Chapter Text
N’s house always felt different from mine. It’s warm and inviting while mine rarely has more than one person inside.
I check the text again and nod once to myself.
N: Cyn’ll be at her friend’s house tonight, and you can just come in after seven.
N: 😁😁
I’m a bit early, but I open the door and head through. However, as soon as I go up the stairs to his room, I hear the sounds of moaning. I knock, and someone says what sounds like, “Come in.”
Peeking in, my face goes pale, and I cover my mouth. Uzi is on top of N, bouncing up and down in time to his thrusts. His hands are on her hips, and her whines are oddly grating to me. Despite all of this, I can’t tear my eyes away from the sight. N looks amazing, and Uzi looks…….I’ll never be his type. She lets out a sound I can’t even describe, and I wince.
I scratch at my arms, careful to not draw blood, and go back outside and play on my phone. “The Ballad of Jane Doe” pops into my mind, and I sing it to myself.
Two more cars pull in, and that steals my attention. The song dies in my throat, and I stand up. Doll and Lizzy get out of one car, and Thad gets out of the other. We all share glances, and Doll scowls at me. Lizzy puts a hand on the other girl’s waist and kisses her cheek.
Oh. I see.
Good for her.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, tone harsh. “N invited us.”
“He invited me, too,” Thad says.
I curl in on myself and say, “Uzi’s inside already, but he never said anything about having other people over.”
Thad comes up to me, and I take ahold of his hand. “We should probably head inside. I’m sure they’re expecting us.”
“Oh, they’re expecting something alright,” I mumble much too quietly to be heard.
Our little quartet enters the house, and sure enough, Uzi and N are on the couch. Her face is flushed, and he’s happy. I bite my tongue and force a smile, and N beams at me. “Great, the gang’s all here!”
“Now, we can die together,” I whisper. “N, what’s going on? I thought you just invited me over.”
Uzi shoots him a confused glance. “Yeah, you didn’t tell me about Lizzy, Thad, and Doll.”
N gets up and claps, gesturing to the upper floor. “Let’s go to my room, and I’ll explain it then.”
Lizzy groans, but she and Doll follow us all. I can hear them mumbling something, and I hurry up. There’s a soda bottle on the bedroom floor, and N makes us sit in a circle and claps again.
“We’re going to play Truth, Dare, or Heaven! The rules are simple: one person spins the bottle, and whoever it lands on has to pick one of the three options,” N says. “The Heaven choice is a version of Seven Minutes in Heaven, so you don’t have to kiss the other person if you don’t want to. Who wants to go first?”
Thad raises his hand, then he spins the bottle. It lands on Uzi, and she raises an eyebrow. “Dare.”
“I dare you to talk in a British accent until your next turn,” Thad says.
Uzi groans again but nods, saying in a surprisingly good accent, “Alright, mate, but you gotta catch these hands next round!”
N begins giggling, and I smile a bit. Uzi spins the bottle, and it lands on Lizzy. “I’ll go with truth,” the cheerleader captain says.
“Is there an ex that you’d consider reconciling wi-“ Uzi shuts up and pales, eyes wide, and coughs. “What’s the worst outfit you’ve ever worn in public?”
Lizzy hums as she thinks, bobbing her head. “Oh, yeah, that one.” She makes a face and sticks her tongue out. “It was the cow outfit Rebecca gave me as a joke, and it was all I had. I have a pic if you wanna see.”
“Yes!” Uzi exclaims.
She pulls up the photo, and we all begin laughing. The outfit’s an ugly brown cardigan, splotched tights, and a tight white dress. A collar wraps around her neck, and she looks deeply embarrassed despite her seductive pose.
“Luckily, it was for the Halloween party, so no one thought twice. Still, that was terrible.” Lizzy shudders and spins the bottle, and it lands on Doll. She smirks, and the two move to N’s closet. “Holy Hell, N! Your closet’s amazing!” She shuts the door, and N puts a timer on for seven minutes.
“So does anyone spin or…..” I say. “What now?”
“You can spin, V,” N says.
I twist it, and it practically turns into a blur. Once it settles, Uzi is the one it’s pointing to. She tilts her head and bites her lip.
“Dare.”
I do my best to think of a good dare, but none come to mind. “I dare you to…..do a plank for a full two minutes.”
“No! Screw you, V! Why?” Uzi’s accent slips away, and she stares at me with wide eyes. “I hate it here!”
“Go on,” I say.
Uzi grumbles and moves to an open area of the bedroom, going on her hands and feet. I set a timer, and she stays there. By thirty seconds, her limbs are shaking wildly. By a minute, she’s actively trying to not die on the spot. A minute thirty, and she’s huffing. Thirty seconds later, she collapses to the ground, panting. Thad goes over to her, murmuring something. She gives him a weak thumps-up, and he chuckles.
“V, I am going to kill you,” she groans as she picks herself up and comes back over here.
Four minutes later, the alarm goes off, and Lizzy and Doll leave the closet, both flustered. Lizzy smirks at me, flashing a peace sign. Doll re-buttons her top and smooths her hair, then it’s Uzi’s turn. It lands on me, and she grins like a shark.
“I pick……Heaven?” I ask, my voice a squeak. That obviously stuns her, and we go into the closet. “What…..what now?”
“Bite me, I don’t know!” Uzi licks her lips and bounces her knee. “Uh, we can arm wrestle?”
I just give her a dead stare, and she nods.
“I actually did want to talk to you about something,” Uzi says. “N and I have been talking, and we……thought we’d ask if you would like to…..join us?”
“To go where?” I lean forward, and she shakes her head.
“N-no, no, not like that. I meant, er, like, if you’d want to…..date us….both?” Uzi looks away. “It’s fine if you say no, we were just curious-“
“I mean,” I say at the same time, “we could……try…….”
Uzi moves forward, and I go to meet her. Our lips touch, and something bursts deep inside me. I pull back, and she makes a small sound.
“Uh,” I say. “That felt-“
“Strange,” she says. “Yeah, we can just date N and not each other or something, okay?”
“Sounds great,” I murmur, unsure of if I mean it or not.
We sit in silence until the time’s up, and I leave first. Uzi follows, and Lizzy whistles. “Nice lipstick print!” she exclaims.
Uzi and I both blush, and she tells N something. I can’t look at either one, my heart pounding. I spin the bottle, and it lands on Doll. She bares her teeth at me for a split second before going back to normal and nodding.
“Dare,” she says.
“I dare you to let N do your makeup with his eyes closed,” I say, “and you have to leave it on for an hour.”
She sighs, and Lizzy hands her some makeup removing wipes. She goes to the bathroom and comes back a few minutes later, and Lizzy, Uzi, and I hand over some makeup to N. He sits in front of her, and I move to get a better view.
He closes his eyes, picking up some foundation and gently applying it to her. After that, he chooses some pink eyeshadow and does his best to put it on, following it up with the worst possible eyeliner job I’ve ever seen. I begin to snicker, and the cheerleader glares at me. He continues to do his best, smudging mascara on, and he finishes with Uzi’s dark purple lipstick.
“All done,” I say.
Doll looks at herself in her camera and cringes, unable to hide her disgust. N chuckles weakly and says, “I do a better job when I can see. Right, Uzi?”
“Yep,” she says.
Thad gets asked what he’d do with a million dollars, Lizzy gets asked what her wildest fantasy is and answers in way too explicit detail before we frantically cut her off, Doll gets asked if she was ever jealous of anyone and glares at me again, and Doll and Thad go into the closet.
“Uzi,” N says, “I dare you to read a Wikipedia page on an Instagram Live.”
“Oh, why?” She huffs but proceeds to do it to a total of five viewers, then she turns to me. “Truth, dare, or Heaven?”
“Uh, I’ll pick dare,” I say.
Uzi licks her lips and nods. “I dare you to read smut in a robotic voice, and you have to do your best to do it.”
“Okay, I can try that.” I scroll through my bookmarks until I find an explicit piece and mentally prepare myself for the first sentence that always takes me out.
“”Oh, Tybalt, you’re so big. You’re so big, and you’re inside-“” I can’t even finish the first sentence before I collapse into a giggle fit, and no matter how many times I try, I can’t get it out. “”You fit wonderfully inside me, but I wish you would understand th-“”
I just cannot get the words out of my mouth, and every try makes it worse. Tears well up, and every sound amplifies the hilarity of the situation. I finally manage to force the entire chapter out, much to everyone’s displeasure.
“I will pay you to never do that again,” Lizzy says. “God, that was awful.”
The bottle lands on N again, and he looks at me. “Heaven,” he says, and we go back inside the closet. “I heard Uzi told you about our idea. It’s okay with you?”
“Y-yeah,” I say. “I’d think it’d be interesting to try.”
“Can we try…..kissing?”
I nod, and we lean forward. The kiss is warm and delicate, and……..something inside coils up. We break apart, and I lie down and put my head on his lap.
N, Uzi, why are they being so nice? What are these feelings? With Uzi, I felt something completely different from N. With N, it was something different from Thad. What is all of this? Love?
What is love?
The timer rings, and we leave. Uzi kisses N’s cheek, and I sit beside Thad. Uzi gets dared to lick a bar of soap and does it, Lizzy gets asked if she is Team Edward or Team Jacob, Doll’s dare is to dance, and N goes into the closet with Lizzy. While they’re in there, Uzi gets dared to redo my hair, and my breath hitches.
She stands behind me and takes off my flower headband, fingers accidentally touching my neck. From there, she works on braiding it into a crown on my braid, and I get reminded of a movie from the nineties. What was it called? Lolita? Maybe. I detach from flowers and hand them over, and she tucks them into the braid.
“You look pretty,” she whispers, and that strange feeling takes over.
What is going on with me?
N and Lizzy are still in the closet, and more chaotic dares and truths get thrown around. Finally, Doll turns to me and says, “Sing a song to Uzi.”
We share a glance, and her face flushes.
“You didn’t say what type of song,” I say quickly. I pull up some karaoke and wait until it’s time to start, and I get to mimic what I remember from the choreography.
“Some might say we’re released
Pushing daisies, deceased
But we all know the worms must be fed
There’s just one lingering fear
Oh, my soul, is it here
Or is it rotting somewhere with my head?
“Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
“Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
“Ah-ah-ahh-ahh-ah
“Ah-ah.”
Uzi’s jaw drops, and she looks impressed.
“Oh, no soul, and no name
And no story, what a shame
Cruel existence was only a sham
Oh, Saint Peter, let me in
You must know where I’ve been
Won’t you tell me at last who I am?
“Who I am
Who I am
Who I am
Who I am
“Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh
“Ah-ahh-ahh-ah-ah
“Ah-ah
“And from the ground, beneath my feet
I hear the anguish of the street
“A choir never complete”
And like an old forgotten tune
A song that no one knows
Forgot how it goes
Just John and me
Forever eternally, Jane Doe.”
Thad’s nodding along and moving his hands in time to the beat. Doll seems a bit annoyed, but she stays quiet.
“And I’m askin’, “Why, Lord?
If this is how I die, Lord
Why be left with no family
And no friends?”
“Ooh”
I’ve got no celebration
Just this consolation
Time eats all his children in the end.”
Lizzy and N come out of the closet, and N claps before realizing that I have more to go.
“A melody floats through the air
When silence falls, does no one care?
“Does anyone care?”
Another sad, forgotten tune
Another song that no one knows
So that’s how it goes
Just John and me
Forever eternally, Jane Doe
“Andshe’s askin’, “Why, Lord?”
“Why, oh why, oh why, oh why?”
“Thisis no way to die, Lord!”
“No one to sing, no one to sigh”
Now that all is said and done
Isn’t there anyone to tell me who I am?
No singing songs of celebration
Just this sorry speculation
”Ah-ah-ah-AH
“Like John, I’ll be eternally
A forgotten name, some lost refrain
Just “Jane”
Jane
Doe.”
That last note is always a bit tricky, but I barely pull it off and sit down. Thad hugs me, and I hold him. Uzi claps for a second, then immediately spins the bottle and tells N to dump a cup of ice water over his head. The game continues on until it’s late, and we’re all half-asleep. Uzi and N pull me onto their bed, and I shoot a tired look to Thad. He yawns and gives me a thumbs-up. Lizzy and Doll go downstairs, and I curl up beside N. Uzi places an arm over me, and I sigh softly.
