Page 151 of I Dare You
When Kit and Dandy stare at me speechlessly, my stomach plummets a hundred floors.“Or am I?”
Dandy steps forward, nothing but love in his eyes.He turns his wrist, showing me his tattoo.“Do you know what this is?”
“A tattoo of a planet,” I reply, unsure if this is a trick question.
“It’s Jupiter,” he says.
“Yes, I always thought it was cool Jupiter was named that.It reminded me of you.”
Dandy gently takes both my hands in his.“It’s you.You’re Jupiter.”
I don’t know what to say or think.I open and close my mouth.Dandy lets go of my hands and stands off to the side, wiping away his tears.
Kit steps forward and gently wipes away the dry blood on my face, tending to me kindly.There’s a tremble to his hands.
“Kit?”I whisper, begging him to explain.
His beautiful hair falls over his eyes as he brings my hands to his lips, kissing them.“I’ve been afraid to tell you this, but your strength made me realize I have nothing to fear.You are the most incredible woman I have ever met.I didn’t know who I was until I met you.
“You don’t give up.You’re loyal.And you love unconditionally.Your heart is so big.You make me happy.You make me safe.”
My heart hurts because his admission carries pain.
“The things that happened to you, not just that night in the woods but with your parents and your uncle, your mind couldn’t take it.It needed an escape.So…it created Jupiter.”
I blink twice, not understanding.
He speaks softly and slowly because what he reveals is life-altering.“Jupiter… She’s a figment of your imagination.An alter ego you created to help deal with the trauma you suffered that night in the woods.Jupiter is the bad, while Hallie is the good.This was the only way you could justify the things you did.”
I stare at Kit, hearing him but not really understanding what he means.
“The blackouts, I think, are a way for you to switch to Jupiter, making you forget what you’ve done.”
“That’s not possible.You’re saying…I’m, what, talking to myself?That I have an imaginary friend?Do you know how crazy that is!”I’m suddenly angry.“I know you don’t like Jupiter, but this is just cruel.How can you say that?”
Kit’s eyes are pooled with nothing but sadness.“Hallie, the night at the hotel, you were fighting with Jupiter, right?”
I nod, angered.
He shakes his head.“When I walked out, there was no one there.Just you.You were inflicting your own injuries.You’ve been fighting against yourself this whole time.”
“Why would I do that?”I cry, unable to accept this.
“Because you needed protection.So you created Jupiter to balance the scales.You didn’t create a monster.You created a protector.You did bad things to get back what was stolen from you.But you’re good, Hallie.You were fighting against Jupiter because the good wanted to win.
“What happened fucked you up.No one can blame you for that.”
I look at Dandy, whose eyes are red with tears.And then to Jupiter, who is still a flickering black-and-white picture.Nothing but static…all in my head.
“Dandy?”I beg him to tell me this is all a bad dream.
He wipes away his tears and retrieves his phone.He turns it around and presses play on footage of me, of me talking to someone who isn’t there.I grab the phone and stare at the screen, watching video after video over the past five days when I remember talking to Jupiter, but was I really talking to myself the entire time?
She’s not there.
It’s just me.
I place a trembling hand over my mouth, blinking past the confusion because what I see must be a trick.
