Your Boyfriend Sucks
Chapter 1
By: Erynn*Alice
Kerri inched closer to Joel and he draped his arm lazily around her shoulder. He had been talking to his best friend, Max, the whole evening and seemed to pay little attention to his girlfriend who had been sitting quietly by his side in front of the bonfire the whole night.
He was so excited and was acting like a four year old the day before his birthday. He talked to Max and they both agreed that the tour they were heading out on the following day would be the best ever. The bonfire that night was to celebrate the beginning of the tour, a small party between the bands and a few select friends.
She let her eyes wonder around the beach to land on Benji chatting things up with her best friend and fellow sorority sister, Adrienne. She watched him listen to her and pay attention to her when she talked, a pang of jealously hit her square in her stomach.
Kerri turned and looked at Joel, wishing he’d be more like his twin brother. When they had started dating, he treated her as any normal boyfriend would. She always expected that as their relationship grew, he’d start becoming more loving, caring, and act more in love with her. He never did though. He still acted like they had been dating for three weeks in public, and behind closed doors not much else changed.
She glanced over at Chris, the newest member of Good Charlotte, who was sitting all by his lonesome on the sand away from the warmth of the fire and the chaos of the group. Joel always talked about Chris and she had met him a few times, but never really knew much about him. He was a mystery and something about him intrigued her, sparked something inside of her that she hadn’t felt it the year she had been dating Joel.
Joel was still entwined in his conversation with Max and didn’t seem to notice too much when Kerri stood up from his side and walked over to Chris. She knew him enough to start a conversation and not have it get weird, but she still felt a bit of anxiety burrowed deep inside her.
“Hey,” she greeted as she approached the black-hooded figure.
“Hey,” Chris responded and smiled up at her. “It’s freezing.”
“You look cold,” she said, with a bit of a laugh in her voice.
“I have no hair, of course I’m cold.” He was always teased about his bald head. “It works great when I’m hot, just not when I’m cold.”
“It is November; did you really expect it to be hot?”
“Well, no. I just didn’t think it’d feel like, well, Provo here.” Chris had grown up in Provo, Utah where it was freezing in November. He still couldn’t get used to California’s ever changing weather. “I always thought California was warm and sunny and…”
“Not San Francisco.”
“I know that now.” He looked back out to the ocean and then back up at Kerri. “Are you going to sit?”
“Only if you don’t mind.” Chris shook his head and Kerri lowered herself slowly onto the sand. “I got bored listening to Joel and Max talk about the tour.”
Chris hung his head and chuckled lightly to himself. “God, he could talk about that forever.”
“Tell me about it.” Kerri tilted her head up and let her eyes rest on the stars that would peek through the rapidly moving clouds every now and then. She felt Chris’s eyes on her and she turned her head back to him, feeling suddenly self conscious. “What?”
“You don’t look happy with Joel.”
“What? No, no, no. I am perfectly happy with him. I just…” she let her voice trail off as she wondered why she was talking to Chris about Joel and why Chris even cared. “Wait, why does it matter?”
“It doesn’t, I was just making a comment.”
“It’s a kind of nosey comment, if you ask me.”
Chris shook his head and directed his eyes out into the blackened water. “Sorry, I didn’t know it was such a sore subject. I didn’t mean to dig around.”
He sounded sincere in his apology which made Kerri’s stomach lurch forward, feeling like she had just acted immature. “I didn’t mean to come off so bitchy. It actual is a sore subject. I didn’t mean to launch into you.”
“I’ve heard worse. No big deal.” Chris wrapped his long arms around his knees and rolled his head to look over at Kerri who was looking back at the fire to see Joel still enveloped in his conversation with Max. “He’s all business.”
“I know.”
Kerri sighed and slipped her shoes off and set them next to her in the sand so she could dig her feet deep into the grains. “He’s becoming a road dog.”
“A what?”
“A road dog, you know, someone who lives out of a suitcase, has cell phone bills that cost as much as houses, and that has no permanent home except a tour bus.”
Chris nodded, agreeing with Kerri. “I could see me becoming a road dog.”
“It’s not good.”
“I haven’t had a permanent home for years. I’ve been couch surfing since I was 19.”
“Joel told me they found you in a 7-11.”
“I love 7-11. I worked there when I was fourteen up until, well, I starting doing this for a living.”
“Up until a few months ago?”
“It’s so weird, you know, how life can be. I never thought I’d be here. I figured I’d find a girl who didn’t care about money and work at 7-11 for the rest of my life.”
“That’s a lie.”
“What?”
“No one thinks they’ll work at a gas station for the rest of their lives.”
Chris pulled his head up from his knees and nodded vigorously. “I did! I never pictured myself wearing a suit and tie to work or anything. 7-11 was always the answer as far as I was concerned.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Where’d you think you’d be at this point in your life.”
Kerri sighed and thought back on her dreams as a teenager. She was where she wanted to be, right where she wanted to be. Dating a great guy, going to college, spending time with her best friends, and earning good money as a temp at a legal firm. There were always things that popped up in her life that she didn’t expect, but she had planned her life straight down to the little detail and now she was living it.
“Right where I am.”
“Are you happy?” Chris asked sheepishly, afraid he was going to spark a flash of anger in her once again with a touchy topic.
She shrugged. She felt completely torn. Kerri wanted to tell him just how happy she was and how great her relationship with Joel was, but she didn’t want to lie to him. She barely knew him and she didn’t want to lie to him, which bothered her to no end because he could never tell either way.
“I don’t know.” She answered simply, feeling sick at her stomach once again.