Chapter Two

Georgina

 

 

“You missed a whole day of classes.” Julie, my roommate, stood in the kitchen staring at me as I fumbled around on my shelf of the pantry.

I winced and continued rummaging for something to eat that would take little effort. “Yeah, I know.”

“Are you sick? You look sick.” She managed to sound both condescending and concerned. I could never get a clear reading on Julie. She was a strange, mousy thing with the kind of big brown eyes that made the rest of her features insignificant. She looked so vulnerable and childlike, but spoke in the same monotone, dry voice whether she was wishing you a good day or telling you her grandmother had died.

Julie had seemed the obvious choice for a roommate. She was as serious about her classes as I was, as bereft of a social life and boyfriend, and we had common schedules as well as a clear grip on how much we both liked our privacy. We never spent much time in the shared living room or kitchen together. Julie never ate the food on my shelves in the refrigerator, and I never used her bathroom products. It was a good arrangement.

Just yesterday, I had wished there was more between us. Wondered if we could be friends. We’d always been too busy, our class times always misaligned, her work hours too long, and plenty of other excuses about why we weren’t close. The truth was that I’d never tried. It would have been nice to have a friend to talk to right then, to confide in.

And now it was too late to try.

Julie tilted her head. “You should get a doctor’s note or something. If you don’t, you might lose your scholarship.”

I grumbled under my breath. “That would be a tragedy.”

Julie may be twenty-going-on-eighty, but there is nothing at all wrong with her hearing. “It would be. Do you know how important it is to start out debt-free? My parents say that it’s the best start to a strong future. Don’t you care about your future?”

“Not high on my priorities right now.”

One blink of those big, brown eyes, and Julie shrugged and walked out of the kitchen.

I rested my forehead on the cabinets, closed my eyes, and took long, slow breaths. Even though I’d only had one drink the night before, I had a nasty, weak feeling in my belly. I knew it had nothing to do with a hangover, and everything to do with the future that I really did care about.

I heated up some ramen and ate it standing in the kitchen, trying not to think about tomorrow or the day after or the day after that. All I wanted was a full belly and to sleep the rest of these feelings away.

I stared at the peeling paint on the ceiling above the oven. I’d missed out on getting into student housing, but Dad had managed to find this place for me, right around the corner from the campus. One of his favorite customers at his restaurant, an old lady who still ate like a fourteen-year-old, had been looking for a tenant. It was a small townhouse that hadn't been renovated for thirty years, but I loved it, from its peeling mint-green paint to its potted geraniums. It still stood, defiant in the face of inevitable entropy and decay. I was jealous.

I shuffled into the bathroom and winced away from the cabinet mirror above the sink, but not fast enough to avoid a glimpse of myself. Matted hair swirled down over my shoulders in stringy clumps. I’d developed a nasty set of raccoon eyes, having forgotten to wash off my makeup before I crashed. Red lipstick had migrated to my chin.

What a mess.

I popped a couple of aspirin from the cabinet and shambled back to bed.

My purse lay on the bedside table, dumped there the night before, half its contents spilling out, including that little black book. I pulled the covers up over my head to hide from it.

The best thing would be to give up on The List and get back to my life. I should blow it off, just forget the whole deal. It was stupid, and I was crazy for even writing it out. I was a squeaky-clean twenty-year-old virgin. Who am I kidding? I have zero experience with men and even less with women. How am I going to make those things happen?

The answer was obvious.

I can’t.

Across the room, my work desk was a mess of papers, markers, and paints. An artwork lay half-finished taped to some board, a palette and brushes laying around it. The assignment it was for would be due soon. My heart was nowhere near in it.

I can’t do anything.

I could only curl myself into a ball and wish for sleep to take everything away.

I was woken by the front door shutting. Julie had gone to class. Where I should be. I groaned away my guilt and rolled over.

When I peeked out from under the bedspread, the clock said it was four in the afternoon and I stared at it, wondering how it had gotten so late. If I cleaned up quick, I could maybe make it to my evening class. I could get notes from the classes I’d missed. I could catch up.

A surge of adrenaline got me to my feet. I could forget all this insanity and be normal and forget …

I made it all the way into the bathroom.

Then I remembered the kiss from the night before.

That kiss.

I made that happen. And it was so real, so exciting, and so immediate. It wasn’t something that was right, or something that had tomorrows. Debt-free futures, studying hard, and doing the right thing seemed so distant to me now. All I wanted was the daring, sexy thrill of warm bodies in contact with each other, to cling to life and let that energy make me forget everything else.

I forced myself to look in the mirror and say out loud, “Georgina Stone, you can do this.”

The body I saw in the mirror was a body I had not yet made peace with. Since age fifteen I had gone from being a medium to an extra-extra-large and back to a large. I had spent so long trying to be invisible, it was hard to shift my perspective to wanting people to see me, wanting them to find me attractive. Last night was my proving ground. I’d dressed up and acted the part, and men had watched me with desire. The first item on my list was successful. I’d made out with a guy I had never seen before, one who I couldn’t pick out of a crowd if my life depended on it.

I could be the daring, seductive woman who completed The List in that little black book. I could be, and I would be. There was no way I was backing down.