Two-way Street

Day Two, 5:06 p.m.

Courtney is making me extremely nervous. Whatever the fuck is going on in her phone conversation cannot be good. I’ve already figured out that she knows I tipped B. J. off to the whole Jocelyn thing, which makes me slightly annoyed. When I told him, it was so she wouldn’t get in trouble, not so he could go and tell her how he found out. He had to know she was going to come back and tell Courtney. What was he thinking?

The traffic inches slowly forward, and Courtney sits next to me in silence. When we get to Middleton twenty minutes later, the vibe in the car is not any better. I wish Courtney would just talk to me and tell me how pissed off she is, but that’s obviously not going to happen.

Add that to the fact that I have four missed calls on my phone, all from Courtney’s dad, who I have most definitely decided is the craziest motherfucker that I know. Seriously, his shit is whacked. I used to think maybe B. J. was the craziest person I know, but now I realize that B. J. only does crazy things, and that there is a definite difference between acting crazy and being crazy. And Courtney’s dad is the latter.

Since we’ve been stuck in traffic, and Courtney’s been giving me the silent treatment, I’ve come up with a great plan for our time in North Carolina. It consists of one part: Stay away from Courtney and Lloyd, and hang out with my brother only. This is going to be slightly problematic, since I’m not sure how Courtney is going to feel about me just dropping her off at the gates of Middleton. If they even have gates.

I pull the car into the visitor parking lot and switch off the car. “Well,” I say. “I guess this is it.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, frowning.

“I mean, I guess this is it. This is where we part ways.”

“Part ways?” she asks, and it could be my imagination, but for some reason she looks almost panicked.

“Yeah, you know,” I say. “Part ways, leave each other, go in different directions.”

“Why would we do that?” She bites her lip and looks out the car window.

“Why wouldn’t we? I’m sure you want time alone with Lloyd, and really, I don’t want to be around that shit.” Whoops. Shouldn’t have said that out loud. Last thing I need is for her thinking I want her back. Even though I do. Actually, not true. I never wanted to break up with her. But whatever. Semantics. “Lloyd and I aren’t exactly BFFs, if you know what I mean.”

She nods. She’s probably thinking about the time Lloyd and I almost got into a fistfight.

“So!” I say cheerfully. I pull the keys out of the ignition. “I’ll open the back so you can get your stuff.”

“Great!” she says. She pulls out her cell phone and makes a big production of turning it on silent. I guess so her and Lloyd won’t get interrupted while they’re hooking up.

“Just make sure you close the truck when you’re finished,” I say. I grab my black duffle from the back and sling it over my shoulder.

“That’s all you have?” she asks. “I mean, that’s all your bringing? For the overnight.”

“Yeah, that’s all I’m bringing for the overnight,” I say.

“Well, I have a lot more than you,” she says pointedly. If she thinks I’m going to help her carry her stuff, she’s definitely mistaken. I like to consider myself a nice guy, but I draw the line at helping my ex-girlfriend bring her stuff up to some guy’s dorm room. That’s insane. Especially since it’s pretty obvious that she’s planning on sleeping with him.

“Of course you have a lot more than me,” I say. “You’re a girl. But take your time getting whatever you need. Just make sure you close the back when you’re done. I’ll meet you here tomorrow at eight, and we’ll get back on the road, all right?”

“Yeah, okay,” she says, not sounding okay with it at all. A look of hurt passes across her face briefly as I turn away, and it’s almost enough to make me turn around, but then I think about Lloyd and the MySpace comment, and I keep on walking.

My brother, Adam, lives in a single room in Gluster Hall, where he’s an RA. We’re not super close, and I’m not sure why that is. I think it might have something to do with the fact that we were so spoiled growing up, that it made it easy not to have to interact. My parents bought us everything—video game systems, DVDs, cell phones, toys, whatever we wanted. Which means there wasn’t a lot of time spent sitting around, reading books or hanging out, making forts and trying to amuse ourselves with imaginary games.

I knock on his door and he opens it wearing a pair of boxers and a T-shirt.

“Dude,” Adam says, squinting at me. “Are you fucking kidding me?” If you knew my brother, you’d know this isn’t really strange. He talks like this a lot, in random questions that make no sense. “Are you fucking kidding me?” is actually one of his favorites.

“What’s up, bro?” I ask, and contemplate pulling him into a hug. We’re not usually very touchy-feely, but he is my brother and I haven’t seen him in a while. Before I can decide if this would be appropriate, I catch a whiff of pot coming from his room. I look at him again. His eyes are bloodshot and he has a half-grin on his face. That’s just great. The asshole is high.

“Dude, are you fucking kidding me? Right now?” he repeats.

“Uh, no,” I say. “I guess not. But it’s, uh, good to see you.” I realize he’s blocking the door, so I take a step closer to him, in an effort to show my intent to actually get into his room. Although I’m sure once I get in there, I’m going to start getting a pot buzz by default.

He still doesn’t move out of the way, and I bump into him awkwardly. For the first time, I realize he’s not wearing any shoes. I know this because I step on his foot.

“You’re not coming in,” he says, putting his hand up.

“What do you mean?” I ask, confused.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Mom?” he asks, and I realize he’s not only high but pissed. Psychotically, scary pissed. His eyes are rimmed in red out of anger, not just from pot. I thought pot was supposed to make you mellow.

“What do you mean, ‘tell you about Mom?’” I ask, automatically reverting to avoid-and-deny mode.

“About Mom having an affair, about how she’s leaving Dad for someone else,” he says, and this time he bangs his fist against the door. I take a step back.

“I didn’t know,” I say quietly, which is only a half lie. I knew she was having an affair, but I didn’t know she was going to leave my dad. Suddenly, I feel like someone’s punched me in the stomach.

“That’s bullshit,” he says, leaning against the door frame. “That’s bullshit and you know it. She told me you knew. She told me you caught them.”

“I did,” I say, “But I didn’t know she was going to leave Dad because of it. She acted like it wasn’t a big deal, like it was a random thing that was going to stop.” In reality, I knew this wasn’t true. My mom had said that to me, but it was pretty obvious that’s not what was going on. I figured maybe she just needed time to end it—I mean, let’s face it. Courtney’s dad is one fucked-up motherfucker. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I knew there was a chance he could have been making it difficult for my mom the way he was making my life difficult.

“So that made it okay not to tell me? Jesus, Jordan!” He runs his fingers through his hair and looks at me like he can’t believe my obvious stupidity.

“It wasn’t mine to tell,” I say. “It was up to her to tell Dad, it wasn’t my place.”

“You’re right,” he says. “At first. But this shit has been going on for months, Jordan. Were you ever going to tell anyone?” Suddenly, he seems very coherent and not like he’s been smoking pot at all, which scares me. My brother is quite a bit bigger than me, but it’s not like I think he wants to fight me. We’ve been in fistfights before. Nothing major, just little scrapes that started out over something dumb and then escalated to the point where we would rough each other up a bit. But now, he doesn’t even seem like his words are motivated by anger. It’s something else—almost like a hatred.

“I don’t know if I was going to tell anyone,” I say.

“That’s great,” Adam says and then slams the door in my face. I stand there for a minute, staring at the door and trying to calm down. Then I pick up my stuff and head back out to my car. When I get there, Courtney and her bags are gone.