One
The Anti-Bucket List
Audrey
If I had any idea today would be the day my life would change, I probably would’ve spat my gum out first.
But since I had no idea, I kept right on licking my blow pop, aiming for the bubblegum inside.
It was a normal Thursday afternoon, and I lay plopped on my stomach on my bed with the bedroom door open while Tate Lemieux watched me.
Platonically. Fully dressed. As friends.
“So, Audrey. Tell me what’s on your list.” Tate gazed at me with an expectant expression, as if I had any idea what he was talking about.
I didn’t. “What list?” I said it loud enough so Dad could hear that Tate and I weren’t sucking face from where he watched the Giants game in the den all the way down the hall.
See, Dad. Nothing to worry about. Boy in my room? No big deal.
A shudder ran through me from the memory of various lectures I’d received throughout my high school years to never be alone in my room with a boy if the door was closed.
Dad needn’t have worried at all though, because Tate had never kissed me.
Even though I wished he would.
Despite the warnings, my dad probably had some weird psychic certainty that Tate had barely so much as held my hand, which accounted for me being able to spend so much time with him.
Which was a lot.
Every day Tate gave me a ride to and from Merlot High in a huge purple truck, carried my one-ton Statistics book to my class no matter how many times I told him I could carry it—and even though he didn’t have that class with me—and spent lunch period feeding me catered gourmet food and Skittles.
He treated me like I was the most fascinating creature in town. Maybe all of Sonoma County and into Napa.
Evidence? Last Saturday night he ignored nonstop texts and come-ons from Jade Lopez, the most beautiful girl in school, in favor of a trip to Target to buy me a new toothbrush.
More evidence?
Almost every afternoon, Tate hung out with me from after school until dinnertime. We did our homework together then talked or watched Netflix until he headed home to his parents’ huge, ranch-style house high atop the dusky green hills overlooking Merlot. He never stayed for dinner, even though my parents invited him most nights.
We’ve repeated this daily pattern since the middle of our sophomore year. But the lack of kissing meant we were just friends.
I mean, we must have been friends, right? Because if we were more than that, I’d know.
Right?
Not knowing drove me crazy.
I sucked hard on the watermelon blow pop, keeping myself from the holy (and wholly satisfactory) bliss of biting into the bubble gum in the center, because once you did that, the flavor vanished in an instant.
It was infinitely more fun to draw it out.
I needed to savor these last days of high school since the amount of time till graduation was thinning out, and I didn’t want to find that once I got to the end, the flavor had disappeared.
I glanced up at Tate sitting in my chair like a prom king. He was the most desired boy in school with his athletic build, golden-haired looks, old money, and cheeky charm. His appeal was of the stereotypical variety—he looked like an all-American boy from an eighties movie. Thankfully, all-American boys now came in more varieties and colors to choose from, with optional features. Tate just happened to be the one in my life.
Virtually every girl and quite a few of the boys wanted him, but he ignored them in favor of paying attention to me. And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure him out.
Did he want me or not? Was he asexual? Did he not like anyone?
I was too scared to find out the answers to those questions, so I settled for not asking them. I didn’t want to find out my crush on Tate only went one way.
I’d also been anxious about what would happen after graduation. Our plan was for not much to change. After this summer, Tate and I would keep going to class, hanging out, and perhaps not eating dinner together, but our venue would change to New York City. He’d study International Relations at Columbia. I’d start to build my tweedy, tailored empire at the Fashion Institute of Technology, my first choice school. We’d both leave town.
Leaving town would coincidentally save me from my underlying fear—peaking in high school. Being like those locals who never stopped talking about the past.
I wanted to live in the future, one with fashion and food and travel and … Tate.
For now, though, my desires were simple: one kiss from Tate.
A serious kiss. No pecks on the cheek. I wanted a real kiss.
And yes, I wanted him to do it to me.
Don’t be hating. I could take the initiative and kiss him, but I didn’t want to. After all this ambiguity, I wanted to be sure he wanted me. I needed him to show me he liked me before I did anything stupid that wasn’t reciprocated. Was that too much to ask? I didn’t think so.
So, I did ask. Sort of.
On my last birthday a month ago, I blew out eighteen candles and wished for him to make the first move.
He didn’t.
If he had, then I’d know for sure I wasn’t misinterpreting any of our interactions, because for all I knew, even after all this time—especially after all this time—Tate just wanted to be friends. The uncertainty drove me to extra purchases of blow pops.
I might have a tiny candy addiction.
Still, sometimes I thought he saw me as more, especially when I caught his eyes on me. Like now, as he watched me suck this bright pink lollipop.
Pretending I didn’t notice his laser-focused attention on me, I tossed a tendril of my long, spirally auburn hair over my shoulder, hoping he’d watch. I was maybe a wee bit vain about my hair, but I couldn’t help it. I adored the compliments.
My hair didn’t stay in place, though, falling back to where it had been.
As slyly as possible, I peeked at him through the curtain of my locks to see if the move worked.
It did. He noticed, judging by the way his mouth paused on an inhale, lips slightly open, breath stuttering to a halt. Of course his classically handsome face distracted me—tan, with a beautiful jawline and cheekbone ridges like the sharp-peaked hills around Sonoma. His blond, wavy hair was nothing to disparage, either—thick and mostly unruly. We locked eyes, and the world held its breath.
Does his attention mean what I think it means?
Every time I was about to conclude I’d systematically read our interactions all wrong for years and his interest in me was nothing beyond friends, he did something like this.
He made me feel wanted.
But as usual, we both blinked and re-situated, as if we’d been blocking a scene for a school play and now were starting over from the top. I pretended not to preen from his approval, although it warmed me from the inside, pinking my pale cheeks. He bluffed too, staring at his phone, as if he hadn’t just gotten entranced watching me flip my hair. Everything went back to normal again.
That’s how we roll.
It sucked monkey balls. Actually, I’d never sucked monkey balls—who had?—so perhaps it sucked like getting to the mushy, gross paper stick at the middle of a lollipop. Yuck.
“What list?” I repeated.
“I wanna make a list of what we’re going to do when we’re done with high school,” he explained in his gruff voice.