Truth or Dare (32 page)

Caitlin froze. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of light on the other side of the street. Forgetting what she had been about to say, she blurted, “Did you see that?” She hurried over to the edge of the porch, scanning the street. But everything was dark and still once again. “Was that a camera?”

“I didn’t see anything,” Emerson said impatiently. “Cait, please look at me. You
have
to believe me. I didn’t mean for Jessie to get hurt.”

A little way down the street, something rustled in the darkness. Was someone there? Was someone watching them? Caitlin thought of the photos the darer had hung up in school this morning, photos she hadn’t even known were being taken. Suddenly, standing there out in the open, she felt completely exposed.

“Cait?” Emerson pressed.

Caitlin kept her eyes trained on the street. All she could think was: first Tenley, and now Emerson. She didn’t know who to listen to anymore, who to trust. It was the kidnapping all over again; she had that horrible, sinking feeling that came with the knowledge that it could be
anyone
. “I have to go,” she mumbled. “I think I need to be alone for a while.”

Ignoring Emerson’s protests, she hurried off the porch. All she wanted was to be back home, safe in her room, where it was bright and camera-free. Where no one but Sailor could watch her. But as she climbed into her car, she could swear that for the briefest of seconds, another flash lit up the darkness.

Friday, 2
PM

ABOVE ALL, I WILL ENSURE THAT COLLEGE-LEVEL
courses are offered to every student at Winslow Academy!” Onstage, Harris Newsby pumped his fist in the air. “That is why I should be your next student-body president!”

Sydney shifted in her auditorium seat, stifling a yawn. Harris Newsby had run in every student-government election since the fourth grade, sticking firmly to his platform of
Learning Is Fun!
So far he was 0 for 8, but you had to give it to him—he never stopped trying.

“Thank you for that enlightening speech, Harris,” Ms. Howard said, beaming as she stepped onto the stage. Harris, who’d basically placed out of college already with all the AP courses he’d taken, was a well-known favorite of the principal’s. “Now,” Ms. Howard went on, “I welcome to the podium candidate Abby Wilkins.”

Abby trotted to the center of the stage, folding her hands primly on top of the lectern. Her long brown hair was pulled into a tight ponytail, and Sydney couldn’t help but notice how closely she resembled a horse
with her hair hanging down her back like a mane. “Welcome, student body of Winslow Academy,” Abby began, flashing the audience a toothy smile.

“I thought long and hard about what to say up here today,” she continued. “And I’ve decided that I’m not going to talk to you about things like getting a salad bar in the cafeteria—though I certainly think that’s a great idea—or reallocating the money Winslow spends on hall monitors for purchasing state-of-the-art electronic textbooks—though that’s absolutely on my agenda. Instead, what I’d like to talk about today is trust.

“As a student body, you
know
who Abby Wilkins is. You know what I stand for, and you can trust that that’s not going to change. You can trust I will keep my word. You can trust that I will give up my weekend nights to fulfill my duties, if that’s what the job requires. You can trust I will represent you all in the ways you deserve to be represented, as an upstanding student who puts the needs of her governing body before the needs of herself.” She paused, letting her eyes sweep meaningfully over the audience. “I hope you’ll all remember that when you fill out your ballot today.”

Sydney rolled her eyes as Abby trotted offstage. She was obviously going for the anti-Caitlin vote, and from the way people around Sydney were smiling and nodding, it looked as though it might be working.

“Thank you, Abby,” Ms. Howard said. “And now for our last candidate of the day, Caitlin Thomas.”

“Go, Angel!” someone in the crowd hooted.

Caitlin smiled weakly as she took her place behind the lectern. She was in a typical Caitlin Thomas outfit: a slouchy gray dress, tall Frye boots, and a chunky yellow necklace that even Sydney had to admit
was cool. But underneath it all, she looked almost haggard, as if she hadn’t slept in days. Her skin was pale, there were dark shadows under her eyes, and her trademark blond hair hung limply over her shoulders.

Caitlin cleared her throat, looking surprisingly uncomfortable for someone who’d been on that podium many times before. “Hi, everyone,” she began. Her voice was formal, as if she was reading off a note card. “There are a lot of things I hope to work on as president of Winslow Academy, but first and foremost, I want you to know that I’m aware that our cafeteria food is in dire need of a makeover. Probably,” she added jokingly, “of the extreme variety.”

As the auditorium laughed, someone yelling out, “I love you, Angel!” from the freshman section, Caitlin looked down at the lectern, running her finger along its edge. Something was definitely off with her. She always seemed so natural up there, but today her shoulders were rigid, and she kept pushing her hair off her forehead, in some kind of nervous tic.

Caitlin waited until the laughter had died down to look back up. There was a strange expression in her eyes: almost fierce, as if at any second she might combust. It reminded Sydney of the way she used to feel at Sunrise, as if she had so much anger and confusion inside her that the trappings of her body could barely contain it.

“I also plan on implementing a rating system for teachers,” Caitlin continued. “So students can have their say, too.” That earned big cheers from the crowd, but as Caitlin’s eyes flickered across the auditorium, she suddenly shook her head. “You know what,” she said slowly. “This stuff doesn’t matter. None of it.” She paused, her gaze fixed on something in the distance.

“What matters,” she went on, “is that our school is a place people
feel safe coming to. Where you don’t feel like you’re constantly looking over your shoulder or overhearing gossip or”—she let out a harsh laugh—“finding photos of yourself plastered on the walls.
That
is the Winslow I want to be president of. Not this one.”

With that, she walked off the stage, leaving the auditorium filled with a heavy silence. “Okay!” Ms. Howard said brightly, hurrying back onto the stage. “Thank you, Caitlin. That was, uh, very interesting.” She clapped her hands together, facing the packed auditorium. “Well, folks, those were all our candidates. If everyone can put their ballots in the collection box on the way out, we’ll have a new student-body president by Monday! One last thing, before you all go. The faculty of Winslow would like to ask that you all take your safety seriously this weekend at Fall Festival. Enjoy yourselves, but if you’re out on the water, please take precautions.” She waved a hand through the air. “All right, go on. Have a good weekend.”

As people began talking and jostling around her, Sydney looked down at the ballot sitting on her lap. Harris Newsby, Abby Wilkins, and Caitlin Thomas. With those dismal options, she normally wouldn’t even bother voting. But she kept thinking about Caitlin’s odd speech. She had the eeriest feeling, as if Caitlin had been talking directly to her. Sydney couldn’t count the number of times she’d looked over her shoulder at school that week, wondering if the darer was there somewhere, sitting behind her in statistics, or in the stall next to hers in the bathroom, or following her to the darkroom. She’d stopped seeing people, and started seeing possibilities instead. Could it be him? Could it be her?

What matters is that our school is a place people feel safe coming to
, Caitlin had said. Those were Sydney’s sentiments exactly. It made Sydney think that maybe there was more to Caitlin than just her halo. Uncapping her pen, she made a check next to Caitlin’s name.

Dropping the ballot into the collection box, Sydney headed out to the parking lot. Her car was sandwiched between a silver Lexus and an obnoxiously yellow Hummer. With its dented hood and peeling paint and the mangled side mirror she needed to get fixed, her car looked like a different species from them. But as she climbed into it, she gave the dashboard a loving pat. “You might not be pretty,” she told her car, “but you get the job done.”

She was feeling antsy as she pulled out onto Ocean Drive. All day long she’d been so focused on avoiding Emerson in the halls that she’d barely had time to think about anything else—her dad, the dares, Joey. But now it all came rushing back to her. Joey had seemed so stunned when she yelled at him yesterday. She’d tried to get him to admit to the dares, but he’d just stared back at her with wide eyes, as impossible to read as ever. So she’d done it. She’d kissed him.

He’d made a sound of surprise, but then his arm had snaked around her, his hand slipping into her hair. For a second, the kiss had almost felt natural. Different from kissing Guinness, but not necessarily in a bad way: less intense, a little sweeter. Then the second passed and she remembered what she was doing. She’d pulled away abruptly, expecting Joey to look pleased, or at the very least satisfied. He’d gotten what he wanted, after all. But he’d just looked confused, and maybe even a little sad.

And then Tenley had shown up, and something inside Sydney had snapped. It was too much—all of it. Joey, Tenley, the dares. And now Tenley had seen her
kissing
Joey. She’d been overcome with this horrible feeling, like she was flailing underwater, unable to catch her breath. So she’d run, as if that’s all it would take to get away.

Sydney squeezed the steering wheel tighter. She needed something to keep her busy, something to ward off her memories, especially the
one of Joey. The kiss was done; there was nothing she could do to change it. And maybe that would be the end, finally. Maybe now her dares could stop.

She steered her car toward downtown, glancing in the rearview mirror to make sure her camera was in the backseat. Setup for Fall Festival would be full steam ahead by now, and she had a feeling the harried chaos of pre-FESTivities would be the perfect addition to her
Fissures
series. As Sydney pulled into a spot on Echo Boulevard, she noticed a familiar figure climbing out of a Lexus across the street, a camera slung over one shoulder and a messenger bag over the other. Apparently Guinness had the same idea.

“Great minds think alike,” she said as she crossed over to him, her camera bouncing against her side. “Sorry I didn’t get your message last night. My phone was off.” She purposely left out the reason why. After she’d run away from Tenley and Joey, she’d gone straight home and turned off her phone, wanting to avoid the world for the rest of the night. “Did you get my text earlier?” She wrapped her arms around his waist, but he quickly stepped out of her grip.

“I got it,” he said tersely. “But I figured you meant to send it to your
other
boyfriend.”

“What—?” she began. Then suddenly it hit her. Tenley. She must have told Guinness what she saw at the park last night. Anger slammed into her, making spots of light dance in front of her eyes. Why couldn’t Tenley just leave her alone?

“Yeah,” Guinness continued. “I heard all about the fun you had in Reed Park yesterday. I’ve got to ask: Did you choose a park named after me on purpose?”

“Guinness—” she began, but he cut her off.

“You know, I thought we actually had something, Blue. I didn’t
realize I was just one of many. So what’s the deal? I’m curious. Are you trying to follow in your dad’s footsteps?”

Sydney took a step back in shock. Guinness had never said anything like that to her before.

“That’s not fair.” Her voice was hoarse. She felt unsteady, as if the ground were bucking underneath her. “You know how I feel about you. How I’ve always felt about you. I didn’t want to kiss him. But it was a dare. I thought I had to. I just… I wanted to make it all stop.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. A
dare
? You know, I thought you were different,” he said, tightening his hands around his camera. “I thought you were better than all those other girls. But you play games just like the rest of them.”

“How can you say that?” Sydney burst out. “You know better than anyone that’s not true. And besides, I’m not your girlfriend, Guinness. Remember? You made that plenty clear when I visited you in New York.” Suddenly she was furious. How dare he act like
she
had done something wrong, when he was the one who’d disappeared on her all summer? “Technically, I can kiss anyone I want!”

“Yeah,” Guinness said slowly. “I guess you can.” He reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a jumbled pile of photos. “And you can take these back while you’re at it,” he said, shoving the photos at her. They were the images she’d given him from her
Fissures
series, the ones she’d asked for his opinion on. Clearly, he hadn’t even bothered to look through them.

“Wow,” she said with a bitter laugh, jamming the photos into her camera bag. “You really are an asshole.” She stalked off without waiting for a reply. As she slipped into the crowd of trucks and booths and workers, she drew her camera roughly to her eye.

Frantically, she began to snap photos, of the carousel being set up and
the buoy lights being strung and a freezer full of whale-shaped ice pops being rolled in. But no matter how fast her shutter clicked or how many frames she captured in a minute, she could still feel it: the saw working its way through her heart. For once in her life, photos weren’t enough.

She took one last shot, of several men in hard hats building the outdoor bar, then gave up, letting her camera fall to her side as she headed back to her car. How had everything gotten so messed up? She felt like she was on a roller coaster, and every time she thought the ride was finally over, it started on another loop. She sighed as she climbed into her car and her phone dinged with a text. She ignored it. It was probably Guinness, and he was the last person she wanted to hear from right now. But then it dinged again. With a sigh, she reached for the phone. When he wanted to, Guinness could be persistent.