Just Not Sure - Chapter 1 - All Too Familiar

"I swear! She would spend all day in front of the mirror fixing her hair if she could!" Courtney Taylor’s mom’s voice echoed through the small six-room cottage they were staying in. It was the Friday night before New Years, and the Taylors had come up to her grandparents’ Pennsylvania cabin from their small town of Centereach on Long Island. The reason Courtney’s and her best friend, Jenna Miller’s families were here was because they had all been invited to a huge holiday bash nearby. Jenna, her parents, and her 17-year-old sister Kristin rented out the cabin next-door, and Courtney and Jenna were having the time of their lives. A whole week off from school, besides Christmas vacation; the girls almost passed out when their parents told them about their well deserved vacation, neither one had missed more than five days of school since sixth grade (they were in eighth). Almost every moment of the past two days had been spent together and Courtney had spent the nights in the Miller’s cabin of the scarcity of room in her’s. This was because her aunts and uncles had also come up (though just for the weekend), and with 14 people sleeping in four bedrooms, it got a little cramped.

"MOM! Are you talking about me again?" Courtney asked, as she walked out of the bedroom, finally satisfied with her hairstyle. She had curled her long, thick, dark blonde hair and put it up in a ponytail. At five foot six and a half, Courtney towered over her mother; she was tall for her fourteen years of age. Her green eyes sparkled behind her glasses (she’d been bugging her parents for contacts, but…) and she flashed a rare smile, exposing the braces she tended to be self-conscious about. She was wearing a lilac colored, sleeveless turtleneck, and her favorite pair of jeans.

"Yes!" Mrs. Taylor said, sounding exasperated at her teenaged daughter, but laughing at the same time.

"What special boy could be coming to this social event?" Courtney’s uncle started teasing

"Perhaps a certain fourteen-year-old I know of?" Her mom joined in.

"MOM!" She groaned. Mrs. Taylor was referring to Courtney’s latest "crush", Jesse McCartney. He was a part of a boy group called Dream Street, although Courtney had crushed on him ever since she’d watched him on her mom’s soap opera All My Children, which he used to act in. "You know I’m not thinking about Jesse, why would he go to a party here? Besides, I wasn’t even thinking about boys, believe it or not. I wanted to look NICE." She said, emphasizing the last word of her sentence.

"My sister? Not thinking of boys?" Courtney’s ten-year-old sister Brooke rolled her eyes. "Like that could ever happen in a million years."

Courtney groaned yet again. Being the only teen in her family left her susceptible to excessive teasing. She had a reputation of being a little boy-crazy when she was younger, and it kind of stuck.

"Speaking of boys…how’s Jay?" Her grandma asked her as she got her coat on.

"Jay? Um, Grandma, I liked him in fifth grade. That was over three years ago." She said uncomfortably, and an uneasy silence followed.

"Then who’s the lucky guy now?" Her aunt asked, breaking the silence. Courtney thought about Ryan for a moment, fighting back tears. Their relationship had been a special one; they had gone out for over two and a half years ago after meeting on vacation in Rhode Island the summer before sixth grade. Ever since then, they had been inseparable, and had even been voted "couple of the year" for the seventh grade yearbook. Then Christina came along and ruined it all with her nasty lies and seductive behavior. On the verge of crying, Courtney pushed all of the bad memories along with the tears, and tried to forget about him.

Mrs. Taylor sensed Courtney’s distress and came to her rescue. "C’mon! We’re going to be late if we don’t get a move on!"

"OK" She said goodbye to her grandparents, aunts and uncles (who were staying at the house), her cousins and her sister (who were too young to attend the party). They walked out into the chilly winter air, over to the Miller’s cabin to see if Jenna, Kristin, and their mom were all ready. They were, so everyone piled into the Sienna mini-van.

"Your hair looks good." Jenna said, knowing that Courtney had most likely spent close to an hour fixing it. They could read each other’s minds, even finish each other’s sentences. Jenna and Courtney had known each other since the first grade and had been best of friends since sixth grade. They even shared the same craze for Dream Street, which had begun over the summer, when Jenna had bought their CD with a gift card she’d received for her birthday. Jenna, who was just about six months younger than Courtney, wasn’t short but also wasn’t tall. She’d just reached the height of five feet last year. She had big, brown eyes and shoulder length hair to match them. Tonight, she was wearing a baby blue fleece and Mudd jeans.

"What CD should we listen to?" Courtney’s mom asked randomly, and the girls automatically replied "Dream Street!"

"OH NO! Please, please spare me…spare us all!" Kristin cried out dramatically. Everyone knew about Courtney and Jenna’s love for the group, as well as Kristin’s dislike of them. No matter how well the three got along, which was very well, Kristin would never admit to liking Dream Street (even though Jenna and Courtney had found her humming along to I Say Yeah just last night.) Kristin was a 17-year-old senior, medium height with long brown hair. She had green eyes. Despite the age difference between the three, Kristin was very good friends with Courtney and her sister. She found that when she was actually home, between dance and drama, she spent it with Jenna and Courtney (who practically lived at the Miller house).

Finally the hour-long car ride was over (after Dream Street, they listened to Blink-182, much to Kristin’s satisfaction) and the girls could feel the excitement in the air. It was so crowded; Mrs. Taylor had to park two blocks away from the gigantic house.

"Whoa. This looks like a major party." Jenna said in awe at the lavishly decorated house. There were lights everywhere, and holly roped its way around the many windows, adding an effect to the real candles burning on the window ledges.

"We’re going off now, we saw some old friends of ours…" Mrs. Taylor said, referring to herself and Jenna’s mom. They left the three girls standing in the hallway, overwhelmed and a little uncomfortable. There were no people under 21 in sight; they could see it was going to be a long night.

"I’m gonna go get something to eat, do you want anything?" Jenna asked, heading towards the buffet table in one of the many rooms facing the circular foyer.

"No thanks. I’ll stay here, check out the scene, I guess." Courtney answered, and she did so, watching the groups of people move from room to room. All of a sudden, she noticed a figure that looked exactly like Ryan, same height and everything. She got up and walked towards the person, but he disappeared into the crowd. She hung her head down in disappointment, thinking about Ryan again.

"Hey" Jenna was back with a plate of food in her hand. "You’re thinking about Ryan again aren’t you. You’ve got to get over him. He’s an idiot, and you deserve better than him." She said, starting to get concerned about Courtney’s well being. She had moped around the past week, ever since Ryan had broken up with her.

"Yeah, well, I’m positive I saw him. Here." Courtney said, sounding like she was going to cry.

"I’m not going to sit around watching you pity yourself all night. I’m gonna go and have a good time. If you decide to join me, you’re welcome to; I’ll be close by." Jenna said, frustrated and totally not understanding why Courtney couldn’t just get over Ryan. She was getting sick of Courtney feeling sorry for herself, and wasn’t going to waste a perfectly good party watching her mope.

*

Courtney sighed. ‘I’m pathetic, she thought to herself. I come to a party to have a good time, and I wind up sitting here crying about Ryan.’ She put her head in her hands and flashbacks of their good times ran through her head. Their families had vacationed together at the beach in Rhode Island for the past three summers, they had seen more movies than she could count, they had even went into NYC once and saw a Broadway show with a bunch of friends. She sank even deeper into depression as she realized those good times could never happen again. Even if he came back to her, she could never trust him again. Not after what had happened…

Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder. "What’s wrong?" An oddly familiar voice questioned her.

"Nothing" She replied, trying to hide the fact that she was crying.

"Doesn’t look like nothing to me." The voice continued, and Courtney looked up, starting to get annoyed by the interrogator. With her eyes blurry from tears, all Courtney could see was a figure, a tall boy with blonde hair. She instantly thought it was Ryan.

"Ryan, please. Just go away. I don’t know how you found me here, and why you came, but I don’t care. You betrayed me, and I don’t see how you could think I’d ever forgive you. Just leave me alone." She said coldly, the tears starting to flood from her eyes, forming small rivers down her cheeks.

"Whoa. I’m not this Ryan guy. But I can see he’s obviously the reason you’re so upset." The voice said, and Courtney looked up again, brushing away her tears.

"Oh. God, I’m so sorry. I thought you were my boyfriend—I mean ex-boyfriend." Courtney flushed; embarrassed that she had mistaken this person for Ryan. She did a double take; the face seemed all too familiar. "Aren’t you…Jesse McCartney?"

Jesse nodded his head. "That would be me. What’s your name?"

Courtney told him her name. "Courtney" Jesse said, trying her name out. He had been hanging out with Matt, Frankie, Chris and Greg until he had seen her. She looked so alone and depressed; he couldn’t help but approach her. Frankie had teased him, commenting how they had been there for no more than twenty minutes and had already spotted a girl to comfort. "What a pretty name; it suits you well." Her green eyes sparkled as she blushed from the compliment. "If you don’t mind my asking, what did this Ryan do to you that left you so upset?"

"Well, I had been with Ryan for two and a half years; since the summer before sixth grade…" and Courtney began explaining everything that had happened with her and Ryan, relieved to finally let everything out.

*

Meanwhile, Jenna was wandering aimlessly from room to room, looking for something to do. She had entered a certain room for about the millionth time when a person bumped into her. "Sorry." She absentmindedly excused herself and then continued on her way.

"Hey! Wait a sec!" The person shouted to her. She turned around, wondering whether the boy was talking to her. He was the first person under the age of eighteen she had seen all night (aside from Courtney and Kristin of course) and was shocked to see that the very good looking teen she had crashed into was none other than Christopher Trousdale! "Oh sorry." His cheeks flushed. "I thought you were my cousin. You look exactly like her, except you have a lot nicer eyes." He smiled, and she blushed.

"You know, that sounds like a pick-up line if I ever heard one." Jenna said, very matter of factly.

Chris smiled and ducked his head. "Then I guess you have; I’m not surprised. Okay, so I don’t have a cousin that looks like you, but I wish I did. You have beautiful eyes."

"And that would be what follows the pick up line after it fails." She laughed. "You’re Chris Trousdale, aren’t you. I love your dancing, especially those steps in Hooked on You. They’re hard to do."

Chris stared at her in amazement as she demonstrated a small move she had picked up from watching their DVD. "You dance? Wow, I didn’t think people really noticed that stuff." He was shocked. Usually when girls recognized him, they started off with ‘I’m your #1 fan’ and would just go on and on about how much they loved him and Dream Street. But Jenna seemed different. Now Chris was glad Jesse had dragged him and the guys to this party. At first, he didn’t want to be there. There was no one (or so he thought) really interesting to talk to, so him and Greg had gone off in search for anyone under twenty-five, specifically girls. Chris had actually seen Jenna before their meeting, he had noticed how pretty she was, and admired how much concern she showed towards her melancholy-looking friend (who he would later find out was Courtney). When she had caught his eye again, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity. With her warm brown eyes and smile, Chris just couldn’t resist.

Now Jenna’s mocha eyes were filled with compassion as they discussed dancing. Just like Chris, she loved to dance; she had been taking lessons for as long as she could remember. For her, music was life. If she wasn’t at dance classes, she was practicing with the Selden Middle School Drama Club, or choreographing for Long Island Sound, Selden’s jazz choir.

Jenna and Chris continued deep in conversation, as did Jesse and Courtney. Courtney had finished explaining what had happened with Ryan, and they had moved on to talk about school and other stuff. The night was still young, and none of them were going anywhere anytime soon.

*

Kristin had gone right to work, scoping out the guys; and she was having quite a good time, even though many of the guys she spotted were way out of her league. Then she spotted two guys standing in a corner, deep in conversation. They looked about her age, and seemed oddly familiar to her, especially the blonde one. He had short, strawberry blond hair, and was about five one. The other, she decided, was exactly the type she fell for. Dark hair, not too tall, and a smile that made her want to melt. "Target spotted." She said to herself and smiled slyly. "Now go in for the kill."

"Hello." She said to the two boys, and they exchanged surprised looks. The blonde one looked at her curiously, and the dark-haired one grinned, obviously liking what he saw. "Have you by any chance seen two girls walk past here? One of them is really tall with dirty blonde hair, and the other is about five-foot with brown hair. They look like thirteen or fourteen." Kristin asked, hoping that they would fall for her act. The blonde one frowned, thinking really hard.

"Frankie, didn’t Jesse go off to talk to a blonde girl? Remember she was wearing a purple shirt, and looked like she was crying? And the brown-haired girl, the one Chris was flirting with; I think her name was Gina…or Jen…no…Jenna! Yeah that was her name."

Kristin’s eyes lit up, and she played along with the act. Things weren’t going as well as she wanted; she didn’t think the boys would have seen Courtney and Jenna. "Yes! Do you know where they went?"

"Um…I really have no idea. Why?" Frankie asked curiously.

"They’re my sister and her best friend. Her mom said I’m allowed to use her car, and I wanted to blow this Popsicle stand and find a mall or something. I just have to bring them along. So I need to find them. Well, I guess I’ll have to keep on lookin’, See you around?" She smiled and walked away.

"Wait up!" Frankie said, captivated by Kristin. "I need to find my friends Jesse and Chris too. They were talking to you sister and her friend, so do you mind if I join you?" He asked, not really wanting to find Jesse and Chris, he just wanted to find out more about Kristin. He looked back at Matt for a second, making sure it was okay to leave him alone. Matt grinned and gave him thumbs up. "Go for it!" Frankie laughed and caught up with Kristin. Matt returned to his own dream world; he was thinking about his girlfriend, who was back at home on Long Island.

"So…did you come with your friends?" She questioned, trying to strike up some conversation.

"Yeah. Jesse invited Chris, Greg, Matt and me to come with his parents. He didn’t want to come alone; he knew it would mostly be old people here. He went last year too, and was bored outta his mind."

"Jesse. The name sounds familiar, but it’s a pretty unusual name." She said wondering. All five names seemed all too familiar, and so did Frankie and Matt’s faces.

Frankie blushed. "You probably have heard of him. His full name is Jesse McCartney. He’s a part of a group called Dream Street. And so am I, my name’s Frankie Galasso."

"That’s where I’ve seen your face! My sister’s walls!" Suddenly everything clicked. Kristin wasn’t exactly thrilled with the fact that she had fallen for a member of a pop group, but it didn’t really matter, as long as he didn’t start singing to her. "I have so admit, I’m no fan of yours." She laughed, and they sat down, both forgetting about finding their friends.

It was now around 8:45, and the three couples were still talking. Matt and Greg had wandered off and found a foosball table, and Frankie and Kristin were beginning to get bored.

When the conversation had died down, Kristin started to think about finding Jenna and Courtney again. "Do you want to go to the mall with us, if I ever find the girls?"

"Well, I think Jess and Matt know of a really good mall nearby, would they be able to come too?"

"Sure. I’m positive Jenna and Courtney would be thrilled. And the other ones can come too, if they want to." Kristin suggested. Then, she spotted the two talking across the room, and Frankie saw Chris.

"There’s Chris, you want to go meet him?" Frankie asked, and they walked over to him.

*

Courtney had just seen Jenna, who was trying to get her attention. Jenna motioned to her, and Courtney excused herself to go talk to her.

"You would never guess who I just met!" Both girls said in unison. They laughed and Jenna started to talk.

"You sought Jesse out, didn’t you. Chris actually tried a pick-up line on me!" She said excitedly, putting two and two together.

"Well, I was crying, and he came up to me. I thought he was Ryan at first, and blew up at him. Then I realized who he was." Courtney said, looking a bit embarrassed. "I explained to him what happened between me and Ryan. When I was done, he tried to cheer me up. And obviously he did!" she said, her eyes glowing. "We talked about everything. School, music, friends, even—(and she made a little face at the mention of it) sports." Courtney wasn’t very athletic, she enjoyed soccer, baseball, football, everything, but she didn’t like to play seriously. A casual game of football with her cousins on a Saturday afternoon was fine with her.

Jenna laughed, and couldn’t help but smile. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her; it felt like a dream. Her eyes drifted back to Chris standing in a lonely corner. She saw him turn around and start talking to what looked like his fellow Dream Street member Frankie and (?) her sister. "Courtney…" she said slowly, her eyes glued on her sister and Frankie. "That girl with Frankie, talking to Chris, who does she look like?"

"You mean the one flirting with Frankie?" Courtney asked, first squinting and then widening her eyes. "Oh my--- It can’t be." She gasped and smiled. "Kristin...flirting with a member of her least favorite music group. We have to go see what’s going on!" She started to walk away, then remembered about Jesse. She got his attention, and motioned for him to come. He saw Kristin, Frankie and Chris standing together and understood.

*

When Courtney, Jesse, and Jenna approached the three, Chris and Frankie were laughing at something Kristin had said. Chris was the first to notice them, and grinned when he saw Jesse and Courtney together.

"Hey Jess. How’s it going?" He greeted his friend, then acknowledged Courtney. "I’m Chris. You must be the damsel in distress." He laughed. Jesse always seemed to fall for the ones who needed someone to talk to; when he had seen the solitary girl sitting in the foyer, he had known it would only be a matter of time before Jesse approached her.

"Yes, if that’s how you want to put it. Just in case, my real name’s Courtney." She laughed and Chris grinned.

"Nice job." Chris whispered to Jesse behind Courtney’s back.

Jesse laughed, and raised his eyebrows. "You’re doing pretty good yourself."

"Anyway…Courtney, Jenna, this is Frankie and…" Chris realized he didn’t even know Frankie’s friend’s name.

"Kristin" Jenna interrupted.

"Wow. You guys have met?" Jesse was surprised, and so was Chris.

Kristin rolled her eyes. "She’d better know my name. I’m her only sister."

Finally, all introductions were made. Kristin told Jenna and Courtney her plans and they definitely agreed that inviting the guys was a good idea. They found Matt and Greg playing foosball in the next room; Matt and Greg accepted the invitation also. Kristin got the keys from Mrs. Taylor, and they all piled into her car.

"Couldn’t we have gone in two cars?" Matt complained as Kristin tried to find the mall that Jesse and Matt had told them all about. "I can barely breathe back here."

The eight of them had all squeezed into seven seats; Chris and Jenna double buckled. Kristin, obviously, was driving, since she was the only one with a driver’s license. Frankie was in the passenger seat next to her. Matt and Greg sat in the two captain seats, and Courtney, Jesse, Chris and Jenna were crammed into the backseat.

"Hey. You shouldn’t be griping; at least you have your own seat!" Chris exclaimed, and Matt rolled his eyes. He knew Chris really didn’t mind; after all, he was sandwiched between two girls.

Finally, after about a half an hour of being completely lost, they arrived at the mall. Matt and Jesse had been right, it was a pretty good mall. There were three levels of stores, with everything from Old Navy to a food court to Fye. Everyone ended up splitting into groups, depending on the stores they wanted to go to. Courtney, Jesse, Chris, and Jenna went off in search of food (Jenna’s request) and a good CD store (Jesse’s). Kristin and Frankie went to go look in the GAP. Greg and Matt decided to go to Borders to find book they needed for their science class.