I’m in college. Last night, I played the most disturbing game of Never Have I Ever with my roommates.
If you don’t know the game, it goes like this: everyone holds up five fingers. You go around the room, saying “never have I ever” followed by something you’ve never done. Everyone who’s done that thing has to put a finger down. Five fingers down and you lose.
Anyway, last night we’d been drinking a bit, and a lot of juicy secret-sharing was going on. We’d learned Tina and Layla had been skinny-dipping, I’d cheated on a test, and now… Layla had been in a threesome. “You had a threesome?!” Erin gasped. “Who? Who was it?”
“She doesn’t have to tell. That’s not part of the rules,” Tina said.
“But… but…” Erin pouted. “Okay, fine. My turn. Never have I ever… had sex outside.”
“You know, if you keep doing sex ones, I’m going to lose in like two seconds,” Layla said, adjusting her glasses.
“Okay. I’ll do something different,” Tina said. She leaned in closer and lowered her voice to an almost-whisper. “Never have I ever… seen someone die.”
An uneasy silence settled over us. Our smiles faded and we glanced at each other. Then Erin and I each put our fingers down.
“Going with the creepy theme here,” Layla said, “never have I ever used a Ouija board.”
Erin and I put our fingers down again.
It’d been back in September. Shortly after that girl, Lucy, disappeared. One year above us, majoring in Art History. Looking back on it, it wasn’t the most respectful thing to do. She was dead, probably. And here we were making some spooky thing out of it.
Although, not to shift blame, but it really was Erin’s idea.
“Your turn,” Layla said.
“Right. Okay.” My throat was dry. I reached over and took a sip of my grasshopper. “Never have I ever smoked pot.”
Then it was Erin’s turn. She spun off mine, saying she’d never smoked a cigarette. And then we were back to Tina.
For a second, she didn’t say anything. We all stared at her, and she stared back, her eyes nearly black in the dim light. She was smiling, slightly, as she looked at all of us. Hesitating, ramping up the tension.
“Never have I ever… killed someone.”
Dead silence. Then Layla finally spoke, forcing a laugh. “What the fuck?” she asked, crossing her tattooed arms over her chest. “Of course none of us have ever—”
She stopped mid-sentence.
And then she pointed at Erin.
“You… you had three fingers up before,” she said, her voice weak. Small.
I looked at Erin. She sat there, stone-faced, holding up her pinky and ring fingers. She surveyed Layla with her cold blue eyes, then shook her head. “No I didn’t.”
“You totally did. Did you… kill someone?”
Erin narrowed her eyes. “If I did, do you really think I’d be stupid enough to put down a finger?”
Tina and I glanced at each other, eyes wide. “Uh, Layla,” I finally cut in. “I’m sure she had three fingers up before.”
“You sure? You saw her?”
“No, I didn’t see her, but I mean… obviously, she didn’t kill anyone.”
Layla focused back on Erin. “You put one down for the Ouija board, and one for seeing someone die. What was the third one for?”
“Skinny dipping,” she replied, without hesitating.
“No. Wait,” Tina cut in. “That doesn’t make sense. You said you don’t know how to swim. That’s why you wouldn’t come with us to Lake Crystal.”
“So? You can skinny dip without swimming. That’s why it’s called skinny dipping, not skinny swimming.”
But I could hear it in her voice. She was getting flustered. My stomach twisted and my heart began to pound. No. There’s no way.
Is there?
There was no way Erin killed someone. And even if she had, there was no way she’d admit it in a game of Never Have I Ever. The whole thing was ridiculous.
But then why is she acting so… weird? Why isn’t she just laughing it off? My hands were shaking now. I looked at Layla, and Tina, and they both looked just as terrified as I was. Maybe she did kill someone. Maybe…
Something was bothering me. Nagging at the back of my mind. Something I thought was insignificant when it happened, but now, seemed very significant.
“I don’t want to play anymore,” Erin said abruptly. She got up off the floor and set her drink down on the table. “You guys are being too weird.” She started down the hallway, where her and my bedrooms lay.
“Wait.”
I stood up. She slowly turned around. “What, Caroline?” she asked, her eyes empty. “You going to accuse me of murder too?”
“No. Just… where were you that night? The night Lucy went missing?”
“Excuse me?” she spat.
The gears were turning in my head. Before, I hadn’t put the pieces together. It wasn’t weird for Erin to be out that night. I’d been out all night, at Jared’s place or at a party, and so had Tina and Layla.
And yet…
It wasn’t a weekend night. It was just a random Wednesday, around 2:00 am, when I heard Erin’s door creak open next to mine. Heard her footsteps, thumping down the hall. I’d woken again with a start around 4:00 am, to hear her coming home.
Later that day we’d heard Lucy was missing.
“Where were you?” I asked, again. “I heard you leave. Around 2 AM. It was the night she went missing.”
Erin’s expression blanked.
Then, in an instant, she ran down the hallway. She pushed me aside, roughly, and I fell to the floor. My head made a sickening thwack as it hit the floor. Distantly, I heard the other girls scream. Above me, I saw the door swing open…
And then slam shut.
I scrambled up. But it was too late. By the time I peered into the hallway, she was already gone.
No one has found Erin yet. I don’t know what happened to Lucy, and I don’t even know if she’s guilty. But I wonder if she didn’t actually mean to put her finger down during our game. If maybe, she did it without thinking, on instinct.
Or, if maybe—
Something unseen forced her finger down.