Alex Gaskarth Must Die

‘Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God,’ I fret, tapping my hands nervously on the steering wheel. Zoe and I’ve just received Lauren’s text at the aquarium; it’s a little mysterious, to say the least. We’re both worried as hell, but as Zoe’s a lot more optimistic than I am; she’s staying calm while my head practically explodes from the combined stress of this and school. Zoe sighs and casts a pointed look towards her phone as I continue talking to myself nervously.

‘Calm down,’ Robin says, right on cue over the speakerphone.

‘Everything’ll turn out okay in the end,’ Zoe adds, just like she’s been doing for the past few minutes.

‘What the hell could she’ve done to mess up?’ I say incredulously, half to myself, half to them. ‘I mean, really, is it that hard to make someone fall in love with you and not spill the beans? Really?’ I insist.

‘Jesus, Becca,’ Robin laughs, a little crackly. ‘Calm down!’

‘I mean, she’s like, a good actress, right?’ I continue, waving my right hand in the air. ‘You’re not supposed to have any tells, right?’

‘Mistakes happen,’ Robin says. ‘Hey, Brittany’s calling. Zoe- ?’

‘Yeah, I’m getting her through now.’

‘Hey,’ Brittany says, once Zoe’s tapped a few buttons on her phone quickly. ‘Lauren just got here.’ She pauses for a second, and I get the distinct impression that she’s glaring at her, as if to ask the same thing I just said: What could’ve gone wrong? What could you have done wrong? ‘Where are you guys?’

‘Just got off Thames,’ Zoe says.

‘Take Wolfe instead of Broadway,’ she instructs. ‘Pass Hopkins and then go onto Chase. The traffic sucks on Broadway and Washington this time of day.’

‘Okay,’ I say.

‘We’ll be there soon,’ Zoe adds. ‘See you guys.’

‘Bye.’

- - -

Once we get to Brittany’s house, we head straight to our normal place; the tall window in the corner of Brittany’s room. Normally we’re all sprawled out in a circle, with food and nail polish to multitask while we talk, but today there’s none of that. Robin’s just sitting down, smirking a little at the tension between Brittany and Lauren. ‘So,’ she begins, toning down her expression a little. She clasps her hands and looks around at us expectantly.

‘So,’ Brittany continues. ‘Lauren, why don’t you start? You can start with maybe, oh, I don’t know- how you messed up?’

Lauren hesitates and opens her mouth a few times, but no words come out. ‘I-’ she starts. ‘I- Um-’ She looks down and then the words rush out. ‘He found out about the plan,’ she says quickly.

‘What?’ Brittany asks innocently. She’s definitely heard, but it’s one of those things that you can’t really tell unless you see her face, and Lauren can’t, since she’s still got her head down.

‘He found out about the plan,’ she repeats.

‘How?’ Zoe asks before Brittany can say anything.

‘Um-’ She opens her mouth again, silently. ‘I was at his house,’ she begins. ‘On Friday, when you were over there-’ Lauren nods towards me.

‘Wait, why were you at Alex’s house?’ Robin interrupts.

‘Jack,’ I say. ‘The car thing,’ I elaborate. She nods, but Zoe still looks at me with a confused expression. ‘Later,’ I mouth quickly, since Lauren’s started talking again.

‘We kind of, um-’

‘Had sex like, twenty billion times in a row, go on,’ Brittany says, waving her hand for Lauren to go on. Lauren rolls her eyes but contines.

‘And it was the middle of the night - like, three or something - and I woke up to go to the bathroom. And-’ She inhales deeply before going on. ‘And when I got back, he was up and kind of- I don’t know, but I knew something was up. He was, like- I don’t know, but he was awake. And he had my phone.’

‘Oh,’ Zoe says. So this is where this story’s heading. Right. Oh.

‘He said it kept pinging- Like texts that kept coming in and in.’ Lauren stops for a minute, and looks over at Brittany, fixing her with a steady stare. ‘He thought it might’ve been urgent and I guess it must’ve been annoying him, so he picked it up just to shut it off. And- He saw our texts.’

‘Our texts?’ I ask. ‘What d’you mean, our texts?’

‘Like- Brittany and I’d been texting all night. She was telling me what to do, you know, since Alex and I’d finally had sex the day before-’

‘Whoa, whoa, wait,’ Robin says quickly, holding up her hands. Ironically enough, her expression looks the most serious out of all of us here: Brittany’s looking slightly sheepish, but still ready to tear off both Lauren and Alex’s heads; Zoe’s quiet and attentive, like always, but she’s gnawing at her thumbnail with a scary fervor; Lauren’s telling her story calmly, although she does look slightly put-out that our plan’s failed; I’m fidgeting, like I always do in tense situations or even tense movies; and Robin’s got her serious-face on. ‘You guys’ve been having sex since, like, the first day of this “relationship.” Janitor’s closet, remember?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Lauren says. She waves a hand, like it should be obvious for us. ‘Well, that doesn’t count. It only started meaning something really big for us a few days ago.

‘Anyway, he saw the texts-’

‘What’d they say?’ I ask.

‘Well, the one that he saw was basically like: We’ll have his heart in no time!’ Lauren adds in an exaggerated arm motion at the end, and mock-grins.

‘Well, there’s a problem,’ Robin says.

‘Understatement of the century,’ Brittany groans. ‘But go on, I wanna hear the rest.’

‘Basically, Alex was all “I had no idea this relationship was a game” and “I really liked you, I thought you were different” and told me to get out. He looked like a kicked puppy,’ she adds with a grimace. ‘And a zombie,’ she says as an afterthought.

‘D’you know how he is right now?’ Brittany asks.

‘No, I dunno. Although, I did get a few ‘anonymous’ calls calling me a bitch,’ she laughs. All of a sudden, the tension seems to flood out of the room. It must’ve been gradual, but with Lauren’s joke, we all resume talking as if it’s a normal gossip session instead of a super intense session for berating Lauren.

‘God, I feel so bad,’ Zoe says sadly. I nod in agreement.

‘Eh,’ Lauren shrugs.

‘He deserves it,’ Brittany says.

‘And besides, it’s not like it worked anyway,’ Lauren laughs. There’s a pause, and then Brittany sits up with a decisive motion.

‘It didn’t work this time, but it’ll work next time,’ she says. ‘We’re gonna need a major overhaul of-’

‘Wait, we’re doing it again?’ I ask.

‘Yeah, of course,’ she says. Lauren nods beside her like it’s the only logical possibility, and Robin gives me a look as if to say: Did you really not see this coming?

‘We’ll just revamp the plan and overhaul like everything, but-’ Brittany and Lauren exchange one of those looks, which just means the rest of us should start worrying like hell. ‘Rebecca,’ Brittany begins. ‘D’you think you could go in this time?’

Wait. What. They want- ‘You want me to go in this time?’

‘Yeah,’ Brittany nods, widening her eyes empathically. ‘Listen,’ she says, and moves into a slightly less demanding tone of voice. ‘I know you’re off about the whole thing to begin with, but hear me out, ‘kay?’ I nod unsurely, but stay silent so they can go on.

‘First of all, you’re - sorry - not very popular,’ she says. ‘I mean, nobody really knew who you two were before I came along.’ Robin and I stay silent; she is right, after all, there’s no use denying it. ‘Lauren wasn’t, so he already knew everything about her.’

‘Oh, God, I had to do so much to get him to go out with me properly,’ she laughs.

‘But see, you, you won’t. We can just start from scratch with you!’

‘Wait, so you guys are gonna like, custom-mold Rebecca into the perfect girlfriend for Alex?’ Robin asks incredulously. ‘She’s like, best friends with Jack, I don’t think that’s gonna work.’

‘Yeah,’ says Brittany, ‘but I’ll work out the kinks later.’ She waves a hand and looks at me expectantly. ‘We can start from absolute scratch with you, and his friends already like you!’

‘So,’ Zoe says, surprising all four of us when she speaks up. ‘Will you?’

- - -

Jack B. to Rian D. on 11/16/05
drinks to celebrate alex and lauren breaking up?

Rian D. to Jack B.
more like 10 pints of ice cream to mend alex’s heart

Jack B. to Rian D.
oh man, really?

Rian D. to Jack B.
really. you bring the beer (may owes me one), i’ll bring the junk food.