“It doesn’t bother me if you want to hang with your friends.”
The sincerity swims in his eyes. “But I’m leaving you alone.”
“Not sure if you noticed, but sometimes I prefer to be alone.”
Ryan flips his hat back around, leans down, and his kiss warms areas that sweatshirts can’t touch. The second his lips leave mine, he pulls his baseball cap off and places it on top of my head. He laughs as the bill falls forward and covers my face. Not wanting him to take it back, I spin it and wear it backward. “You have HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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a big head.”
“Naw,” he says. “You’re just small.”
With pride, I watch Ryan stride across the pasture. He’s a natural athlete with his broad shoulders and strong arms. My heart dances.
For the next ten days—he’s mine.
“I can’t believe you let Ryan put that hat on your head. He sweats in it.” Gwen emerges from the darkness and I immediately think of my fear of demons waiting in the shadows, ready to grab me in the dead of night.
“It doesn’t bother me.”
“If I was you I’d want to hide my hair too,”
she says, standing unusually close to me.
I’m going soft if she thinks she’s safe
speaking to me that way. Allison would love this chick. They share the same awful taste in clothes. “I remember pushing you to the ground and making you cry in elementary
school for fucking with Lacy.”
“I remember you wearing the same damn
dress with holes and those pathetic ribbons.”
She stares at my wrist, then at my jeans. “I see your tastes haven’t changed.”
“No,” I say. “But Ryan’s have.”
Her face reddens and I smile. Damn, I really HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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enjoy being me. I give her credit—Gwen
quickly rejoins the game. “Look, I’m trying to be helpful. Rumor at school says Ryan is only with you over a dare. Ryan and his friends take dares very seriously and he’d string you along in order to win. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good guy, but he’s a guy, you know? I would hate to see you take a fall once the dare’s complete.”
My entire body tenses. It’s the truth. He did ask me out on a dare, but I’m not a dare anymore. I’m not. “Wow, Gwen. Thanks for
your concern. Is this where you ask me to braid your hair and then we’ll giggle about getting to first base with a boy?”
Gwen twines her golden hair around a
finger. I should bring her over to Scott as Exhibit B for why I hate blondes. “I’m trying to be your friend, Beth.”
“If you wanted to be my friend, you
wouldn’t have tried to slip your tongue in Ryan’s mouth last Tuesday when you cornered him after baseball practice.”
Blood drains from her face and I darkly
chuckle to rub in her embarrassment. She
didn’t think he would tell me. “Do I sound like HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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a dare now?”
“Why haven’t you dropped out of the
homecoming court yet? They’re going to take yearbook pictures next week, so this would be the time to leave.”
“I’m not dropping out.” I’ll be leaving soon, but I won’t drop out. Ryan wowed me and I lost the dare. I have ten days to keep my word to him.
Gwen eyes me coolly. “I thought you didn’t want the nomination.”
I shrug. “I changed my mind.”
“You’re not going to win,” she says. “Some people don’t like you.”
My spine straightens. “Do I look like I give a fuck what people think of me?”
“You should,” she says. “Because Ryan
does. If you cared for him, you’d walk away.”
Gwen doesn’t wait for me to reply. She
tosses that sickening yellow hair over her shoulder and struts away like she’s queen.
Unwanted demons race into my mind, taunting me with her words. I’m only a dare. Ryan doesn’t love me. I’m no good for him.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe she’s wrong.
None of it matters. I’m here for ten days and HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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even if that wasn’t the case, I have a bottle of rain to prove her wrong.
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Ryan
CHRIS AND I BYPASS a woman with three
screaming children and an old guy guarding the shopping carts. It’s Tuesday evening and at Chris’s insistence, I drove the two of us into Louisville so we could shop at the Super Wal-Mart.
“Do you want to tell me why we’re here?” I ask. We have a Wal-Mart near the freeway back in Groveton, but it’s a much smaller version and thirty years older.
“We know the people who work at our Wal-Mart. More importantly, our parents know the people who work there.” Chris swings to the right, away from the food section and toward the pharmacy.
“So?”
“You want to keep Beth a secret from your parents, right?”
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