this.”

  “You don’t need to thank me.”

  “I’m sorry.” I kissed her on the lips, more desperate than tender.

  “Sef…” She stroked my face, her thumb tracing in the wake of my tear. “Are you all right?”

  I shook my head. “I’m frightened. What if he can’t stay there? What will happen? Where will he go?”

  “I get it.” She kissed me on the forehead. “I’m frightened too.”

  “We’re not going to make it.”

  “Shush now.” She kissed the tears from my cheeks, the words from my lips. “We still have time.”

  I shook my head, but she reached in and cradled my head in her hands.

  “Let’s just see, OK? No giving up. Not yet.” Her eyes were as gentle as her hands. “We’re going to do this. It’s not going to happen. Kam will be safe, I promise.”

  FEBRUARY

  CHAPTER 26

  Back in September, I’d thought we could raise over sixty thousand pounds in the time we had. The page for the Rec says it takes millions to run – compared to that, sixty grand isn’t that much, but compare it to the amounts of money people raise on the internet for charity and sixty thousand pounds is huge.

  I’d been kidding myself, hiking my hopes up to match the amount.

  Our idea wasn’t original, but our brand was. Claire’s talent for tech and mine for messing around, multiplied by our onscreen chemistry, that was our magic formula. We’d go viral within weeks…

  Equation not working? Change the formula. Add a Moz-shaped catalyst.

  We’d had until March to make a difference and all of a sudden it was February.

  With nothing doing on the channel, I was downstairs writing an essay when the phone rang. I yelled for Amir three times before I gave up and ran to catch the house phone on the last ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, please can I speak to Omar or Farah Malik?”

  I was surprised it was actually a human – most of the house calls are robot voices talking about insurance claims and stuff.

  I slipped automatically into being a kid, when I’d race for the phone to play at being grown-up and important. “Can I ask who’s calling?”

  “It’s Genevieve Tatlock, from the Recreare, regarding their son, Kamran.”

  “Oh.” And without hesitation, I told her, “This is Omar.”

  My best Dad voice is usually reserved for taking the piss, but there are other benefits.

  “Of course, didn’t recognize you on the phone for a moment there!” Her voice thawed a little. “It’s about the directors’ meeting. I’m afraid that things haven’t worked out the way we’d hoped.”

  “How do you mean?” You have to be so careful, pretending to be someone else. Would my dad say that?

  Apparently he would. “I was hoping we could talk about this all together, rather than over the phone.”

  “Please…” My voice was my own, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “I’m really sorry to have to tell you this, but I’ve spoken with the long-term care team and although I made the case for Kam to continue his stay on a rolling basis, I’m afraid without guaranteed funding, he’ll need to be moved by the end of this—”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “No, no, he has to stay.”

  “Omar?”

  “How much do you need?”

  “Is everything OK?”

  “HOW. MUCH.” I screamed into the handset.

  “Who is this? I need to speak to—”

  But I missed the end of her question as the phone smashed against the opposite wall, the battery case falling open. I picked up other things, anything. Throwing them across the room and shouting. Pictures and trophies and DVD cases – a vase, the clock…

  Amir was thundering down the stairs and flew through the door. “What the—”

  Olympus Has Fallen caught him across the forehead and he ducked back into the hall.

  “Sef! Stop it! Stop throwing stuff.”

  “MAKE ME!”

  But he didn’t. He just waited outside in the hall as I threw everything I could around the front room, rampant in my rage, powerless to stop what was happening to Kam. I swept my arm along the shelves, sending the remaining plastic cases flying, the atlas Mum gave Dad for his fortieth knocking over the big lamp. I hurled a set of coasters at the window and reached for the last thing left standing on the mantelpiece.


  A photo of Kam. One they took at Christmas with him wearing a flashing Rudolph badge and a massive smile – one that is really his, not just a projection of what other people want to see when they look at him.

  I smashed it into the marble ledge, the glass shattering in my grip, cutting deep into the flesh of my palm, my fingers still wrapped round the picture inside, as if by clinging on to this, I could cling on to Kam.

  There was a noise by the door into the hall and Amir peered round the doorframe, gazing at the mess I’d made, fragments of china and glass, the plastic cases that had popped open to spill shiny blue and silver discs across the carpet.

  There was a gouge out of the wall where I’d first thrown the phone.

  “OK…” He finally looked at me, standing there, clutching the photo frame, panting. Blood running through my fingers.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  Amir eyed the debris at my feet. “Can see that.”

  Then he stepped in properly and squatted down, picking up one of the ancient DVD cases and slipping the disc back inside. A workout one Mum never has the time to use.

  “You don’t have to help.”

  “I know,” he said, and carried on helping.

  I was in for it when my parents got back.

  Genevieve Tatlock had called Mum on her mobile, but Dad was the closest to home and he found me sitting at the dining-room table, superglue squidging out of the cracks in the vase Mum had inherited from Nan.

  Not all rage is loud.

  I watched as Dad sat in his chair at the end of the table and reached for the first-aid kit.

  “Give me your hand, Yousef.”

  When Mum arrived, he’d redone Amir’s botched attempt at dressing my wound and we collected what couldn’t be salvaged into a bin bag. After that, she asked Amir if he’d give us a minute – one that turned into half an hour, in which my parents took turns telling me off for trashing the joint, for impersonating Dad, for how I’d shouted at the woman from the Rec…

  Mum suggested booking extra counselling sessions, but Dad rolled his eyes and made a pointed remark about how well they’d been working so far.