Dare You To--A Life Changing Teen Love Story

by Katie McGarry

  “Bullshit.” I turn and face her. “People who break in steal shit and you don’t have shit to steal. And what the hell is that stench?”

  I dyed Easter eggs with Scott once and our trailer smelled like vinegar for days.

  “I’m cleaning,” Mom says. “The bathroom. I got sick in there earlier.”

  Her words hit me hard. Puking can mean an OD. My worst nightmare for my mother. “What did you take?”

  She shakes her head and nervously laughs. “I told you, pot. A little beer. I’m barely buzzing.”

  Ah, hell. “Are you pregnant?”

  I hate it when she has to think for an answer. “No. No. I’m taking those pills. It’s good you found a way to have them sent to me in the mail.”

  Kneading my eyes with my palms, I gather my wits. None of this matters. “Get your stuff together. We’re leaving.”

  “Why? I haven’t received an eviction notice.”

  “We’re gypsies, remember?” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “We never stay still.”

  “No, Elisabeth. You have the gypsy soul, not me.”

  Her statement stops me short and I wait for her to explain. Mom sways from side to side. Whatever. She’s high and I don’t have time for this. I step over the shredded coffee table. “Isaiah offered to take me to the beach and you’re coming with us. We’ll lay low until I turn eighteen next summer and then we’ll be home free.”

  “What about Trent?”

  “He beats you. You don’t need that asshole!” I spot a couple of plastic shopping bags in the corner. Those will do. Mom owns few items worth packing.

  “Elisabeth!” Mom kicks the remains of the coffee table as she bolts after me. She grabs my arm. “Stop!”

  “Stop? Mom, we have to go. You know if Trent comes back and finds me here…”

  She cuts me off and runs her fingers through my hair again. “He’ll kill you.” Her eyes pool with tears and she sniffles again. “He’ll kill you,” she repeats. “I can’t go.”

  My entire body bottoms out like a fast sobering from a high. “You have to.”

  “No, baby. I can’t go now. Give me a few weeks. I got some business to take care of and then we’ll leave together. I promise.”

  Business? “We’re leaving. Now.”

  Her fingers curl in my hair and tighten, yanking to the point of pain. She leans down and places her forehead to mine. The stench of beer rolls off her breath. “I promise. I promise I’ll go with you. Listen to me. I have to clean some stuff up. Give me a couple of weeks, then we’ll go.”

  The doorknob wiggles and my heart kicks into high gear. He’s back.

  Mom grips my hand painfully. “My bedroom.” She drags me through the apartment and loses her balance as she trips over the pieces of broken furniture. “Go out the window.”

  Bile rises in my throat and I begin to shake. “No. Not without you.”

  Leaving Mom here is like watching sand run out of an hourglass while I’m chained to the wall, unable to flip it back over. Someday, Trent will go too far and it won’t just be a bruise or a broken bone. He’ll take the life out of her body. Time with Trent is an enemy.

  “Sky!” Trent shouts when he enters the apartment. “I told you to keep the door unlocked.”

  Mom hugs me tightly. “Go, baby,” she whispers. “Come and get me in a few weeks.”

  She rips the cardboard off the glass and I jump back when a hand shoots through the already-open window. “Give her to me.”

  Isaiah pokes his head in and both of his hands latch onto my body. I stop breathing and realize one way or another, one of these guys is going to kill me.

  RYAN

  I snap my arm forward. With a thump, the ball hits outside the orange box taped onto the black tarp bag that serves as a target. My mind’s not in it today and I need it to be. Placing my pitches is the priority. If Logan calls inside—I need to hit inside. If Logan calls outside—I need to hit outside. If he calls straight down the plate—I need to smack that mother too.

  I keep thinking about Beth. She looked so damn small and lost that I wanted to gather her in my arms and shield her from the world. Definitely not a reaction I ever thought I’d have with Skater Girl. I slap my glove against my leg. I’ll find out what’s going on with her at dinner. Silence will no longer be accepted.

  I roll my shoulder in an effort to find some life in it, but I come up empty. I’ve pitched for the past hour and the muscles in my arm are as useful as jelly.

  The training facility isn’t much, just a warehouse with green turf carpeting and an air conditioner welded to the ceiling. The unit buzzes overhead and every few seconds a bat cracks.

  My coach, John, pushes off the metal wall. “Good, but you’re still throwing with your arm. Your power and consistency are going to come from your legs. How’s the arm?”

  Tired. Beth must hate this place. A warehouse full of guys hitting balls into nets and pitching into bags. Part of me is disappointed. She hasn’t stood once to watch. “I can throw a couple more if you want.”

  “Have you been resting your arm like we’ve discussed?”

  “Yes, sir.” Not as much as I should. I can pinpoint the exact location of my rotator cuff: approximately two inches down from the top of my shoulder and, right now, it aches.

  “Let’s call it a night.”

  I roll the ball over my fingers. Beth isn’t the only issue that’s plagued me this practice and no matter how I try to ignore the thoughts, they keep returning. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Shoot.”

  “If you had to choose between playing college ball and playing pro out of high school, what would you choose?”

  John scratches his cheek as he stares at me with a mix of wonder and confusion. “Do you want to go to college?”

  I don’t know. “If you had the choice, what would you have done?”

  “I didn’t have that choice. College ball was my only option.”

  “But if you did?”

  “I would have gone pro.”

  I slam the ball into my glove. Exactly. Everyone with their college talk and writing competitions is screwing me up. “Thanks.”

  “The question isn’t what I would have done. The question is what do you want to do?”

  BETH

  Isaiah wraps his arm tightly around my waist and heaves me out the window. Mom’s hollow blue eyes have a haunting hurt as she stares at me one last time before slamming the glass pane shut and placing the cardboard back over the window.

  “No!” I’ve left her behind. Again.

  His grip becomes steel and the more I try to scramble back to the window, back to Mom’s apartment, the more he pulls me away. My heart—it’s literally breaking. It has to be, because the pain in my chest slices as if glass is ripping through it.

  My legs tangle with Isaiah’s. He keeps a firm hold on my hip bones and forces weightlessness by lifting me and moving me in the opposite direction of my mom. I struggle back to earth, kicking his shins, knocking my knees against his. “Isaiah, Trent’s in there. He’s going to kill her.”

  “Let’s go.” His growl rumbles against my ear.

  “Did you hear me?” He couldn’t have. Isaiah would never leave me to die, so he could never leave my mom. The one person I need.

  “Yes.” He presses against me and my smaller body yields to his. No. My elbows bend back and with open palms I shove at his chest. My heart convulses with the smack of my hands against his body. I hit him—my best friend.

  I’ll do it again if he doesn’t let me go. “I hate you!”

  “Good,” he says. His nostrils flare as he lightly shakes my hips. “Because I won’t feel bad when I toss you over my shoulder and throw you in the damned car.”

  My palms, still stinging from hitting him, re
st on his chest. His heart beats wildly, matching the crazy glare in his eyes. Isaiah means what he says.

  So do I. “I’m not leaving without her.”

  “Get in the car before I force you into it.”

  His hands tighten. A warning. A threat. My chest constricts, making it impossible to breathe. Impossible to think. “He hits her.”

  I say it like it’s a secret. Because it is. My secret. The secret I hide from everyone. The secret that leads to my worst secret: he hits me. Isaiah knows this already, but it’s different. I’m saying it out loud. I’m making it real. And I’m asking him to save me. I’m asking him to save her.

  Isaiah presses his face unimaginably close to mine. “He will never touch you again.”

  My throat swells and my voice comes out small. “I’ll let him if it saves her.”

  A visible shiver runs through his body and his hands release my waist. Becoming a brick wall, Isaiah plants his feet on the ground and crosses his arms over his chest, practically daring me to move past him.

  I step to the left. Isaiah steps with me. I step to the right. He mirrors the movement. “The car, Beth. Now.”

  “Get out of my way!” He doesn’t and I feel like a cat trapped in a box. I claw at his chest. Push. Hit. Scream. Yell. Curse. Until my hands pound against him again and again and again.

  Frustrated. Angry. Betrayed.

  His arms weave through my attack, placing warm palms against my face. He strokes away the wetness on my cheeks. A wetness I don’t understand. I smack his arms off me. “If you were my friend…if you cared, you’d help me!”

  “Goddamn it, Beth, I’m doing this because I love you!”

  My heart beats once and stalls as the world becomes horrifyingly still. I see it, in his eyes—the sincerity. I shake my head. “As a friend,” I whisper. “You love me as a friend.”

  We stare at each other. Our chests rising and falling rapidly. “Say it, Isaiah. Tell me you love me as a friend.” He’s silent and my mind feels like it’s on the verge of fracturing. “Say it!”

  I don’t want to deal with this. I don’t have time for this. I step around him. “I’m getting her.”

  “Fuck this,” he hisses as he bends. His shoulder makes contact with my waist and in seconds my head dangles over his back, my feet kicking him. I scream and watch through blurred vision as he creates more distance between me and Mom.

  A car door clicks open. Isaiah slides my body from over his shoulder, covers my head, and uses his strength and size to push me into the backseat while keeping me from bolting out of it. The door slams shut and Isaiah has a death grip on my wrist. My head snaps to the left. The other door. It’s locked. I pull at my wrist to gain freedom, to open the other door, but Isaiah retains his hold.

  The car whips into Reverse and the engine whines when it accelerates.

  “What the fuck were you thinking, Beth?” My eyes widen. Noah leans against the passenger door, one hand on the wheel. He doesn’t even wait for an answer. “Isaiah said you’d come back for your mom, but I thought maybe you’d have enough sense to stay away. Jesus, at least you’re predictable. Did you think we wouldn’t remember that you’d check the damn bar before you checked out the apartment? Isaiah, remind me to pay Denny extra for calling us so damned fast.”

  Denny. Traitorous asshole. He told Noah and Isaiah I came for Mom.

  “How did you get to Louisville?” Isaiah asks in an eerily calm voice.

  “Fuck you.” He told me he loved me. A cold sweat breaks out on my skin and my body begins to tremble. My best friend told me he loved me. And my mom. He forced me to leave my mom.

  “Did you convince that Ryan bastard who’s been messing with you to bring you?”

  I glance at Isaiah and he swears. I yank at his hold on my wrist. “Get off of me.”

  Anger blazes from Isaiah’s dark eyes and if the anger wasn’t coming from him, it would frighten me. He has the calm anger. The controlled anger. The type that breaks if pressed too hard for too long. “Not until I know you’re done thinking like an idiot and doing stupid things. You could have gotten yourself killed. Trent’s been bragging at the bar for weeks on how he’ll tear you limb from limb if he sees you again. He blames you for the cops coming to his apartment the week after you went to Groveton. He forgets though, that he has enemies everywhere.”

  I hear the snap inside my head and my entire body flinches. I’ve talked to Isaiah every night and he never mentioned this piece of local gossip. Gossip that would have led me to act faster. If Trent blames me, then he’ll blame Mom, and he already loves hitting her for no reason. Isaiah took me away from Mom and left her there with that asshole.

  Isaiah’s hand still holds my wrist and I don’t want a backstabbing Judas touching me. Pulling my foot off the floorboard, I kick at him, again and again. “Let. Go. Of. Me!”

  He releases my arm to shove my foot off him. “What is wrong with you?”

  “You left her there to die!”

  Isaiah punches the back of Noah’s chair and collapses into the seat. His head falls back and he places his thumb and forefinger over his closed eyes.

  The flat and bitter notes of a Nine Inch Nails song play on the radio and I sink into my corner of the car, pulling my legs into my chest. My heart aches with the lyrics. It’s a phrase embedded in my soul, a lyric that talks about people you love and how in the end…they go away.

  Isaiah took me away from Mom; he won’t help me save her…he told me that he loves me. What used to be my best, strongest relationship has become a leaf withering and dying on a decaying vine.

  I guess everything in life really does end.

  RYAN

  Ten minutes ago, I left practice and found her gone. While I stood here losing my mind, deciding what to do, Beth was out having fun with her friends. I panicked, wondering if I should call Scott, the police, my dad. I imagined Scott’s grief and thought about how angry my father would be when he learned I lost the niece of our town hero.

  Mostly, I worried about Beth. Terrified someone took her. Praying she wasn’t hurt or scared. Now I feel like a fool.

  A few minutes ago, they pulled in and now Beth argues with the overrated tattooed punk I’ve seen before. I don’t dare move a muscle, because I’m terrified I’ll rip every single black hair out of Beth’s head. Planting myself firmly next to my Jeep, I watch as Beth and her punked-out friend continue their heated discussion.

  Beth played me like I’ve never been played before. I made a terrible mistake. I tried to like her. Screw Beth. Let her tank her life. She agreed to go to the party with me Friday. I won the dare. Deal done.

  Beth bolts from the shitty car.

  “Beth!” Tattoo Guy snags her by her belt loop. “You’re not leaving. Not like this.”

  I flinch, but force myself to stay still. She wants this guy. She left me to be with him.

  “Then keep the promise you made to me, Isaiah. Take me. Tonight.” Her eyes search him and the desperation clawing at her face makes watching the scene uncomfortable. Whatever answer she’s looking for, he doesn’t have. He turns his head away with his eyes cast down. The other guy closes his door to the car and slowly approaches them, yet keeps his distance.

  Great, I’m back to the odds of two against one. That is, if I cared enough to step in. Which I don’t.

  Isaiah glances at the other guy. “You always said you wanted a home and now you’ve got one.”

  Beth blinks. “Not this home.”

  I straighten. The attitude that makes her larger than life evaporates. She’s small. Very small. Especially when standing in front of two menacing guys. Not only does she appear small, but she seems very…lost.

  “Wait until you graduate. Just a couple more months. Noah and I talked and…”

  With the name Noah, Beth’s head jerks and anger blaze
s from her blue eyes. “You promised.”

  “Beth.” The other guy, who I’m guessing must be Noah, uses a calm tone that even I know will send her over the edge. “You belong in Groveton.”

  In a flash of black, Beth races over to Noah. Her hand darts out, and she strikes him across the face. The sound echoes against the walls of the warehouse. Beth’s chest heaves as she gasps for air. “Fuck you.”

  I push off the Jeep. What the hell? Noah gingerly touches his cheek, then inclines his head as if to release tension. “I was starting to feel left out after your little show back at the apartment complex.”

  “This is your fault!” she screams. “You and Echo and your new life. You turned Isaiah against me because you’re too scared to be real. You want to be fake. Just like your girl.”

  Tattoo Guy—Isaiah—places his hand on Beth’s arm and yanks her away from Noah. Hell no. Punk or no punk, a girl is in serious trouble if she hits a guy, and a guy should never touch a girl. My fingers tighten into a ball as I stalk over. “Get away from her.”

  “Groveton,” Isaiah says as he ignores me. “With your uncle. That is exactly where you need to be.” He points south, away from Louisville, toward home. “That world can give you what I can’t. Not now. Just wait until graduation.”

  “If you meant what you said,” she says in a low growl, “you’ll keep your promise now.”

  A dark shadow seems to encompass the guy and I quicken my pace. “I said get away from her.” My heart pounds in my chest. Two against one. The odds are bad, but I’ll take them.

  “Don’t you dare throw that in my face,” Isaiah says to her, then rips his stare from Beth to focus on me. “This doesn’t involve you, man, so fuck off.”

  “The hell it doesn’t. She came here with me and she’s going home with me. Anything that happens to her in between is my business.”

  He angles his body toward me. “You say that like she’s yours.”

  “Isaiah,” Beth whispers. “Don’t.”

  With only two feet between us, I take another step with every muscle prepared for a fight. “She became mine the moment you laid a hand on her.”