Read The List for Free Online Page B

the painful way it twisted I wasn’t sure if it was fear or excitement. “I don’t know . . .”
    â€œWe’ll put that one on the shelf for now. What else? Just fire them off and I’ll write as fast as I can.”
    I took a deep breath and went for it. She was willing to help, so I shouldn’t be scared about revealing how little I’d done. “Go on a date, go to a formal, go skinny-dipping, get drunk, have a first kiss, stay up all night, take a road trip with a group of friends.” I took a deep breath and peered at her out of the corner of my eye, but she hadn’t even blinked and she was still scribbling away. “Have sex. . . .”
    Cami didn’t pause, and she didn’t look at me. Which I was grateful for. I couldn’t see my reflection, but my face had to be bright red.
    â€œWhat else?” Cami said when she’d written down the last one.
    I tapped my toe on the floor and shook my head. “I don’t know. What else have you done?”
    Cami pressed her lips together. “We could do something like get a guy’s number in a bar, or get a fake ID?”
    I nodded excitedly. “Yes! And I want a guy to buy me a drink. Not a drunk one either, a sober one who doesn’t have beer goggles.”
    Cami giggled and nodded while she wrote. “Good idea.”
    What else? I knew there had to be other things I was missing. Things that most teens tried. “What about smoking a cigarette?”
    Cami’s face scrunched up, but she wrote it down anyway.
    It was number seventeen, and twenty seemed like the perfect number to me. “Just three more, then we’ll be done.”
    â€œYou could always put tattoo on there. I’ll even get one too.”
    My stomach tightened, but I nodded anyway. “Okay. But we still need two more.”
    â€œHow about break someone’s heart,” she said with a giggle. “Or better yet, get your heart broken? That’s a pretty normal teenage experience.”
    I laughed because it seemed like the dumbest thing ever. Asking to get my heart broken. Who would want that? Me, that’s who! Having my heart trampled on would just prove I was actually living for a change, and it seemed like the perfect way to round off my list.
    â€œWrite them both down.”
    Cami smiled and wrote it down, then proudly held the list up for me to see.

    Just looking at it made my heart beat faster. This was really going to happen for me. Something was going to happen for me. I was so grateful to Cami for her willingness to help that I almost hugged her.
    Cami pursed her lips and examined the list. “Tomorrow’s Sunday; we can easily knock a few of these off the list if we borrow Ryan’s car. We can head to the outlets in North Charleston, get you some clothes and your ears pierced.” She nodded and her eyes went over the neatly printed words before looking up at me. “You have money?”
    I licked my lips nervously and nodded. My dad wasn’t going to like it, but it was my money. “I have a trust fund that was set up for me when my mom died.”
    Cami hesitated and I braced myself for questions about my mom and how much money I had and what had happened. My gut clenched with anticipation. Remarkably, she didn’t ask.
    â€œOkay. So, we’ll get Ryan’s car and go take care of this stuff.” She pointed to numbers one, three, and four, then rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “We’ll have to ask around. Try to find a good place to get your hair done. Until then we can easily crash a party and get you drunk. And skinny-dipping! Yes! That will be an easy one.”
    I laughed and shook my head. “We don’t have to do it all in one weekend, Cami. We have a year.”
    â€œBut so many of these will be so easy!”
    â€œBut we can spread it out.”
    She sighed and shut the notebook, then tossed it on the desk. “We should get some sleep. That