have to fight my way through. I need to catch up to Josh, and I need to pee, and itâs like a nightmare where your feet are sinking into the ground and you canât move forward. I detour around a fat guy and squeeze through a tight circle of girls, mumbling apologies as I go. I hear someone say, âCheck that kid out,â and I try to speed up, only to run into a herd of guys heading from the bar, one of them slopping beer on me from a pint glass when I bump into him.
âHey, watch it!â he says, and I squeak some more sorries as I backpedal away and bump into someone else. Rough hands grab my shoulders and spin me around, and Patrick the Meth-Dealing Punkâs face looms in front of my own.
âWhatâs up, liâl dude!â he bellows, his acrid breath stinking of liquor and what I guess to be a cheeseburger and fries that are decomposing in his stomach. âYour broâs, like, frigginâ awesome, dude! Heâs the frigginâ shit! Heâs, likeââ
âI gotta go!â I say, and I mean it in more ways than one. I go around him and get another jarring pat on the head, his rings making a knocking sound on my skull.
I swim upstream through the hordes of people coming in the front door and finally make it outside, gulping for air.
Josh is gone. For a moment I canât remember if we came from the left or the right, and Iâm lost and unprotected and have to pee so bad I almost want to wet my pants.
I pick a direction, realize itâs the wrong one, and double back. I make it around the corner and spot the car with relief. Josh is sitting in the driverâs seat, waiting.
I open the passenger door and lean in.
âI have to pee,â I say, hopping from foot to foot.
He doesnât respond, just gestures roughly toward the wall behind me.
Cursing, I find the spot farthest away from the pool of illumination cast by the street lamp. Iâm picturing being caught in the sudden blinding light from a police cruiser, like on
Cops,
and it takes me forever to start peeing and then forever to stop. A car goes by and honks. I cut off the flow and zip up and racewalk back to the car, my face flushed.
Josh puts the car in gear before Iâve even closed the door and accelerates away from the curb, still without saying a word.
âYou were going to leave me in the club,â I say angrily as we pull onto the highway. He doesnât respond. I sit back in my seat and cross my arms, mad.
We drive in silence until we get home. When we pull into the garage I follow him wordlessly to the door to go inside.
âWhere do you think youâre going?â he says.
âAsshole,â I mutter, repeating it as I trudge out of the garage, walk around the side of the house, into the backyard, and climb into my tent.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TUESDAY, 9:03 A.M., TWENTY-THREE MINUTES LATE TO HOMEROOM
âIâm gonna get expelled. Iâm going to get expelled. Iâm going to getââ
âIsaac, would you shut up, already? Youâre not going to get expelled.â
âI have perfect attendance!â
âHad.â
âI was going to get a fifty-dollar gift certificate to Jerryâs!â
âIce cream is bad for you.â
âWhere are you driving us? What are we doing?â
âYouâll see. Câmon, itâll be fun.â
Oh, God.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE ARRIVAL OF LESLEY MCDOUGAL
Â
M ERIT B ADGE : L OVE AT F IRST S IGHT
I had figured that after our late night Iâd be getting a reprieve from my early-morning workout session. I was wrong. Josh dragged me from the tent at six A.M. for our run and calisthenics and wrestling, mostly him tossing me around while I lay there like a rag doll. This led to threats of more pushups unless I put forth some real effort. More effort was forthput.
Standard hostage-situation conversation with parents, Josh looking on to make sure I stuck to the script. More urging from my
Sharon Kleve, Jennifer Conner, Danica Winters, Casey Dawes