i. Dare Day

May first is a lot like the first day of school for me and my group of four. We walk into classes like it’s a fresh start because it kind of is.

We put more thought into what we wear, what our hair looks like, and sometimes, how we act.

I put on my best sugar-coated attitude and smile with everyone I come across. I can’t begin to explain why in a way that will make sense, but the day is special.

Like our own personal Christmas or Halloween. A mix of excitement and anticipation—something I look forward to with every new school year, even though May is closer to the end.

Dare Day.

As I stare at my girls on the screen of my laptop, doing their make up the same time I am, I don’t stop the giddy smile spreading across my face.

“It’s either you’re happy to see us or you’re scheming in that head of yours,” says Yvonne (Von for short), her French accent thick with her words. Even after living here for almost five years, it’s still there. She screws her mascara shut, batting her eyelashes.

“My thoughts,” I start, pausing to rub my lips together, “are my own, woman.”

“Definitely scheming.” Jodene nods in confirmation.

Leaning away from my vanity mirror, my giddy smile turns into an excited grin. “See you in a few, ladies. And JoBeth?” The girl in the top left corner of the screen pauses as she’s slipping in a pair of hoop earrings to glare at me. She hates it when anyone calls her anything but her nickname—Gina. “No running this year.”

She sticks her tongue out defiantly. I slide off my chair, already reaching for my backpack on the floor. I send them obnoxious kissing sounds before closing my laptop and putting it in my bag.

A knock behind me draws my attention and I turn while zipping my bag closed. “I’m coming,” I say before my brother can tell me to hurry up.

The night before, I’d asked him to drop me off at school, but he had to make plans fifteen minutes before school started. Now, not only am I rushing to be out the door an hour earlier than I usually do, but I might even miss breakfast because he’s too impatient to care whether I eat.

He makes a ‘come on’ gesture with his hand while giving me a wide-eyed look. I stare at him for a moment, feeling a bad mood coming on, and that’s something I don’t want, so I take the best route to stop it.

“You know what? Never mind. I think I’ll walk this morning. It’s nice out anyway.” I grab my phone from my vanity, slip my ear pods in, and put my makeup bag in one of the small compartments on my backpack.

“Are you serious?” Kory says, his voice gruff. I hum with a nod, hiking one strap of my bag over my shoulder as I get myself together.

He stares at me as I walk over to him, standing in my bedroom door. “Kira, I got up early to drop you off at school.” His frustration is clear, but so will mine if I stay around him for another minute with his attitude.

“And I thank you, brother,” I say softly, stopping in front of him to place my hands on his shoulders. “But if I stay around you any longer while you’re being pissy,” I pause, smiling at his scowl, “I’ll get pissy. And today is the day. I don’t need negativity this early in the morning.”

Gently, I coax him out of my way and close my bedroom door behind me. I unlock my phone and go straight to my group chat to tell the girls not to wait for me this morning. So much for tradition.

Kory falls into step next to me. “I’m not in a bad mood,” he claims. “Your processing has always been off. You just hate it when people tell you to move faster.”

With my fingers flying across my phone, I draw out the syllables in my next words with my mouth open. “I do not.”

My phone is snatched from my hands and I immediately whip around to scowl at him. He holds it away when I try to take it from him, and lifts his index finger at me in silent warning. I almost growl at him.

I’m reading too many werewolf books.

He’s about to say something when another voice cuts into my deadly thoughts.

“What’s going on?”

I turn to Kellan who’s walking down the hallway, more invested in straightening his clothes than us.

Kellan is my twin; younger than me by twenty-five minutes and something I never get tired of reminding him of. It doesn’t show, though. Kellan is a six feet, four-inch wall of stoic and muscle. While I’m not.

“Can you tell your brother to give me my phone?”

Kellan eyes me in distaste. At first, I know it’s because of what and how I spoke to him. But then he says, “What are you wearing?”

My expression blanks and I go back to trying to snatch my phone from Kory.

“I know right,” Kory laughs, stretching the phone above his head without even looking at me. “Every year, it keeps getting less and less.”

Huffing, I stop and place my hands on my hips. “Does it matter to you what I wear?”

It’s supposed to be a retort, but I watch my brothers glance at each other before looking back at me and collectively saying, “Yes.”

My words come out sharp when I respond. “Well, it shouldn’t.”

“You’re our s-”

“I really just need my phone!” I cut off Kory.

They don’t usually gang up on me unless this is the topic. My ‘not wearing skirts all the way down to my ankles’, along with boys. Like every sister out there, I speak for the majority when I say it’s irritating.

I guess, in their minds, they’re doing what’s required as a part of their brother status. I’m the eldest, yet they make me feel like a three-year-old half the time. Kory’s even two years younger than me!

I used to defend myself against them effectively until my dad told me violence wasn’t the answer and I needed to stop ‘beating up’ on my brothers. This is where that’s gotten me.

“Why is there shouting?”

Tilting my head back gratefully, I turn around to face the only person who’s ever on my side in this house—my mom.

“Mom, they’re messing up my day,” I complain. She’s walking down the hallway, busying herself with slipping her heels on while putting an earring in. She stops next to Kellan and places her hand on his arm to steady herself while she put her other shoe on. See, he’s a wall.

“Boys what have we spoken about?” Once her shoes are on, she’s standing tall and taking care of her earring. “You know today’s a big day for your sister, stop giving her a hard time.”

“Look at what she’s wearing,” Kory said, his voice rising as he gestures to me.

I straighten, smiling, and turn slowly in my spot. When I’m facing them again, I’m grinning. Kellan stares at me with that empty look of his, Kory’s making a funny face, and mom is amused—the only reaction that matters.

“Sweety, I think you look gorgeous,” she says with a smile.

I place one foot behind the other and go down in a curtsey as a silent ‘thank you’. I right myself and turn to Kory who’s eyeing our mother, appalled.

“With that,” I snatch my phone from his hand so hard that he jerks back to me, “I’d like to get going.”

Shaking his head, he says, “Whatever, forget that. But you were all there when she literally begged me to take her to school.”

I groan, rolling my eyes until I can see nothing but black and white behind my eyelids. “Why are we talking about this again.”

“Because I got up early to take you somewhere and you just blow it off to be petty.”

I keep my eyes on the ceiling. This is the worst possible start to Dare Day I’ve had to date.

I turn to him after going through the pros and cons of being in a car with him for twenty minutes. “Okay, truce, little brother.” It’s his time to roll his eyes and I feel my good mood coming back.

“You don’t want your morning to go to waste and I’m not liking you very much at the moment, so,” I pause for dramatic effect.

“You know I can take you to school, right?” Kellan says. “We go to the same school.”

Kory goes to a different school than my twin and I. Our rival school to be exact. He goes to Liberation High, which is like five minutes closer to our house, but school districts are weird like that. Kellan and I go to Davenport High, our school a few hundred students and two floors smaller.

I give Kellan my attention for only a second to say, “Too grumpy.”

“Suit yourself,” says Kellan, bidding our mom a good day and leaving the conversation—not caring how anything turns out because it has nothing to do with him.

“You can drop me off at the Starbucks close to Davenport,” I tell Kory.

His eyes go to the ceiling, deep in thought. “Isn’t that a twenty-minute walk, though?”

I smile at him. As much as he gets under my skin sometimes, I know he does it because he cares. Unlike Kellan, Kory shows it sometime.

“I still don’t understand why you can’t just drive to school like you do every day,” mom says, leaving us to sort out our mess.

“You know why! I go over this every year!” I call after her on her way downstairs.

Besides me liking the environment, today it’s all about tradition.

Every Dare Day, the girls and I meet at school and leave together at the end of the day. Every year we meet at the same place in front of the school for at least ten minutes. Who’s in charge of carpooling differs each year. I haven’t been chosen yet and since Jodene was the first to get her license, sophomore year, we decided our system should go in alphabetical order by last name. This year, it’s Yvonne’s turn.

I turn back to Kory. “I can walk twenty minutes.” He gives me a skeptical look. “You’re about to drop me off an hour before school. I rather walk twenty minutes after grabbing an iced latte rather than hang out in the parking lot for forty-five. Then you can get to…” I wave my hand cluelessly. “To whatever it is you have to do.”

Letting out a breath, Kory shakes his head and twirls his keys on his finger. “Okay. Let’s go.”

We’re descending the stairs together when I lower my voice to ask, “Is it a girl?”

He groans. “That has nothing to do with you.”

Gasping dramatically in excitement, I reach up and clasp my hand over my mouth. “It is a girl! What’s her name? Is she pretty? Do I know her? Please don’t tell me she’s like thirty or something. I know you have a thing for older women but that would be cutting it-”

He cuts me off with a loud laugh but doesn’t deny nor confirm my suspicions. My anxiety skyrockets.

“Is she?” My voice rises to a pitch I don’t use often unless in these circumstances. I make a beeline for the kitchen, shouting, “Mom!” If there’s one person Kory will tell, it’s her.

The second I turn away, he pulls me back swiftly and places his hand over my mouth, muffling my shouts and protests while dragging me with him toward the door.

† † †

I hop out of Kory’s car and onto the sidewalk in front of Starbucks with my bag on my shoulder. Closing the door with my hip, I lean down to drape my arms in the window.

“Am I ever going to get a chance with this beautiful thing?” I say, running my hand affectionately over the rearview mirror.

Kory owns a silver 1972 Volvo P1800, and while I never cared for classics, when he brought the beauty home early on his sixteenth birthday, he surprised us more than we had him that day. Since then, I’ve been begging him to let me drive it, even for five minutes. He hasn’t let up. Neither has he cracked in telling us where and how he got it.

Grinning, he revs his engine mockingly. “Happy Dare Day, Kira.”

Unable to hide it even with my disappointment, I smile. “Thanks for the ride. And tell your forty-year-old girlfriend I say hi.” I hear his laugh as I’m practically skipping toward the entrance of my happiest place on earth.

The smell of coffee greets me once I’m inside and I inhale so deep that my lungs burn when I hold it in too long. My breath heaves out in a sigh as I make my way over to the counter. For once it isn’t too packed and I plan to take advantage of it.

I bid the barista a good morning and put in my usual order of an Iced Coconutmilk Latte while unscrewing the lid of my reusable Starbucks cup before handing it to her. Then I order a cheese danish and a butter croissant.

I take a seat by the large glass window at a high table, get my laptop out of my backpack and place it on the table before hanging my bag off the back of my chair.

My computer flickers on the second I open it, and I sip from my latte while putting my password in.

A loud commotion enters the shop a few minutes later as I’m doing a last once over of the report I have due today for my Economy class. A familiar group of kids crowd the counter, getting louder than hell for no reason. They’re known for that at our school. Whenever there are more than three of them in one place, it’s hard to hear myself think.

I wouldn’t say they’re popular kids at my school, but they are well-known. I’m not friends with them and I have no interest in becoming one, but Yvonne hangs out with them every now and then, mostly at parties or special outings. Quite frankly, I think they’re a bit full of themselves and are too ‘friendly’ at times, but I keep that information to myself.

I hadn’t realized I’d been staring, and blink when I see one of the guys waving at me with a lopsided grin.

Forcing a smile, I drop my gaze back to my computer screen, the tips of my ears burning. It’s not that I got caught that has me blushing like a mad person, but because the guy that waved at me was hot. So hot that instead of my body cooling down, it starts to go into overdrive.

“Just kill me now,” I whisper under my breath.

When the group settles at a large table on the opposite side of the room, I decide it’s time for me to start making my way to school.