((A/N: Huge shoutout to crucianellas pandalee528 KellyGe FickleLife xx_Fools therealkristian for all of their lovely, encouraging comments. Also, to aestas__ for tagging me in the teen fiction awards!! Sorry if I missed anyone! Much love, T. xxx))

The days were counting down fast. Eli felt too aware of the passing time, itching to check his phone. It was all going too quickly, and it made him anxious. He'd lied, of course. He felt sick to his stomach, thinking back to his convincing speech about accepting each others choices. 

Because Eli could not accept that Audrey was going to take a pill that had a 50/50 chance of killing her. He was terrified, and there were only three days left. Three days until they arrived in Ohio, and Audrey stepped off the bus. Was he supposed to stay on the bus? Drive away, and let her do it? 

"Okay," Audrey was doing better at keeping up the bravado, "Pop Rocks or Red Vines?" She shook the packages in front of his face. Eli snapped out of his thoughts. The lights in the convenience store were too bright, especially with the contrasted darkened sky just on the other side of the windows. They were almost a white light, and Eli felt himself squinting. 

She was still effervescent in the harsh lights. Even with her messy bun, sweat pants and a stretched out t-shirt. Audrey still managed to be breathtaking. Eli attempted to focus on anything else, but his brain was only giving him two options: Audrey's beauty, or Audrey's fate.   

"I don't know." He sighed and looked around, "Why are we getting candy again?" Audrey huffed and tilted her head, "To make the games more fun." When Eli's frown deepened, she added, "Remember? I got cards. I thought we could try something different. Blackjack, candy poker, truth or dare-" 

"Not truth or dare." Eli interrupted. 

"What?" Audrey exclaimed, so loudly that it echoed through the otherwise empty store, making the cashier look up. "Truth or dare is a staple all-night-er game!" 

"It's the worst." 

"It's the best!" Audrey countered, "It's the game where you get to do stupid stuff and learn all your friends secrets, and who they're crushing on, and you get to do embarrassing things and-" Audrey paused, partly to catch her breath, partly to think of more reasons that truth or dare was unequivocally amazing. 

"It's the game where embarrassing things get done to you." Eli corrected, taking both packets of candy from Audrey. He started to walk towards the till. "I'm thinking we've had very different experiences playing truth or dare." Audrey giggled, walking behind him. 

****

"You have to come, Chloe!" Audrey whispered over the phone. 

"No!" Chloe whisper-shouted back. "My Mom will kill me." 

"Don't tell her." 

"No!" 

"Everyone else is coming."

"Your Mom will kill you." 

"She won't." Audrey rolled her eyes. "She's working the night shift, and Grandpa is stone cold passed out in her room." There was dead silence from the other end of the line. Audrey sighed dramatically. "Chloe," She said authoritatively. "There will be a time, when you're old, married, and a neurosurgeon or whatever. Do you really want to look back on your time in high school, and not have been to any parties?"

"It's a party now?" Chloe snorted. 

"You're coming?" Audrey restrained a squeal. 

"Fine." 

That night, at 14, was the last time Audrey was surrounded by friends. Five girls from her grade came over, drank pop, ate candy, and revealed their embarrassing secrets. They prank called mean girls and dared each other to call their crushes. That was the last time, the last moment, that Audrey felt completely normal. Surrounded by girls her age, stifling laughter and sharing secrets. 

After that, those girls slowly came to realize what high school meant, and how important friend groups were. Soon enough, it was just Audrey and Chloe. Chloe, who spent most of her time studying. Before she knew it, Audrey was stuck in an existence she couldn't bare. She loved her Mom, and her Grandparents, of course.

But she knew, deep down, she was always meant to be social, she was always meant to be meeting others, talking to them, relating to them. She craved that warmth and friendship. For three years, Audrey missed it. She constantly thought back on that one night, and the desire to get that feeling back nestled in her heart. It grew and grew, and it overtook her.  

The craving for that feeling of youth and laughter and sparkly crushes and revealed secrets wasn't fully satisfied until she met Eli. All of it, at once, was gone. She was young, and she was laughing and giggling and being silly, and she was so very sparkly. Audrey never wanted the feeling to leave her again, and she wondered if it would all be sucked away the moment he left her side. The very thought crushed her, and she pushed it away, too scared to dwell.

****

"So, my friends are coming over tonight." Phoebe stated, filling up her glass with orange juice. Eli took another bite out of an apple and shrugged, knee deep in 1984. Phoebe lingered, radiating coldness. It must have been something that ran in her family. Eli glanced up to her expectant face. "I'll be in my room." He said, and she didn't smile, but he could tell she wanted to. Phoebe had begun to understand what it meant to be related to someone like Eli at school.

"Truth or dare?" Phoebe was sat in her living room, her friends surrounding her. She was happy these days, having found she fit in well with girls that faked their way through life, relying on their looks almost too heavily. She slipped right into them, and was happy to fake happiness until she could feel it for real.

It was almost therapeutic, this normalcy. Even better when she got to feel it in her own house. It was a part of her personality, this sharpness. Whereas Eli saw the late shifts his parents worked as a break, Phoebe saw them as opportunities.

"Truth." Phoebe decided to play it safe. These girls were vultures, and at 13, she was still getting used to them. "Is that guy Eli really your brother?" The way it was said made Phoebe's blood go cold. As if being related to him was a crime in itself. "My step brother." She corrected, immediately feeling bad for it.

"Ew, what's his deal?"

"Why is he so quiet?"

"Is he here right now?"

"Guys." Brittany, their ring leader boomed, "Only one truth at a time." Phoebe felt herself calm, grateful for the interruption. "Truth or dare, Brit?" Kelsey asked, fluffing her dyed red locks.

"Dare." Brittany responded nonchalantly. A mischievous grin spread across Kelsey's face. She leaned forward, "I dare you to kiss Phoebe's step brother." She said quietly, menacingly. It was a true dare. A challenge to the groups ringleader. To test her strength. Everyone knew it, and the tension in the air thickened as Brittany and Kelsey locked eyes.

Phoebe shook her head. "I don't think-" She started, panicking.

"I'll do it."

Eli was completely engrossed in 1984, sat on his bed, hunched over the book. It was something he could do easily by 14, getting lost in a book. He forgot his reality and jumped into a new one. His door creaked open and his head snapped up. There in his doorway, was Brittany Garrett, a girl so popular she transcended grades. She was simply known.

Her hair was chocolate brown, waving down her back. Her eyes deep sea blue. Her lips were sparkly, a fresh coat of sticky strawberry lip gloss freshly applied. Eli waited for her to speak. She seemed to linger and hesitate at the door, attempting to move several times before thinking better of it.

"Okay," She sighed, "Let's get this over with." With that, she strode over to him, grabbed his face, and crashed her lips onto his. She ran out afterwards, leaving Eli confused and rubbing sticky lip gloss off of his mouth for hours to come.

Phoebe watched in horror as Brittany sat down, gently wiping her lips with the back of her hand. She smiled, evidently pleased with herself. The other girls went into fits of laughter. "What was that like?" Kelsey asked, still full of animosity.

Brittany blushed. "Actually- not so bad."

That night, Eli and Phoebe got into their first real fight. Once her friends had gone, Phoebe appeared in Eli's doorway. He didn't acknowledge her. "So, Brittany has a crush on you." Phoebe said cheekily. Eli flipped a page in his book. "Crazy, huh?" Phoebe tried again.

"Don't you know what this means?" Phoebe asked incredulously, "A popular girl likes you! Your whole school reputation could change." She beamed.

Eli looked up. "What did she do that for?"

"It was a dare-"

"You didn't stop her?"

"I couldn't."

Eli shook his head, disappointed in the sell out his sister was becoming. Phoebe caught the disgusted look on his face.

"Screw you Eli," She spat out suddenly, "I'm trying to help you." Eli looked up in shock from his book. "Dad was right about you," Phoebe continued, her voice shaky from being so unnaturally loud. "You just sit in your room. You have no friends. You just mope around all day."

The words coming out of her mouth felt wrong, and she didn't fully believe them. But she'd be damned if she was going to let her brother pass up an opportunity to be normal. Or even better, popular.

Face flushed from her outburst, Phoebe turned on her heel. "No," Eli's scratchy, underused voice rang out. "Screw you, Pheebs." He put his book on his bed. "At least I'm not pretending to be someone I'm not."

Phoebe's face reddened, "At least I have friends!" She shouted, storming off to her room down the hall, and slamming the door.

"Fake friends!" Eli shouted back. 

The two of them didn't speak to each other for almost a week, until Eli finally broke and apologized. He hated always being the weakest link. But he hated seeing Phoebe upset more.

****

"Truth or dare?" Audrey asked under the dim lighting of the bus. She chewed on a Red Vine and smiled, leaning forward in anticipation for his response. Secretly, she hoped he would pick dare. As she was sure a man in the third row was wearing a toupee and wanted Eli to snatch it while he slept.

"Truth." Eli responded, taking a Red Vine for himself. Audrey sighed and considered her options.

"Why don't you want me to take those pills?" She asked, heart skipping as she awaited an answer.

"I don't want you to die." Eli answered simply, though it took all his courage to say it.

"I don't want to die either..."

"I know." Eli sighed and closed his eyes, willing himself to say the words he'd thought about a thousand times out loud, "You want to live. And I understand." He opened his eyes again to see Audrey still staring at him, listening closely.

"It can be hard, when it feels like there's only one way to- to change things." He looked down at his wrists, and frowned. "But, I'm starting to think that maybe," He looked up and locked eyes with Audrey again, "Maybe there's more than one way."

Audrey blinked and then smiled in an almost sad way. "Maybe." She said so softly that he almost missed it. She took in a small breath and reanimated into her full, 100 Watt smile. "Okay, my turn." She said brightly, suddenly avoiding his gaze. "Now you ask me."