No Matter What You Do

8. The List

Imeet Brandy for dinner after her class. This is my first time seeing her today. I arrive at the dining hall before she does, and when she gets here, she rushes to the booth I’ve claimed and drops her bag onto the seat across from me. She does not speak a word until she comes back with a plate of fries.

“Miss Lainey Coleson. I have a serious question.” Her energy is high, but I feel that’s her deal on the daily, so I indulge in a large forkful of my lemon-juice-dressed salad.

Brandy takes in a dramatic breath and just looks at me.

“What?” I say with a mouthful.

Her response surprisingly comes out in one large sentence. “So, I wake up for class, and you’re already gone, so like I get all dressed and ready, and I realize I needed to borrow a pen because I couldn’t find mine, and I was already super late, so I go to your desk and snag one of yours, hope that’s okay, and I find something very interesting.”

I shrug despite the accusing look she’s giving me.

She digs into her bag and pulls out a piece of loose paper. A giant smile forms on her face, and she reads from it. “Kiss someone?—”

“No!” I reach over the table, my heart racing. On my second grab at it, she lets me take it. I crumple it into a ball.

Her smile remains as if she just won some kind of game I wasn’t aware we were playing.

“That seems a lot like a list of items you could do at a party.”

“No!” Oh look, you’re attracting attention. “I only wrote those things down because of a dream I had.” You’ve said too much!

Her eyes bulge out of her head. “You had a sexy dream?”

I shush her loudly. “No.”

“Who was it about? Have I heard of them?”

“No! He had no face for most of it, anyway. Not one that I recognize.” Too much.

“So, it’s a he. Who is it?”

“Not important.”

“If they made you write up that spicy list, I disagree.”

“It is not spicy.”

She hums to herself. “Mikey?”

“I don’t like Mikey that way.”

She lowers her voice. “Cameron.” Not a question.

I shake my head dramatically. “Never in a million trillion years would I ever dream of him.”

She grins. “I get it. He’s hot.”

“I just said?—”

Brandy nods. “I heard. Million trillion. Sweetheart, ‘yes’ would have been less obvious.” She picks up a fry and puts it in her mouth, somehow making it look uber inappropriate. “Let’s eat so we can finish this checklist. I also expect a recap of the dream in all its spicy glory.”

“I forget it,” I say.

She’s quiet for a moment. “So, did you write those things down because you wanted to do them?”

I don’t answer, which to her is an answer. I’m eighteen years old. A college freshman. I already know that the majority of students here have experienced the items I wrote. More than half probably accomplished them in early high school. It’s ridiculous, but I suppose the idea behind it isn’t so much. I’ve always been behind in life. You haven’t even had your first kiss yet! It would be almost therapeutic to catch up. Make a mistake or two along the way.

When we get back to our room, we, mostly Brandy, brainstorm items. Everything from Brandy’s mouth is either sex-related or alcohol-related. Instead of arguing, I just let her get it out. If I’m honest, those first four items from my dream are the most involvement I have in the process.

Within an hour and a half, we have a decent collection of goals for us to accomplish this year. Some I cannot even imagine performing. If Cameron were involved in some, maybe.

Forget I said that.

Before I go to sleep, I take one more look at the list. Lord help me. All I see is Brandy since she wrote the majority of it.

Kiss someone

Have sex

Have someone go down on me

Go down on someone

Experiment…

Keg stand

Shotgun beer

Beer pong

Sing karaoke

Get drunk

Smoke weed at least one time

Take any shots not from a glass

Give hickey/get hickey

Threesome?

(The last one I may have added myself.)

Fall in love