The Checklist

Get your flirt on

 

Rule#87: Love is SO not like the seasons.

If a guy asks you to change, DON”T.

Unless, of course, it’s to make you a better person.

Physical is not the same as emotional.

Either he accepts you as you are

Or he’s SO not worth it.  

If you ask anyone who Ender Collins is, they will all say the same thing:

Invisible.

I sometimes wonder what I did to become the person I see standing here today. Maybe if I raised my hand more in class, or punched some girl in the face, or hell slept with the whole football team, then maybe people would take notice.

As it stands, I like who I am. I like the fact that my name isn’t whispered in the halls during passing or scribbled messily on the bathroom stalls in pissed handwriting.

But, when it comes to my love life, there is nothing I wouldn’t do to be noticed.

Girls everywhere will say they don’t care about love if asked by the right person. But at night, when everything's said and done, love is everything. To be wasted on love, to be able to look at someone else and know they make you happy, better, more is something everyone wants.

Everyone wants to be wanted.

Leaning back on the bench I’m currently sitting on, I think about the deal with Jace I made two days ago.

It had been two days since I first confronted him. Two days of me wandering endlessly if I had somehow made the wrong decision.

Madison told me I just had to be patient, that Jace would come around. Who knew she would be right in the end?

I pick up my phone and click to the text message he sent earlier.

Ninos at four. Don’t be late

I shake my head and push the phone back into my pocket. I grab my black notebook and flip it to a fresh page.

The park I’m currently residing in is the one place I can call my own. For as long as I can remember, this is the place I went whenever I needed to get away.

Here, couples from all around openly enjoy themselves. Here is where all my work has come from. One day it will be me out there by a tree or looking out at the lake, not alone, but with the guy I love.

It was on this bench that the Checklist started.

I was thirteen when my father walked out.

When my mom came home from work telling Ellie and me that her and our father were getting a divorce, I didn’t need to hear more. I didn’t listen when she said it wasn’t working out nor did I hear her tell us that it was better.

I knew the reason he was leaving mom was none of those things. It was because he wasn’t perfect. He didn’t say I love you anymore.

He didn’t appreciate anything she did. He wasn’t the perfect guy and right at that moment The Checklist was born.

I ran to this park and sat on this bench. I pulled out the first notebook I could find in my bookbag and wrote the first rule. My most important rule ever.