Page 76 of The Dare

What I hate most about Kai is all the ways I’m just like him. The only difference is that he can admit it.

Dragging a shaky hand through my hair, I keep my gaze fixed on the horizon and force the words out of my tight, burning throat.

“I’ll get you the money.”

27

TAYLOR

I’VE BECOME ONE OF THOSE GIRLS.

Obsessively checking my phone every five seconds and jumping at the phantom vibration.

Turning the phone off and on again because maybe it’s being buggy and that’s why I haven’t gotten a response to my last three text messages.

Texting myself to make sure they’re going through and then making Sasha text me because I don’t fucking know how phones work.

Hating myself the deeper I fall into this spiral of desperation and self-loathing. Dangling out on this branch above a pit of insecurities.

Yup, one ofthosegirls. Every minute that goes by is another minute I can concoct a new scenario where he’s cheating on me, given up on me, laughing at me. I hate myself. Or rather, I hate what I’ve become because I let myself believe a boy could make me happy.

“Give me your phone.” Sasha, who’s sitting beside me on her bedroom floor with our textbooks spread between us,holds out her hand and makes gimme fingers at me. She’s gotI was fed up two hours agowritten in her cold, dark eyes.

“No.”

“Now, Taylor.” Oh yes, she’s well past sick of my shit and quickly nearingdone with your dumb ass.

“I’ll put it away, okay?” Quickly, I stuff the phone in my back pocket and grab my notebook.

“You put it away six times already. But, weirdly, it won’t seem to stay put away.” She lifts a brow. “Take it out one more time and I’m confiscating, you hear me?”

“I hear you.” And for the next ten minutes, I make a real effort at pretending to study.

I came to the Kappa house this afternoon when I’d run out of other means to distract myself. Conor never texted me when he got back to Hastings from the beach yesterday. We’d made tentative plans to meet up with friends at Malone’s for Saturday night drinks, but afternoon turned into night turned into morning and I still hadn’t heard from him.

I tried texting him again today. Twice. He replied only to say “sorry, something came up,” then ghosted me again when I asked what happened.

Maybe under different circumstances I wouldn’t be getting so worked up, but he’d left in a weird mood on Wednesday night, too. At the time I thought he was upset about that phone call from Kai. But then another notion crawled into my head: that night was the closest we’d come to having sex, and I’d turned him down. Every time we’ve hooked up after Buffalo, I’ve let us push the boundary a little further, but he’s never tried to initiate full-on intercourse.

Until Wednesday night.

He’d been reassuring at the time. He’d said all the right things to put me at ease. But looking back, I wonder if that was only to get me to finish him off. Because once he had that, he bounced.

I let out a shaky breath.

“What?” Sasha pushes her notebook aside and questions me with concerned eyes. “Whatever’s spinning around in your head, just spit it out, girl.”

“Maybe this is…” My teeth dig into my lower lip. “Maybe this is what everyone saw coming?”

She hesitates to answer.

“He told me the night we met he didn’t do girlfriends. That he hadn’t dated anyone for more than a few weeks.” I ignore the sharp clench of my heart. “We’re pretty much pushing that time frame.”

Her eyes soften. “Is that what you really think?”

“I think he’s gotten tired of blowjobs and at this point would dump me for eight seconds of missionary sex through a sheet.”

Sasha cringes. “Thanks for that visual.”

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