How To Love A Dead Boy

Chapter 32 | The Fate of Lucy Ainsworth

THE FATE OF LUCY AINSWORTH

I turn the cold and hot water taps on of the shower in the hotel room bathroom. The water runs fast and hard out of the shower head and steam pools around the base of the shower. I will shower eventually, but for now, it'll be my way of telling Ryden not to disturb me, and anyone else for that matter. 

Closing the shower door, I sit on a wooden stool, with my back to the basin, still fully clothed in my pyjamas. 

I reach down from my jacket on the bathroom tiles, I pull out the now scrunched up little piece of paper. Unfolding it, I notice a new stain, this one probably hot chocolate, on one of the corners, smudging the 's' and 't' in 'List'. 

My eyes look over the list and I sigh as I uncap my black marker and cross off 'Finish Christopher's book'. 

"Two more things left to do," I mumble to myself. The folded side of paper has now been sticky taped to the other side due too many times when the temptation of knowing has almost cause me to read the 'unreadable'.

"Maybe three," I add, not knowing whether Ryden has achieved his last goal or not. 

I read over the other crossed off goals; Winning Shot in Hockey Game.

Our hockey game had been a couple of weeks ago. Ryden had told me that it didn't need to be a grand final or anything, just a game of hockey where he, or I, hit the shot that sent the crowd roaring and was the reason for the team winning that game. 

I don't think that the shot had happened the way Ryden had imagined. I had slipped on the ice while going after the ice puck, tripping over my own feet, and sliding with my skates against the ice. Ryden had originally gone over to help me up, but he ended up grabbing the hockey stick and by some crazed act of nature, hit the puck into the goal. 

The buzzer had sounded and I look at him from down on the ice, and saw his confused look as he stared at the goal. He had slowly turned to me, and a wonky smile spread on his face. We were both nervous and excited to cross that off his list. 

I look down the page, past buying a car and land on; Diving into a Freezing River.

After jumping from his bedroom window into his freezing cold pool, I hadn't been very keen on the idea of jumping into an even colder river. Plus I was grounded and under Johanna's control, so we both knew that it'd be close to impossible to actually do it. 

Ryden had been the one to decide to cross it off, even though it technically hadn't happened. He told me that the pool was close enough, and if he didn't move on at the end of the list, then we would giving the river thing another shot. 

Christopher's Book Published; freshly crossed off, and the smell of felt-tip marker still on the paper.

The last goal on the list is the crossed off; Revenge on Cameron. 

I had been very reluctant to do this one. I loved Ryden, but I also loved Cameron, just in different ways. Walking to Cameron's house during my work break and dropping in the letter Ryden had had me write was one of the scariest and horrible things I had ever done. 

Ryden had told me (but hadn't forced me) to write a letter that was supposedly from his mum who had left him and his dad and gone to London to start anew.

Ryden and I both knew just how much Cameron wished he had been able to spend some time with his mum, as he hadn't seen her for twelve years. In the letter, I had as his mother, asked him to meet her for lunch in a town between London and our own. In the letter, she wanted to apologize to him and try and catch up on some years with him-