Elinor Grady's Impossible Adventure List

"I'm gonna marry you someday."

If she was trying to help me get my breath, that was not the way to do it.

I choked. "What?"

All of a sudden she looked scared.
"I mean, I'm not like, in love with you or anything, it's just, it's on my adventure list, so I have to do it."

She looked down. She was embarrassed. Little did she know, that was the single best thing she could have said to me. That was exactly what I'd been waiting to hear since the day I met her. She was the love of my life.

But, being a 13 year old boy, I didn't tell her any of that. Instead I asked, "What's an adventure list?"
She looked relieved to have something to talk about (she wasn't quiet very often), and went 90 mph.
"Oh it's this thing I made up, where I write down all the things it would be super cool or weird to do before I die, so that I could look back and it won't have been a boring life."

I smiled. "Like a bucket list?"

"No!" she looked offended. "Its much cooler than a bucket list, cause none of them will ever happen. Like, ever. So its more exciting than a bucket list, more out there."

I was confused. "Why would you make that if you won't ever do them? That just seems kinda, I don't know, sad."

She pondered for a moment.

"Well, to me, it's more exciting that way if one of them happens. You make them super crazy, so you aren't disappointed if they don't happen, but it's super awesome if they do. It's just fun to dream, and to have all these maybe-adventures."