Let Them Dare novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: My Phone, His Pocket
In the cafeteria Dane takes Selah's phone for the Dare Game, Delaney cries, and Selah walks to the office without it; the secretary says Dane already signed out the ticket bin in her name.
Dane Hildebrand reached over and eased the phone out of my hand in the middle of the cafeteria, gently, the way he did before every test, and half the senior class watched him do it.
I had the screen open to my homeroom teacher's number.
My thumb was an inch from the call button.
"Dane, give it back."
"Not until Sunday." He slid it into his left jacket pocket and zipped the pocket shut.
He had carried my phone in that pocket since March.
I had let him, because I scrolled too much before tests, and he said he was only trying to help me focus.
He had always handed it back locked, with a kiss on my forehead, and I had always thanked him.
Today I did not thank him.
"Dane, a boy fainted on Tuesday. He fainted because of a dare."
"He drank too much hot sauce. He's fine."
"He lay on the nurse's floor for twenty minutes."
"And then he got up and finished the bottle," someone said from the next table, and a few people laughed.
I am the class president.
I do not usually have to raise my voice, and I did not want to start now.
"The exam is Saturday," I said. "We have a week of a game that nobody is allowed to tell a teacher about, and I'm telling a teacher."
Dane put his hand on my shoulder.
His voice went low and patient, the voice he used when I was being dramatic.
"Selah, forget the teacher. Delaney only wants us to have one good last week together. You'll get the phone back when the game ends."
"Selah."
Delaney Shore had come up behind him.
Her eyes were red and swollen, and she was holding a folded sheet of paper in her fist.
I thought it was a tissue.
"I know you hate this," she said. Her voice cracked on the last word. "I know you think it's stupid and dangerous. But we're not going to see each other every day after June, and I just wanted one thing we'd all remember."
She wiped her face with the back of her hand.
A girl at the next table said, "Oh my God, Delaney," and put an arm around her.
Dane looked from her to me, worried for both of us.
I had been in this school for four years, and I had never made a girl cry in the cafeteria.
I did not know how to stop it, and I did not know how to make it not mean what they wanted it to mean.
"I'm not saying stop being together," I said. "I'm saying someone is going to get hurt, and I'd rather it was a teacher's problem than ours."
"Nobody's going to get hurt," Delaney said. "Everyone's an adult now. Aren't we?"
That got a cheer.
I felt the whole room lean away from me.
Pia Keating, my best friend since sixth grade, was across the room with her tray in both hands.
She mouthed, Do you want me to throw something?
I shook my head.
I looked at Dane.
His hand was still on my shoulder, and I could see exactly where my phone sat under his jacket.
I could grab it.
By Monday the whole school would be saying that Selah Flanagan had wrestled her boyfriend on the cafeteria floor.
So I took his hand off my shoulder, and I put it back at his side.
"Okay," I said. "Keep it."
Dane smiled.
He thought I had given up.
"Thank you," he said, and kissed my cheek.
I picked up my bag.
"Where are you going?" Delaney asked.
"To the office," I said. "They have a landline."
I walked out through the middle of the room.
Nobody clapped and nobody said anything, and I kept my eyes on the floor tiles until the doors closed behind me.
The front office smelled like toner.
The secretary was at her desk with a sandwich, and she looked up and smiled.
She liked me, because I was the only senior who ever returned the clipboard.
"Selah. I was about to call you down. I've been trying to catch you since lunch."
"I need to use the phone," I said. "It's about the Dare Game."
"Oh, honey, that." She waved her sandwich. "Don't worry about that one. It's all signed off. Dane said it's the seniors' big prank for the week, and it's all fine."
"Signed off by who?"
"The office. He had a note." She wiped her fingers. "He came in at noon and signed for the bin."
I stopped chewing on my own lip.
"What bin?"
"The ticket bin," she said, looking pleased to be helpful. "The exam tickets. The ones you were supposed to pick up tomorrow, to carry on the bus. He said you were busy, so he signed for you."
She turned the clipboard around and put her finger on the line.
It was my name.
It was in his handwriting.
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