—cheerlead23

My heart stops. It is not beating. I can’t breathe for what seems like six hours. Blood is probably backing up in my lungs. I take a deep breath. It’s okay, I tell myself. There’s no way it’s true. This girl probably doesn’t even go to Miami, and she’s making it up to start drama on the message boards. I mean, it’s obviously not true. Yeah, Corey was a little sketched about the whole strip club thing, but he’s fine now. I promised to give him advance warning on any other scandals that might pop up, and now everything’s cool. This has obviously been posted by some sort of psycho attention whore who has nothing better to do. I keep reading.

Oh, yeah, that one blond girl Jen he’s always with. She’s in my lit class and he’s always waiting for her afterward. She’s a hot piece of ass. I don’t blame him for getting a little extra on the side, LOL.

—MiamiHurricanezRule

Oh my God. This is not happening. My stomach starts churning, and I close out the Web site, not wanting to read anymore. I feel like I’m going to throw up, and I lean back in the computer chair, taking deep breaths and trying to calm my heart, which has apparently decided to start beating again, only this time at an absurdly fast rate. When I open my eyes, I see Frank the cameraman standing in the corner, the handheld focused on my face.

God. Can he leave me alone for, like, one freaking minute? Whatever. This can be taken care of in, like, two seconds. I’ll just call Corey, he’ll tell me that he knows no such Jen slut, and I can forget about it. It’s stupid to even be thinking about it, because Corey would never, ever cheat on me. Obviously the losers on the message boards have nothing better to do than start rumors and try to create scandal. But I’m not going to fall for it. I will hold my head high and ignore them. If Paris Hilton can get through that whole sex tape thing, I can surely handle some stupid losers on the Internet.

I try Corey on his dorm phone, but he doesn’t answer. His cell goes to voice mail, and I leave him a message telling him to call me back as soon as he gets it, that I’m having a bit of an emergency.

I disconnect, then pick back up and dial Grant.

“Grant!” I practically scream when he answers. “You’re never going to believe it!” I’m hysterical. Somewhere over the last five minutes I have become hysterical.

“Me first!” Grant shrieks back. “I met a guy! His name is Brett!”

“Grant, please, no time for your little anecdotes starring you as the hot stud. This is serious.”

“Oh my, God, Ally, what’s wrong?” Grant asks, obviously alarmed that I’m cutting him off while he’s talking about himself. A huge staple of our friendship is the fact that I’m usually perfectly content for him to rattle on about anything and everything for hours on end.