In Halls

Truth or Dare

I slipped into my green dress and layered bracelets on my wrist. I could hear the music starting up in the kitchen even from my end of the corridor. I was officially late. Fashionably late, I thought wryly as I pulled my bottle of rum from the bottom of the wardrobe. I'd started stashing it in my room since Josh developed the hilarious prank of topping up any bottles left in the kitchen with the cheapest paint-stripping vodka he could find.

Still, I had to acknowledge the irony. There had been times over our later school and college years when Sophie and I had wanted desperately to be invited to parties. Now I wanted desperately not to be invited. And yet I was convinced that if I didn't go, I'd be missing out, not only on tonight but on any number of future incidents. At least Sophie seemed to be enjoying the new partying opportunities. I had to assume that that was why she wasn't keeping in touch so well this week.

The others were all in the kitchen already, along with a few of our upstairs neighbours. Our flat was, for some reason, the party flat. My silent protest against this was refusing to open the front door to them when they pounded on it every night.

"You're late," said Ed, clinking his glass bottle of lager against my rum bottle.

"A wizard is never late," I said, absent-mindedly. Somewhere in this kitchen there had to be a clean glass I could use, surely.

"Did you arrive precisely when you mean to?" he said, in a conspiratorial whisper. I raised my eyebrows at him.

"How many of those have you got through already?" I asked, indicating his lager. Before he could answer, his arm was grabbed by Tara. Tonight she was wearing a tight, short red dress with a criss-cross neckline that revealed a patch of her abdomen. She was, without a doubt, the most visible person in the room.

"Ed, come on, you said you were going to deal like ten minutes ago!"

Well, good job we hadn't been having any particularly important conversation there.

Ed threw me a shrug and followed her to the kitchen table, where Christopher's pack of cards was already waiting. By now the cards were sticky and bent. Over the course of the week, we'd played just about every card-based drinking game you could name. Ring of Fire, Twenty One, Higher or Lower, Ride the Bus, games I wasn't even sure counted as games.

Ed started laying out the cards in a pyramid as Tara corralled people towards the table, shouting out that it was time for Red or Black. Oh, goodie. Guess whether the next card is going to be red or black. Drink if you get it wrong.

Who said university wasn't going to be intellectually stimulating?

Finally unearthing a glass, I poured out my rum and coke and wandered over to Elizabeth.

"Hey, you look cute in that," I told her, gesturing to her new outfit. "How was Julia?"

"Oh, she was okay. I mean, she was a little bit annoyed that I was late for our call but it was good to speak to her."

I tried to smile. Tara in her red dress was buzzing about the room, and before we could talk any further, the game had commenced. Laughter suffused the room. Drinks splashed as people took large swigs. I nursed my glass and dodged turns. I knew I was being dull and mardy, but, well, dull and mardy was kind of my style this week. When the last card had been flipped, Christopher reached forward and began to deal again.

"Can we not play something different?" I muttered, my words only getting as far as Ed, who was sat next to me. He chuckled.

"Got a problem with the wonders of Red or Black?" he asked.