Iris and the List

10k Celebration one-shot

"Yeah, I should really go home. I don't have a car though, so I guess I'm stuck walking." I said.

"Have Colton take you. He was finishing up in the library just now. If you run you could probably catch him."

I pulled out my phone and clicked on my messages, quickly asking Colton for a ride home. He obliged, as he always did. Then I put my phone away. Bee and Rory were both sitting, looking out over the city.

"Remember when it was just the three of us?" I asked.

That had been forever ago, but not actually that long ago. It was eighth grade and everything before that, a time when it had been our trio against the world.

"Yeah. Before Ginger. God, that's weird to think about. A world where I didn't even know Ginger existed. Bizarre." Rory said.

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, we know. But wasn't it nice back then? So simple. None of the drama we have now, we always had time for each other."

"We're older now. Rory is almost eighteen, I'm six months away from being eighteen. We have stuff to do." Bee said.

They acted like I was stupid. Of course I knew they had important things to do. I had those important things to do too! The difference was that they were jumping into the future head on and I was barely testing the waters.

"I better go. Don't want to keep Colton waiting." I said.

"We'll walk down with you. I have to re-hit the books." Rory said.

We descended the staircase, as we had a million times before, in silence. When we got to the first floor Bee went one way to the auditorium and we went the other.

"How many applications have you finished?" Rory asked.

Zero. I had started six different ones, but completed zero.

"Oh, uh, I don't know. How many have you finished?"

"Seven. I have eight more to go. I'm really making sure they're all works of art, specifically tailored to each school. But we all know my future is set one way or another. You need to get working on those." he chastised.

I sighed. It was really hard to fill out applications when you had like zero accomplishments and no idea what you wanted to do with your life.

"Ok, Rory. Have fun working. Colton is over there, so bye." I said.

This was the first time I had ever wanted to get away from Rory. Strange, huh?

I walked briskly across the library and sat down on Colton's table. His nose was buried in a dictionary, and he had his laptop opened to a word document. He was working on the great American novel, because he wanted to be able to talk about it and show it off during college interviews.

"Hey, cutie." I said.

He looked up, his eyes even more blue than usual because of his glasses.

"I don't think friends call each other cute." he said.

I smirked at him. "Come on, let's go. I'm sick of all this college stuff."

"Have you even picked a major yet?" he wondered.

"Colton! Leave me alone. I already have Rory on my back about that."

"You should at least pick a major. You don't have to stick to it, but you can at least pick one."

I mentally scrolled through a list of majors. Accounting, advertising, law, history, English, chemistry (no way), business, biology. Biology. Hmm...