Chapter 25

Nell’s To-Do List

• Stop making to-do lists. They suck. A lot.

Between the time that Torres left my bed the morning after his concussion and his return later that evening . . . before everything fell apart, I’d added something to my list.

And I know I can cross it off because even though I hate him, even though the thought of him brings every doubt and insecurity roaring to life in my head . . . that damn fist around my heart still squeezes.

So I guess I can finally admit it. Late, though it is.

23. Fall in love.

Been there, done that, wish I had never written a single word of this stupid list. But I’m committed to it now, so I add yet another item.

24. Get my heart broken.

Then I cross them both off at the same time. Whoo-hoo life experience. Sure glad I have that now.

I knew this whole experiment would all go bad. There’s no way it couldn’t, not with me at the helm. God, I should have realized this sooner. I should have known that he and I wouldn’t fit together under normal circumstances. The only reason he ever looked twice at me was because of her.

There are still items on my list that I haven’t completed, but I feel like I’ve done my part. I’ve stepped outside of my comfort zone. I’ve taken risks. And I’ve paid for it.

And I was right all along.

I’m better off committed to my work. And now I’m going to graduate early. I’ve narrowed down my grad school choices to two programs, and I’ll be filling out those applications . . . soon. Anytime now. I’m going to do the things I always planned to do, and I’m never going to look back.

That’s the first lie I tell myself.

I’m no longer worried about my future. I know everything is going to work out.

That’s the second.

The next day, I lie when I tell Dylan (and myself) that I changed my mind. That Torres and I, while attracted to each other, just aren’t compatible.

I lie when she asks if I want to eat ice cream and watch chick flicks, and say instead that I need to work on grad school applications. Then, when she’s gone, I break out my sweatpants and the ice cream and settle down on the couch to watch a special on the Discovery Channel about lions hunting their prey. (Okay . . . so I wasn’t lying about the chick flicks, but all the rest of it . . . )

It’s a lie each time I go to bed and promise I won’t think of him.

It’s a lie each time I wake up and convince myself that he was absolutely not the first thing on my mind.

It’s a lie that I’m not disintegrating with worry the night before the football game thinking about all the things that could go wrong, the ways he could be hit, how it could affect him.

I don’t care.

I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.

(More lies.)

So, even though I hate my list . . . even though I said I was through . . . when Saturday comes, I make plans to check another item off my list.

10. Go to a football game.

After this . . . I’ll be done.

TAILGATING.

Dallas tells me that it gets its name from everyone camping out at their trucks, setting up food and drinks on their tailgates to party before a football game. Personally, I think it’s absurd to make the name of an inanimate object into a verb, but no one asked me. I also think it’s absurd that in a sport called football, the majority of the game has very little interaction between balls and feet. But again . . . not my choice.

Dylan, Matt, Dallas, Stella, and I carpooled together, and I follow them to a section of the parking lot where the student union is throwing a huge tailgate party. From the few things I’ve picked up over the years, I had expected the game not to be very female-friendly. I mean, it’s sports, for one thing. But so many commercials and photos I’d seen played up the cheerleaders in skimpy clothing, and I figured that kind of stuff would run rampant. Ironically, there are a lot more half-naked guys than there are girls.

There’s one large group of shirtless guys whose chests are painted a dark red to match the school’s colors. Each guy has a single letter on his chest in white, and while I’m sure this was not their intention, the four closest to me spell out the word “suck.”

I get a hot dog, but decline alcohol, and the five of us sit down on those concrete slabs that are placed in front of parking spots. As I eat, I survey the group of shirtless guys again, taking in all the letters, and working anagrams in my head trying to figure out what they might say. They’ve shifted again and instead of “suck,” there’s now a group sporting the word “scat.” Again, I’m doubting (and also weirdly hoping) this was their intention. There are somewhere between fifteen and twenty guys, and they keep moving around, which is putting a serious damper on my anagramming.

“What are you staring so hard at?” Stella asks beside me.

Everyone else has kept up a steady stream of chatter, but the two of us have been quiet. I heard Dallas mention something about this being the first game Stella has attended in a while. According to Stella, it’s only been like a month and a half, which doesn’t sound like that big of a deal to me, but everyone else seems to think it’s significant.

“I’m brainstorming possible combinations of the letters on those shirtless guys that are really extraordinarily drunk considering how early in the day it is.”

She smiles. “What do you have so far?”

“Well, this group here and that one over there could combine to spell ‘scrotum.’ But I feel confident that’s not their intended message.”

Stella chokes on her soda. “Oh God, I hope it is.”

I think about how much of a kick Torres would get out of this, and my heart rattles.

“More realistically, though, they’re spelling something to do with the school. Rusk. Those letters match up. There’s not a Y that I can see, so I don’t think it says ‘university.’ There’s an F and two Os, so I’m betting ‘football’ is part of it. But that still leaves some letters unaccounted for.”

“Wildcat,” Stella provides. “The team mascot, I think the rest spells ‘wildcat.’ ”

I scan the letters again, and she’s right. I nod. “Mystery solved.”

Then I go back to chewing my hot dog. And chewing and chewing because I don’t know what to say. I should be working on that whole friendship thing. That’s the one thing that might be salvageable from this whole list disaster. Everything else might have backfired, but I know now that I can’t let myself go back to being lonely. I can’t work that way, and it was foolish to think that I could.