All Played Out (Rusk University 3)

She leans into Silas’s side, and he places his hand on her hip. I try not to stare, try not to think about what that must feel like. Comforting? Possessive?

“If it’s okay with you,” Dylan says, “that would be great. You don’t even have to pick me up. I’ve already got plans to go to the game tomorrow with Dallas, and I’ve got some clothes here I could wear. Unless you want to go to the game with us?”

“Uh, no. No, I’ve got some homework to do.”

Lie. I’m all caught up, and the professors didn’t really assign anything since it’s Halloween weekend. But given all the Saturday nights I’ve spent studying, it doesn’t occur to Dylan to question me.

“Okay. Well, let me go grab my keys from inside, and you can go.”

I let her and Silas pass me, and even though I shouldn’t, I glance back at Torres. He’s leaning on the fence, and he should look ridiculous in that costume, but he doesn’t. He looks good. And not at all happy.

WHEN I WAKE to an empty apartment the next morning, it doesn’t seem to matter that the sun coming through the window lights up every corner. I thought I’d felt lonely last week when this whole list business started, but no . . .

No, this is loneliness.

This experiment was supposed to make me realize how good I had it. It was supposed to get rid of my doubts. Well, as experiments are wont to do, it has no care for what I’d wanted the outcome to be.

I make myself a huge breakfast that I couldn’t possibly eat alone, like if I just go about my business as if I’m cooking for two, it could make it so. I eat in the kitchen, leaning against the counter because that’s what I usually do when I’m busy, when I’m moving so fast and have so much to do that there’s no time to feel alone.

But I’m not busy.

I don’t have any homework. And for the first time ever, I wish I had a job. Just a normal, boring job like working retail or in an office or anywhere. It would give me something to do, somewhere to be, people to know who have nothing to do with my classes or my family or a group of friends I couldn’t possibly fit into. I would maybe even be willing to work in a restaurant . . . something I swore I would never, ever do.

My grandparents started their own restaurant. My parents run it now with occasional help from Nonna, and my brother started working for them full-time as a manager right after high school. It’s this huge family affair with aunts and uncles and cousins, and they’re so good at putting their hearts into that place, into the food, into every bit of it.

But my heart? My heart never wanted any part of it.

The restaurant is easy for them. Comfortable. I can remember my brother, Leo, hanging out in the kitchen, talking to the employees, stealing food. We’d head to that place every day after school, and he couldn’t wait to get there. I dragged my feet. When we both started working as waiters in high school, Leo thrived. I . . . didn’t. I didn’t fit in with the employees. Everyone was nice enough, sure. It wasn’t like school, where I had to worry about how my differences from the other students could cause me problems. But I still didn’t . . . fit. And I didn’t know how to talk to customers. Leo always earned twice as much as me in tips. It was exhausting to be so different. And it was exhausting to pretend that I wasn’t exhausted by it. The only place I didn’t feel that was the classroom.

That’s where I belonged. Where I thrived. The only place where there was no one to live up to, no one to fall behind, because it was my domain. No one in my entire extended family had ever been to college. My grandparents emigrated to the States from Italy a few years after they married. They groomed my mother to take over the restaurant. Dad was a waiter at the restaurant, and she fell for him even though he was older and Nonna didn’t approve. My aunt worked in the restaurant, too. By the time I was in high school, things were going so well that they were thinking about opening a second location.

They wanted Leo and me to help run it. I know they did. But I couldn’t go my entire life trying to belong in the restaurant when there was another place where it felt so natural for me to be. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to learn more, be more. Beyond that, I wanted to go to graduate school, probably get my doctorate. Other kids balked at the idea of more school. I craved it.

All I’ve ever wanted for my future was to live in a world that’s bigger than the one I grew up in. But now I’m realizing that all I did was trade one small, stifled world for another. It’s not right that last night was more interesting than every other night in my life so far combined. I’m torn between wanting more nights like it and going back to my normal routine of class, sleep, and more class just because it’s safer. Easier. Far less terrifying.

But how long can I live with just safe and easy before my life becomes completely devoid of meaning? I’ll have work, sure, but what if I end up not liking it as much as I think I will? For so long, I’ve thought that the most important thing in my life was my career, getting to where I want to be. Finding a place where I fit. But what if it’s not as satisfying as I always thought? What if I got it wrong, and I didn’t like class because I fit there, but because I thrived there? Because it challenged me and pushed me in a way that my childhood in the restaurant never had?

And then the big question is . . . am I thriving here? I’m excelling, certainly. My grades are good. I’m making plans. But I don’t know if that’s the same as thriving. I just don’t know.

I used to think about the future in terms of goals and achievements, and now all I can think of is all the things I might end up regretting. And it’s all this stupid list’s fault. And Dylan’s. And Mateo’s. I was perfectly fine ignoring my doubts until Dylan pointed out how blindly I was pursuing my future, without even exploring any other options.

Does that make me any different from Leo? He stepped right into his position at the restaurant, no hesitation, no thought to any other future because it’s what he’s good at. I’d thought him so naive.

If he was, I guess I am, too.

I rinse off my plate and load it in the dishwasher, and then dial my parents. My mother answers on the fourth ring, and just by the chaos I can hear in the background, I can tell she’s at the restaurant. Probably in the kitchen prepping for the day.

“Antonella?” she says loudly. “Are you there?”

“Yeah, Mammina. I’m here.”