Read The List for Free Online Page A

set of faded Mickey Mouse sheets, ones he’d probably had since he was a kid.
    “No talking,” she’d said, and dove under the covers.
    The rest of her clothes came off shortly thereafter. Not her necklaces, though. Sarah never took off her necklaces. Miloclimbed on top of her and his weight pressed the tiny metallic links into her collarbone.
    She reached out to his nightstand and turned his stereo up as loud as it could go; it was playing one of the mixes she’d made when they’d first met. The vibrations shook the crap piled on Milo’s dresser, buzzed the window glass. But even with the music blaring right next to their heads, Sarah could still hear Milo breathing, hot and fast in her ear. And every so often, a moan. A tender sigh. From her own mouth.
    The memory of her voice fills Sarah’s head now, like an echo, mocking her over and over.
    She turns away from him. “I’m not acting weird. I just don’t want to talk about last night. I don’t even want to think about it.”
    “Oh,” Milo says glumly. “Alright.”
    Sarah won’t let herself feel guilty. This is all Milo’s fault.
    She takes a drag and blows the smoke down against his school bag. She knows his sketchbook is in there. She could reach in right now, flip to that page, and ask him straight up, How come you never told me?
    That’s what she goes to do. But she’s drowned out by the girls standing near the bench.
    They’ve doubled in size, from two to four. The girls scream with laughter, completely oblivious that there is a relationship about to implode right next to them.
    Sarah feels the heat on her fingertips. Her cigarette has burned down to the filter. She flicks her fingers, sending the orange butt soaring in their direction. It bounces off one girl’s fuzzy yellow sweater.
    Milo puts his hand on her arm. “Sarah.”
    “You could have lit me on fire!” the girl who’s been hit screeches, and she spazzes out, checking herself for burn marks.
    “I asked you nicely to go somewhere else,” Sarah points out. “But I’m not feeling nice anymore.”
    The girls shift their weight in one unified huff.
    “Sorry, Sarah,” one says, shaking the paper. “This is just really funny.”
    “That’s how inside jokes usually are,” Sarah snarks back. “Funny to those inside, annoying as shit to the rest of the world.” Milo laughs at her barb. It makes her feel marginally better.
    After sharing plotting looks with the rest of her group, another girl steps forward. “Well, here,” she says. “Let us clue you in.”
    As soon as the paper is dropped in her lap, Sarah realizes what it is. That damn list. It makes her want to barf year after year, watching how the girls in her school evaluate and objectify each other, tear girls down and build others up. It’s pathetic. It’s sad. It’s …
    … her name?
    It’s like she’s trying to be as ugly as possible!
    Sarah looks up. The four girls are gone. It’s like a sucker punch to the gut, the surprise worse than the hurt itself, and no chance to hit back.
    “What’s that?” Milo takes the paper.
    Milo transferred in last spring to Mount Washington, so he doesn’t know about the shitty tradition of the list. Sarah’s head hurts, watching him read it. For a second, she thinks about explaining, but ends up chewing her fingernail instead. Shesays nothing. She doesn’t have to. It’s all right there, on the stupid fucking paper.
    His mouth puckers. “What kind of asshole guys would do this?”
    “Guys? Please. It’s a coven of secret evil sluts. This happens every year, a masochistic prequel to the homecoming dance. I swear to god, I can’t wait to get the hell off this mountain.” She means it for so many reasons.
    Milo reaches into Sarah’s back pocket. His hand is warm. He grabs her lighter. After a few clicks, a flame hisses up. He holds it under the corner of the list.
    It’s nice, watching the list burn until it’s nothing but char. But Sarah knows that there are copies