Two-way Street

123 Days Before the Trip, 4:30 p.m.

I’m trying to kiss Courtney McSweeney. If you had asked me six months ago if I would ever be making out with Courtney McSweeney, I would have said no, absofuckinglutely not. But here I am, trying to get her to kiss me. We’re parked in front of her house, sitting in my car, and somehow I pulled her close to me before she could get out of the car. Which she let me do. But then, when I went to kiss her, she turned her head.

“Not gonna happen,” she says, her voice muffled against my chest.

“Why not?” I ask, wondering if I’ve underestimated her. Maybe she’s a game player, one of those girls who makes you work for it. The weird thing is, I’m usually into that, but thinking about Courtney messing with my head is disappointing for some reason.

“Because,” she says. “Once you cross that line with someone, you can never take it back.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. Why would she want to take it back? I’m a very good kisser. Or so I’ve been told.

“I mean that once you kiss someone, all this other stuff comes into it, whether you want it to or not.”

“Not necessarily,” I say. I’m stroking her hair now, and all she would have to do is move her face about two inches and tilt it up, and we’d be kissing.

“It does,” she says. “It brings all kinds of drama you never have to deal with if you just stay friends.”

“Not true.” I try to pull her closer, which doesn’t really work, because she’s already as close as she’s going to get. “I’ve had hookups that haven’t resulted in any kind of drama.”

“None whatsoever?”

“Nope.”

“No broken hearts?”

“Nope.”

“No psychotic prank phone calls?”

“Nope.”

“No feeling like you wanted to throw up and/or kill her new boyfriend?”

“Nope.”

“Name one girl you hooked up with that you’re still friends with.”

“Nope.”

“That’s what I thought,” she says smugly. Although being smug really makes no sense here, because I think she really does want to kiss me. Otherwise why would she be leaning against me like that?

“You tricked me,” I say.

“So do it, then. Name one girl you hooked up with that you’re still friends with.”

“It doesn’t have to be dramatic,” I say, ignoring her request. “It can just be about…the moment.”

“I’m not good with the moment,” she says. “I’m always worried about what’s going to happen next.”

“You should stop worrying,” I say. And then I reach down and tilt her face up toward mine, and I kiss her. She doesn’t pull away. Her mouth is on mine, and our tongues are together, and my hands are on her face. And it’s really, really nice. She pulls away first, and we lean our heads together.

“That was nice,” I say, smiling.

“That was such a mistake,” she says, smiling back. And then she gets out of my car and heads into her house without looking back.

When I get to my house fifteen minutes later, my mom is sitting at the kitchen table. So much for waiting it out and hiding until I got up the courage to confront her. She’s wearing a purple sweater set and a cream-colored skirt. Which is weird. Because she looks…normal. Not like she was just fucking some random dude on the couch that her and my dad picked out for their anniversary.

“Jordan,” she says, standing up and smoothing down her skirt. Her eyes glance at me nervously and I look away. “Listen, we should talk.”

“I don’t know if we have anything to talk about,” I say simply. I’m trying to figure out the best way to work this to my advantage. I’m pissed.

“We have to,” she says. “Sit down.”

I pull out a chair from the kitchen table and plop down across from her.

“What do you want to talk about?” I look at her, and suddenly, I’m really, really scared. It’s something on her face. Because here’s the thing—up until this point, I figured it was just a random thing. Maybe her and a client were working late and got carried away. They started kissing, I came in, and she sent him home after she came to her senses. That’s how these things usually work, don’t they? I curse myself for watching Laguna Beach instead of learning valuable life lessons on The OC.

“I think we need to talk about what went on here the other night.” She bites her lip again and looks around nervously.

“What about it?”

“Jordan, I really, really, need for you not to tell your father about what happened until I have a chance to talk with him.”

“You can’t be serious,” I say. “There’s no way I’m not going to tell Dad about this.” She must be delusional. Does she really think I would keep this kind of huge secret from my dad? How can she even expect me to do that?

“Jordan,” she says, “I have the right to be able to tell him on my own time, on my own grounds.” She tugs on the hem of her skirt nervously. “That’s the only way we’re going to be able to work it out.”

“Whatever,” I say, heading to the refrigerator and grabbing a Coke out of the side door. “I’m staying out of it. In fact, I’m totally over it.”

I leave her standing in the kitchen and head up to my room, where I spend the next two hours listening to rap music on my iPod and thinking about how it felt to kiss Courtney McSweeney.