Dare Me - By Megan Abbott Page 0,85

fever in my brain, or Jesus in my heart, my hands are on her again, hurling both her shoulders back against the shower tiles, her eyes flashing and her mouth a tight grin.

She’s trying to smile, yes, but there’s a horror in it. Push harder, push harder. Ride that bitch.

“What can you tell? All you have is Slaussen,” she says. “You think I can’t win back that rabbit heart of hers? I have my two front teeth sunk in it. I have things I can tell about her, about Coach, about you—”

My hand whips across her face so fast I gasp.

But she doesn’t flinch. Instead, eyes darkening, she slides back against the wall, tilting her face so it smears against the damp tiles, her spangled mask blurring blue.

She doesn’t say anything for a second and the silence feels heavy, epic. I don’t know what to do with myself except listen to my own breathing.

“He said he was sick with himself over it,” she says, quietly, darkly.

It takes me a second to realize she’s talking about Will.

“Like I was this dirty thing he’d done,” she says.

She puts a hand to the back of her head, rubbing it with an eerie softness, like she’s in slow motion. “Who is he to call me dirty?” she asks, her eyelashes slipping glitter.

I’m thinking of the snapshot of the two of them, the look on his face.

“You should’ve seen how he looked at me after,” she says. “Like you’re looking at me now.”

I don’t know what to say to this.

“Then I saw him and Coach together,” she says, “the way they just gloated in their fucking. So freaking enthralled with themselves, and you just so enthralled with them. With her.”

There is the secret song in me of an old Beth, schoolyard Beth, playground and sleeping bag and bikes with streamers Beth. The Beth who never wanted me to sleep over at Katie Lerner’s house, and would always wait in front of my house the night I got back from summer vacation. The Beth who always, chin to my shoulder, looked out for me, and I for her. Our bodies interlocked.

“But, Beth, you can stop now,” I say, shaking my head. “You can stop all this.”

Something stirs in her face and she’s looking down at my clenched, glitter-crusted hands on her arms.

“I did it for all of us,” she says. “I did it for you, Addy. Somebody had to. And it’s always been me.”

I let my hands go, staring, not sure what to do or what she means.

“The funny thing is, Addy, it turns out you were the dangerous one,” she says, voice steadying now, drawing strength.

She walks past me and, her palm clasped over her scarred left ear, adds, “You were the tough one, the cruel one. The fox. You just couldn’t admit it. You’ve always done whatever you wanted. It was always you.”

And she’s gone.

I hear her whistling through the locker room, and her voice, mournful but resonant now.

“Arrow in the quiver,” she sings. “At daggers drawn.”

31

GAME TIME: OO:OO:OO

We are phalanx-spread four deep across the floor. Oh, the roaring, if you only knew. Like being crest-deep in a wave and all the pounding to go through you.

We are assembled soldiers. My eyes flashing past us, it’s like looking at fifteen duplicates of one shiny-eyed girl, midnight blue halters and silver-lined minis, spoking legs and bleached white sneaks, hair slicked back into uniform ponys, shimmer-blue foiled bows.

We all have our eyes on the woman in the red hat and mirrored shades, high up on the left flank. Whether she’s the scout or not, we’re giving everything to her.

RiRi, superstitious, singing softly, “Jesus on my necklace, glitter on my eyes,” knuckles rapping against mine.

The pounding of our thirty assembled feet, pounding so it thunders all through us, as we undulate into a V.

There is Beth at the diamond tip, her face streaked indigo and, from afar, never looking more like the savage princess she is, like she might have a necklace of human tongues.

“Split the ‘V,’” she shouts, and forking her fingers at her hips, “Dot the ‘i,’” and sliding her finger down low, shimmying, legs vibrating, “Rock that C-T-O-R-Y!”

Seeing her like that. Seeing her, bright white sneaks on the gym floor, legs and arms together, chin up proud to the crowd, their howling and foot-thundering frenzy, I feel all kinds of things I can’t name.

Her face is so lovely, a perfect spritely smile carved there, lightning bolt tattoo streaked across one high cheekbone.

And on her