Dare Me - By Megan Abbott Page 0,71

the mall, wandering, hands knotted around my jug of kombucha, its fermented threads swirling around the bottom of the bottle.

Coach, my Coach. I think of that pearl-smooth face of hers and wonder if I can ever imagine it, try to picture her hard, ordered body doing the thing Beth says she’s done.

It’s impossible and I keep trying but the image that comes instead is of her, legs hooked hard around Will in the teachers’ lounge, the elation, everything in her unpinned, untucked, unveiled. No one looking, no one watching, and everything hers.

He is mine, he is mine, and I will do anything to feel this always.

Anything.

Feeling Will slipping from her, might she find herself doing something she never thought she’d do?

Maybe it’s a feeling I know.

It’s the feeling that sends me out to The Towers again, second time in as many days, some magnetic stroke tickling inside me, summoning me there.

Pulling into the lot, I see no sign of police. There are even fewer cars than usual on this blustery day, the wind whistling under my windshield wipers and the sky raw and melancholy.

I sit for a long time, punching radio presets, then turning my car off, putting my earbuds in, drowning in the plaintive songs of adolescent heartache, then quickly becoming disgusted by them and flinging my player to the floor of my car.

Then, the flinging seems to be part of the same counterfeit world of those tinny teenbox songs, and I hate myself too.

But that’s when I realize that I’ve been on a stakeout, without even knowing it.

Because there, walking across the parking lot into Building A, is Corporal Gregory Prine.

I’d know that bullet head anywhere.

I watch him enter the building and then, without even thinking, I follow him, sneakers squeaking across the wet parking lot.

Stopped short by the locked lobby doors, I can’t guess why he has a key and wonder if it’s Will’s key. I stand at the big buzzer board where I stood five days ago, and I try to be Beth-bold, my dayglo nails dancing over the silver buttons, pressing them all, waiting for any crackling voice, the ringing wail of entry.

“Sorry, I live in Fourteen-B and forgot my keys. My mom’s not home, can you buzz me in?”

Someone does, and before I know it, I’m in the elevator, a slick sweat on me now, and the fluorescent light hissing, and then I’m in the empty hallway on Will’s empty floor.

I’m not scared at all but seem to be fueled by the same kind of chemical rush like at a game, like when there’s just been too much slim-FX and nothing to eat but sugar-free jell-o so you can get back the space between your upper thighs, it’s a feeling most spectacular.

I have it now and it’s so strong in me I can’t stop myself from charging forward, my foot accidentally punting a piece of crime-scene tape, catching it on the tip of my puma.

And there I am, standing in front of number 27-G, a lone strip of tape still curled around its handle.

But before I can decide what I plan to do—ring the bell, burst in like some gangbanger—I stop myself, tripping backwards against the stairwell door, inhaling deeply three times.

Prine, what if he…

That’s when I notice that the door to the neighboring apartment is just slightly ajar, and a whoosh from the heating unit has nudged it farther open.

I walk slowly toward it, peeking in.

Inside, it’s the mirror image of Will’s apartment but spartan-bare.

The same parquet entry, the same sandy carpet.

The only difference seems to be the plastic lazy susan perched on the table in the entryway. Stuffed with brochures: Luxury Living on Nature’s Edge.

Were I to step closer, to step inside, I’m sure I’d see the same leather sofa slashed across the center of the room.

But I don’t step closer. Somehow, I feel if it were an inch closer, this sofa will become that sofa, and there on the carpet, I will see it. Him.

But mostly, the place just feels empty.

Except it’s not.

A door thumps, then the sound of feet skimming across the carpet, and heading toward me is the bullet head himself, a plastic grocery store bag clutched in that ham-hock hand.

It all happens so fast. Spotting me, he stops short in front of the open door.

Gorilla-puffed chest, sunglasses perched on his crew-cut head, he blinks spasmodically, red rushing up his thick neck and face.

It’s as if he can’t believe his eyes, and I nearly can’t either.

“Oh,” he says, “it’s