14. now
now
Nat’s bucket lists surround me in the living room. I’m alone this weekend—Hayden is out of town for a football game. She’s at Aberlena University on a cheerleading scholarship, and now that the semester is in full swing, most of her weekends will be taken up with games and competitions.
Right now, I kind of wish I’d gone to watch. Derek invited me to come with a group of his friends, but I’d said no. I could be in southern Washington, drunk and watching football. Instead, I’m having an existential crisis on our tasseled rug.
Nat’s lists date back all the way to the fourth grade.
There are ten in total. The handwriting is messier in the beginning, and the lists are longer.
Some are marked with little checked boxes.
Others are simply scratched out. Only two items are crossed off her senior year list. Her final list counts to eight, but the last number is blank. Seven goals, not one marked.
Nat disappeared four nights before Christmas. Plenty of time to accomplish a few of these. Even one.
I shuffle her younger lists into a stack and slump back against the couch, holding the final one in front of me. Seven items.
I trail my finger down the list, stopping at number seven.
There’s a question mark at the end, like she couldn’t decide whether that one was a good idea.
If I’d known she was doing these, if she would have shown me this back in our final August, I would have told her number seven was a great idea.
I like numbers one, three, and four too.
Two is fine. Number six is the best—if only she’d actually followed through with it.
I press my thumb against five, hard enough I accidentally crinkle the paper.
Stupid number five. It’s not crossed off, but it definitely could have been.
From what I learned in those final months before she left, my sister had done a lot of stuff she’d never done before. Maybe, if she hadn’t, she’d be here.
I don’t mean to look back at number seven, but I do. Her wording stirs something in my gut. She should have just said Phoebe. It’s not like she was ever close with Atlas or his parents. She meant Phoebe, right? So why not just say that?
It helps, I suppose, if I’m going to take on this list for myself. Without Atlas’s blood money, obviously. I may be a pathetically poor college student, any past riches long dissolved, but I’m sure I can scrounge up enough money for a music festival and a road trip. The rest I can do for free.
In fact, I can already mark number six off my list.
No, I decide. I should think of some variation. Shayna was Nat’s best friend at the end and also her worst influence. I should think of something that's terrible for me. Something that I know is bad but can’t seem to quit.
I stare out the window, trying to sort through my racing thoughts. Our neighborhood is quiet today. There’s nothing to watch, nothing to distract myself from the list in my hands.
I don’t have to do anything at all, obviously. It was Atlas’s idea to complete Nat’s list, not mine. I don’t owe Atlas a damn thing, least of all something to do with my sister.
And yet…
I place the list on top of the closed folder. Find a couple of pens and a blank piece of paper. I consider writing directly on Nat’s list, but that feels blasphemous, like doodling on a rare piece of art. I jot down her list, word-for-word, then make a few changes.
I swallow. I don’t know where my edit of number six came from, only that it feels right.
If someone asked me what my greatest weakness was a few months ago, I would have told them something stupid, like “math” or “playing doubles”.
Maybe it was the look on Atlas’s face when I told him I never wanted to see him again.
Or maybe it’s the heavy weight that’s followed me ever since I left his apartment.
Maybe, deep down, I know I’m not being fair. And maybe, it hurts me as much as it clearly hurts him.
I make a change to number seven.
7. Reconnect with the Atlas Blakes (?)
I’m glad Hayden isn’t here to see this. The version of me that exists in Aberlena is vastly different from the version I left in my hometown.
Right now, I’m regressing. I’m standing in front of Atlas’s apartment, hands sweating so much I put Nat’s list back in its folder to keep from staining it.
With the folder tucked under my arm, I shift on my feet and give myself the best pep talk I can manage.
I can always change my mind.
He might not be interested anyway.
This isn’t nearly as big of a deal as I’m making it.
Nat wanted to reconnect with the Blakes too. She won’t hate me for mending things with Atlas.
Right?
“Violet?”
My shoulders hike up toward my ears. Oh god.
The only person worse to witness my panic than Hayden is Atlas.
But of course that’s who’s crossing the parking lot.
His roommate Kolt is at his side, and they’re both wearing branded gear for Aberlena’s swim team.
From the way they radiate the stench of chlorine, they’re either returning from practice or they had a meet this morning.
“Oh, hey.” I move Nat’s folder back to my hands and hug it to my chest. “I was, uh, just coming to see you.”
I hold the folder up by way of explanation.
“Everything okay?” Atlas slows his movements, coming to a stop in front of me. Kolt rocks back on his heels and looks between us, eyebrows raised. When he nudges Atlas with his elbow, in the least subtle gesture of all time, he doesn’t get a response.
“I forgot my water bottle at the pool,” Kolt announces loudly. He’s already walking backward, carrying a very not-forgotten water bottle in his right hand. It’s plastic, just like all the other ones in his bedroom. I resist an eye roll, but Atlas doesn’t.
“You don’t have—”
“Just text me,” Kolt cuts him off. He turns and jogs toward a junky red truck in the far-back corner of the lot. It’s right next to a swanky black truck that I would guess is Atlas’s. It’s not what he drove in high school, but it’s the type of vehicle he’d pick. Sleek and expensive, but cool too.
“You want to come inside?” Atlas hitches his thumb over his shoulder at the main door. I eye it warily, my stomach so tangled with nerves I can’t think straight.
“Sure.” I sound more confident than I feel, and that soothes my anxiety. If I sound confident, I’m one step away from being confident.
Atlas glances at me as we walk into the building and navigate to a back stairwell.
Every other time I’ve been here, I’ve taken the elevator.
Atlas would opt to walk nine flights of stairs instead.
I don’t entirely mind. I’m able to study him as he leads the way.
It’s one of the few times I can actually look at him without him knowing.
So I admire the broad stretch of his shoulders. He’s wearing a thin white T-shirt that’s damp at the collar. Simple black shorts and a pair of waterproof slides. His brown hair is wet and tousled, but there’s also clearly gel in it.
He never used to bother with stuff like that. I wonder when he started. I wonder if women prefer his hair combed and styled over his old messy look. Some childish, territorial part of me wants to rough my fingers through his hair until it looks like it used to.
By the time we reach the ninth floor, I think I’ve memorized every visible contour of his body. The thick muscles of his back. The protruding veins on his forearms. The visible calluses on his fingertips.
I wonder if those are from weightlifting at the gym or whether he still plays the guitar.
“Are you okay?” Atlas asks as we exit the stairwell. It takes me a moment to understand why he’s asking.
“I’m not breathing that hard.”
“You sound like you’re dying.” He stops at 907 and digs his key out of his pocket. With a sideways glance at me, he grins. “We could’ve taken the elevator.”
“Now you offer.” I cross my arms over my chest and lean against the wall beside his door. “Also, unlike some people, I have better things to do than exercise sixteen hours a day.”
“Yeah?” He strides into his apartment, and I try not to dwell on the fact he holds the door for me. “Like what?”
There’s a rawness to his question that settles uncomfortably beneath my ribs. This isn’t polite small talk or vague curiosity. It’s desperate. Hungry. Loud.
“Well, I’m a double major. Education and music.
I think you already knew that.” I force a steady breath between my lips.
My every instinct urges me to tell him to fuck off, to remind him that we’re not friends.
That he lost that privilege. It’s only the blue folder tucked beneath my arm that stops me.
I’m here for a reason, and I’m determined to see it through. Even if I decide it’s a bad idea after all, even if I ultimately bail, I need to at least try. Actually try.
“You still writing music?”
I nod. Swallow again.
“Your roommate didn’t have to leave,” I say, instead of what I should say. It’s time for me to bring up the reason I’m here, even though Atlas doesn’t seem like he’s in a rush either. I’ve got the folder on full display, but he hasn’t so much as looked at it since we entered the building.
“Yeah, I know.” Atlas walks to the living room and starts tidying the mess on the coffee table. “He assumed we’re hooking up.”
Thank god Atlas isn’t looking at me. My face is a thousand degrees, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
“Why would he think that?” I ask carefully. When really, what I want to ask is: would you want to?
“That’s how Kolt’s mind operates.” Atlas turns back toward me, juggling a mess of wrappers, empty plastic water bottles, and a bowl stained with the distinct orange of SpaghettiO remnants. He gives me a sheepish smile. “Sorry, he’s a slob.”
“The SpaghettiOs were you. You don’t have to lie.” I’m teasing him. I’m bringing up a shared past—a knowledge of his favorite food in high school. I’m doing all the things I’ve decidedly not done in years.
And it’s clear Atlas notices.
His eyes light, just for a second. He quickly turns away, tossing the garbage and placing the bowl in the sink. He even takes the time to rinse it out, but it doesn’t matter. There’s blush on his cheeks when he faces me again.
“The SpaghettiOs were mine,” he acknowledges. He leans back against the fridge. We’re separated by the island counter and a few feet on top of that. We are considerably farther apart than we were at Phoebe’s wedding, and yet, he feels dangerously close.
Focus, I chastise myself. You’re here to make amends.
“I looked through her lists.” I hold the folder between us like a shield.
With a stiff breath, I force myself to look Atlas in the eyes.
The vivid green is endless and intoxicating.
I need to be careful. As soon as I escape his closeness, I should make another list. A strategy to not get caught up in that smolder.
“And?” he asks after nearly a minute passes. I blink. It takes me a second to remember what I was talking about.
Right. The lists.
“She checked a few things off all of them, except the last one.” I remove her final list from the folder and place it on the counter between us. Atlas steps forward to look over it. “I decided you were right. We should finish it for her.”
He stiffens, hands braced on either side of the paper. Those dangerous eyes are back on me, but I don’t dare meet them. I’m too scared of what I’ll see.
“We?” he finally asks.
“Yeah.” I stare at the list instead of him and tap my finger next to number seven. “Reconnecting with the Blakes is on here. So I figured that could be step one.”
I swallow and look up at him. His expression is so much worse than I feared. It goes beyond hope, beyond confusion. He’s looking at me like he’s desperate for me, like he’d jump out the nearest window if I asked him to. If he thought it would undo the destruction he caused.
“I don’t know if I can ever be your friend again,” I admit quickly, the words tasting foul as I speak them. “I’ll never forgive you. And obviously, we’ll never go back to what we were.”
It might be a weird clarification to make after all these years.
I’m sure he’s moved on, that he’s got a girlfriend.
If he doesn’t, he will soon enough. He hasn’t said anything that indicates he’s hoping for us to get back together.
It feels imperative to speak the words anyway.
To say them out loud, for both of us to hear them.
This time, Atlas doesn’t flinch. It’s a relief and a gut punch, all at once.
“I know,” he says softly. His throat bobs as he swallows. “Thank you, for letting me do this with you.”
I nod, unable to form a single word. He looks over me, gaze quietly assessing.
“Wait here.” He leaves the kitchen, returning moments later with the white envelope. He holds it toward me from across the counter.
“Oh, no, you don’t—”
“Take the money, Violet.”
I don’t. I stare at it, at the overstuffed envelope with more money than we’ll realistically need.
“You could just use it as we go.”
“Take the money,” he repeats. “That way, when you inevitably decide you don’t want me involved, you can finish the list. Take it, Violet. Please.”
My eyes burn as I take the envelope from him. It feels heavier than it did yesterday, though I’m sure that’s only my imagination. My guilt. Everything terrible comes back to Atlas, but when I’m around him, I can’t help but feel like I’m the monster. Like I’ve hurt him as badly as he hurt me.
When I leave, I hold the folder in one hand and the envelope in the other. I stroke my thumb over my name as I walk. I can feel the sharp lines of his handwriting, and when I close my eyes, I can almost hear my name in his voice.