Chapter 7

Inside, Chase has placed astack of board games on the living room table. The living room, like most of the lake house, is a stunning display of wood craftsmanship. Chase sits on a throne-like chair sculpted to resemble a tree with dozens of spindly branches stretching out in a wide arc, up to the high ceiling and loft above. He and Ryan used to fight over it, crowns of leaves on their heads, while Emily, Kennedy, and I pelted them with marshmallows. I smile, remembering, but it turns into a painful lump in my throat.

"Peace offering," he says. "We're here to be together, so… let's start togethering."

"I'll start togethering." Mila climbs into his lap and wraps her arms around his neck, leaning in close to smooth down his dark, windswept hair. Chase blushes.

"As a group. For now." He whispers something into her ear and she laughs.

"Keep it in your pants, Chase." Kennedy tosses a throw pillow at them, and Chase successfully bats it away. She turns the dimmer up all the way, but it's always a little dark in the lake house at night. She sets a couple of candles on the table, and with the pale yellow cast of the chandelier hanging above our heads and the two mock-deerskin lamps positioned at either side of the room, everything seems to flicker with an eerie hue, like watching a very old film. "What should we play?" she asks.

I settle into the carved wooden rocking chair in the corner, a perfect match for the old one, probably from one of those criminally overpriced hipster boutiques that make everything from dumpster scraps and then charge you as if it were sourced from a rainforest. "Monopoly," I suggest half-heartedly.

Kennedy's bright blue eyes light up.

"Uh-uh." Chase gives a big thumbs-down. "You two are vicious at that game, and I don't feel like having my head bitten off."

Ryan selects a game. "I believe a round of Catan may be in order."

"Noooo." Mila slides off Chase's lap and onto the floor. "That game goes on forever. I like something short and sweet. She lifts the lid off a box of Candy Land. "Oh." Most of the cards and pieces are missing. "I assumed the games would be new this year."

"Sorry the house isn't stocked to your liking," Kennedy says.

"Guys, please." Chase selects a hot pink box with blue squiggles and yellow triangles all over it. "I like the look of this one." He pulls it from the pile and sets it on the table. On the lid is a photo of two girls with high ponytails in perms and neon sweaters, one giggling and one looking exaggeratedly shocked. Over their heads the words Truth or Dare! are written in an '80s font. "Yep," Chase says. "We're playing this."

He lifts the lid and begins to shuffle and deal the stack of cards in the box.

"You don't need cards to play Truth or Dare," Mila says.

"And we're not in fifth grade." Kennedy reluctantly takes her share of the cards. "We had this one in the old house too. You never forced us to play it then."

But we did play it. Emily, Kennedy, and me. Back in elementary school when our weekends at the lake house were new. The games, the lake, the whole world of the house. We were a little young for it then, but we're far too old for it now.

"Well, bless your mom for hunting down another copy." Chase ruffles her hair and Kennedy scowls at him, carefully combing it back into place with her fingers.

"It's some special thing between her and my aunt."

There's a moment of awkward silence. Kennedy's aunt also died young, though not in an accident. One night she simply went to sleep and didn't wake up the next morning. The Hartfords almost never mention her, except for Kennedy, who sometimes talks about her almost as if she never died. One of the few Kennedy quirks she hasn't quite curated to perfection.

"We won't use the board," Chase says. "Just the cards. It's like Cards Against Humanity or Apples to Apples. Just a conversation starting point."

"That's not really what Cards Against Humanity is," Kennedy says.

"Well, shut up, we're playing," Chase says pleasantly.

"Ugh, fine. I'll go first." Kennedy turns to me. "Truth or dare," she reads in a halting, first-grader-learning-to-read voice.

"Dare."

"Call a boy and tell him you have a crush on him." She winks at me.

"Have the landlines been set up yet?"

She shakes her head.

I shrug. "No working phones."

"You have to do truth, then," Mila says, reading the rules printed on the back of the box.

"Truth. Do you have a crush—" Kennedy draws the word out.

"Oooh," Chase says.

"Grow up, guys." Ryan clutches Catan uncomfortably.

"—on anyone in your class?" Kennedy finishes, and looks at me expectantly.

"Really?" I look around the room. "Not to tiptoe around the obvious, but I haven't been in school for a year." There's a brief silence, blink and you'd miss it, like a skipped heartbeat.

"You'll be a senior in September," Kennedy points out. "What about your senior class?"

"Pass," I say firmly. "I can't answer without actually meeting them."

"Boo," Chase says. "Mila's going to be a senior."

"Not interested." She gives me a once-over as if an afterthought, and then a pity smile.

"Fine, but you have to answer this one." Kennedy draws the next card. "Chelsea, on penalty of permanent banishment, who was your first crush? Wow, they really went all in on crushing."

"Crushing it with crushing." Chase looks pleased with himself.

I bite my lip. We all know the answer to this one, and it's only going to make it awkward to say it out loud. "Um, obviously it was Ryan."

Mila raises an eyebrow as a tight-lipped Kennedy folds the card in half and reinforces the crease several times. "That explains a bit."

"Read the next question," Kennedy says.

Ryan flushes uncomfortably, then picks up a card without looking at me. "Chase, what would you do if—"

"Dare!" Chase interrupts with a look of indignation. "You didn't even ask."

"Whatever," Ryan says.

"We don't have to play." Kennedy gathers her cards and reaches for mine, but I fold my hands around them protectively and hug them to my chest. She shoots me one of her Whose side are you on? looks, but I sort of want to see where this goes. I've been humiliated, and it kind of feels like everyone should have a turn in the hot seat before we give up. We all know exactly who feels what about who, the good, the bad, and the ugly. But no one ever says anything out loud. That might have been our downfall. I wonder now if it might save us. What's left of us.

"Let me do my dare," Chase pleads. "Ryan, I will make you laugh during the course of this game. I will make you crush on me."

Ryan forces a pained smile. "One more round. That's all I have in me." He looks down at the card. "Hold your breath for one minute without laughing."

Chase gives him a puzzled look. "Really?"

Ryan shows him the card. "It's your genius game."

"Okay. Here goes." Chase draws a deep breath and holds it as the rest of us count to sixty together. He maintains a studied Gaston-like expression of exaggerated ease throughout, flexing his muscles and spinning the game box on his fingertip like a basketball. All he needs is a set of muddy boots and a deer's head mounted on the wall behind him. "Didn't laugh," he says when the minute is up. "As hilarious as that was." He turns to Mila.

"Truth," she says immediately.

"Who's the cutest person in the room?"

Mila smirks. "You think I'm going to say you, but I'm bound by the rules to tell the truth. You're cute, but I'm cuter and everyone here can vouch for it. Sorry." She blows him a kiss, selects a card, and looks to Kennedy. "Pick your poison."

"Truth."

"Who is the last person in this room you betrayed?" Mila asks in a low, dramatic voice.

"Read the card," Kennedy says, annoyed.

"I did," Mila protests, tossing the card into her lap.

Kennedy shakes her head. "I've never betrayed anyone in this room." It's the strangest thing, but just after she says it, there's a gust of wind outside and one of the candles flickers out. It's coincidence, but it doesn't feel like coincidence. Nothing feels like coincidence anymore. Partly because I don't want it to. I don't want anything to mean nothing. I don't want there to be a meaningless void out there that Emily got sucked into, and that we'll get sucked into someday too, and just vanish. Not become part of or anything, just evaporate. I don't want that. I'd rather believe in vengeful spirits than emptiness that stretches on for eternity.

Kennedy kicks my sneaker. "Your turn."

I kick her back. "You ask."

"Right." She shuffles through the cards. "Truth or dare."

"Truth."

"Who did you last say you loved?"

I think for a moment. "My mom. Before I left."

She nods. "The exciting life you do lead."

It stings. She knows how isolated I've been. I turn to Ryan. "Truth or—"

"Dare."

I sneak a look at Chase. He looks as surprised as I am. Ryan isn't exactly a daredevil. With only one candle now, the room has gone even dimmer, and all of us have taken on the washed-out yellow cast of the inadequate lights, our faces flickering flames in a darkening room. "Hold your breath for two minutes without laughing."

Chase raises an eyebrow. "They really got creative with these."

Ryan draws a deep breath. Chase begins counting and Mila hesitantly joins in.

I look to Kennedy a little uncertainly. "Isn't two minutes kind of a long time?"

She shrugs but peers over to look at the card. "They probably intentionally designed it so you'd fail and be forced to answer the truth question." But when we flip the card over, there's just another dare.

Dare: Hold your breath for three minutes.

Kennedy takes the next card.

Dare: Hold your breath for four minutes.

On the reverse side.

Dare: Hold your breath for six minutes.

My heart begins to pound. We flip through the rest of the cards in my stack one by one, but the dares are the same, escalating only the amount of time without oxygen. Then, I reach for Kennedy's cards and read the one on top.

Truth: How does it feel to kiss a killer?