Chapter 2: : Chapter 2

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.