Dare (12 page)

Instinctively, Brynna's fingertips washed over her throat. “Screaming?”

“I looked in and saw that it was dark. But I heard you—I didn't know it was you then—scream again, so I came in and you were just coming out of the water. What happened? Why were the lights off? You weren't swimming out here alone, were you?” He looked strangely skeptical. “In the dark?”

A tremble coursed through Brynna, and she felt the sting of tears behind her eyes, that heavy tension of holding back tears pressing on her temples. “I don't know what happened,” she whispered.

Teddy stared at her for a silent beat before pulling Brynna into him. His cut-grass smell and warm sweatshirt comforted her, and something inside her broke. She was suddenly crying silently, body-wracking tears that strained every fiber of her being. Teddy brushed his lips over Brynna's forehead then rested his cheek on her head, his arms engulfing her completely until she couldn't cry anymore.

•••

“Come on, I'll drive you home,” Teddy said.

“Actually, my mom was going—” She glanced down at her cell phone and slid the text message icon. “Well, she's going to pick me up in forty-five minutes.”

“I'll take you.”

Brynna fell into step with Teddy then paused. “Didn't you tell Darcy you biked today?”

Teddy looked sheepish. “I may have kind of lied.”

Brynna raised her brows.

“Darcy can be kind of…rough. Besides, I saw she got a ride home from one of the guys on the baseball team anyway. She's never really hurting for help.”

She smiled, feeling a modicum better. Teddy didn't want to be with Darcy. Not at all. The thought made her warm, even as her skin stayed ice cold.

Teddy drove Brynna, still wrapped in her towel, home. She wore her flip-flops and clutched her goggles and swim cap in one hand, her backpack hugged in her other arm. She worked the stitches on her backpack strap, the movement rote and comforting even as the nubby fabric rubbed the skin on her fingertips raw. Teddy tried to speak every so often, and Brynna wanted to respond but her eyes—her mind—were so consumed with finding Erica that every movement outside the dark car windows made her jump, made her already queasy stomach roil.

It
was
Erica,
the voice in her mind repeated.

It
couldn't have been Erica,
another voice countered.

They
never
found
her
body…

“It's this one, right?”

Brynna jumped, her heart hammering against her rib cage. “W-what?”

“This one.” Teddy's eyes cut across Brynna's face as he glanced toward her house, hulking in the darkness.

“Oh, yeah, right.” Brynna hadn't realized how long they had driven, how far they had gone. She gathered up her things then looked at Teddy. “Hey, how did you know which house it was?”

Teddy shrugged nonchalantly. “You told me you guys were one of the only lived-in houses out here, so I kind of assumed.”

Brynna nodded, feeling slightly ashamed for questioning him. “Oh. Well, thanks for…the ride…and everything.” The interior of the car was dark, but a sliver of silver moonlight illuminated the hard planes of Teddy's face. It made his light eyes look dark, like deep, jeweled pools, and Brynna instantly feared she would go under.

She wanted to lean forward and kiss Teddy, to get lost in that prickly feeling that came when his lips founds hers, when his arms wrapped around her. She could feel his heartbeat then, thundering with her own, and she felt safe, connected. But this was a different Teddy and she was a different Brynna: naked, exposed. Teddy didn't lean in to kiss her, and his gaze only grazed her as he turned to stare out the windshield directly in front of him.

He
thinks
I'm crazy. He—knows—I'm crazy.

The reality hit Brynna like a solid pop to the chest, and she nearly lost her breath, finding the door handle and pressing herself out into the cool night air before she could. She gasped, but the sound was snatched away by the roar of Teddy's engine as he revved it, the red taillights of his car like sharp, accusing eyes fading into the blackness.

The house was dark when Brynna sunk her key into the lock, and inside, the only light was the pale gray glimmer of a television on in the family room.

“Mom?”

Brynna stopped in the doorway, one leg twisting around the other. Her mother was sunk into the fluffy brown sectional, an afghan pulled up around her shoulders.

“Hey, Bryn.” She leaned forward and clicked on a lamp, the room filling with a soft, yellow light. Her eyes immediately darkened. “Oh, honey, why are you still in your swimsuit? You're going to catch your death.”

Her mother rushed to her and replaced Brynna's sopping towel with the afghan, tucking it around her shoulders and piling her wet hair on the top of her head. Brynna's teeth chattered.

“You're freezing. Go upstairs and take a hot shower and I'll make you something to eat. Soup?”

But Brynna stayed rooted to her spot.

“Brynna? Did you hear me?”

Brynna swallowed, her thoughts crashing. Everything inside her pulled, but she couldn't keep quiet anymore. She knew she was going to break. “She was there, Mom,” she said simply.

“She? She who?” Her eyebrows went up.

In her mind, Brynna said it.
Erica
. But in reality, she couldn't press the word, her best friend's
name
, over her teeth. As much as she wanted to, as much as she wanted to put it out there, she couldn't say it.

Her mother stepped closer. “Who was there, Brynna?”

Brynna's eyes looked over her mother's head while her mother tried to catch her gaze.

“Erica,” Brynna finally whispered.

Her mother looked away, and immediately, Brynna recoiled, her whole body thrumming with the knowledge that she had done something wrong, said something wrong. Her mother wouldn't understand. She would think Brynna was crazy.

Maybe
I
am
crazy.

“There was no one here, Bryn.”
Teddy's words came back to her and she shuddered, pulling the afghan tighter.

“Honey.” Brynna's mom reached out for her hand, gently pulling her toward her. “Erica is gone. She's dead, sweetie. I know it's hard—I know. But you have to accept that. The sooner you accept—”

The chatter of Brynna's teeth spread through her whole body, and she was trembling now. “How do you know?”

“How do I know what?”

“That Erica is really dead.”

Her mother looked taken aback. “Honey—”

“They never found her body. They never found anything.”

There was something in Brynna's mother's voice—exasperation? Desperation? “Brynna, there is a riptide on Harding Beach. Everyone knows it. The fact that Erica didn't, that her body didn't—the fact that we didn't find her only proves that she can't be alive. She drowned, honey.”

“We never looked for her. No one did.”

“That's not true, Brynna. The police did. They sent out divers and—”

“And still no one found her.”

“They could only go out so far. The riptide is that dangerous.”

Brynna shook her head. She could understand the words, and intellectually, she knew the idea that Erica could still be alive was farfetched at best. But the tweets and the sand, and now the dark figure. Her scalp started to sting where Erica had ripped out her hair.

“But what if she didn't, Mom? Just, what if? What if she came back—and she's mad at me?” Brynna's lower lip started to tremble and the tears started to fall, making hot tracks down her ice-cold cheeks. “What if she wants to hurt me?”

Brynna could see her mother working out her response. Finally, “Even if that were at all possible, Bryn, Erica wouldn't be mad at you. She wouldn't want to hurt you. It was an accident. Erica knows that—she knew that, honey.”

An
accident
I
caused,
Brynna wanted to shout. Erica wouldn't have jumped if it hadn't been for Brynna's dare. She wouldn't have jumped and Brynna wouldn't be standing, dripping in this strange new kitchen, certain that her best friend wanted her dead. If it hadn't been for her, everything would have been fine.

“Are you okay, hon? Should I make another appointment with Dr.—”

“I don't want another appointment, Mom.”

Both Brynna and her mother were silent for a long beat while something unspoken hung in the air.

“Erica's dead, Brynna. You need to accept that. You just…do.”

Brynna thought about telling her mother about the pool, about Erica, but even with the scratches on her arms and the unrelenting fear that Erica was there, was after her, Brynna couldn't overcome the aching fear that she was going crazy and her parents would give her a one-way ticket back to Woodbriar.

Brynna turned without speaking and started up the stairs. Her head was pounding and her eyes were dry and itchy from the chlorine, and she wanted nothing more than to peel her still-damp swimsuit off, but the second she walked into her bedroom, she paused. The feeling was overwhelming and immediate: someone was there. It was nothing obvious—she didn't see or hear anything, but still the certainty slammed into her with all the subtlety of a brick wall.

“Hello?” Brynna asked, clicking on the light. “Anyone here?”

There was a fresh pile of folded laundry on her bed, but everything else was the same, everything else in its place—except her tablet. It was propped up against her pillows, longwise, as though it would spring to life with an ad for new sheets at any moment. Brynna licked her lips and checked over her shoulder as fists of dread crashed into her chest. Staying as far as she could from the device, she leaned over and swished the screen on then blew out the breath she was holding.

The page displayed was AskAnything.com, a website where Brynna and some of her friends posted random homework and general questions that were answered by a sea of geniuses or wisecrackers somewhere in the cyber-universe. She used the site regularly and let out a wild little giggle, knowing she must have left the site open—until she snatched the tablet up. Someone had asked a question:

QUESTION FROM: BRYNBE51:
How long can someone survive adrift at sea?

The question had been asked from her account.

She scanned, finding a litany of answers.

DJQUIMBY:
Depends on the H20 temp

FXRCR:
3 days w/o fresh water. 1 month w/. Unless theres sharx! : O

D24MJ:
Do u have a raft/life jacket? If yes, much longer.

SPARKLESUZY:
Sharks! Ahhh! :)

YES2ME:
Hope you kno how 2 swim!

ERICANSHAW:
You tell me.

Brynna blinked at the screen, feeling her stomach churn. She swallowed, this moment, this life of hers dropping into slow motion as the world went on at a whirring pace around her. Someone was watching her. Someone was haunting her.

Before Erica's death—just every once in a while—there had been a niggling jealousy that stabbed at the back of her mind. When Erica swished by Brynna in the pool, overtaking her at the last second to win. When Erica mastered a stroke the first time out while Brynna struggled to perfect it. How everyone happily revered and assumed Erica's first place status and Brynna's second.

She would always cheers to Erica, sipping her drink while Erica beamed and people complimented her. At first, it was just the fun of the celebration, the party—a little slug of beer to raise or something fruity and red to mask the alcohol taste. Brynna would have a few sips and set the cup aside when the sting of jealousy subsided. But week after week, the sting started to last, and the booze helped to soothe it. But still, she would stop drinking, determined to beat Erica the next time. She knew she could. She knew she deserved it.

Not
jealous,
Brynna thought.
Competitive. Competitive, not murderous.

The last thought rang hollow in her mind. She had a vague memory of something she learned in sophomore biology about how the brain could trigger things—thoughts, desires—and the body could act on them. Afterward, the actions would be expunged from the person's memory.
Lacunar
amnesia
, Brynna recalled. Selective memory loss.

Suddenly, her mind's eye was flooded with memories: the sick slap of flesh hitting water. The underwater sound of thrashing. The way Erica's hair felt—slippery and fine—as it slid through Brynna's fisted hand. The pale, waxy look of Erica's skin as her body floated downward into the depths of the Pacific Ocean, so calm, so peaceful, her slightly parted lips, and eyes, wide open, staring at Brynna with the moonlight reflected in them.

How
would
I
know
what
Erica's hair felt like? How would I know what she looked like? I have this image of her—
Brynna closed her eyes, trying to stamp the ghastly image out—
where
did
it
come
from?

Heat surged up the back of Brynna's neck, and she was racing through the room, clawing her way to the bathroom. She doubled over and vomited, tears and sweat commingling and dripping from her chin as she heaved.

The images in her head came from her dreams, because once Erica hit the water, Brynna couldn't see her anymore. Could she? She fell against the wall, her back sliding until she landed on her butt with a hard thump. She could feel the cold tile shoot a chill up her spine as she thought about the dreams where Erica was floating down below her. Was it a dream or a deeply hidden memory suddenly shaking loose? Brynna pushed up to her knees and vomited again.

At some point, Brynna's mother rushed through the bedroom door and fawned over her, coaxing her into her pajamas and tucking her into bed. Her mother was still in her paint-covered smock, and when she leaned down to rest her palm on Brynna's forehead, Brynna breathed in the heady, earthy scent of the paints and the bitter bite of turpentine, the smells that always comforted her as a child.

“I told you sitting around in that wet bathing suit was going to get you sick.” Her mother leaned over her, pressing a cool, damp washcloth to Brynna's forehead. “I thought you've been looking a little pale lately, a little off.”

Brynna nodded and looked away.

“Soup?”

She looked up into her mother's eyes, her forehead creased with worry. Brynna never realized how much older her mother looked than she had just fourteen months ago, how now when her hair was wound in the messy topknot, there were streaks of gray between the auburn. Her eyes were lined and tired-looking, and although part of Brynna wanted to curl up in her mother's arms and tell her everything—everything—she couldn't. Her mother looked so fragile.

“You don't have to wait on me, Mom. I'm really okay. I just…ate the cafeteria food today.” She offered a small smile. “Not going to make that mistake again. I think I just want to go to sleep.”

Her mother's eyebrows went up. “It's barely nine o'clock. You must be sick.”

She blew her a kiss, clicked off the overhead light, and shut the door with a soft click. Brynna stared at the ceiling for exactly five minutes before sleep hit her like a solid wall. She slept fitfully, dreaming of Ella screaming at her, her teeth jagged and blood-stained as she snapped her jaws at Brynna. Shards of black water crashed into her subconscious, and Ella's screams were snatched away by the pounding sound of waves crashing on sand. Erica was there and then she wasn't, and Brynna reached out to her, their fingertips brushing then separated by miles of water. Erica would come back again and the whole thing would repeat. Each time it was comforting and then terrifying, and dream Brynna screamed until her throat was raw, and then she began to sink. She felt the water lapping over her, and this time, she welcomed it. She closed her eyes and gave in to the soft lull of the ocean, to the caress of the waves. The undulating surf was like soft hands pressing her down, and as the water invaded her nose, dripped down her throat, and poured into her lungs, Brynna felt herself letting go. She didn't struggle to breathe, and the twilight behind her eyelids grew darker and darker as the water took her over. She couldn't hear the waves anymore. She couldn't hear Ella's screams. She could only feel the blissful tug of the water…

Then all at once, a hand wrapped around her arm and yanked her up until the sunlight blinded her and her wet body shivered in the chilled air. Brynna yawned then blinked.

“What?”

Her alarm clock was blaring and her sheets were rolled in a matted mess at the end of her bed.

“Holy crap.”

She raked a hand through her hair, the unsettling remnants of the dream still hanging on her periphery. She sighed and glanced around the room, her room, with all of her things lined up and set just as she had left them—but something felt off. Kicking her bare feet over the bed, Brynna stepped onto the plush carpet and immediately sat back down.

Her feet were wet.

Fire zinged through her body, but Brynna worked to shake it off. She glanced over her shoulder at herself in the mirror and started, her heart seizing in her chest.

Her biology book lay open on her desk. Perched on top of the splayed-open pages was a pair of glasses. From where she sat, Brynna could see them glitter, could see the sunlight bounce off the tiny pool of water they sat in. She made a beeline for them, snatching them up.

They were Erica's.

Though nondescript to the casual observer, Brynna would know them anywhere. Erica had painted the inside of the plain black frames with the hottest, pinkest nail polish she could find. She used to say they represented the “diva inside.”

Brynna started to tremble. The eyeglasses were wet, the saltwater smell unmistakable. A fleck of kelp wrapped around one edge of the frame. She turned, glasses in hand, but stopped cold when she saw the footprints on the carpet: Dainty. Barefoot. Wet.

Her heart slammed against her rib cage, and she started to cry, her eyes watering acidic tears over her cheeks.

“Erica?”

She remembered the dream and stared incredulously at her arm, waiting to see a burn or bruise from where Erica's hand had grabbed when she yanked Brynna from the water—but there was nothing there.

“Erica is dead,” Brynna started. “Erica is dead.” She rocked and chanted the sentence to herself like a mantra—or a prayer.

•••

Trepidation shot through Brynna when she set foot on campus the next morning. She wasn't sure if Teddy told anyone about what happened—if he said that he had found Brynna nearly drowned or that he found the “new girl” wrestling with an imaginary ghost from her past. Everything about her felt vulnerable, like walking through a crowded room with a tender sunburn, and Brynna didn't want to see anyone so she skirted the main halls and walked the perimeter of the building. That was where she was when she saw the janitor outside of the poolroom's double door. He had a pair of long-handled pipe cutters in his hands and was working at something shoved through the door handles. Brynna paused, watching.

The janitor stopped mid-cut and took her in with disapproving eyes. “Help you?”

Brynna scratched her cheek. “What—what are you doing?”

The janitor made the cut, and Brynna watched a chain slide out from the door handles and land in a snakelike coil in the dirt. “Isn't it obvious? Some idiot chained the poolroom doors together.”

Bat's wings punctured Brynna's stomach. “When?”

“Last night. Did almost all the doors. I don't know what's wrong with you guys.”

Brynna was too shocked to be indignant, to point out that the entire school didn't chain the doors together. She licked her bottom lip and tried to steel herself, gripping the edges of her books so tightly her knuckles went white.

“Which doors, exactly?”

The janitor stopped then and looked Brynna full in the face, his eyebrows turned down in two black slashes. “Every one but the one interior door in the senior hall. Locker room doors, outside door.” He leaned over and snatched the broken chain off the ground, giving off a huge cloud of dust. “Do me a favor, huh? Tell your friends these little pranks are really a pain in my ass.” He stalked off, and Brynna stepped back, stunned.

If only she could believe that last night was just a “little prank.”

She started down the hallway, glancing down at her vibrating phone. It was another text from Teddy, and a wave of guilt shot over Brynna as she slid the phone to the off position. Brynna had been avoiding Teddy's texts and calls since last night. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to him; it was that she had no idea what to say. She had mumbled on and on about a dead girl trying to drown her when there was no one else in the pool. Teddy was sweet and had tried to be understanding, but how long would he go on understanding Brynna if she kept acting so crazy?

“There you are.”

Brynna turned and sucked in a breath, face to face and nearly a hairsbreadth away from Teddy. His eyes were an intense blue and his hands were on her shoulders—firm but careful. Brynna's heart started to thud.

“Uh, hey, Teddy.” She managed a small smile.

His hands dropped to his sides, and her shoulders were cold where his hands had been.

“So you have been avoiding me.”

“No, no.” She pressed her palm flat against his chest, feeling the beat of his heart in her hand. She wanted to throw her arms around him and live by that steady, constant rhythm. “I mean…yes. I kind of thought it would be best.”

“For who?”

Brynna was taken aback by the slight edge in his voice. “Well, for you. I mean, I—clearly—am nuts or something—”

“Or something.” A smile kicked up the edges of his lips.

“I'm sorry, I just didn't think you'd want to be labeled as the guy with the crazy girlfriend.”

The second she said the word “girlfriend,” heat flashed over Brynna's cheeks and all the way up to her hair.

“So you're my girlfriend now?”

Her heart was lodged securely in her throat, and Brynna thought that if she was going to die anyway, now would be the perfect time.

“I—I didn't mean—I just meant girl, who's a friend…”

Teddy held up a hand stop-sign style. “Nope. Stop there. I like girlfriend.”

Now Brynna's heart sped up for a different reason, and she felt the grin spread across her face, pushing up her earlobes.

“I like you,” Teddy said.

“I like you too.”

He slung an arm around her. “So we're in agreement.”

“Yeah, but about last night—”

Teddy pressed his index finger to his pursed lips. “Shh. Your less-than-stellar swimming abilities can be our little secret.”

Brynna fell into step with Teddy. Their hands hung by their sides but close enough so that their fingers brushed. The feeling of Teddy so close trumped all the negative feelings Brynna was having, and she reveled in the few minutes of between-class happiness.

Teddy yanked open the door for her. “After you.”

She smiled, warmth climbing up the back of her neck. When Brynna stepped into the room, her eyes cut across the chalkboard. She found her seat, pulling her Mr. Fallbrook-mandated “journal” out of her bag.

Fallbrook's AP English class was required to “loosen up” with a daily writing prompt. He would write a statement or a topic on the board, and before anything happened—before papers got turned in or excuses were given for papers not being turned in—students had to write at least a full two pages in their black-speckled comp books on the topic. He checked them once a week and actually read what they wrote, so giant handwriting or a series of “I feel very, very, very, very strongly about this topic” wouldn't fly.

Brynna actually liked the routine, and the prompts gave her a way to throw all her thoughts and energy into something other than what was going on in her head. Today, however, was an exception.

In Fallbrook's blocky writing was the daily writing prompt:
Write
about
a
time
you
were
really
scared.

Brynna opened her notebook, her pen sliding through palms that were already clammy.

How
about
now?
She wanted to write.

I
was
really
afraid
that
night when I came out of the water.