An Unordinary Road Trip

By Gibygi and Skenef

Chapter 1

“Just do it, dude!” Andy said to Jordan. “It’ll be funny!” he coaxed.

“Yeah,” said Kyle. “We’ll all get a good laugh.”

Livy spoke up in her often worried voice, “Maybe it’s not such a good idea. You guys are gonna get in trouble.”

“But Livy, I’d get some good money for naked photos of Jo!” Braden joked.

“Haha, very funny,” Jordan said sarcastically.

Brooklynn and Riley were off in their own world, chatting about boys, when Jo finally said, “Fine, I’ll do it.”

He suddenly stood up and took his shirt off. Riley whistled playfully at Jordan’s abs. The whole group was laughing as Jordan stripped the rest of his clothes off.

He ran out and around the park, producing screams from the parents of little children as they tried to cover their childrens’ eyes.

The whole group of friends erupted in laughter, as Jordan ran out into the main street. “Go, baby, go!” Kyle said, laughing.

Jordan was prancing around in his birthday suit when a car came out of nowhere and—

Andy jumped awake, sweaty and out of breath. For the past few days whenever he had closed his eyes this scene was the only thing that played in his head. No matter how hard he tried, his thoughts were consumed with guilt from daring his friend to do what brought him to his death.

It was barely three days after Jordan’s death and no one could stop the pain from reverberating throughout their minds and hearts. Riley, Brooklynn, Olivia, Kyle, Braden, Andrew, and Jordan were all the best of friends. They were one of the most popular upperclassmen group at their school, Westerly High. Everyone wanted to be in their group but they had each promised that no one else could join their invincible seven. Not only were they wrong about being invincible, but they were now only six.

Andy lay in bed not wanting to get up until his phone rang on his nightstand. Automatically, he reached over and flipped it open.

Group meeting at the park –Kyle

Kyle was their unspoken group leader. Not only was he the oldest at eighteen, but whenever there was trouble, they turned to him because he always knew what to do.

For as long as Andy could remember, the group has always met at the park whenever they got together. Sometimes they would meet elsewhere, but they usually always ended up at the park some way or another.

Reluctantly, Andy got out of bed and slid on a pair of shorts that were lying on the floor. He did the same thing with a wrinkled, navy shirt. To complete his look he slid on a pair of socks and his favorite skater shoes. Once he was done dressing, he walked out the door.

After Andy was downstairs, he grabbed his car keys off the key rack. He had just gotten his license a few months ago even though he was seventeen. The reason for this was because he had failed his drivers test a total of five times. Three of which were due to the fact that he got into an argument with the driving instructor.

He wiped the sleep off his face and opened his car door. “I’m leaving,” he called to his parents.

As he drove to the park that was a couple blocks away, he turned on the radio to drown out his thoughts. Of course, his thoughts found a way to be heard no matter how loud the music was.

As he pulled up to the park, everybody was already there, waiting for him. Well, almost everybody. One of the friends, they were still and would forevermore be waiting for him to show up.

Andy walked up to the group and took a seat next to Livy. “Hey,” he said softly. They all mumbled a greeting of some sort back.

“So what’s the meeting for?” Braden asked.

Kyle said, “Well, as I’m sure you all know, I couldn’t sleep last night. So as I was lying in bed, I thought that we needed to get out of this slump.”

“Like finding closure?” Livy asked.

“Exactly,” he continued, “and I tried to figure out some way we could do it, because I know Jo wouldn’t want us to be sad about him. He’s probably turning over in his grave right now because of this meeting. No one’s laughing or having any fun.”

“So what’d you come up with?” Brooklyn n asked.

“Well, I texted Riley because I figured she wasn’t sleeping either, and asked for some ideas. We thought of some things we could do, like counseling or ditching school for a day or anything,” Kyle continued.

Riley took over for Kyle. “But we thought we needed something bigger than that, so we settled on a road trip!” She said with all the enthusiasm she could muster.

“Road trip?” Livy asked. “What would that do?”

Andy said softly, “Well, if you think about it, no other way would suit us.”

Braden added, “Yeah, can you imagine us in counseling?” This got a small chuckle out of the group.

“So we decided to take a trip over the summer, in honor of Jordan Senton,” Kyle finished.

“Hmm,” Brooklynn said softly. “Well, you always do have the best ideas Kyle.” Braden, Brooklynn’s twin brother, rolled his eyes. Pretty much everyone in the whole world knew she had a massive crush on Kyle, except Kyle.

“Thanks,” Kyle replied. “What do you guys think?”

“It sounds like a good idea,” Andy said. Various statements of approval came from the other members of the groups. So it was settled, they were going on a road trip, as long as their parents approved.