Page 41 of Puck My Life

“What aren’t you telling us?”

She shakes her head, and I hate that she’s upset. I want to fix this, but she’s keeping secrets.

Fine.

Fine, I’ll sort this out the only way we all know how. “Truth or Dare.”

She inhales with a sharp hiss. “No.”

“Yes. You agreed to play. I’m choosing Truth or Dare.”

She licks her lips, red slowly flooding her cheeks. “Fine, dare.”

“I dare you to-”

Raynor catches my wrist, and I glance at him. In his eyes, I see a clear message. Give me this. I trust him, but still, it takes me thirty seconds to nod reluctantly.

“I dare you to sing a song with me.”

Her eyes get large and almost frightened, but she’s not one to back out once we start playing.

Oh, yes, this is perfect. This will work much better than my plan. She licks her lips and glances quickly around, perhaps looking for an escape?

She’s not going to find one.

“Okay, let’s go sing this song.”

Vae

PAST

Mal waves at us from the stage at the front of the gardened area. In an area of shitty graduates, no one thought the four of us would get through those torturous years of school. We were the underdogs, the forgotten students, no one ever dreamed the three boys would graduate and do so freaking well.

Maria isn’t here.

But she left a cling-wrapped container on the bench. When I’d peeked at the note, it said to enjoy. I’d peeled open the lid to find their favourite cake.

She cares. In small ways, she cares.

She’s the only mother I’ve ever had.

Mal gets his certificate and races down the stage, throwing himself into our arms.

“We did it!” He ruffles my hair. “Three down, one to go!”

“Now you need to get through college,” I beam at them, “make it onto the dream team, and become the most famous hockey gods to ever skate and become the hottest musician to ever make a tune.”

“And you will be the star of the culinary world, creating cakes people will line up for hours to buy.”

I laugh as Mal swings me around.

Nothing is going to go wrong.

PRESENT

Raynor sits down on Mal’s bed with his guitar and strums the chords from a familiar song. It’s an intricate and soft melody, created from his plucking and strumming a really intense run of notes. I glare at him; he doesn’t even have the audacity to look at what his hands are doing; he just stares right on back at me.

I open my mouth and sing. Now, I don’t have the best singing voice, but it’s not the worst. Still, even if I sounded like a cat in heat, I’d sing this song. I am not losing this game.