All Planned Out

Ten (Charlotte)

I had never been so grateful to be caffeinated.

For someone who appeared to take real pride in making skateboarding videos, Montana really didn't want them to be found. It took me hours, literally, to hunt my way across the internet to track them down. Along the way, I watched dozens of videos of other girls, though none were local, riding around anywhere they could put their wheels down doing amazing tricks and, sometimes, crashing violently into the pavement. My health and wellness brain was nothing but alarm bells every time the camera would zoom in on a swipe of fresh blood on a forearm or a knee or, in one case that I hoped would not haunt my dreams, a girl who looked to be barely out of middle school waved her hand at whomever was filming as her pinky twisted off from her hand at an awful, obtuse angle.

It was probably the cappuccino that caused me to completely forget about the so-called 'clue' that Stuart had given me at the coffee shop. It came back to me at the tail end of my crash. It was almost midnight. I didn't care. I reignited my search and, with my eyes half-open at best, eventually stumbled upon a series of about a dozen videos on a website I had never heard of before starring one Montana Blackburn and her skateboard.

"Soooo, like, Montana's a state, right? And everybody calls it Big Sky Country, you know? So that's why Manny said that to her. That's why he called her that, too.'

"Uh...huh." Alex had been courteously nodding along as I waved my phone at him.

"And that is what name she uses to post her videos." I tapped at the screen and then pushed it back into his face. "She just, uh, doesn't spell it properly."

"Huh?" We stopped at an intersection and he glanced down. "Oh. Oooh..."

"Yeah."

"I'm sure her mom would love to hear that's how she refers to herself."

"It's just a joke." I said. "It, like, fits her personality, doesn't it?"

"Are you asking me or yourself?" Alex shook his head and rolled his eyes. "If you want to know if I think she can be, uh, abrasive then yeah, duh, she can be."

"I think she just acts like that cause you're her cousin."

"And I think you're just saying that because you like her." He stuck his tongue out at me. "It's whatever, Char. It's just a username on the internet. I've seen the names you pick."

"What does that mean?"

"You still have accounts named after that Billie Eilish song 'Ocean Eyes' despite the fact that your eyes are brown. So if she wants to call herself names then so what?"

"I don't think that song has to do with eye color." I said.

He shrugged. "And does it mean anything different if I just say it's a love song and you've been using it as a name for the past...never mind. Nope. Not going to think about it."

"I just like the song, Alex. It has nothing to do with her." I tucked my phone between my legs only to pull it free thirty seconds later and go back to watching the videos. I was working on my third pass. "I just like the song, that's all."

"Okay. Fine. Whatever."

"Anyway, how was the script?"

"Fine." He repeated and put both hands on the wheel and his eyes dead ahead. This was his usual cue to me when driving that he did not want to talk about whatever it was I just brought up.

Too bad for him. "Just fine?"

"What do you want me to say? It's not like he handed me pages from The Godfather or something."