What are you doing here? My brain asks the question, but my lips don’t move.
Why didn’t I put everything away and lock the drawer? When do I ever forget to do that?
If this is a joke that God is playing on me, then He got me good.
Audrey and I stare at each other for a long time.
Then she sets the papers down on my desk. She swallows. “I’m sorry,” she says.
Sorry for what? For not knowing she was getting involved with a schizo crazypants? For even talking to me in the first place?
“How did you get in here?” I ask. My level voice surprises me.
“Your mom.”
Mom never just lets people go upstairs. She must be super happy about Audrey coming over to bend her own rules like that.
I can’t think of anything to say. I wait for the head rush to begin, but it doesn’t. I am strangely calm.
Audrey glances down at the stack of lists. She looks back at me. “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I think I should leave.”
I stand, paralyzed and speechless, and watch her go.
For the next week during Debate Club, it’s like nothing ever happened. We still talk and take notes and nod when Mr. Chadderton gives us tips. But we’re not talking talking.
It’s Friday by the time I summon enough courage to approach Audrey. I have so many things to say. I’m sorry being chief among them. I don’t know what she thinks about me, but I do know she saw the list about her, because it was in the pile she was holding. And even though she was in my room, looking at my things, I have this need to apologize. And to find out if she thinks I’m a total freak.
The thought of talking to her makes me sweat. I focus on breathing deeply, so that when I round a corner and find her standing at her locker, I don’t faint from stress.
“Audrey.”
She turns. When she sees it’s me, she turns back to her locker. But she’s standing in a way that doesn’t shut me out entirely. So I go closer, until I’m standing next to her. I cut straight to the chase.
“Did you read the list about you?”
Audrey blushes, and I know she found it. I am so glad I didn’t write anything about her boobs on that list. Because they’re right up there with all the other stuff I like about her.
“I’m glad you like my fingernails,” she says shortly.
I swallow. “I’m really sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I do.”
She sighs then, and shakes her head. “No. I was in your private space.” She looks down. “It’s snoopy to read someone else’s stuff.”
“Pretty hard to resist.”
She smiles a little, and I breathe again. Then I take a huge chance. “That list isn’t finished yet. I still have more to add.”
“Oh.” She tucks her hair behind her ear. I love the way she does it. I want to ask her to marry me, to bear all my children, to live on a mountainside farm with me and grow roses and rainbows.
She smiles a little and looks at me then. “I…only came to your house because I wanted to give you my number. You dropped it the other day when you went into the store. And then when I tracked you down in the gym on Monday, you left before I could catch you.”
My mind flashes back to my bionic rush home the other afternoon. What must she think of me?
“I didn’t mean to be rude on Monday,” I say. “I just had to get home.”
“Were you avoiding me?”
“Not at all,” I lie.
“Why did you run off then?”
I pause, looking at Audrey’s face for a long minute. “Did you read the list called How to Know There’s Something Wrong With You?”
“I think so. Is that the one about making lists?”
“There’s your explanation.”
She’s quiet for a moment. But when she speaks, it’s with curiosity, not wow-buddy-you’re-really-weird-ness. “Why do you make so many?”
I sigh. Where do I start?
She shakes her head. “It’s none of my business.” She bends down and reorganizes the books inside her bag to make room for her pencil case. Her brown ponytail fans out across her back.
“No, it’s…it’s okay,” I say. And it is okay. I feel relieved to finally talk to someone about it. “It’s not your fault. I usually keep them locked up. That big drawer is full of them.”
“I know,” she says, straightening. “You left it open.”
I did, too. Awesome. She must really think I’m a whack job.
I summon every molecule of courage that’s available to me. “Can I walk with you?”
“Sure.” We turn and start down the hallway. “I didn’t read them all, you know,” Audrey says. “I only saw the ones on the desk.”
Oh. Good then. So she saw only, like, fifty of them.
Great.
She smiles and looks at me in that way she has. “You take debating very seriously.”
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “I couldn’t care less about debating,” I say.
“Well. You’re good at it.” She smiles, and I melt a little.
“Thanks. So are you.”
“Why are you in Debate Club if you couldn’t care less about debating?” she says.
“I do it because my dad wants me to.”
“Ah,” says Audrey. “Well, what would you rather be doing?”
I shrug. “I like writing a lot better than debating.”
She looks at me. “Is that why you make so many lists?”
I clear my throat. “Not really. Making lists is a stress-management thing,” I say. “It helps me remember stuff. And it lets me feel like I have some control when things feel out of control.”
“Like, stressful?”
I nod.
“Does your dad stress you out?”
“You could say that. I get stressed out about other things too. But I think he’s at the root of it. I don’t want to screw up and make him mad, you know? So I feel like I have to get everything right.”
Audrey nods. “I get that. My dad doesn’t stress me out, but sometimes other things feel pretty hard, you know?”
I breathe a little. Man, she’s easy to talk to.
“When I feel like it’s really over the top, I go for a run,” she adds.
“That explains those legs of yours,” I say.
She blushes. “As if. But that’s my steam valve. Running.”
“Well, listing is mine.” I can’t believe I said that so casually. Mind you, Audrey hasn’t seen me in a panic. Like, truly listing.
I get an image of a ship tilting in heavy waves, trying to right itself. Huh. That’s kind of perfect.
“I could think of worse ways to let off stress,” Audrey says.
“Yeah…I’m not so sure,” I say. “The urge to do it is pretty intense sometimes. Like, freaky intense.”
I look at her face to see what her reaction is going to be. But she doesn’t look like she’s going to run away screaming. She’s listening.
“Well, so, what’s the big deal?” Audrey asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Like…so what if you make lists?” She shrugs.
I blink.
She shrugs again. “Who cares?” she says. “Everybody has their things, right? I go for a run. Some people need to listen to music. Some people meditate.”
“Um, yeah, but you don’t need to run, like, ten times a day. Have you heard the term obsessive–compulsive disorder?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m a compulsive list maker.”
“So?”
“What do you mean, so?”
“Well, it’s not like you’re washing your hands every five minutes or cleaning your desk with Clorox wipes or anything.”
I shake my head. “It’s not normal.”
She throws her head back and laughs. “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Chick.”
“What?”
“Who even knows what normal is? There is no such thing as normal.” She gives me a little shove.
“You don’t think it’s weird?”
“Of course it’s weird. We’re all weird.”
“You’re not weird.”
She raises an eyebrow. “You don’t know me very well.”
“Yet,” I say. I smile.
She smiles back. “Yet.”