“Yo,” I say, sitting down on my open truck bed. “What’s up?”
“Breaking news, dude,” he says, sounding nervous. B. J. always has breaking news. It used to always involve some girl he wanted to bang, but for the past few months, he’s been going out with Courtney’s friend Jocelyn. He’s still the biggest gossip I know, and one of his deepest secrets is that he subscribes to Us Weekly.
“Is that why you’re up so early?”
“Huh? Oh, no, I haven’t been to sleep yet,” he says.
“You’ve been up all night?” I ask, glancing at my watch. “It’s nine o’clock in the morning.”
“Dude, the party went until four this morning,” he says. “And then we all went to breakfast. You missed a great fucking time.”
Last night’s party was kind of a last hurrah, a sendoff before everyone left for school, which most people are doing this weekend. I was there for a while, but I took off before things got really crazy. I knew I had to be up early this morning so I wouldn’t piss Courtney off by being late. Look how well that turned out.
“So what’s the breaking news?” I ask.
“It’s about Courtney,” he says, and I feel my stomach drop.
“What about her?” I say.
“She’s hooking up with Lloyd,” he says, and I swallow hard. Figures. Lloyd is Courtney’s best friend, this total tool who Court’s been in love with since like seventh grade. Well, until she met me. Supposedly as soon as we started dating, she lost all her feelings for him. Or so she said.
“How do you know?” I ask, not sure I want to hear about this.
“Heard it from Julianna Fields, who heard it from Lloyd.”
“When?”
“Not sure,” B. J. says. “She was talking about it last night. After the party, really late. And then, um, Lloyd left Courtney a MySpace comment last night.”
“Well, whatever,” I say. I stand up, load the rest of the bags into the back of my truck, and slam it shut. “Courtney can do whatever the hell she wants.”
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lie. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Cool,” B. J. says. “Call me later.”
I click off my cell phone and take a deep breath. Whatever. This isn’t a big deal. I mean, I broke up with her. All I have to do is get through the next three days. Three days is nothing. Three days is half of spring break. Spring break flew by in two seconds this year. Thinking about spring break makes me start thinking about vacations, which makes me start thinking about Courtney and me in Miami, and the bathing suit she was wearing, and what happened on the beach…. Stop. I tell myself. It’s over.
I take another deep breath, and when I turn around Courtney’s dad is standing there, holding his briefcase in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
“All packed up?” he says, smiling. I do my best to smile back, and resist the urge to punch him.
“Looks like it,” I say. I feel my fists clench at my side, and I will myself to unclench them.
“We’re clear on everything, right, Jordan?” he says. He leans in close to me, and I can smell his aftershave. “I would hate for this trip to end in a bad way, with Courtney getting distracted before her first day of school.”
“I wouldn’t want Courtney to get upset either,” I say, which is true. What I don’t add is that if her father wasn’t such an asshole, there’d be no chance of Courtney finding out anything that would upset her in the first place.
“Great,” he says, clapping me on the shoulder like we’re old friends. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.” He studies me for a minute, but I don’t break my gaze. “I am going to tell her, you know.”
“Of course,” I say, even though he’s been feeding me the same bullshit line for the past three months.
He hesitates for a minute, like he wants to say something else, or is waiting for me to reassure him that I’m not going to talk. But I’m not going to. Reassure him. Or talk. But he doesn’t need to know that.
“Have a safe trip,” he says finally, and then takes off down the driveway.
Once he’s out of sight, I lean my head against the side of my truck and take a deep breath. I’ve spent the past two weeks driving myself completely crazy with the fact that if it weren’t for Courtney’s douchebag dad, and one second that changed everything, we’d still be together. But instead, we’re not, and Courtney hates me.
And who could blame her? She thinks I dumped her for some girl I met on the Internet. If she knew what really happened, she’d probably hate me even more. Because the truth is, Courtney and I broke up for a really fucked-up reason that she doesn’t know about, and hopefully never will. There is no Internet girl. I made her up.
jordan before
125 Days Before the Trip, 9:02 p.m.
I pull my TrailBlazer into my friend B. J.’s driveway and lay on the horn. B. J.’s real name is Brian Joseph Cartwright, but in seventh grade everyone started calling him B. J. We’d all just found out about the term “blow job,” and we thought the nickname was super witty and cool. After a few years, it got old to everyone except B. J. He still loves the name and refuses to answer to anything else, even from teachers.
B. J. comes out of the house wearing a green bodysuit, green booties, and a leprechaun hat. I’m less concerned with what he’s wearing, and more concerned about the fact that he’s moving about as fast as a dial-up connection. We’re on our way to Connor Mitchell’s party, and I don’t want to miss a second of it.
He opens the door (slowly) and launches himself into the passenger seat of my truck.
“Whaddup, kid?” he asks. He slams the door shut and readjusts the green beanie on his head.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask.
“What the fuck is what?” He’s confused.
“This whole leprechaun thing,” I say, rolling my eyes. I readjust my sideview mirror and back out of his driveway.
“I am not a leprechaun!” he says, offended. “I’m a midget.”
“You’re a midget?” I ask, incredulous. “You’re dressed like a leprechaun. And they don’t call them midgets anymore, they call them ‘little people.’” I pull my eyes away from the road and glance at him quickly. Is it possible he’s drunk already?
“I’m a little person, then,” he says, sounding like he doesn’t give a shit. “But really, who cares? I’m going to be so wasted it isn’t going to matter.”
“The only reason it’s kind of weird,” I say slowly, not wanting to upset him, “is because it’s not a costume party. So I don’t understand why you’d be dressed up.”
“It’s not a costume party?” he asks, sounding confused again. “I thought Madison said something about going as a cheerleader.” He rolls down his window, which makes no sense, because the air conditioner is on. I don’t understand why people have to roll down their windows when the air conditioner is on, since it’s obviously hotter outside than it is in the car.
“No,” I say, “Madison is a cheerleader. Why would she go to a costume party dressed as one?”
“She said she was going to!”
“She said she might not have time to change after the game, and might need to wear her uniform to the party.” Madison Allesio is this blonde sophomore who’s in study hall with B. J. and me. She’s also the reason I’m going to this party tonight. Well, kind of. I probably would have gone anyway, since Connor Mitchell is known to throw some insane parties. Last year half the freshman class was topless in his pool. But Madison’s been flirting with me hardcore for the past month, and yesterday she was all, “Are you going to Connor’s party?” But she said it in a “Are you going to Connor’s party so I can go home with you and get it on?” kind of way.
“I don’t give a shit,” B. J. says, grinning. “I’m going to be so fucked up I won’t even care. And I’m a leprechaun, and you know leprechauns are always gettin’ lucky! Woot woot!” He pumps his hands in the air in a “raise the roof” gesture. B. J. is always talkin
g about how much play he’s going to get, when in reality, he gets none.
We hear the party before we get there, a mix of what sounds like mainstream rap. Jay-Z, 50 Cent, that kind of stuff. Posers. I like my rap hard and dirty, none of this “top forty” bullshit. But once I get a few beers in me, and a few girls on me, I’m sure I’ll be fine. I maneuver my car into a parking spot on the street and follow B. J. up the walk and into the house.
Half an hour later, I’m starting to think this party might actually blow. B. J. was entertaining me for a while, but now he’s disappeared into the throng of people somewhere after doing a keg stand, and I have no idea where he is.
I’m sitting in Connor’s living room, deciding whether or not to get up and get another beer, when I feel a pair of hands across my eyes.
“Hey,” a female voice says behind me. “Guess who?” She’s leaning over me now, and I catch a whiff of perfume. I can tell it’s Madison from how she smells—good, and like you’d want to get her naked immediately.
“I don’t know,” I say, playing dumb. “Jessica?” I don’t even know any Jessicas. I’m such a stud.
“No,” she says, trying to sound hurt.
“Jennifer? Jamie?”
“Not a J name,” she says. She’s closer now, and I can feel her chest pushing into the back of my head.
“I give up,” I say, reaching up to pull her hands off my eyes.
Madison pouts her lips and puts a hand on her hips. “It’s Madison!” she says, puffing out her lip. She’s wearing a short white skirt and a pink halter top. I was kind of hoping she’d be in her cheerleader uniform, but she looks hot anyway. Her long blond hair falls in waves down her back. It’s all I can do not to pick her up and take her back to my truck with me.
“Ahhh, Madison,” I say. “I was looking for you.”
“You were not,” she says, sighing. “You didn’t even know it was me.”
This is what confuses me about girls like Madison. They’re hot, they could have any guy they want, and yet they spend most of their time trying to get guys to tell them they’re hot. It doesn’t make sense. It’s like they don’t want to believe they’re good-looking. Or maybe they just get off on having guys tells them over and over.
(Another note about girls like Madison: They’re good for hookups, but are not girlfriend material. Inevitably, you get tired of listening to them whine about whether or not you think they’re hot, and they have to go. Plus, if you date a girl like Madison, you run the risk of actually starting to like her, and then she will eventually end up dumping you for some new guy who tells her how beautiful she is, because she’s sick of hearing it from you. The trick is to play into their egos enough to keep them around, but not so much that they become bored. Luckily, I am a master at this.)
“I was looking for you,” I repeat. I try to look disinterested and take a sip of my drink. “You look hot.” I scan the crowd behind her, still not looking at her.
“Really?” she asks, looking pleased. She does a little twirl, and her skirt fans out around her legs. Which are really, really tan. And really, really long. I try not to stare, knowing that if I let myself get too worked up, I won’t be able to continue playing the game. Hormones are such a bitch.
“So you never responded to my MySpace message,” I say, and her face flushes. My last MySpace message was about how hot her lips looked, and how I couldn’t wait to kiss her.
“I never got it,” she says, but I can tell she’s lying. She looks over to where her friends are standing on the other side of the room. “This party is so lame.” She glances at me out of the corner of her eye, and I know that’s my signal.
“You want to get out of here?” I ask. “I have my truck.”
She shrugs, like she doesn’t care. “I guess. Just let me go tell my friends.”
Madison walks away, and I try to find some way to distract myself. I can’t be waiting for her when she comes back. I have to make her work for it a little. I know it sounds mean and fucked up, but it really isn’t. It’s just how things work. I look around for some situation that has to be taken care of, or some girl I know that I can later claim came up to me, not vice versa. And that’s when I see B. J. attached to Courtney McSweeney’s leg.
courtney before
125 Days Before the Trip, 9:43 p.m.
Tonight I’m going to tell my friend Lloyd that I’m in love with him. Important things about Lloyd:
He’s been my best friend since the seventh grade, when we got seated near each other in every single class because of our last names. It seemed like every teacher was doing it alphabetically, so since I’m McSweeney and he’s McPeak, we were always together. When we got to high school and ended up being able to choose our own seats, we still sat together. It was like a rule.
Ever since the first day of seventh grade, I’ve been in love with him. My friend Jocelyn says that you can’t be in love with someone if:
they don’t know it
they don’t feel the same way
you’ve never kissed them, held hands with them, or done anything more than be friends with them.
But that makes no sense to me whatsoever, because, hello, it’s called unrequited love. Look at people in movies. They’re always saying “I’m in love with you” when they haven’t done anything physical with the other person. Physical is just physical, it doesn’t mean anything.
Besides, I am going to tell Lloyd how I feel. The reason I haven’t up until this point is because I don’t want to ruin the friendship (i.e., I’m deathly afraid of rejection). But lately, there have been signs. Lloyd has been calling me every single night—definitely more than usual—and talking on the phone with me for hours. And he helps me with my math homework, even when I get totally confused and it takes us twenty minutes to do one problem. He never gets impatient with me.
I have to make my move soon, though, because Lloyd is going to school in North Carolina and I’m going to school in Boston, so we’re going to need to be dating for a few months before we leave for college. That way we’ll be all set up for a long-distance relationship. Which is why I plan on telling him. Tonight. After the party. That I want to be more than friends.
I’m even wearing my “I’m going to tell Lloyd I want him” outfit, which consists of a very short jean skirt and a tight white shirt. Which is not the kind of thing I usually wear. But I need to get Lloyd to stop thinking of me as a friend and start thinking of me as someone he wants to date.
So far, the night is not going as planned. First, Lloyd said he would be at this party, and so far, I have not seen him. Second, my friend Jocelyn (who I drove here with), is off talking to this junior guy she has a crush on and has left me standing here by myself. This is not her fault, because I told her I would be fine, since I thought Lloyd would be here soon, and I would be so busy seducing him that I wouldn’t need Jocelyn to hang out with me anyway. Third, and definitely the most upsetting, is that right at this moment, there is a guy dressed like a leprechaun with his arms wrapped around my legs. I’m scandalized by this, but I’m trying to be nice, because I think he’s drunk.
“Oh, um, hi,” I say, trying to push him away gently. “You’re, um, a leprechaun.” This is why I don’t go to parties. Because stuff like this always happens to me. I’m always the one standing in some corner, by myself, with a guy dressed like a leprechaun drooling on my leg.
“I am not,” he says, looking up at me. “I’m a midget.” I get a good look at his face and realize it’s B. J. Cartwright. Great. The craziest guy in the senior class is wrapped around my leg. B. J.’s done some pretty insane stuff, including burning our class name and year into the lawn outside the front doors of our school. He almost got expelled for it, but the school board relented since no one got hurt. B. J. put condoms in all the teachers’ mailboxes on Safe Sex Awareness Day, rigged the school penny contest so that our class would win, and showed up on Halloween as Hannah Baker, a girl in our class who got arrested over the summer for prostitution. He wo
re balloon boobs and everything.
“A midget,” I say, trying to disentangle myself from him again, but he has a viselike grip on my leg. “That’s, erhm, interesting.”
“You’ve always wanted to do it with a midget, haven’t you, Britney?” he asks, licking his lips at me. Oh, my God.
“My name’s not Britney,” I say, hoping maybe he’s looking for someone specific, and once he realizes I’m not her, he’ll take off.
“I know it’s not,” he says, rolling his eyes. “But you look like her.”
“Like Britney?” I ask, confused. His hands feel sticky against my bare leg, and I curse myself for wearing a skirt.
“Yes,” he slurs, leering at me. “You look like Britney Spears.”
“Really?” I ask, pleased in spite of myself. Then it occurs to me that Britney’s gone through several stages of attractiveness, and I wonder if he means I look like Hot Britney, or Not So Hot Britney, I consider asking him to clarify but I’m not sure I could handle the answer.
Still, no one has told me I look like a celebrity before. In fact, one time Jocelyn tried to set me up with this guy online, and the first thing he asked me was who my celebrity lookalike was. And I told him “No one, I look like myself,” which, you know, was definitely kind of lame. Because even if I DON’T have a celebrity lookalike, I could have made something up, or just given a vague idea, like, “Well, I have long dark hair like Rachel Bilson,” or something. Not that it would have worked out anyway. The relationship with the online guy, I mean. He told me his celebrity lookalike was Jake Gyllenhaal, and I hadn’t even asked him for the information. He just volunteered it. Which meant that he was dying for me to know, which meant that he was totally conceited. I can’t deal with conceited. (Actually, I probably could deal with a little conceit, but I think I was just scared because there’s no way I’d feel comfortable going out with a guy who looks like Jake Gyllenhaal. That would not be good for my self-esteem.)