One Little Dare

by Whitney Barbetti

  “Tell me I’m wrong,” Vince said, his eyes bulging as he stared out over Seth’s shoulder.

  “You’re wrong,” Tori said, speaking up with everyone else was silent. “I know I’ve only known you all for a handful of days, but even I can see how close-knit you are. You may not share blood or names, but you are a family. As real a family as mine. And you’re the only family Liam has and you’re here arguing about facts that cannot change. Liam didn’t go on this trip. Will went and Will died. Your excessive drinking won’t bring him back any more than wishing you’d been on the trip with him will.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry you lost your friend. Will sounds like a good one. But the fact remains that you have a problem with alcohol, Vince.”

  “Tori, shut the fuck up. Seriously.”

  “Hey, hey,” I said, stepping forward.

  “No one fucking asked her!” Vince struggled to move around Seth, but Chad joined the blockade so Vince could only yell at us from over their shoulders. “No one! She’s not even one of us. And somehow she gets to speak about us like she knows us?”

  Tori turned to look at me. I couldn’t read her eyes.

  “She’s a friend you fuck. That’s what you said at the visitation.”

  “I didn’t say that,” I said, finally piping up. Because I knew I hadn’t. Vince had said that.

  “‘She’s not my girlfriend. Don’t call her that.’ That’s what you said. She’s temporary—as you said, Liam. She won’t be here after tomorrow.”

  I couldn’t defend myself against that one, especially not when I saw the hurt in Tori’s eyes.

  23

  A million thoughts flashed through my head. Liam telling me how I soothed his aches, Liam telling me it was more than sex. Liam asking if I had feelings for him.

  I didn’t want to believe it had all been a lie. While I knew we had started as a temporary arrangement of sorts, something had shifted. Hadn’t it? I couldn’t name when the shift had happened, but Vince—a guy who wasn’t even a good friend to Liam—claimed that as recently as the visitation, Liam had said I was temporary. Not his girlfriend. Not anything.

  But did I have any right to be upset? It had been my decision to label us as short-term. It had been my decision to push him away. So why was I surprised that he listened?

  It hadn’t been my decision to grow real, sincere feelings for Liam. That had to be what these were. I wouldn’t be so hurt if there wasn’t something tender within me, something fragile, something that Liam himself had inspired.

  “Let’s get you back to the hotel,” Seth said, shaking me out of my head. “You need to sleep this off before the funeral.”

  “He’s just going to go down to the bar,” Naomi said, stepping forward. “You know he is.”

  “It’s not like we can stop him,” Chad countered. “He’s an adult. If he wants to get blitzed, it’s on him.”

  “But he’s still your friend,” Naomi said. “What if he gets arrested for drunk and disorderly? Or what if he gets alcohol poisoning?”

  “Vince is an adult. At a certain point, he has to be accountable for his own decisions,” I pointed out.

  Naomi closed her eyes and said, “Tori, please, that’s not helpful.”

  Oof. I didn’t know how to respond to that. I could feel Liam’s eyes on me, but he remained silent.

  “What would you have us do, Naomi?” Seth asked, frustrated. “We can’t babysit him forever.”

  “I don’t need a fucking babysitter,” Vince growled. “I can handle my liquor.”

  “No, you can’t,” Liam said, stepping in. I had no right in being hurt that he hadn’t spoken to me—not when the crisis at hand was much more important, but I hurt anyway.

  “What do we do?” Chad asked. “It’s a lose-lose either way.”

  “Leave me the fuck alone,” Vince said, this time shoving his friends hard enough to get them out of his way. “Seriously, leave.me.alone.” He turned and stalked away in the direction of the hotel.

  “Do we follow him?”

  Seth shook his head at Chad’s question. “No. Let him figure it out.” He turned to Nicole. “I don’t know about you all, but I need a drink.”

  “Really?” Naomi asked and gestured in the direction Vince went. “After seeing what it has done for your friend, you want to consume some alcohol.”

  “Honey,” Chad said gently. “Come on.”

  Seth rolled his eyes and shook his head. “The difference is that I know how to handle my alcohol. And besides,” he said, looking in the direction Vince had gone, “that man there isn’t my friend. My friend wouldn’t say those things. Want to have a drink, Liam?”

  Liam looked at me like he was waiting for me to say something. I wrapped my arms across my front and just stared off in the distance. “Yeah, one drink.”

  Chad turned to talk to Naomi, leaving Liam and I. Before he could say anything, I spoke up.

  “I think I’m going to get my own room at the hotel tonight.”

  Whatever he had expected me to say, it wasn’t that. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I want to be alone.” I stared down at the ground to avoid his gaze. I couldn’t handle it, not tonight, not after everything.

  “You okay, Tori?” Nicole asked, rubbing her hand down my back. But she, like everyone else, had heard what Vince said to me.

  “Yep,” I said, but it sounded flat to my ears. I turned to look at Liam, who was staring at me in that quiet, unsettling way. There was nothing subtle, nothing casual about the way he regarded me.

  Beneath all my skin, tissue, and muscle lived a roadmap of heartache. All it took was one look at him, just then, to know that I would inevitably add another destination on that map. A place that had once belonged to me, but a place that would forever belong to him as soon as I said goodbye; as soon as I left him.

  I understood what people said about their heart existing outside of their body, thanks to Liam.

  Unable to take it any longer, I turned my gaze to the ground. “I’ll see you guys later.”

  I turned to head the direction of the hotel. It was only a few blocks, but Liam caught up to me anyway, walking silently by my side.

  “I can walk by myself.”

  “But do you want to walk by yourself?”

  Yes. No. I couldn’t say for sure one way or another. I was so confused, first by my feelings for Liam and then from hearing what Liam had told Vince. “I know where the hotel is,” I told him as a compromise to myself.

  He tucked his hands in his pocket and exhaled. “I’ll just walk beside you then.”

  Why did he have to say that? “I’m going to get my own hotel room,” I reminded him.

  “I know.”

  We walked, side by side, in silence all the way to the hotel. Liam didn’t leave me until we were at the elevators—the same place we had first spoken, when I had told him I loved him.

  There was such an asymmetry to this moment, from the first time we had stood in this hallway. I was seeing those moments: my grin, the tiara slipping off my head as I stared into blue eyes so intense I could drown in them—clash with the now: neither of us able to make and maintain eye contact, a collective feeling of hurt from us both. Every step to the elevators loud like a shout into the void that existed where we—as a couple—had once been. We would soon part as individuals, say goodbye to the week we’d spent together and the memories that, if I thought about too long, seemed almost tainted by his feelings, and mine.

  I stepped onto the elevator and turned, looking at him the way he had looked at me that first night I had told him I loved him. So much had changed since then.

  The doors closed and I rode the elevator to my room in silence.

  It wasn’t until I was behind my door that I pulled out my phone. Part of me wanted to see his name in my texts. Something. Anything. But instead, I saw a text from my best friend, Hollis.

  Hollis: Did you fall off the edge of the earth? Call me!

  So I did.

  “Fin
ally,” she hollered into the phone. “I was about to drive to Las Vegas to see what you had been up to.”

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t. I’m heading home tomorrow.”

  “Good. It’s been too long since we last hung out.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ve got a fiancé that rudely takes up all your time. Pretty selfish, if you ask me.” I tried the joke, but it fell flat even to my ears.

  “Speaking of fiancés…”

  “What about ‘em?” I fell backward onto my bed.

  “Don’t play coy with me. Who was the guy in the photo?”

  I exhaled and then dove into the story, telling her everything. After, I buried my face into the pillow with the phone on speaker, waiting for her to tell me to stop being such a baby—that it was just a week, that this was nothing but a blip in my twenty-four years.

  But she didn’t say that.

  “Victoria Renee McLaughlin.”

  “Ugh, can you not?”

  “Tori,” Hollis said. “You’ve gone and fallen in love.”

  “Shut up. I have not.”

  “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  I punched a pillow. “I don’t have it in me. My heart is made of ice and my soul is black.”

  “Shut up. I can’t believe it.” Hollis sounded like she was talking about an adorable puppy or something. “You love him.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  I punched the pillow again. “It’s been a week.”

  “So what? You’ve spent every single day and night together. That’s got to be like the equivalent of fifteen dates or something.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating a bit.”

  “And I think you’re in denial. Tori, oh my gosh. I’m so happy for you!”

  “Ugh. Why? I’m miserable.” I rolled to my back and pulled the pillow over my face.

  “That’s how it’s supposed to feel, especially when you don’t want it.”

  “I’m supposed to be miserable? Why would anyone want to fall in love then?”

  “It’s only miserable at first. But it gets better. And better. Look at your parents.”

  I wanted to tell her about my parents—the truth of it all. But I didn’t think I had the emotional bandwidth to do that tonight. “I’m just confused. It’s like we switched places. He was all-in, in the beginning. And I was the scared one—I was the one who pushed him away. Now, I’m the one in my stupid feelings and he… well, I don’t know where the fuck he’s at.”

  “It sounds like you both had a lot to deal with tonight. Maybe cut him a little bit of slack. If he has treated you as great as it sounds, I can’t imagine that anything his drunk friend said was true. Without context, you don’t know the whole story.”

  That was true. But it had hurt doubly when Naomi had essentially told me to butt out, as if she was backing up Vince’s opinion. Which made me second-guess everything and wonder if maybe Vince was right. I had been the tagalong, but I had treated my position as if I was already part of the group.

  “Are you going to bring him home?” Hollis asked.

  “What? No. I don’t even know if we will see each other after this.” Part of me wanted to run away and not go to the funeral tomorrow. I had my car; I could leave anytime I wanted. But whatever complications Liam and I were dealing with, I knew deep in my heart that I didn’t want him to face that alone.

  “Tori, you are a brilliant woman—”

  “Uh oh,” I interrupted, knowing what was coming.

  “But if you can’t rub a few brain cells together long enough to talk to this man and figure things out, then you are dumber than a bag of rocks.”

  “Hey,” I said, pretending that hurt me.

  “I’m serious. This guy likes you. He brought you around the people closest to him. You don’t do that unless you see potential in someone. I bet he sees a hell of a lot of potential in you.”

  I saw potential in him too. The ease in which I fit into his life was not lost on me. “It’s just bad timing,” I argued. “I can’t talk to him about feelings and futures at the funeral for his best friend.”

  “Says who? Is there a rulebook I’m not familiar with?”

  I sighed. “It doesn’t seem appropriate? I don’t know.”

  “Since when have you ever cared about being appropriate?” She paused. “Oh man, you do have it bad for Liam.”

  “Shut your mouth,” I said, but she was absolutely correct. “I don’t want to change who I am for him.”

  “Has he asked you to?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t.”

  I sighed. “I can already feel myself changing, though.”

  “You’re softening. It’s a good thing. Embrace it. And tell that man you have feelings.”

  “I’ll try,” I said, terrified out of my fucking mind at the prospect. “I’m going to let you go. I’ve got a few more calls to make.”

  “Let me know how it goes with him,” she said before we said our goodbyes.

  Next on the list: my mom.

  I felt lighter after my call with Hollis. But calling my mom was another story. With Hollis, I could unload. I knew my call with my mom would be different, however.

  I nearly chickened out and texted her instead. But the light caught the glint of the wedding band I was still wearing, and I pulled up the courage to select her photo on my phone and hit the phone option.

  Closing my eyes, I counted the rings. One. Two. Three. I had almost breathed a sigh of relief when she answered.

  “There you are,” she said in a voice that sounded easy, breezy—the opposites of what I expected.

  “Mom?”

  “Yep, it’s me. How are you, baby?”

  I opened my mouth to question it and then closed it again. “Um. Fine. How are you?”

  She blew out a breath. “I’ve been better.”

  There it was. “Yeah?” While James had told me they were fighting, he had not mentioned what caused the fighting. It could be anything, I lied to myself. “What’s going on?”

  “Oh, Victoria. It’s okay. I know that you know. Your dad confessed.”

  How strange to feel simultaneous rushes of relief and anguish. I was relieved I didn’t have to tell her. It gutted me that my dad did. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “Why are you sorry? This has nothing to do with you.”

  “I found out right before I left. I wanted to tell you when I said goodbye, but I didn’t want to break your heart and then leave you.” My eyes filled with hot tears and I blinked them away. “I’m sorry.”

  “Tori, please don’t apologize.” She made a sound like she was clearing her throat. “You have no ownership in your father’s transgressions. He’s an adult and he owned up to his wrongs.”

  “How are you handling it all?”

  “Oh, you know.” I heard a rustle of papers. “This is the end of our marriage, so I guess I’m handling it as good as I can be.”

  The words may have been delivered casually, but they landed violently. “You’re getting a divorce?” I asked, barely holding it together. I pressed my shaky fingers to my mouth as twenty-four years flashed before my eyes.

  “Yes. It’s been a long time coming.” She paused. “I think I knew before he told me, if I’m honest. Sometimes you ignore the things that give you pause because you want to believe that you have an overactive imagination. That it’s all in your head. Turns out it wasn’t in my head.”

  I could barely breathe around the bowling ball of ache in my stomach. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

  “Tori. My marriage is not your concern. I’m sorry that your parents won’t be together anymore. That’s not the life I had planned when I had you and James.”

  “You gave up so much for him,” I said, bitterness in my throat. She gave up so much and still, my dad took everything.

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “You dropped out of college to have James. And then you didn’t finish your degree because o
f me.”

  For the first time over the course of this phone call, my mom laughed. “Honey, I didn’t do that for him. I did that for me. For you both, too. I was so thrilled to be a mom. I wanted to be there for all of it—every first word, every first step. Your dad worked two jobs so I could be there for you full time, while he finished college. So, please, don’t think I gave up anything for him.”

  I hadn’t known that. “Why didn’t you go back for your degree?”

  “You want to know a little secret? I only went to college because your grandma and grandpa expected it of me. I chose English because it seemed simple enough. But it wasn’t a passion of mine. I’d need to think long and hard about what I want to study.” She chuckled. “How sad that I’m in my forties and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up?”

  Hearing this was like having a conversation with myself. I had always assumed I was like my dad, but I was more like my mom than I knew. “I don’t think it’s sad,” I told her. I hoped I was half as brave as my mom. The fact that she wasn’t falling apart, sobbing on the phone, was inspiring. Also, humbling. For my entire life, I thought that my mom needed my dad. But she didn’t.

  “When are you coming home?”

  “Tomorrow. I have a few things to do here first and then I’ll go home.”

  “Do these things have anything to do with the boy you married?” Her tone was teasing, but my heart was still sore.

  “Fake married,” I said. “But… yeah.”

  “You must really like him.”

  I looked down at my lap. I didn’t like talking about my new relationship with my mom, since hers was falling apart. “I do, Mom.”

  “Well, I hope we get to meet him then,” she said. “It’s getting late and I’ve got a full day of apartment hunting tomorrow.”

  “Apartment hunting? You don’t want the house?”

  “Oh, God no. You kids are all grown. I don’t want a big house with too many bedrooms and a yard that will need a lot of maintenance.”