Day One, 8:37 a.m.
I can’t figure out why Courtney is wearing such tight clothing. Do girls normally wear short pink cotton skirts and tight tank tops while going on a road trip? I’ve seen that ridiculous Britney Spears movie
Crossroads
, and I definitely don’t remember the girls in that movie wearing such slutty clothes. T-shirts and track pants is what they wore. Is she doing it in an effort to drive me insane? And is she going to act like a bitch the whole time? It’s not my fault I was late. I had to pack my stuff, which you would think would be easy—just throw your clothes, computer, and CDs into a suitcase, right? Wrong. It took fucking forever. But I was trying to hurry—I didn’t even gel my hair, which was a pretty big sacrifice. When it finally dries I’m going to look like Seth Cohen or some shit.
My cell phone rings as I’m loading Courtney’s stuff into the back of my truck and trying not to think about the next three days.
I answer it without checking the caller ID.
“Yeah,” I say, lifting a pink bag with long straps into the back. What the hell does she have in here? It feels like weights.
“Yo,” my best friend, B. J. Cartwright, says, sounding wide awake, which is surprising. B. J. never sounds wide awake. Especially since he’s usually either hungover, drunk, or getting ready to get drunk.
“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.
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 talking 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.
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:
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 wore 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.)
“Yes,” B. J. says. “You look just like Britney.” He reaches up and pokes me in the stomach. “Except for her abs. You don’t have her abs.” His face falls. All right then.
“Um, Britney’s had kids,” I say. “And so her abs, I’m sure, are shot.” He considers this, nods, and then licks my leg. Gross.
“Okay, you need to knock that off.” I stick my leg out and try to shake him off, but it’s harder than it looks. Even though he’s dressed like a midget, and has been walking around on his knees all night, B. J. is six-foot-four and probably weighs close to two hundred pounds. He’s
heavy
. I look around for Jocelyn, but I can’t find her anywhere. Typical. She begs me to come to this party, and then leaves me right at the crucial moment, i.e., when I have a midget-leprechaun attached to my leg. “Stop!” I command, wondering if I can stick the heel of my shoe into his stomach without really hurting him.
“Why?” he asks. “I’m helping you with your midget fetish.” He licks my leg again. Oh,
eww.
“I do NOT have a midget fetish!” I say, louder this time, hoping that my change of volume will help him get the message.
“Not yet.” He grins up at me, and I’m about to stick my heel right into his stomach, not caring if it causes permanent damage or not, when Jordan Richman appears out of the crowd and picks B. J. up by his elbows.
“All right, Lucky,” he says, removing B. J. from my leg, swinging him around, and placing him a safe few feet away. Oh, thank God. Jordan must be really strong to be able to pick up B. J. like that. Although, once he set him down, B.J. went limp and fell to the ground, so maybe he was so drunk that it didn’t matter how big he was Kind of like when you’re in water, your weight doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s the same when you’re drunk. “I think that’s enough.”
“Whaddup, kid?” B. J. asks Jordan. He grins at him and readjusts the green beanie on his head.
“Nothing,” Jordan says, looking slightly amused, “but you can’t just go around humping people’s legs.” He rolls his eyes.
“I wasn’t humping her!” B. J. says, offended. “I’m a midget.”
“You’re not a midget,” I say, before I can stop myself. “You’re dressed like a leprechaun. And they don’t call them midgets anymore, they call them ‘little people.’” Jordan grins at me.
“I’m a little person, then,” he says, sounding cheerful. “But, really, who cares? I’m so wasted it doesn’t matter.”
“It’s not a costume party,” I point out.
“I know,” B. J. says sadly. “But Madison said she might wear her cheerleading uniform.”
“But she didn’t,” Jordan says.
I don’t understand what Madison’s cheerleading uniform has to do with it being a costume party, but I know enough to realize they’re talking about Madison Allesio. It figures Jordan would be friends with her. There’s this rumor going around that she likes to do this oral sex thing with Kool-Aid. Something to do with, uh, different flavors for different guys. Totally disgusting, which seems kind of like Jordan’s type. Not that I know him all that well. We’re in the same math class, and that’s about it. But one time I heard him in the hall before class, arguing with a girl. Something about how she needed to stop following him around. And then she said he shouldn’t have hooked up with her if he didn’t want a girlfriend. It was actually kind of a math class scandal, because the whole class could hear everything that was going on. Finally, I think he just walked into the classroom while she was screaming. I couldn’t see the girl, but later on I found out it was this freshman named Katie Shaw, and then I really didn’t feel so bad about the whole thing, because I know for a fact she messes around with a lot of guys—including Lloyd, who she went to third base with in a movie theater. Anyway, the point is, I’m not surprised Jordan’s friends with Madison. He apparently likes girls who thrive on hookups and drama.
“I don’t give a shit.” B. J. shrugs. “I’m a leprechaun. And leprechauns. Get. Lucky.” He pumps his hands in the air in a “raise the roof” gesture. “Besides,” he continues, grinning, “Britney liked it.” He grins at me again and then waddles off on his knees.
“Sorry about that,” Jordan says, smiling sheepishly. “He gets crazy when he’s drunk. But he wouldn’t have done anything.”
“It’s okay,” I say, feeling stupid.
“Here,” he says, pulling a tissue out of his pocket and handing it to me.
“Thanks.” I wipe B. J.’s saliva off my leg and check my skin to make sure it’s not broken, all the while scanning my brain for diseases that can be transferred by bites. I can’t think of any. Lyme disease, maybe? But I don’t think you can get that from other people, just from ticks. They should totally concentrate on communicable bite diseases in health class, since apparently I have more of a chance of getting bitten than I do of losing my virginity.
“Anyway, it’s Courtney, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, surprised that he’s asking. He should know my name. We’ve been in the same advanced math class for four years.
He smiles at me, his eyes shining. “Sorry, that was lame. I know your name. I was just trying to be smooth.”
I laugh and so does he.
“Are you here by yourself?” he asks, looking around.
“No,” I say quickly, so he doesn’t think I’m a total loser. “My friend Jocelyn is here somewhere, but I lost track of her.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I try to keep an eye on B. J. when he starts drinking, but it’s hard with this many people here.”
“I can imagine,” I say, trying to think of something cool to say. Not that I’m interested in him or anything. I mean, he’s cute enough, but that’s not why I can’t think of anything cool to say. I just have a hard time with small talk. My friend Jocelyn says I’m too quiet. But I’m really not quiet. I just tend to come across that way to new people because I don’t like to talk first. What if the other person doesn’t want to be bothered? I wonder if I should ask Jordan if he knows what kind of diseases can be transmitted through saliva.
“Anyway, you wanna dance?” he asks, gesturing to one side of the party, where everyone is dancing to a top forty remix.
“Oh, no thanks,” I say, trying not to look horrified. There’s no way I’m dancing at this party. If he’d ever seen me dance, he would know why. I am not a good dancer. I
like
to dance, I’m just not very good at it. I like to keep my dancing confined to my room, where I can pretend to be Christina or Rhianna without anyone watching.
“Oh,” he says, looking confused. Probably no girls have ever turned him down to dance before. He looks at me, and I realize he’s waiting for an explanation, some kind of reason why I can’t dance.
“I would,” I say quickly, hoping he doesn’t think I’m a dork and/or leave. It’s not that I’m loving talking to him or anything, but I don’t want to be the only loser at the party talking to no one. That’s how I got accosted by a leprechaun. “But my leg kind of hurts.” This is a total lie. Besides the fact that every time I think of what just happened, my leg feels kind of slimy, I actually feel fine. I mean, B. J. didn’t bite me or anything. He just sort of slobbered on me. Which was, you know, unpleasant and everything, but didn’t hurt.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jordan says, looking genuinely concerned. Which makes me feel bad. But I would much rather deal with the guilt of lying about a medical condition than the humiliation of having to dance in front of everyone here. “Do you think you need to go to the doctor or anything?”
“Oh, no, I don’t think it’s that bad,” I say, “but I probably shouldn’t, uh, dance on it or anything.”
“Okay,” he agrees. He keeps looking over his shoulder for something (someone? B. J.?), which is kind of distracting.
There’s a pause, and I take a sip of my soda in an effort to appear busy. I finally spot Jocelyn across the room, where she’s sitting on an oversized leather couch, talking to a different guy than the one she originally left me for. She gives me a look and raises her eyebrows, like, “What’s the deal?” I try to telegraph back, “Absolutely nothing!” But she gives me a “Yeah, right” look back. I know she’s thinking about Lloyd.
“Hey,” Jordan says, looking around again. What is he looking for? Maybe he lost something. Or maybe someone stole something from him, and now he’s looking for whoever took it. Or maybe he wants to make sure his midget friend is okay. “How does your leg feel now?”
“Fine, thanks,” I say without thinking. “Much better.”