Dare Me - By Megan Abbott Page 0,67

“Yes,” I say, because doesn’t this have to be Coach’s story and don’t our stories have to be straight for both our sakes? “I was.”

“And you knew the sergeant?”

“I’d see him in school.”

“Was your coach friends with him?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “She never said anything to me.”

“You never saw them together?”

“No.”

I have no idea what I’ve done or undone.

“And you like being at Coach’s house. You like spending time there.” She’s watching me closely, but I can’t get over the stitch of stray eyebrow hair to the side of her overgroomed right brow.

How could she miss something like that? That detail, like spotting a slack move in another squad’s routine.

It makes me feel strong.

Deputy Hanlon, stone-cold lieutenant, my old guise—I’d forgotten how good they felt.

“That’s what I said, yes, ma’am.”

I lean back, stretch my legs long, and adjust my ponytail.

“It was a comfortable place to be? They seemed to get along?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Seem like a happy marriage?”

I look at her with my head tilted, like a dog. Like I can’t guess what she might mean. Who thought about the happiness of marriages?

“Yeah, sure,” I say, and my voice clicks into something else, the way I talk when I have to talk to people who could never understand anything at all but who think they get me, think they get everything about girls like me.

“We like Coach,” I say. “She’s a nice lady.”

And I say, “Sometimes she shows us yoga moves. It’s really fun. She’s awesome. The Big Game is Monday, you should come.”

I lean close, like I’m telling her a secret.

“We kick ass Monday, we’re going to Regionals next year.”

“We may have some more questions,” the detective says, as she walks me out.

“Okay,” I say. “Cool.” Which is a word I never use.

Walking past all the cops, all the detectives, I raise my runner’s shirt a few inches, like I’m shaking it loose from my damp skin.

I let them all see my stomach, its tautness.

I let everyone see I’m not afraid, and that I’m not anything but a silly cheerleader, a feather-bodied sixteen-year-old with no more sense than a marshmallow peep.

I let them see I’m not anything.

Least of all what I am.

27

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

At home, I drag my phone from under my mattress.

There are seven voicemails from Coach, and sixteen texts. They all say some variation on this: Call me before anything. Call me NOW.

But first, I decide to do some stretches, like Coach showed us.

Cat tilt. Puppy dog. Triangle pose.

She can wait.

I turn the shower on and stand under it a long time.

Then I blow-dry my hair, stretching each strand out languorously, my mind doing various twists and turns.

Somewhere in the back of my head some old cheer motivational words sputter forth: Time comes, you have to listen to yourself.

That seems like something old Coach Templeton—Fish—would’ve said, or printed out from the internet, or typed in scroll font at the bottom of our squad sheets.

As if listening to yourself was just something you could do. As if there were something there to listen to. A self inside you with all kinds of smart things to say.

My fingers touch my open computer screen, our squad Facebook page, all the cheer photos from three years of death defiance and bright ribbons.

Cheerlebrities!!!

There’s one shot of Beth and me in the foreground, our faces glitter-crusted, our mouths open, tongues out, our fingers curled into the devil hand sign.

We look terrifying.

The picture was from last year. At first, I don’t recognize myself. With all the paint, we are impossible to tell apart. Not just Beth and me, but all of us.

The front windows of Coach’s house are still rimy from last night’s frost, and Caitlin’s paper snowflakes scatter across. A lamp glows inside.

It has the feel of a fairy-tale cottage, like one of those paintings at the mall.

Caitlin stands inside the front door, two fingers punched in her mouth. Usually so tidily groomed, her hair looking oddly knotted, like an uncared-for doll. Breadcrumbs scatter up her cheek.

She doesn’t say anything, but then she never does, and I twist past her, my legs brushing against the barbs of her ruffled jumper, which seems more suited for July.

She likes to look pretty, Coach always says, like that is the only thing she really knows about her.

“I didn’t think they’d get to you so fast,” Coach says. She’s washing the windows in the den, wielding a long pole with a squeegee at the end, and a soft duster beneath it. “I was calling and calling. I thought