Camp Confidential 09 - Best (Boy)friend Ever (14 page)

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Authors: Melissa J Morgan

BOOK: Camp Confidential 09 - Best (Boy)friend Ever
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Priya nodded. She couldn’t talk. She suddenly felt like she had that day way back at Holly Perry’s birthday party when she’d chugged all that lemonade. So cold inside. Like she had an ice-cream headache all over her body.
She cleared her throat. “Um, Jordan, I don’t want to tell you this. But I think I should.” The words came up out of that cold, dark place inside her.
His mossy green eyes darkened. “What?”
Priya cleared her throat again. It was like there was something in there that didn’t want to let the words come out. “I saw Brynn when I was coming out here. She was talking to some other girls . . . she was talking about you, Jordan.” She looked down. She shouldn’t be doing this. But she had to. She couldn’t lose Jordan to Brynn. Not now. Not now that Priya knew how she really felt about him.
“What did she say?” Jordan’s voice was tense. Like his vocal cords had been tightened and tightened and tightened until they were about to snap. “It was bad, wasn’t it?”
“She said . . . look, she was basically making fun of you,” Priya revealed, and the words felt like they were cutting into her tongue.
Jordan took a step closer to her. “I need to know exactly what she said. If you’re my friend, you’ll tell me.”
There was no going back. Not now. “She was telling the story about how you pretended the quote from that play review was something you thought up. She was laughing because it was so obvious you weren’t smart enough to understand anything about theater by yourself.”
“But why did she even come to the dance with me if that’s how she felt?” The reflection of the lights strung around the ship’s railing glittered in Jordan’s eyes.
He wasn’t about to cry, was he? No way. Jordan didn’t cry.
“She kinda talked about that.” Priya’s brain raced as she tried to come up with an answer that made sense. “Brynn said she thought it might be fun to hang with somebody so totally different from her. But . . . but she said it was taking all her acting ability to pretend like she was having a good time.”
Jordan leaned back over the rail. Far over. Like he was going to puke or something.
Look at what you did to him
, that little voice in her head cried.
Look. At. What. You. Did. To. Jordan.
And to Brynn,
the little voice added
. Who was becoming your friend. One of your first girl friends.
Priya slammed a solid lead gate down between that voice and the rest of her brain. She wasn’t going to listen to that voice anymore. She couldn’t. She was just doing what she had to do. She couldn’t lose Jordan. That was that. He hardly knew Brynn. He couldn’t be all that hurt.
“I’m sorry,” Priya said. “Sorry I had to tell you that.”
“It’s not your fault.” Jordan straightened up.
The little voice tried to say something from behind the gate, but Priya refused to listen.
“Hey, you two!” a voice called. Priya knew it was Brynn without turning around. She could tell Jordan did, too. His hands tightened on the ship’s railing. “Ready to get back in there and cut a rug?”
Jordan grabbed Priya’s hand and turned to face Brynn. “Priya and I decided to enter the contest together,” he announced. “I’m sure you can find somebody else to dance with.” He rushed Priya across the deck. “You look really pretty,” he said loudly to Priya. “That stuff you’re wearing on your eyes makes them look super golden brown.”
Super golden brown.
That
didn’t sound “best bud.” Priya smiled. It felt like she was smiling everywhere. In her stomach. In her toes. In her super golden brown eyes. She was just one huge smile.
Until she saw Marc waiting for her. “Just give me one sec,” she told Jordan.
She hurried across the room to Marc. “You know Jordan, right?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Marc’s eyes moved to Jordan, then back to Priya.
“Here’s the deal. He came to the dance with this girl, and she just kind of dumped him. I’m his best friend and he needs me. Do you think you could find somebody else to dance with in the contest?”
Say yes
, she thought.
Please, please, say yes.
“I guess,” he told her.
“Great!” She realized she probably sounded obnoxiously happy. “I mean, thanks. Jordan needs a friend right now.”
Priya spun around and flew back across the room to Jordan. She reached him just as the lights started to flick on and off. “Okay, gang. Time to start the contest,” one of the instructors called. “Just keep on swingin’ until one of us taps you on the shoulder. Good luck!”
And then she was dancing with Jordan. It was like playing basketball. Or swimming. Her body just knew what to do. Spin out. Spin back. Spin under his arm. Rock back. Let him swing her up to his right side. Then his left. Whee!
It was the best. The absolute best. Jordan was smiling at her. She was flying.
The crowd around them got thinner and thinner, as more and more pairs were eliminated. Jordan and Priya owned the floor. They covered the length of it as they danced. “Woo-hoo! This is awe—”
The words dried up in Priya’s mouth as she caught a glimpse of Brynn standing in the sidelines. Her eyes were locked on Jordan. She looked so confused. So hurt.
Jordan grabbed Priya in another lift. She looked down at his face. He wasn’t having any fun. He was faking it. Why hadn’t she noticed that before? She was his best friend. She should have noticed in about a second and a half.
Priya sat next to Jordan on the bus back to camp. Because he was her best friend, right? And that’s what you did—you sat next to your best friend.
Of course, Jordan didn’t know he shouldn’t be
her
best friend anymore. He didn’t know he should hate her.
Brynn didn’t know she should hate Priya, either. She probably wasn’t thrilled Priya was sitting next to Jordan. Not after the way Jordan had slammed Brynn last night. But if Brynn was hating anybody today, it was Jordan.
Jordan, who was staring out the window. Looking like someone had just made him eat a whole bucket full of mixed-together food.
“I think I’m going to write Sam,” she said. Because she couldn’t stand looking at him, knowing she had made him so totally miserable.
“Kay,” he said, without turning toward her.
Dear Sam,
I’m writing this on the bus back to camp after the D.C. trip. D.C. was cool. Jordan and I did the Sites on Bikes tour. It’s weird. It was only a few days ago, but I can’t even remember that much. Don’t tell Mom. She’d freak about me not taking advantage of my enriching experience.
The National Air and Space Museum was cool, too. I entered this paper airplane contest. Mine went second-farthest. But, I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting too old for paper airplanes or something.
Jordan and I won a swing dance competition. Woo-hoo! The prize was a bunch of CDs. Jordan let me have them all. I think I’ll give them to Dad for his birthday.
Can’t wait to see you, Sam. I’m kind of ready to come home. Camp’s good, but . . . I guess it’s kind of like been there/done that, you know? Or maybe I just have the flu or something. I’ll get over it.
Hope you’re having a great summer.
Bye!
Priya
chapter
TEN
“Sleepyhead, it’s time for dinner,” Grace called. “You don’t want to miss the taco casserole,
amiga. Muy
, well, I can’t say
muy bien
.
Muy
fair semblance of food.”
Priya opened her eyes slowly, even though she hadn’t been asleep. She’d pretended to fall asleep the second they’d gotten back to the bunk. She’d also pretended to fall asleep on the bus, as soon as she’d finished writing that letter to her brother.
“Ah, she lives,” Grace said, smiling down at her.
“She’s alive,” Candace echoed.
“Come on.” Grace stuck out her hand and pulled Priya up from her bed. “What’s the deal, too much dancing last night?”
Priya quickly looked around for Brynn, but she must have already left for the mess hall. “I guess.”
“You guess,” Valerie teased as she, Priya, Grace, and Candace headed out of the cabin. “Come on. You and Jordan were the last ones on the floor. It takes a lot of energy to win first place.”
“Right. You need to eat many servings of bad casserole to restore all those calories,” Grace said. “You can have mine. I’m that much of a friend.”
“Before we get with the whole group, can I ask what happened with Jordan and Brynn at the dance? I mean, they went together. And they were dancing together during the practice part. How’d you and Jordan end up as a pair in the contest?” Val asked.
“Yeah, you two were dancing together in the contest. How did that happen?” Candace asked.
Clearly, Brynn hadn’t said anything. Maybe she was too confused. Or embarrassed. Or just too hurt.
“I don’t know exactly. At the break, I went outside and I saw Jordan, and we were talking. Then Brynn came out, and Jordan told her that he was dancing with me in the contest.” Priya shrugged. “I thought they must have had an argument or something. He didn’t talk to me about it. We just . . . danced.” She shrugged again. “He didn’t talk about it on the bus, either. But I fell asleep kind of fast.”
She’d wanted to be asleep. That’s all she wanted. If she’d been asleep, then she would have been able to get away from herself for a little while. Priya just didn’t want to be around Priya anymore. Who would? Who would want to be around a girl who’d treated her best friend the way she’d treated Jordan? She’d treated Brynn so badly, too. And Marc.
And now she was lying to even more people to cover up for what she did. Someday the whole stinking pile of badness might come crashing down on her. And maybe it should.
“Are you feeling bad about what you did?” Grace asked.
“What?” Priya exclaimed, her heart slamming into her ribs so hard it should have gotten splinters.
“About getting Brynn to go to the dance with Jordan,” Grace explained as they headed into the mess hall. “You looked upset. I thought maybe you were thinking they wouldn’t have gotten in that fight if you hadn’t helped them hook up.”
“You definitely shouldn’t go there,” Val said to Priya.
“No, you shouldn’t. There’s no way you could have known what was going to happen,” Candace added.
Yeah, there is. I made it happen
, Priya thought. She grabbed the closest empty seat at the Bunk 4C table—then realized too late that it was directly across from Brynn. Great.
“Why don’t we go around the table and each say what our favorite part of the D.C. trip was,” Becky suggested. “Since this is the first time we’re all together—and awake—since we got back.“ She winked at Priya.
“I’ll start,” Abby volunteered. “There was this painting in the Smithsonian that . . .”
Priya whipped through memories of D.C. while Abby talked. The Sites on Bikes tour—where Jordan told her he liiiiked Brynn? No way. Helping Jordan research for his date with Brynn? Uh, no. The Air and Space Museum? Hanging out with Alex had been kinda fun. But the whole time Priya kept on thinking about how Jordan wasn’t there. And where Jordan actually was. And who he was with instead of Priya. The cruise? Absolutely no way. She wished she could get a brain wipe of that night. Or at least of the part where she realized that Jordan, Brynn, and Marc were completely miserable because of her.

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