The next few days were some of the most uneventful Gordo could remember. He watched more TV than he had ever watched in his entire life and wasted hours in front of his computer playing Pong on the internet with a girl from China. All in all, it couldn't get any less exciting as this. As he was lying on his bed counting how many seconds passed until he would blink next, the phone rang. It was Miranda. "Soooo....?" she asked him. It was a rather abrupt way to start a conversation.

"Miranda, what's up?"

"So what did Ethan want? Does he love me?"

"Oh, yeah. I forgot. You were right. He wanted to hang out."

Miranda was getting more excited every minute. "And you did?"

"I had nothing else to do." Gordo said all this in a fairly blasé fashion.

"Oh my gosh! What did you do?"

Gordo was getting pretty annoyed at this point. "If you say 'Oh my gosh' one more time I will through this phone right out this window."

"Ok, OK, sheesh. So, what happened?"

"Not much. I met him at the Digital Bean and taught him how to use a computer. Then he talked for about 20 years about golf."

"That is incredible!"

"What is up with you girls? Why is everything that Ethan Craft does so incredible?"

"Because he's popular."

"Miranda, I told you that popularity does not really matter in real life and in real life Ethan Craft is just a big, stupid doufus."

"Oh, come on Gordo. You're just saying that because you're jealous of him."

Gordo was shocked at this assumption. "What? Me? Jealous? Of Ethan Craft?"

"Yeah. You. Jealous. Of Ethan Craft" Miranda replied, mimicking and mocking him at the same time.

"That's ridiculous. I would know if I'm jealous of someone or not. Besides, why would I even be jealous of him?"

"Maybe it's because there's something he has that you wish you did?"

Until that moment, it never hit Gordo why he's always held such a low view of Ethan. It was because of Lizzie! For as long as he had known Ethan, he was always the guy that had the one thing that Gordo had wanted- having Lizzie like him as more than just a friend. That must be why he had always made fun of how dumb Ethan was and always put him down. "Yeah," Gordo said to Miranda, "maybe he does."

"I thought so."

"So maybe I'm jealous of Ethan. What now?"

"I don't know. What am I, Dear Abby?"

This wasn't the answer that Gordo was hoping for. "Well, thanks anyway." Gordo hoped to change the subject. He was getting uncomfortable thinking about how he may be jealous of someone. " Oh, have you gotten any news from Lizzie?"

"Nope. Why? Have you?"

Gordo sighed. "No. Her parents must have really taken away her phone for the Summer." He could not hide disappointment in his voice.

Miranda was feeling kind of uncomfortable with the whole conversation and decided to end it. "Well, I think I've got to go. I'll talk to you later."

"OK. Later."