Two-Way Street Read online

  “Good,” Jocelyn says, sounding satisfied.

  “But…” I say slowly, twirling a piece of lettuce around on my fork.

  “But what?” Jocelyn screeches. “There are no buts!” She grabs my hand and stops me from twirling. “Honey, no,” she instructs. “He’s bad news. He’s not right for you.”

  “I know,” I say. “You’re right. Definitely.” I frown. The thing is, when we were hanging out, he did seem right for me. Nothing like I really thought he was. But maybe that’s just a ploy, something he does to make girls want him. It makes sense when you think about it—he must be doing something to get all these girls to fall in love with him. It must have to do with sweet-talking them and making them think he’s a good guy. But I will not fall for that. I will be strong and not give into his psychotic, mind game–playing ways.

  “Don’t talk to him anymore,” Jocelyn says. “Don’t look at him, don’t call him, don’t online stalk him.”

  “I won’t,” I say, not mentioning the fact that I checked his MySpace profile about three hundred times yesterday, and was secretly very pleased to see that Madison Allesio left him a comment, which he never replied to.

  “I mean it, Courtney,” she says. “Don’t go getting all psychotic over something that’s not even a thing.”

  “You’re totally right,” I say. And she is. Getting all worked up over some guy who is definitely not a thing is really stupid. Especially since I’m already all worked up over Lloyd, who is also not a thing, and is even hooking up with the girl he met at Connor’s party. Unlike Jordan, Lloyd did call me yesterday, to tell me about how he felt up Olivia in the backseat of his car. Things in my love life are not going well.

  “Besides, what about Lloyd?” Jocelyn asks, like she’s reading my mind. She picks a cherry tomato off my plate and puts it in her mouth. I wordlessly hand her my fork, and she spears a forkful of my salad. Jocelyn is one of those people who is always trying to lose weight by not eating and then makes up for it by eating off everyone else’s plate.

  “He’s hooking up with Olivia.”

  “Lame,” Jocelyn says, rolling her eyes. “I give it a couple weeks.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say. Madison Allesio goes walking by, flanked on both sides by girls from her cheerleading squad. I swallow hard.

  “I have a scandal going on,” Jocelyn announces.

  “Oh, God,” I say. “Do I even want to know?”

  “Yes,” Jocelyn says. “You want to know.” She bites her lip. “But you can’t get mad at me for not telling you sooner.” Jocelyn likes to sit on her scandals. As in, she likes to wait a few days before telling anyone what’s going on. Last year when she broke up with Kevin Scott, who she’d been dating for two years, she didn’t tell me for a week. I just thought they were in a big fight, since I didn’t see them hanging around each other in school. I’ve learned not to take it too personally. It’s just how she is.

  “I won’t,” I say. I wonder if the fact that Jordan Richman called me out of nowhere on the same night I was supposed to tell Lloyd I wanted him is some kind of sign. That Jordan and I are supposed to be together. Or that Lloyd and I aren’t. Or that I really am supposed to be with Lloyd. That last one makes no sense, though, because why would Lloyd hooking up with Olivia mean he and I are supposed to be together? This is why believing in signs is never a good idea. They’re so damn confusing.

  “Okay,” she says. “You know how on Saturday night you tried calling me really late, but I didn’t answer?”

  “Yes,” I say. Unlike Jocelyn, I like to dissect and analyze any drama I’m involved in immediately. As soon as I got home from hanging out with Jordan on Saturday night, I called her.

  “And you know how I didn’t answer?” she says.

  “Yes.”

  “And you know how I didn’t call you back until four in the morning?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “And you know how you said you were sleeping, but we talked anyway, because—”

  “Jocelyn! Yes, I know, I was there, now spill.”

  “Well,” she says slowly. She twirls a strand of her light brown hair around her finger. “It was because I was hooking up with someone.”

  “Really?” I say. “Was it Mark?”

  “No,” she says.

  I wait. Silence.

  “Okay,” I say. “Are you going to tell me who it was?”

  “I don’t know,” she says.

  “Jocelyn!”

  “It’s embarrassing!” she says. She pulls my plate closer to her and takes another bite of my salad.

  “Why?” I say. “I mean, how bad can it be?”

  “It’s pretty bad,” she says, sounding pained.

  “It can’t be as bad as the Blake Letkowski debacle,” I say. Blake Letkowski is this kid who I ended up making out with last year when we were working together on a science project. He was bad, bad news. He smoked, he drank, he made racist comments…but I loved kissing him. Whoever Jocelyn hooked up with cannot be as bad as Blake Letkowski.

  Silence. “Jocelyn?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is it?” I pull my math book out of the messenger bag by my feet, hoping feigning nonchalance will get her to spill.

  “Is it what?” she asks, frowning.

  “Is it better than the Blake Letkowski debacle?”

  “Yes. Definitely better.”

  “Better meaning more of a scandal, or better meaning it isn’t as bad?” I say.

  “I guess that depends on how you look at it,” Jocelyn says slowly. She takes a sip of her chocolate milk. Jocelyn always drinks chocolate milk at lunch. Special, low-carb chocolate milk in single-serving containers that she buys before school each morning at the Mobil on the corner.

  “What do you mean?” I say. You’d think I’d be getting bored of this conversation, since she’s so obviously jerking me around, but surprisingly, I’m not. I want to know who she hooked up with.

  “I mean, do you think it’s good that I’ve hooked up with someone worse than Blake Letkowski, or are you going to be sympathetic?”

  “So whoever it is, IS worse than Blake.”

  “Courtney!”

  “WHAT?”

  She takes a deep breath. “Never mind, I’m not telling you.”

  “Fine.” I pretend to be engrossed in my math problem. After a few seconds, I can tell she’s getting antsy, but I break first. “Just tell me!”

  “No!”

  “I’ll find out.”

  “No one will find out.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not going to tell anyone.”

  “What if he tells someone?”

  “He won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we both said we wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “Oh, okay, cause that always works out. Guys who say they won’t tell anyone you hooked up always keep their mouths shut.” She’s silent. “But whatever,” I say, shrugging and turning back to my math book. “If you don’t want to tell your best friend in the whole world who you hooked up with, well, then…” I trail off.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” she says. “It’s just that I don’t want to be judged.”

  “When have I ever judged you?” I say, rolling my eyes. “I am the least judgmental person ever.”

  “Well,” she says, looking thoughtful. She takes another bite of salad. “When I joined newspaper last year because Dan Carlio was on the paper, you kind of judged me.”

  “That was different,” I say. “He was brainwashing you.” At the end of junior year, Jocelyn got wrapped up in this ridiculous guy who was one of those activist, literary types. He was always trying to use the school newspaper to further his political beliefs. Jocelyn started skipping school to go to environmental protests and almost lost her credits because of all the time she missed. Plus Dan was really creepy, and he referred to Jocelyn as his “little soldier.” Weird.

  “He was not!” Jocelyn says. She�
��s horrified.

  “Jocelyn, he made you join the Green Party.”

  “So?”

  “So, do you even know what the Green Party is?”

  “It has to do with Ralph Nader,” she says, proud of herself.

  “Whatever.”

  Silence.

  “So tell me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Waiting.”

  “You can’t laugh.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You can’t say anything.”

  “I won’t.”

  “B. J. Cartwright.”

  Silence.

  “Say something!” she shrieks.

  “You told me not to!” I say. “So I wasn’t.” B. J. Cartwright. Yikes. That’s…“disturbing” is really the only word I can come up with, but I can’t tell Jocelyn that. Because I told her I wouldn’t judge. Besides, Jocelyn takes attacks on people she’s hooking up with as a personal attack on herself. So if I were to say to her, “Wow, Jocelyn, that’s disturbing,” she would take it as meaning, “Wow, Jocelyn, you are disturbed.” Which may or may not be true, but still.

  “Well, by not saying anything, you’re saying a lot.”

  I think carefully. “Well,” I say slowly. “Why don’t you tell me how it happened?”

  “Okay,” she says eagerly. She pushes the empty salad plate away from her. “Well, you know how I was trying to flirt with Mark, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, B. J. was hanging out sort of near him, and we started talking.”

  I try to figure out how I can ask her if this was before or after B. J. clamped onto my leg like some kind of dog in heat, without actually saying, “Hey, Jocelyn, was this before or after B. J. clamped onto my leg like some kind of dog in heat?”

  “So we started talking, and then later he called me and invited me to go to Jeremy’s party, and then…I don’t know, really. We ended up back at his house.” She stops. “Making out,” she adds, in case I missed it.

  “Okay,” I say slowly. “So what now?”

  “Duh,” she says. “Now I avoid him.”

  “Good plan.” Pause. “Why, again?”

  “Because, hello, it’s B. J. Cartwright! Although,” she says thoughtfully, “he was a really good kisser.”

  Ewww.

  The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch, and we throw our trays away and head down the hall, me to AP Bio, her to Creative Writing.

  “Now,” she says, as we stop at her locker on the way. “We’re clear on this whole Jordan thing, right?” She twirls the dial to the right.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Don’t try to talk to him or anything like that,” she says. “Ignore him. He’s bad news, Courtney.”

  “Totally,” I say. “But what if he says hi to me first?”

  “No,” she says. “Well, if he says hi first, you can say hi to him. But that’s all.” She grabs me by the shoulders and looks me straight in the eye, like I’m going off to do battle. “Clear?”

  “Totally clear.”

  before jordan

  123 Days Before the Trip, 2:18 p.m.

  Courtney McSweeney is acting like I don’t exist. We’re sitting in math class, and I’m watching her text on her phone through her pink Abercrombie hoodie, and I’m starting to get a little annoyed. Not one word. She hasn’t even looked at me.

  I raise my hand while Mrs. Novak is going over the homework.

  “Yes, Jordan?” she asks.

  “I had a question on number nineteen,” I say, which isn’t true. I don’t even know what number nineteen is, but whatever. Mrs. Novak doesn’t know that, and hopefully it will get Courtney to look at me. But she doesn’t. She just keeps texting. I realize I’m really, really annoyed, which is weird. I don’t get annoyed when girls blow me off, especially if I have no interest in them.

  “What’s your question, Jordan?” Mrs. Novak asks, looking at me suspiciously. I usually don’t raise my hand in math. I usually don’t raise my hand in any class. It’s not that I don’t know the answers. I just find it unnecessary.

  “Can we go over the whole problem?” I ask. “Courtney and I were actually discussing how this assignment was a little tricky.”

  “Sure,” Mrs. Novak says, and starts going over the problem Courtney keeps texting, still not looking at me. What the hell is her problem? Actually, what the hell is my problem?

  I even made sure I came into the classroom right as the bell was ringing, just in case she had any ideas about us talking. One time sophomore year, I hooked up with this girl (a freshman, figures) who was in five of my classes. It was a nightmare. Every time I’d walk into class, she’d be sitting at my desk, waiting for me, so we could “chat” before the bell rang. That’s what she called it—” chatting.”

  “I just want to chat,” she’d say, only her idea of “chatting” involved her asking me ridiculous questions like “Don’t you ever get bored with shoes? Since you’re a guy and you don’t have many choices?”

  I learned that if you’re in a class with a girl you don’t want to talk to, you sneak in just as the bell rings. That way, you avoid having to interact with her. But Courtney hasn’t even looked at me. Not once. Even when I mentioned her name.

  So when the bell rings signaling the end of the period and the end of the school day, I wait until she walks out of the classroom, and then walk up behind her, pulling on her hood.

  “Hey,” I say, when she turns around.

  “Oh,” she says, looking surprised. “Hey.” She shifts her bag to her other shoulder. “What’s up?”

  “Not much,” I say, trying to keep it light. “So is this how you usually treat guys who buy you a meal?”

  She smiles. “What do you mean?”

  “By ignoring them.” I smile back, to show her I’m not bothered by it.

  “I wasn’t ignoring you,” she says, holding up her phone. “I was busy texting.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to interrupt whatever secret business it is you were working on.”

  We’ve reached her locker now, and she starts to turn the combination dial. She’s biting her lip while she does it, and I suddenly have the urge to reach over and bite it for her. Her lip. Not her locker. God, I’m losing it.

  “So,” she says, sliding some books into her bag. When she does that, it reminds me that the school day is over, and that I might actually have to go home now. Which sends me into a mild panic. After I left Courtney’s house on Saturday night, I drove around for a while (okay, a long while), and by the time I got home, it was four in the morning, the rogue car was gone, and my mom was asleep. I slept until around seven (well, tossed around in my bed), and then grabbed breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts and started driving. And driving. And driving. I drove until eleven, called B. J., and spent the day at his house, helping him nurse his hangover and playing Xbox. I ended up crashing at his house, and this morning stopped at my house only when I knew my mom had already gone to work to take a quick shower and change my clothes.

  The day, so far, has been a normal Monday at school, but I’m shot. I feel exhausted, but for once, I’m not looking forward to getting home and taking my Monday afternoon nap. I don’t want to go home. Now. Or ever. The other thing I realize is that I want to hang out with Courtney. Right now.

  “Hey,” I say, leaning against her locker and giving her my most charming smile. “What are you doing now?”

  “Going home,” she says, sliding her backpack over her shoulders and slamming her locker door.

  “You want to hang out for a little while, get something to eat or something?”

  A look of surprise crosses her face, and she frowns. “I can’t,” she says firmly. She turns on her heel and starts walking away from me. Which, of course, just makes me want to chase after her. I grab her backpack and pull her around.

  “Why not?” I grin.

  “Why?” she says.

  “No,” I say, sighing. “Why not?” What is it with this girl?

&
nbsp; “I mean, why do you want to go get something to eat with me?” She puts her hand on her hip, like she’s challenging me. She’s wearing a small silver chain bracelet and it slides down her wrist.

  “Because I’m hungry?” I say. Obviously the best answer isn’t “Because I caught my mom having an affair and I don’t want to go home.” Besides, it’s not like I’m lying. I am hungry. And I do want to hang out with her. Plus, why is she challenging me? Who says shit like this?

  She turns and starts walking away again. “Courtney!” I’m literally chasing her now, making my way down the hall and through the throng of people leaving for the day.

  “Yeah?” She turns around.

  “What is your problem? If you don’t want to go, just say it.”

  “I don’t want to go.” She crosses her arms in front of her.

  “Fine,” I say. “Then that’s all you had to say.” I turn on my heel and start walking down the hall.

  “Jordan!” she calls after me, and I almost don’t stop. But she says my name again, and I turn around.

  “Look,” she says, “I’m sorry. It’s just been a weird day, that’s all.” She bites her lip. “If you still want to go…”

  “Don’t feel like you have to do me any favors,” I say, still a little pissed. “It’s not a big deal. If you don’t want to go, you don’t want to go.”

  “No,” she says, pushing her hair away from her face. “I do want to go. But I’m buying.”

  “Fine,” I say, shrugging. “Then let’s go.”

  Half an hour later, we’re sitting in my truck, eating drive-thru food from Taco Bell. I wanted to go to a real place, but she was adamant that we go for fast food. This chick is really strange, because then she wouldn’t even let me take her INTO the restaurant, and instead insisted on eating in my car.

  “So,” I say, “thanks for ignoring me today.”

  “I wasn’t ignoring you,” she says, looking uncomfortable. She shifts in her seat. “I was just paying attention.”