Truth or Dare

by Non Pratt

  He’s doing the dare tomorrow. We’ve set it up so that whatever’s recorded on his phone goes straight to me and I’ll edit the footage.

  What’s he doing? When?

  Afternoon sometime – no idea what. He’s been shifty about this one.

  Aren’t you worried???

  Should I be? Come on, it’s Sef. He’s not going to do anything *that* dangerous.

  But Moz and I have different definitions of dangerous.

  TUESDAY

  CLAIRE

  The next day, I look for the one person I can think of who might help: Amir. I find out his form from the school office, but when I go there at lunch, the Year 8s that are there don’t know where he is. When I try again at afternoon break, his form room is empty.

  “Claire?” It’s Rich’s sister, Flo. She walks past to get something from her locker in the corner. I hadn’t realized the two were in the same form. “You after something?”

  “You don’t know Amir Malik, do you?”

  “You mean Mally?” Her face lights up.

  What? “I – er, I guess?”

  “We’ve got a library lesson next.” I follow her along the corridor to the library. “Is he in trouble or something?” Flo doesn’t look like she believes it.

  “No, I just need to chat to him about his brother.”

  “You know Kam?”

  “The other brother.”

  “Oh.” And she nods, giving me a curious look. “That brother.”

  In the library, Flo leads me over to where Amir’s sitting with a group of other Year 8s. He’s laughing – and something in his manner reminds me of Kam in those pictures with his friends.

  “Mally?” Flo nods towards me once she’s got his attention. “Claire’s been looking for you.”

  Curiosity flits over his face. He’s nothing like the sullen student I remember from the start of the year, shoulders hunched and a scowl on his face – a memory immortalized by the few things Sef has said about him, implying Amir is a mildly intelligent ferret that can walk on its hind legs.

  But brothers aren’t always the best judge of a person and now he’s standing taller, hair long enough to tuck back behind his ears, Amir looks like he’s growing into someone kind of cool.

  “Hi,” he says.

  “I need to talk to you about Sef.”

  And any trace of laughter leaves his face. “You know Sef?” And then, a sharpening of focus. “Are you Claire?”

  SEF

  Last lesson of the day for me is Drama during period four. I sleepwalk through it – doodling on my notepad, not even pretending to pay attention.

  My classmates aren’t people I’d call friends. I’ve messed about with these guys, grumbled about lessons and said some of the most despicable things to their faces as part of an exercise, flirted with them at lunch even, but nothing more and I’m grateful to be able to spend time with people who’ll leave me be.

  I’m not in the right space to talk to anyone.

  When the lesson is over, I leave, driving off to park up by the river, where I sit with Mrs Bennet’s nose pointing at the viaduct, checking the views and the comments on all the videos we’ve made since we met Moz, heading over to Twitter to banter with him. I’ve been doing this on and off since Sunday so we don’t accidentally trigger some kind of hysteria.

  Apparently Claire isn’t the only person worried about me after watching the video I posted on Sunday.

  Imagine how bad it would have been if I hadn’t edited out half of the things I’d tried to say.

  I pull my mask down and snap a selfie to tweet to Moz.

  And the countdown to the dare begins… Half an hour to go, ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between.

  Moz retweets it and it gets hundreds of likes within minutes – the sort of attention I thirsted for when I was staying up all night trying to drive interest in what we were doing.

  It doesn’t matter how many people watch, it never seems to be enough.

  There’s a message come through from Amir.

  Can you pick me up from school? Feel sick.

  Sorry. Call Dad.

  Seriously? Are you in a lesson or something?

  Or something. Call Dad.

  I pull my mask off and pop it into my pocket, my nerves jangling with anticipation when my phone buzzes again, but it’s not Amir.

  I miss you.

  I can’t help it: I miss you too. Sorry I didn’t catch you yesterday.

  That’s OK. How about you catch me today?

  I want to so much.

  When?

  Now?

  CLAIRE

  I can’t, I’m sorry. I love you.

  His reply flushes my blood cold.

  “It didn’t work,” I tell Amir. We’re standing outside the library still, not sure where else we can go, or what we should do. “Do we call the police?”

  “What do we tell them?”

  Neither of us has an answer for that. It’s not like Sef is missing – he’s just being difficult.

  “Can I see the video again?” he asks and I give him my phone. Cupping it in both hands, holding it landscape, he frowns into the screen, tutting when he tries to skip to the end and gets caught buffering. It was awkward, explaining about the channel, and Amir said very little, until I told him how desperate Sef was to raise money for Kam and I was worried what he was prepared to do.

  “All for Kam?”

  “Yes.”

  For a moment it seemed as if he was crumbling from the inside out.

  I watch the video over again and try to decode what Sef’s saying, where he could be and I grab Amir’s arm in a flash of hope.

  “I think he’s gone to film Kam up at the Rec!” It’s such a relief that I actually feel weak.

  Only Amir doesn’t look even faintly convinced – he’s shaking his head, frowning, his mouth pulled back in a twist of confusion. “Seriously? How can you even suggest that?”

  I don’t understand.

  “My brother’s not been to see Kam in all the time he’s been there and you think he’ll do it today just to make a video?”

  “What? Yes, he has.”

  Amir and I stare at each other, a wall of incomprehension standing between us. Only…

  “He has!” I say more forcefully, and then, “Hasn’t he?”

  SEF

  The car park is on the wrong side of the bridge for where I want to be and I give Mrs Bennet an affectionate little pat before I leave her.

  You get a scratch on her and I’ll kill you.

  Kam would not be happy about that massive dent in her nearside wing where that chunk of tarmac flew up during the chicken dare. Nor about the scrape on her back bumper from my terrible parking.

  Yet another thing I’ve managed to fail him on.

  I walk slowly over the bridge, squashing myself up against the stone wall to let a group of East Bank kids past, then hop over the stile that leads down to the path where a young couple’s romantic summer’s walk was ruined by Kam’s body plummeting into the water. If they hadn’t been there, then no one would have been around to dive in and pull Kam out – his friends were stranded on the viaduct, the only way down to jump.

  Like it’s so much cooler to get trashed and jump into the river?

  The land rises up from the banks of the river in a curve so steep I have to grab on to the weeds with my hands to help pull myself up. It was summer when they came up here, Hamish and Danny strong with alcohol, my brother just plain strong the way he always has been. Had been.

  I think of him hanging off my legs to drag me down from the fence when I tried to impress my friends by taking that dog on. The way he would sometimes try and pick Mum up when she was cooking in the kitchen, her shouting at him to put her down.

  At the top I stop, out of breath from the climb, my hands prickling and sore. There’s new wire along the line of the train track – an even newer notice. A sign that they put up after the kid that tombstoned off the viaduct back in June made th
e front page of the paper.

  You can’t tell from the photo they used that it’s me.

  The sun blares yellow in the clear, cold air and I walk along the track towards the middle of the bridge, alert for the sound of trains – not sure what I’ll do if one comes. It’s not like it’s that wide up here. Over the middle arch, I decide to film so that the town will be in the background, the Rec sitting high up on the hillside. Putting my bag on the ground, I lean out over the wall and look down at the water below.

  The drop looks a lot further than I remember. My phone rings. Moz.

  “Hey hey.” There’s no laughter in his voice. “Where are you?”

  “At the secret location as per the schedule.”

  “Claire just sent me this weird message asking me to call this off. She’s worried you’re doing something stupid.”

  “Sounds on brand for Claire.”

  “Tell me you aren’t doing something stupid.”

  I don’t reply.

  “Because I give a shit, you know?” He’s so serious. “About you.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, Moz.”

  “How much do you need?” He says it so fast I barely catch the words.

  “What?”

  “Money. I have a lot of it.”

  But I’m here now. “Let’s just make the video, OK? You’ve already spunked money on this, so we may as well see it through, right?”

  “Sef—”

  “Are we good to go? Yes or no?”

  “Sure.”

  And he hangs up.

  CLAIRE

  Mr Douglas emerges from the library. He’s the most casually dressed of the school staff and today he’s wearing a T-shirt with a My Little Pony reading a book and the slogan LIBRARIES ARE MAGIC.

  “Amir, your lesson started five minutes ago.” He switches his attention to me. “Yours too, I’m sure, Claire.”

  Amir gives me a desperate glance. “I’m worried about my brother, Mr Douglas.”

  “Of course…” Like Flo, Mr Douglas immediately assumes the wrong one.

  “I mean Sef. He’s missing!” Amir says, but Mr Douglas has no patience for that.

  “That’s enough now, I saw him this morning. Miss Casey has somewhere she’s supposed to be too.”

  And he stands there, glaring Amir into the library and me around the corner. As soon as I’m out of sight, I check the message that’s buzzed through from Moz.

  Called him. Says he’s still doing it. Sorry.

  I’m running out of time, but I’ve an idea of where Sef might have gone…

  I’ve never tried running from my school into town and I’m grateful for the gradient as I heave and pant and sweat my way towards the bridge.

  My mind can’t stop turning over what Amir said about Sef, so many things sliding into place. Why he never talks about Kam, why he must have found being with me so much easier than being with anyone else, because I never pushed him on anything. I wonder if I should feel angry with him for this, and I wonder why it is that I don’t.

  I remember how worried I was when I first went to visit Kam. The sleepless night before, thinking there was a weakness in me that was about to be unearthed. I’d been so frightened of finding that out about myself and yet I shucked off that fear without a second thought.

  That’s the thing about fear. One minute it’s the only thing you can think about, your whole world consumed by imagining nothing but the worst, and the next – poof – it’s gone. Forgotten.

  Did Sef face his fear and fall apart? Or has he been running from it all this time, watching it multiply in the shadow that follows him?

  I feel so achingly sad for him.

  The bridge comes into view and with it the car park on the far side and for one glorious moment hope soars up from within, until…

  “No.”

  I see Mrs Bennet parked on the far side of the bridge and I know that I was right. I’m already heaving in air, lungs aflame with the effort, but I dodge across the road, ignoring the angry drivers crawling in the queue over the bridge. Across the stile and onto the footpath, I force myself to keep moving, my muscles straining as I hurry onwards.

  If I’d told Sef I’d stay, if I’d seen this through to the end, he would never have come here – we would have worked something out.

  I’m crying from the effort and the fear of being too late…

  But I can’t be. There is no choice and I will dredge the strength from the tips of my toenails if that’s what it takes to reach Sef before he starts recording.

  SEF

  Since this is a one-take kind of deal, I want to make sure the app’s working and I hold the phone up, resting my elbow on the top of the wall in an attempt to stop myself from shaking.

  “Hey, Moz. Text me if you get this…” And I leave it running because I daren’t be stopping and starting it in case something goes wrong.

  A few seconds later his message rolls down from the top of the screen.

  Got it. Where the fuck are you? Looks freezing.

  I’ve no time to be chatting about the weather. It’s time for the truth. I take out my mask and the picture I have of Kam, the one from the shattered frame in the front room and I clamber onto the wall so that I’m sitting with my feet dangling out over the river, watching the distant dirty water rippling and swirling beneath my trainers.

  It makes a good shot.

  “That’s the River Lay,” I say, turning the phone, tapping the screen so the lens flips round to show me looking down. “And I’m sitting up here on the viaduct, twenty metres from the surface of the water. Do you dare me to jump?”

  I tap the screen again so it’s filming the water once more.

  “Twenty metres is a long way, isn’t it? My brother should know. It’s the same drop that left him in a coma for seventeen days and damaged his brain so that he can’t do any of the stuff he did before.”

  Tap back to selfie mode and hold up his picture.

  “This is who I’m doing all this for. My brother, Kam. My hero.” My voice wobbles dangerously. “Only… I don’t get how it happened, yeah? Because this jump is totally survivable. Because I jumped it over a month before he did.”

  I take a moment, try to steady my hand.

  “I jumped off here for a dare because that’s what I’ve always been good at and then … the day my brother got his results, I teased him about it. Told him he didn’t have it in him. That he wasn’t brave enough.”

  Don’t cry.

  “And you know what? He did. Only he borked it. And do you know what else? I’m the reason there’s no money to pay for his care.”

  A sob escapes.

  “There wasn’t a sign when I jumped off here for a laugh, but there’s one there now.” I jerk my thumb to where I’ve come from. “Because of me. Says no one’s responsible for what happens beyond it. And that’s why there’s no money to pay for his care – which means it’s up to me to make this right. To make up for the biggest fuck-up of my life. Kam needs the money and the one thing I’ve always been good at is doing a dare.” I pull off my mask and look right at the camera. “This is who I am. And that’s the truth.”

  I struggle up, not worrying about the crap footage of my phone in my hand as I pull myself to stand on top of the wall.

  CLAIRE

  There’s a figure on the bridge and for a heart-stopping second I worry what it is I’m about to see as Sef stands there, tall and spindly against the sky, looking down at the river below.

  I’m so certain he’s about to jump that I see it before it happens.

  Only it doesn’t.

  Slowly, carefully, Sef stoops down and sits on the wall, still precarious, still terrifyingly close to the drop down to the river, but sitting. Not standing. Not jumping.

  Not sure if this is the right thing, not sure of anything any more, I call out his name and raise my hand in a wave.

  A moment later and Sef holds his up in reply.

  Fear that something will happen when my back’
s turned makes it almost impossible to concentrate on climbing up the bank, my hands stinging from grasping at clumps of grass, knuckles grazed from the hard ground. I hurry so fast through the hole in the fence that my jumper and tights catch on the ragged ends of the wire.

  There has never been a more beautiful sight than that of Sef still sitting on that wall.

  Panting and hot, in pain from the climb, a stitch burning a hole in my side, I walk to where he sits and lean forward to peer over the edge.

  The sight of it is enough to make me dizzy and I feel a lurch of horror at the thought of Sef standing up here.

  “I’ve done it before,” he says quietly, his attention not on me, but the water. “Jumped off here.”

  “There’s no need to do it again.” I don’t tell him that I’ve long suspected this to be the case, but step a little closer, so my arm is resting against the side of his thigh, and think about stuff like how cold the water would be, how there’s no one else here to help him if he hurt himself…

  “But I was fine.” He sounds so bitter about it.

  “You were lucky.”

  “It’s my fault he came up here, you know.” For the first time since I got here, Sef glances at me, so quickly that he’s looked away before I can react. “I as good as dared him to do it.”

  “Sef…” I slide my hand closer to his and trail my little finger against where his hand rests on the brickwork.

  “And if it hadn’t been for me –” he hangs his head, a teardrop falling to land on his jeans – “there wouldn’t be that sign …”

  He stops and I slide my hand over his, our fingers locking together.

  “They put it up after I jumped. I didn’t know, not until my uncle told me about paying for the Rec. No liability, no money.”

  All of it slides into place – why it’s the money that matters to him more than anything else. The desperation born of believing he’s to blame.

  SEF

  “I’m sorry, Sef,” she says, and she slides her arms around me, hugging my middle.

  “That’s not the worst thing I’ve done…” I tell her. I don’t want to be alone any more. I don’t want to lie. I’ve finally found a dare I’m more scared of than the truth and the discovery has unlocked me.