Dare You To--A Life Changing Teen Love Story

by Katie McGarry

  An underclassman nods her head in my direction. “She’s here.”

  The whispering and laughing cease and people distance themselves from me and my locker. Dread forces all hope to abandon my body. Written on my locker is the word I fear the most: whore.

  Whore.

  I slept with Ryan on Friday night.

  Whore.

  But he came to the hospital Saturday. He texted and called on Sunday, but I was too exhausted to call back. Ryan cares.

  Whore.

  I spin on my heel and try to escape down the hallway—away from my locker, away from the whispers and the laughter. I round a corner and slam into a friend of Gwen’s. “Well, look who it is—Beth Risk. Is it true you were arrested in Louisville?”

  The only person I told about that was Ryan. “Go to hell.”

  Her friends laugh and she smiles. “Gwen tried to warn you. Ryan and his friends take dares very seriously. What made you think you were anything more than that?”

  Ryan gave me a bottle of rain. He told me he loved me. He wouldn’t tell people that we slept together or that I was arrested in Louisville. He wouldn’t call me a whore. “I’m not a dare.”

  “Really? Then how come Ryan’s parents didn’t know that you guys were dating? In fact, his mom told my mom that they forbade him to date you weeks ago.”

  The ice pick straight to my heart leaves me speechless and I step back, but my retreat isn’t enough. She glances at her friends, then narrows her eyes at me. “Not only were you a dare, but you were Ryan’s dirty little secret.”

  RYAN

  I park the Jeep behind Chris’s truck and hop out. I’ve got to find Beth and I need to find Gwen. I’ll hand Gwen homecoming. I’ll tell her that Beth and I will drop out, as long as Gwen keeps Beth’s secrets. Chris and Logan lean against the tailgate and smile when they notice me. Today could be a nightmare for Beth and I’m going to need their help. “Have you seen Beth?”

  Both of them shake their heads.

  “Have you seen Lacy?” asks Chris. “She was supposed to meet me here.”

  I scan the parking lot and spot Lacy bolting out the side doors. “There she is.”

  Chris straightens as he watches her hurry to us. “Something’s wrong.”

  She bypasses Chris, reaches out, and slaps me across the face. The pain sucks, but the worst part is the tears streaming down Lacy’s face.

  “How could you?” she chokes out.

  Lacy’s never hit me before. She’s never hit anyone before.

  Chris places himself between me and Lacy while Logan yells at the people loitering to witness the show to keep moving. “Lace, what the hell?” Chris says.

  Lacy shoves Chris and the shoves turn frighteningly close to hitting. “What the hell?” she screams. “What the hell is wrong with you? You were supposed to be her friend.”

  From behind her, Logan pulls her hands to her sides. “Slow it down, Lace. Tell us what’s wrong.”

  Tears overflow from her eyes while she stares at me. “You promised me you wouldn’t hurt her. You promised she was no longer a dare.”

  Beth. She means Beth. “She wasn’t. I mean, she was, but you know I called it off.”

  She jerks her arms out of Logan’s grasp, but he stays near in case she decides to attack again. “Everyone is saying Chris and Logan dared you to sleep with her. They said you won when you took Beth into the woods during the last field party. They said you slept with her and that she told you about her past. Everyone knows what happened to her in Louisville. Everyone knows.”

  Gwen. I smack my fist into the side of Chris’s truck. “Have you seen Beth?”

  Lacy shakes her head. “Tell me you didn’t do it. Please.”

  Chris hesitantly touches her cheek. “No, baby. The dare ended the night Ryan fell for her.”

  She wipes the tears from her face. “Someone wrote whore on her locker.”

  Logan runs both hands over his face while Chris swears. The nightmare has already begun.

  * * *

  I search the hallways for Beth and I come up empty. The first warning bell rings and from the opposite end of the hallway Lacy shakes her head. Dammit. They can’t find her either. Logan taps my shoulder. “She just walked into class.”

  Finally. I take off down the hallway and step into class right when the tardy bell rings. Lacy, Chris, and Logan trail behind me. Chris claps my back and the three of them head for our seats. Someone shushes the whispering and laughing as everyone watches me. I study Beth. She’s reclaimed the seat in the corner of the room instead of the one she took next to me weeks ago.

  Just like the first day of school, Beth’s hair hides her face and she doodles in her notebook. My ribbon no longer graces her wrist.

  An adult I don’t know clears her throat. We must have a sub today. “Do you mind taking your seat?”

  Beth glances up at me, then immediately looks back down. It’s as if I swallowed knives. She’s heard the rumors and she believes them.

  Perfection. It’s what everyone expects from me. Take my seat. Do my work. Go to practice. Play ball. Keep everything bottled up and let your insides rot as long as the outside looks perfect. “Beth.”

  She keeps her head down and the substitute steps into my line of view. “Either find a seat or find yourself in detention this afternoon.”

  “Ryan,” Chris says, “the game.”

  The game against Northside. I promised Chris I wouldn’t miss another game and detention would bar me from keeping that promise. Reluctantly, I take my seat and turn to stare at Beth, willing her to look at me.

  “We’ll catch her after class,” Chris whispers to me from across the aisle.

  * * *

  The bell rings and it’s a race of who can get out of their seat faster. Beth is out the door first and her size makes it possible for her to duck and weave through the mass of bodies crowding the hallway. My next class is in the opposite direction of where she’s headed, but I don’t care.

  She runs down the history hallway and I grab her arm right before she enters the safety of the classroom. I lean in and look straight into her eyes. “You know I love you.”

  Her eyes search my face and she appears as broken as she did two days ago at the hospital. “Did you fuck me to win a dare?”

  I fight the urge to shake her. “I didn’t fuck you, I made love to you. Don’t do this, Beth. Don’t take what was beautiful between us and make it ugly.”

  Water fills her eyes and my heart slices into a million pieces. Beth isn’t a crier and I’m making her cry. I thought making love would prove how much I loved her. Prove that she could trust me, and it’s killing me to know that one act could be what’s tearing us apart. “I gave you my word that the dare was over. When have I ever lied to you?”

  “On the front steps of Scott’s house you promised me I wouldn’t be a secret.”

  I’m standing here breaking the PDA rules by holding her close to me. How can she believe I lied? “I’ve told everyone at school. I’ve brought you to games. I’ve taken you to parties.”

  “Tell me you told your parents. Tell me that when your parents confronted you about us, you told them we were a couple.”

  My grip on her loosens and she jerks her arm away. How could she know that? Over Beth’s shoulder I spot Gwen skulking at the end of the hallway. She glances at me, then immediately averts her gaze. Dammit.

  Beth kneads her eyes with her hands. “I fell for the jock again. The worst part is I told you how to play me. Convince me you love me and I’ll fall into your bed. I’m so fucking stupid.”

  The warning bell rings and I watch in shock as Beth turns. No. She can’t believe that. “I do love you.”

  Beth pauses in the door frame and I pray she’ll say she believes me. “No, you don’t. You don’
t want to feel bad for winning the dare.” She walks into class and the tardy bell rings.

  Beth’s second-period teacher assesses me. “Get to class.” Then closes the door in my face.

  Feeling numb, I turn in the direction of my next class. I made love to Beth and I lost her. I swallow as my own eyes sting. It was too soon. She didn’t trust me enough. What we did together, it was too much, too fast. I run a hand over my head and try to comprehend how everything blew out of control.

  “Ryan!” calls Gwen from behind me. “Ryan! Please wait!”

  Rage shoots through my veins as I spin in her direction and tower over her. “Are you finally happy, Gwen? Congratulations, you’ve bagged homecoming. I hope it was worth it.”

  Her eyes widen and she steps back. “I didn’t do it for homecoming.”

  “Then why? Why would you hurt me like this?”

  She blinks. “Hurt you? I’ve said nothing about you.”

  “If you hurt her, you hurt me. I love her.”

  Gwen’s face pales. “You only think you love her. I just…I just told a few people. Just enough so word would get back to you, because I knew you wouldn’t listen to me. I didn’t know that they’d call her a whore. I didn’t know about the locker. I swear, Ryan. I feel awful. I do. I had no idea it would go down like this.”

  When I angle my body away from her, she tries to reach out to me. “Please, you have to believe me. Ryan…”

  I move out of range and her fingers hover in the air for a second before dropping to her side. “She’s all wrong for you. I thought if you heard it, maybe from other people, you’d see what she really is and then you’d…”

  Nausea crawls up my throat. “What? What did you think I’d do?”

  Tears pool in her eyes and she shrugs. “Come back to me.”

  I pop my neck, trying to relieve the tension, but find the act did nothing to help. “We were over long before Beth came to this school. If you can’t understand that, try this—I love her, Gwen. I love her.”

  I turn my back and head in the direction of my next class. This school isn’t that big and, because of that, Beth won’t be able to hide from me for long.

  BETH

  I knew this material last week. I know I did. I studied every night and Scott quizzed me most mornings. But I’m drawing blanks. The words jumble as I read them, which means my paper’s blank. The bell rings. “Please bring your tests to me,” says Mrs. Hayes.

  The hand clutching my pencil sweats. I’ve written my name. That’s it. My head falls forward. I failed. Again. This is who I was meant to be.

  “Beth,” says Mrs. Hayes. She walks back to my seat after everyone else turns in their tests and leaves. “Are you okay?”

  “No.” I’m a whore and I’m stupid. I snatch my backpack and leave the blank test on my desk. “I am not okay.”

  I burst out of class. Groveton is a mistake. I’m a mistake. Ryan lied to me. He used me. I was a dare. I’m nothing more than a stupid whore who makes mistake after mistake after mistake. Just like my mom.

  People laugh as I pass. They’re judging me and their judgment is spot-on. I don’t belong here. I never have. I can’t go to lunch and I can’t handle the thought of gym. I don’t want to listen to Ryan lie so he can make himself feel better, to Gwen’s laughter because I’m the trash she wants me to be, or to Lacy’s pleas to talk to her.

  Ryan rounds the corner and I duck into the hallway where I saw Isaiah on my first day of school. God, I’ve fucked everything up. I lost my best friend because I fell in love with a stupid jock who doesn’t love me back. My fingers tunnel into my hair and I pull hard to cause pain. Stupid, stupid, stupid me.

  Why couldn’t I do one thing right in my life? If I’d left with my mother weeks ago, none of this would have ever happened.

  I stop breathing. I can still go. I packed my remaining money and a change of clothes in my bag last week. The backpack weighs me down. The books I can ditch in my locker. The other items that I kept as reminders can also be left, but not here. I know exactly where I can unload them on my way out of town.

  RYAN

  Smack. The ball collides with my glove. Bottom of the sixth and the game is tied. I wiggle the fingers of my throwing hand to keep them from becoming stiff from the cold. Late October and it’s the coldest day of the year. Cold-weather games bring strange sensations. The wind burns my cheeks and fingers, but sweat forms from the heat trapped beneath the mock turtleneck of my uniform.

  “Let’s go, Ryan!” Dad calls from the stands. Playing the perfect wife and mother, Mom sits right beside him with a fleece blanket covering her legs. My eyes scan the bleachers again. Beth’s not here and she won’t be showing.

  A high-pitched whistle originates from home plate. The new batter is taking his time for the third pitch in what I assume is an attempt to freeze me out. Logan steps to the left of the batter’s box and motions for me to throw. He wants me to keep moving so my muscles will stay warm. I’m distracted and have pitched the shittiest game of my life. My arm winds back, releases, and I curse when the ball flies two feet to the left of Logan’s glove.

  Logan pulls the catcher’s mask to the top of his head and walks toward the mound.

  “We’ll find her,” Chris says as he approaches me from the right. “Lacy’s already looking for her and after the game me, you, and Logan will do whatever we have to do to get her to listen.”

  Beth skipped class. I should have gone after her then, but Coach would have kept me from playing. “I can’t focus.”

  “Yeah, you can,” says Chris. “You have ice water in your veins when you pitch. Go to that place and you’ll be fine.”

  How do I explain that I never had ice water in my veins when I pitch? That there is a constant burning pressure that threatens to destroy my pitch even when I’m not distracted.

  “Your pitch,” Logan starts when he reaches the mound, “is everywhere. Rein it in and you’ll get to her faster.”

  He’s right. I will. Chris swears under his breath and I follow his troubled gaze to the first baseline fence. Lacy stands on the opposite side with Beth’s pack dangling from her shoulder.

  Logan gets in my face. “One pitch. One more pitch.”

  “We’ve got another inning,” Chris protests.

  Logan throws him a glare. “One pitch.”

  They return to their spots and the batter digs his cleats into the dirt. This one’s for Beth. Logan flashes two peace signs in a row. I nod, glance over my left shoulder, and spot a shadow of movement. Crossing my right arm over my left, I throw the ball to the first baseman, and hear the sweet word come out of the ump’s mouth: “Out!”

  The crowd cheers and I run off the field, into the dugout, and out to the other side. Lacy’s eyes are wide with panic and she extends Beth’s backpack to me. “I don’t know what it means.”

  I tear the pack open as Lacy continues to talk. “I drove by her house, but no one was there. Then I drove around town and came up with nothing. So I went home, hoping that maybe she dropped by or called the landline, and I found this.”

  The pressure that always threatens me explodes and I toss the pack to the ground. My hand clutches the bottle of rainwater with the ribbons tied to it. I suck in a breath before unfolding the note tucked into the ribbons: I thought I could, but I can’t.

  Dammit. Her mom. She’s gone after her mom and Beth has had enough time to find a way into Louisville by now. I race back into the dugout and grab my bat bag.

  “Ryan?” Coach calls from the other end of the dugout.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve got an emergency. Put Will in for me.”

  I slip the bottle of water into my bag and toss it over my shoulder. Chris wraps a solid hand around my arm. “Where are you going? We have one more inning and the game is tied. Will can’t hold these batters like you can.”


  “Beth’s running away. If I don’t stop her, I’ll lose her.”

  Chris tightens his grip. “You promised me you’d never walk from another game.”

  The ice water Chris prayed for finally enters my veins. “Let me go before I physically remove your hand from my arm.”

  “You’re choosing her over us?”

  Logan angles himself between me and Chris. “Let him go, Chris. He’d never dog you if you chose Lacy over a game.”

  “That’s different,” yells Chris. “I love Lacy.”

  “Take a look at him.” Logan gestures to me. “He’s in love with Beth. You and Lacy don’t own the emotion.”

  Chris eyes me and I see the war inside him. He yanks the hat off his head and turns from me. I’m letting him down, but I let Beth down first. Logan nods at me and I give him a quick nod of thanks back.

  The crowd buzzes with conversation as I exit the dugout. I keep my head down and ignore how people stare and even the occasional shout. The perfect Stone is doing a very imperfect thing and I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about it. I hear loud thumping footfalls striking the metal bleachers. If I’m lucky, I can hightail it to my Jeep before Dad reaches the parking lot.

  Like the rest of today, I’m not lucky. “Ryan!”

  I don’t have time for this. I open the Jeep’s door and toss my bag in the back. Dad grabs hold of the door. “What are you doing? You have another inning to play and the game is tied.”

  “Beth’s in trouble and I’m going after her.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re going to finish that game.” Dad’s face reddens and he places his hand on his hips. In twenty-five years, I’ll be his clone if I continue on my current path. My entire life I desired nothing more than to be him. It’s funny how life changes.

  “If I don’t go after her, she’ll be gone.”

  “Let her go. She needs to be gone. Since she entered your life you’ve lost focus on everything that’s important. You’re letting down your team, Ryan. You are single-handedly destroying your career in baseball. Everything I’ve worked so hard for!”