Page 32 of Wish You Were Her
There were shrieks of delight throughout the room but Jonah felt his pulse quicken ever so slightly. He knew, as the one who was ever sober, that this game always ended in tears. He looked to Simon, hoping to send his friend a wordless plea that would encourage him to call an end to the idea, but Simon was grinning at Skye.
“All right. Spin the bottle style?” he said.
“Yes!” Star said, grabbing an empty wine bottle from Simon’s basement bar. “Whomever the bottle lands on has to tell the truth or do the dare set by the spinner.”
It was decidedly simple, compared to the role-play they had all been partaking in just moments before. Jonah loved games like Werewolf. Catan. Monopoly.
Truth or Dare and Spin the Bottle always operated with secret, hidden rules that he could never uncover. And the price for breaking an unspoken instruction was always high.
Everyone arranged themselves in a circle. Jonah looked over at Allegra, who was looking unsure and a little anxious. She quickly masked it and slid gracefully into a sitting position between Kerrie and Grace.
“In or out, Thorne?” Simon called over to him.
Jonah reluctantly sat, too, with a great and heavy feeling of dread.
“I’ll spin first,” Skye said jauntily. The bangles on her wrist clinked as she leaned across the carpet to touch the wine bottle. Everyone watched, but she refused to actually spin it, instead merely turning it so that its neck was pointing directly toward Allegra.
“Truth or dare?” Skye asked her.
“You have to actually spin and let the bottle decide,” Jonah heard himself say, but he was ignored by the group. Only Allegra’s eyes briefly flashed toward him. She raised her chin and smiled politely at Skye.
“Truth.”
“How much money do you have?”
Simon hollered at Skye’s question. Everyone else laughed also, albeit a little more nervously. Jonah was the only one glaring at the remark.
“I make enough,” Allegra said quietly.
“What was your last pay check?” Star asked, joining in with the interrogation.
Allegra smiled a barely-there smile. “My last one? Three seventy-five.”
“Thousand?” demanded Hillary, one of the other ballet girls. She looked awed at the prospect, eyeing the fellow eighteen-year-old with reverence.
“No. Just three hundred and seventy-five. My dad pays us weekly at the bookshop.”
Jonah found himself grinning at that, while Skye glowered in distaste.
“Is it my turn then?” Allegra asked, reaching for the bottle. She spun somewhat clumsily and it landed…
… on Jonah.
“Dare,” he said, before she could ask.
She regarded him for a moment. “I dare you to say something nice about every person in the group.”
There were audible reactions to this command, people hooting and hollering at the dare, while Jonah found himself wondering how he had so swiftly managed to convince this girl that he was an uncharitable person. The kind who never gave compliments.
“Fine,” he said, suddenly determined. He glanced around and his eyes locked onto Simon. “Simon is…”
Everyone waited.
“Oh, God,” Simon said, squinting at his friend. “Jonah’s got the memory of a computer. He has so much bad stuff on me.”
Jonah snorted, despite trying to look pensive. “Simon is a good friend. I’d do anything for him. He’s the one who made school bearable.”
There was a beat of silence. Simon gently bumped his friend on the bicep, with a small smile servicing as thanks.
