Truth or Dare by Camilla Lackberg

Author:Camilla Lackberg [Lackberg, Camilla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2021-08-03T17:00:00+00:00

PART II

5

The food is amazing. There are many things that Liv cannot bring herself to enjoy, but food is not among them. She’s glad about that. She’s not Martina – who after each meal offers a smiling apology, vanishes off to the loo and sticks her fingers down her throat. Early on, Liv tried talking to her best friend about it, but over time she has accepted that this is how Martina deals with things.

She can only hope that one day her friend will stop suffocating herself from within.

Max, who is sitting at the long side of the table and has a white cloth napkin tucked into his collar, raises his glass.

‘Here’s to you, my best friends, and to the fantastic year we’re going to have.’

The others raise their glasses in return. The meal is consumed in silence. Liv glances towards Martina, who is prodding the lobster with her fork. She skewers a tiny, tiny piece of white flesh. Raises it to her mouth. And then chews with a vacant stare.

Liv can tell she is thinking about what they witnessed from the window a little earlier. About her own reaction to it. Not because it happened but because Liv saw it too. Martina is always so anxious about what others think about her and her family – the exterior is important to her. That’s why it’s such a heavy burden.

But Liv already knew that Martina’s dad sleeps around.

When spending her evenings in town, Liv usually frequents a Chinese restaurant near Karlaplan. She goes there to drink and draw in her sketchbook. Sometimes she reads novels that no one remembers any more. They’re always written by angry young women.

One of those evenings, she was at her usual table close to the bar, giving her a full view of the premises. Karl came in accompanied by a woman who was only a few years older than Martina and Liv. They drank and laughed together. When the waiter asked whether they wanted to order food they merely waved him away. After an hour or so they disappeared, entwined and laughing, into the November night.

When Martina and Liv were standing side by side at the window a little earlier and saw Karl kiss Anton’s mum, it was Liv who broke the silence.

‘Pig,’ she said simply.

At first, Martina looked like she wanted to protest, but her mouth remained shut. She didn’t even ask Liv to keep the secret – she knows how good Liv is at keeping things to herself. There’s no secret so great that it cannot be contained within Liv’s slender body.

Liv suddenly feels angry – she squeezes the wine glass so hard that the top of it shatters. Startled, the others look up from their plates, taking in the blood dripping from her hand onto the white tablecloth.

It’s just a scratch; she can barely feel it.

‘What happened?’ Anton asks in surprise.

But Liv can’t bring herself to reply. Max grabs the napkin from his collar and hurries over, applying it to Liv’s injured hand and pulling her with him towards the bathroom.

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