Dare Me - By Megan Abbott Page 0,50

he saw the call log,” I say, trying to get her to look me in the eye, “wouldn’t he know you’re more than friends?”

“Will and I didn’t really talk on the phone that much,” she says, briskly. “Besides, all that has nothing to do with what happened.”

I don’t know what to say to this.

A voice spins from me, small and wild. “Will the police call me? Will they be calling all of us?”

It suddenly seems like it could happen, and I think: this is how your life can end.

“Listen, Addy,” she says, turning to me. “I know this is all really a lot for you to take. I know it all seems scary. But the police are just doing their job, and once they confirm that this is…what it is…then they’re not going to need to be bothered with me anymore. It’s going to be just fine. Matt will come home, and it’ll be like before. Before before. Believe me, they’re not interested in my little life.”

It’s not until a long time later, standing at my school locker, that I think, But I was asking about me. Will the police call me?

But, Coach, what about me?

When we walk into school, Coach loops her arm in mine for a second, which she has never done and doesn’t suit her. Still, I feel her strain and want to clinch her tighter, but I don’t. Now we share something. At last. Except it’s this.

I fall asleep in chem, my cheek on the tall tabletop of our lab station, a TV movie unreeling in my head: cheerleaders lined up at the police station in full uniform. On TV they always wear their uniforms all day long, and never stop smiling.

When I wake with a jolt to the sight of David Hemans flaring the Bunsen burner inches from my hair, I feel like I’ve just touched the tip of knowing, of realizing.

But then it goes away.

“You’re the worst lab partner ever,” he says, eyes on my Eagles letter jacket. “I hate all of you.”

Second period, two minutes before the bell, and Beth slips into the seat next to me.

“Miss Cassidy,” Mr. Feck says, hand on his hip like he does. “I don’t believe I see you until fourth period. And not always then.”

Full-on cheer-glamour mode, à la RiRi, Beth crinkles her nose with just a whiff of naughtiness and jiggles her index finger like a little inchworm, mouthing, One second, Mr. Feck, please!!!

Feck nearly bows his assent.

They are so weak. All of them.

Dragging my desk toward her, Beth whispers greedily in my ear.

“Did she tell you about it? Spill, soldier, spill.”

“Did who tell me what?” A routine that’s getting old, even to me.

“Fuck me, Hanlon,” she says, hand gripping my wrist until both our tan hands turn white.

“Yes,” I say, clipping my voice. “She can’t believe it. It’s terrible.”

“Suicide is no solution,” she says, and she says it lightly, cruelly.

Then she seems to catch herself, and something tangles messily in her face. For a second.

Seeing that, I feel my chin wobble and heat rising to my eyes. Therein, somewhere, beats the heart of Beth.

“But, Addy,” she says, looking at me low-eyed, like c’mon, give it up, girlie, “did she have any more information? How did she find out? Who told her?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Miss Cassidy…,” singsongs Mr. Feck, eager to reengage.

“Yes, m’lord,” Beth says, and she curtsies. She really does.

Turning around at the door, her waist swiveling, she pokes two fingers out at me.

Later, be-yotch.

Later.

My finger poised over my phone, the text message screen blank and taunting.

UR nt gona tel abt Coach n Will…I start to type.

But then I don’t.

And I start thinking of all the text messages Beth must have about everything.

One by one, text by text, e-mail by e-mail, I delete everything on my phone, my breath loud in my own ear. But I know it doesn’t matter.

You can’t erase it all, not even half of it. Half my life surrendered to gray screens the size of my thumbnail, each flare carelessly shot from my phone to another now rocketing back, landing in my lap like a cartoon bomb, its wick lit.

The thing is, when this happens, you just have to give Beth the thing she wants.

But what does Beth want?

Yet Coach goes on, and I marvel at it.

At practice, she hustles us while Beth sits on the top bleacher deck.

Perched up near the rafters, black wings tucked tight, she’s staring at her phone, her face lit by it.

Counting off our beats,