Dare (7 page)

She shook her head. “No. Well, her father was married before, but his stepson was, like, ten years older than us. He never lived with Erica or anything.”

Evan tapped his foot on the hardwood. “B—what is it?”

Brynna swallowed hard. “What if—what if it's not someone from my old school? What if it's Erica? What if she's back?”

Brynna nearly dropped her mug when her cell phone started blaring. She glanced down, certain it was Erica, and blew out a semi-relieved sigh when she recognized the number.

“Hello?”

“Oh, Brynna, thank god. Where have you been? Why weren't you answering?”

“Dad?” Brynna inched back as though her father were standing in front of her. “Uh, I was in school. I can't use the phone until school is over.”

Her father sounded exhausted—and irate. “You got out of school over an hour ago.”

Brynna's eyes went wide. “I did?”

“Your mother and I have been worried sick. She came to pick you up and you weren't there. She's been driving around looking for you, and I was just about to leave the office and—Brynna, what's wrong with you?”

“Nothing, Dad. I just lost track of time.”

He let out a long, exasperated sigh. “You know we had a deal.”

A lick of anger sparked in the pit of Brynna's stomach. “I know, Dad,” she said slowly, trying to keep her voice even. “I wasn't doing anything. I just—” She thought of telling her father about the tweet but just as quickly dismissed the idea. Her parents would probably move Dr. Rother in with them and give Brynna a drug test with her Cheerios every morning and a breathalyzer check at lunch. “I was just,” she thought fast, “watching the swim team practice.”

There was a long pause, and Brynna imagined her father, pushed back in his enormous leather office chair, pulling out his legal pad and writing himself a message:
Brynna—late—on drugs?

“I'm really sorry. I guess I just got caught up. The team is doing heats.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to stave off the headache that was already starting. “I'm helping the coach keep time.”

“The swim team, huh?” Her father's voice took on a note of interest, and Brynna envisioned him scrawling a second note:
swim
team—better?

“It's over in twenty minutes. And Evan's here. He could drive me home.”

Another pause. “You're still in trouble, young lady. Your mother will be waiting outside the gym when the swim team is through.”

•••

After a “we're all trying to learn together” lecture from her parents and a grounding, Brynna retired to her bedroom and braved a hot shower that was more panic-inducing than relaxing. Wrapped in her robe, she crossed her room, her fingers brushing over her iPad. Should she check?

She swiped the thing on, and when she got to her mailbox, she let out the breath she didn't know she had been holding. The only tweets were from Lauren with a few responses from Teddy and Darcy. Nothing serious.

Nothing from Erica.

She glanced down at the phone and scrolled to the call log, finding the number with the Point Lobos area code. She hit the send button without waiting for her heart rate to climb or that little inner voice to tell her to stop. There was an odd crackle as if her call was going through actual wires and being connected, and then she heard the first ring. It shot a chill straight through her.

What
would
I
say
to
Erica?

I'm sorry.

I
should
have
let
the
dare
go.

I
miss
you.

Is
it
really
you?

Images of Erica pinballed through Brynna's head while a second ring sounded. She remembered Erica with pigtails when they step-touched on their first day of dance class. Erica licking her greasy, salt-covered fingers after she ate all Brynna's fries when Brynna never even offered. The way Erica's eyes looked when Brynna said, “I dare you.” Wide. Round. Scared.

There was a click on the other end, and someone sucked all the air out of the room.

“Erica, is that you?” she stuttered into the phone.

There was more static and then, “Phillips Mortuary, may I help you?”

Brynna felt the phone as it left her fingers. The gentle sound of it thudding on carpet seemed to reverberate through her skull as if it was the loudest sound on earth. She wanted to scream—but she was paralyzed, the cloying scent of thousands of white lilies stinging her nostrils.

“Hello? Phillips Mortuary?”

There
were
flowers
everywhere. White lilies, which Erica hated, and piped-in classical music, which Erica hated even more. Would have hated, Brynna corrected herself. Erica was dead—that's what they kept telling her. Erica—caught in a black-and-white toothy grin from the cover of the Phillips Mortuary Memorial program—glared up at Brynna, her dark eyes smoldering, accusing.

“It should have been you…”

It
was
Erica's voice, barely a whisper, but Brynna would almost swear she felt her best friend's breath tickling her ear.

People
started
to
file
in
then, uncomfortably silent, holding their breaths as they took their seats in front of an empty casket that was supposed to represent Erica. Brynna couldn't stand it any longer, sure that if she stayed one more second, the overwhelming smell of dying flowers would strangle her.

Brynna was terrified. She was confused.

How could the call have come from the mortuary?

She was crazy, she was guilty, she wanted
not
to feel. She spun around the room, her eyes darting toward all of her old stash points: in the box spring, in her jewelry box, a bottle stuffed in her boot. It may have been illegal and unhealthy, but she didn't care—having her heart beat through the roof and her skin pricking with fear couldn't be healthy either. Her lips felt dry and sticky, and she was tearing through her things now in case something had been forgotten, been carelessly tossed into a box: a lone pill, a fat green tablet of leftover Oxy to obliterate the facts, make her float away from memory. Maybe she had left one of the mini vodka bottles she used to stash in her purse. They were barely a taste, but it was something, something to quell the aching in her chest, the way her every cell seemed to fold in on itself with want.

“Brynna?”

Her mother's voice floated up the stairs, and all at once, Brynna remembered that she was in her new house, in her new room, in her new life, and she was supposed to be better. She was supposed to deal with problems with deep breathing and talking to “peers she could trust.” Brynna looked around at the detritus of an almost-binge. Her head started to pound, and there was a lump in her throat.

“Pizza will be here in fifteen minutes.”

Brynna swallowed hard and pushed herself off the floor, pressing the mess back into her closet.

“Okay, Mom.”

Fifteen minutes was all she needed.

Brynna fished her phone from the mess and redialed the number, breathing deeply as she paced. This was a mistake. A misunderstanding. She couldn't have heard—

“Phillips Mortuary.”

It was the same female voice that answered the time before, but this time, it was fraught with annoyance.

“Hello, is anyone there?”

“Hi.” Brynna forced the word out. “Hi, I'm sorry. I—I just received a call from this number.”

“That's impossible, miss. There are no outgoing calls on this number.”

Brynna blinked, straightened. “No, but I just did. I just redialed it and now I'm talking to you.”

The woman let out a sharp sigh. “You can call me, but I can't call you. This number doesn't make calls. That's from the office line—”

“No,” Brynna said, sweat heating up the back of her neck. “No, someone just called me.”

“I'm sorry, ma'am, but—”

“Erica. Do you know Erica?” She knew she sounded desperate—crazy, even. And as tears pricked at the back of her eyes, that's how she felt.

“I'm sorry, ma'am. I can't help you.”

The dial tone droned in Brynna's ear as everything came crashing down around her.

“No.” She dropped the phone and pressed her palms against her ears, terrified that she would hear something, that the phone would ring again, and this time, it would be Erica.
Still
alive, or back from the dead?

A tiny voice in her head tried to reason with her: it was a weird ping from the cell phone tower. It was a snag in the service. But all of that was stomped out by the sickening terror that wracked her. She wasn't sure when she started crying, was even more surprised when her parents rushed through her bedroom door and gaped down at the mess on the floor. Brynna was pressed so hard against her bed that the iron bar of the frame was digging into her flesh. It hurt, but it was real and tangible and it was better than the pain of memory, of disembodied voices and mysterious phone calls.

“Brynna, Brynna, honey, what happened? Are you okay?”

She was trembling completely now, biting so hard into her lower lip that her mouth filled with the hot, metallic taste of blood. Brynna blindly shook her head from side to side.

Her mother came to her side immediately, but her dad stood in the doorway looking both parts helpless and angry. He used one hand to pick up her laptop and the other to unplug it.

“You're supposed to be grounded.”

“Adam, can you forget about the rules for two seconds? Something happened to Bryn.”

“I understand that, but forgetting about the rules isn't going to help her.” His eyes flicked over Brynna's, but she was too scared to care. She wanted to curl into her mother and cry, to let everything out, every last detail of the last fourteen months. But she couldn't. She was supposed to be better. She was supposed to be starting a new life.

But
something
from
the
old
wouldn't let her go…

“There was—I got a call from—” Brynna looked at both of her parents, each one wearing an expectant expression. She couldn't tell them.

They'll know you killed her,
a little voice at the back of her head whispered.
They'll know you're crazy,
another one confirmed.
They'll have you locked up…again.

Brynna dropped her head into her hands, using her fingertips to grip at the skin on her forehead as she pinched her eyes shut.

“I just got scared is all.”

She didn't have to look up to know that the loud whoosh of air she heard was her father trying to regroup. She wasn't surprised when she felt her mother's palm on the back of her neck, gentle and warm.

“That's okay, Brynna. We know that this is difficult for you.”

But Brynna didn't want to hear another Dr. Rother-ism. She was tired of hearing her mother utter phrases from the Alateen handbook—the one handed out to the parents of every teen in Alcoholics Anonymous, empty words that were meant to be helpful or inspiring but only made Brynna want to escape all over again. She was tired of her father working hard to act concerned when Brynna knew the only thing he was doing was biding his time until his next trip, until his next flight where he could be a thousand miles away from his drunken, screwed-up daughter.

“I'm sorry,” she said, pushing away from her mother. “I'm sorry I worried you guys. I think I should probably just get some sleep. It's been a long day.”

Her mother eyed her suspiciously but eventually kissed Brynna's forehead and got up to leave. Her father blew her a kiss and offered a “sleep well, honey,” and they both shut the door, leaving Brynna in silence. She crawled to the wall and clicked off the lights, then made her way into her bed, not bothering to change her clothes or take off her makeup. At least in sleep, she wouldn't have to think.

•••

“Bryn! Bryn, is this going to be an every morning thing now?”

Brynna's mother was standing a half inch from her bedside. Brynna tried to open eyes that felt glued shut.

“What?” she finally mumbled.

She heard her mother smack the top of the alarm clock, quieting the fuzzy quips of two morning DJs as they screamed about something. Then there was a hand on her arm, shaking her violently.

“Okay, okay, I'm up!” She propped herself up on one elbow, her body screaming in protest as every muscle tightened and ached.

“You look awful. Did you sleep at all last night?”

The details of the previous night flooded back, and Brynna's eyes were wide now, blinking at her mother. She cleared her throat. “Uh, no, I slept fine. Just tired, I guess. Sorry about the alarm clock.”

Brynna threw her blankets off and went straight for the bathroom, her mother's eyes hot on the back of her neck. She didn't want to face her, was afraid that every detail of last night's call was written on her face—or at least the guilt of it.

“I'll be downstairs in a minute,” she called over her shoulder as she turned on the faucet, hoping her mother would get the message and go away.

Brynna stepped under the hot stream of water, letting it break over her head and cascade down her shoulders. The hot water felt like pinpricks on every inch of skin. Brynna was still cold, still trembling as though she had jumped off the pier into that frigid water just last night.

•••

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Lauren started.

“Or barfed up,” Evan finished with a good-natured chuckle. “What happened to you?”

Brynna slumped in her seat, the mingling scents of cafeteria food and student bodies making her stomach churn. She snapped to attention every time she heard a sound—the ringing of a cell phone, some girl's shrill laughter—and as a result, she was exhausted, her own body weighted and pulling her down. She propped her chin in her hands, too tired to even offer Evan and Lauren a good quip back.