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1. Dylan Collins (The Girl Who Wore Jordans)

Let me just start off by saying that I don't like books.

In high school, I got through English class by either watching the movie version of whatever we were reading, or—if things were really bad and there was no movie—I'd turn to SparkNotes. But don't let my reading habits fool you—I'm literate as heck. I read my Facebook news feed on the daily, in addition to the ESPN homepage, which I check hourly. But when it comes to full-on books, I just can't.

There's something unbelievably scary about physically opening up a big book and reading it page by page. I don't really have the attention span for that shit. Even audio books don't work for me. I need something visual. Like a movie.

In movies (or TV, I guess), I get it because I can see the characters and the setting, so I understand. But with books, I have trouble imagining everything that's being described and I get confused about the characters and who's doing what or who's doing who. Also, WORDS. I'm borderline dyslexic, which just means that when I'm reading—even Facebook or ESPN—I'll confuse one word for another or the letters just get a little mixed up in my brain. That also affects my writing, but SPELL CHECK and NERDS WHO PROOF READ AND "ORGANIZE YOUR THOUGHTS," so my professors always call BS whenever I try to get out of writing papers. But this isn't about writing. This is about reading and books.

As I've already said, I don't like books. Which is why when my girlfriend Liz suggested we go to this dumb book club thing, I was not having it.

The conversation went something like this:

LIZ: Yo, Dylan, lez join this book club for the summer!

DYLAN: NO.

LIZ: But it'd be fun and we'd be able to keep our brains in shape!

DYLAN: NO.

LIZ: Oh, c'mon! You'll love it!

DYLAN: NO.

LIZ: Well, I already signed us up, so we're doing it.

DYLAN: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

And that was the end of that.

Liz made up her mind, so we were really going to this dumb-ass, geeky book club. Which sucked, because I don't like books and the whole point of a book club is BOOKS. And even though Liz knows how I feel about books, she still pushed this dumb thing, which I thought was totally unfair. I mean, I'm a good boyfriend. I go to all of her games. I hold doors open for her. I usually pay for her meals. And to top it off, I almost always put the seat down whenever I'm at her place. All of that good—no, great behavior seriously should've earned me points when Liz was deciding which of the people in her life she would drag to this dumb book club thing.

Unfortunately, aside from her personal trainer, coaches, and the other girls at training camp, her pickings were slim. And since I'm kind of mooching off of her for the summer anyway, I guess she figured dragging her BF to a book club made us even. Which is totally unfair, because the dorm that she's staying in for training camp already had another bed in it. At least I'm staying with her instead of some annoying rando from Arkansas. And on top of that, I am technically the only one in our relationship with a job. Yeah, I'm just a pretzel vendor who barely makes minimum wage, but that's more than Liz making! (Unless you count her full-ride, which is kind of being paid for by her athleticism, in which case she's made well over $150,000 in three years).

Besides, I don't even need to be here right now. Liz told me in the spring that they were shipping her off to some college town in Massachusetts (NOT Boston, as I've been reminded like a bajillion times) for training camp over the summer, and I was welcome to join. AKA, I could either spend my summer with Liz or in Nowhereville, New York. Obviously I decided to join Liz. I was not aware how much it would suck, however.

Standing outside in the heat for nine hours a day and trying to sell tourists soft pretzels isn't exactly my dream job, but I can deal. Never seeing my girlfriend except at night and on Saturday afternoons is not something I can deal with, however.

I've gotten used to Liz's constant practices during the school year, because it's still college, and they understand that she needs to keep up her GPA and occasionally have a social life so that she doesn't end up in rehab. So with the subtraction of school and friends, I figured that this summer would be filled with quality bonding time. But BASKETBALL. Her coach is such an asshole. He makes the girls get up at 6:00 AM (which means that I get up at 6:00 AM because I'm a weak sleeper), and they just go and go and go. Liz loves it. She wants to be fucking unstoppable for her senior year. But I think she's working too hard. Not enough play.

I voiced my concerns to Liz, and she comes back to me with this book club shit. Apparently, one of the (normal) girls in the dorm who isn't a basketball maniac (and I think is doing some smart kid internship) told Liz about it. Liz latched onto the idea of communally reading books and sharing what we think with a bunch of nerdy strangers. And to top it off, the crew meets on Saturday afternoons! Liz's only real free time during the entire week!! How!!! Convenient!!!!

Okay, so that's that. I don't like books, but I like (/love) Liz, so I let her drag me along. The place isn't too far from the dorms. It's on this street lined with places that definitely sell tofu and wheat grass. Lots of sushi and smoothies, too. No chain stores in sight. Not even Starbucks. Total college row.

We get to this store with a wooden sign outside that says "Paige's Turners" in fancy cursive letters. Liz opens the door so comfortably it's like she's entering the gym. I follow behind, reluctantly, unaware that I'm walking into a nightmare. Liz leads the way through this freaking catacomb of old books. I mean, there are books lining every wall. And not the type of books that you get at Barnes & Noble. Nah, these books are freaking rotting with wear and tear. Clearly, they had been loved once, and now they were cast away, waiting to be loved again. But I'm sure as hell not gonna love them.

So we keep walking through this place, and it's kind of narrow, not real wide. But it seems like it goes on forever and ever, never stopping, with a shit ton of books to fill in the shelves. But it does, eventually, stop, and when it does we're at an unmanned desk in front of a door.

Liz goes over to the door and knocks a few times.

Finally, the girl from the dorm opens it. (I think her name is Emma or something).

We walk through the door and then it's like HOLY EFFING SHIT!

HOLY EFFING SHIT!!

HOLY. EFFING. SHIT!!!

HOLY! EFFING! SHIT!!!!!!!

That's the only thing I can think as Liz casually walks into this little back room thing. There's a couch and a few chairs set up in a circle. Like this some sort of support group or some shit. In the middle, there's a table, topped by a teapot—like a REAL teapot!—and some cookies. Oh, and there's also NATALIE FREAKING PERRY just sitting on the couch like it's no big deal. NBD, bro. Ya know, just a super model (or maybe she's a regular model? Actress? Whatever. She's NATALIE PERRY), chilling in the back of a (used) bookstore. Casual. Maybe Liz's smart kid dorm friend is holding her hostage. Or maybe it's not actually NATALIE PERRY and I'm just hallucinating because I want to convince myself that my situation isn't as shitty as it actually is.

But she looks pretty freaking real, so I'm like, "Uh, are you Natalie Perry?"

And she's all like, "Yeah, that's me. Who are you?"

WHO AM I? NATALIE PERRY WANTS TO KNOW WHO I AM. So I go, "Dylan."

"Nice to meet you, Dylan," she says, like it's so normal that she's holed up in the back of this shithole with a bunch of Normals (Liz isn't really "normal" but in comparison to NATALIE PERRY she might as well be freaking Jane Doe).

"Yeah," I say. "Yeah."

And then next to NATALIE PERRY some dude goes, "Do you play basketball?" and it all unravels from there. He's talking to Liz. She's tall, but she's not I-play-college-basketball tall. Which means that either he knows she plays because she's wearing a UConn basketball T-shirt or because he recognizes her. I don't know which. I don't care which. NATALIE PERRY is ten feet away from me.

Liz is like, "Yeah, I do, actually. For UConn."

"You look familiar," the guy says.

"So do you," says Liz.

As Liz and the dude continue to stare at each in almost-recognition, I force my eyes away from NATALIE PERRY and look at the rest of the losers here. Dorm girl. Some rando guy. Another rando guy who could totally swipe my wallet when I'm not looking. Rando girl. Hippie girl with no shoes. And—

HOLY EFFING SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Hiya, Dylan," ERIC FREAKING WILSON says to me like it's no biggie.

Ya know, just a walk in the park. Just showing up at the same exclusive little book club as me, Liz, and NATALIE PERRY. Oh, hey, Eric! Didn't see you there, bro! How've you been? You joined a frat and then left, didn't you? My mom told me you're doing A LOT of therapy. That you left Stanford (academics were never your thing) and downgraded to one of the UCs. The hippie girl must be your girlfriend. Kind of a spaceshot, if I remember correctly. I heard you kind of went off the deep end. Nice to see you've put yourself together!

holy effing shit.

So ERIC WILSON is just sitting there, right? And I go, "Wooooooooooooow, Eric. Long time no see," because it really has been a long time since the last time I've seen him. And it's not like I'm mad to see him now, just surprised. And weirded out. We live on opposite sides of the country. This isn't even where I live. Eric doesn't live here either. The universe has the strangest sense of irony.

And saying his name must get Liz's attention because she snaps her head over from that guy over to Eric and she's like, "Eric. Hi. How are you?"

He says, "I'm good. Nice to see you, Liz."

"Yeah, you too," she says back, but I don't know if she really means it.

Regardless, this awkward reunion is cut short because Dorm Girl stands up and says, "Glad that half of the introductions are out of the way, but let's just get them over with formally so that everyone is on the same page!" That's our cue to sit down and shut up. So we do.

Liz sits down next to NATALIE PERRY and Dorm Girl, leaving me to the empty chair between the guy who's gonna steal at least forty bucks from me before the end of this thing and Eric's hippie girlfriend.

"So I guess I'll start," says the hippie girl next to me. "I'm Ari. From the West Coast. Working here for the summer." She tilts her head to the right, motioning to Eric.

"Uh, hi, I'm Eric. I'm kind of from the West Coast. But I'm really from New York. The suburbs. I'm here because Ari's here. I'm currently employed at a diner, and that's about it."

Rando guy's turn: "Hello, I'm Oliver, and I'm from around here. I'm a self-identified bibliophile"—WTF?—"and I'm interning at a startup." He's totally connected to Dorm Girl. They have the same smarty thing going for them.

The dude who kinda knew who Liz was goes, "Mason. Mason Grey. Musician—"

And then NATALIE PERRY interrupts him and says, "Mason, shut up. You don't play any instruments!"

"My voice is an instrument!" he defends.

"You're a singer!"

"Which is a type of musician!"

NATALIE PERRY crosses her arms over her chest—such a nice chest—and pouts.

"Let me start over," says this Mason guy dramatically. "I'm Mason Grey, the singer and actor. I'm filming a movie around here about a guy who yells a lot. There's something wrong with him or whatever. Anyway, we're here instead of over there"—he points to what I assume he assumes is the West—"because it's cheaper and my agent accidentally signed me up for a low budget flick."

Mason could probably say a lot more, but NATALIE PERRY doesn't let him. She introduces herself like, "Hey. I'm Natalie."—NATALIE!!!—"Sometimes I do stuff. This egocentric asshole is my bae. Not really doing anything with my summer—just chilling." !!!!!!!

"So I'm Liz. I play basketball. Training camp is here this summer, and that's my fulltime job," whips out my girl. I wink at her. She rolls her eyes.

"Hi, my name is Emily, and I'm from here, and I'm interning at the State House this summer." Emily. Dorm Girl. Got it.

Rando girl: "I'm Olivia."

We wait to see if she has anything more to say, but she doesn't, so the imaginary icebreaker ball is thrown to the sketch sitting next to her/me.

"Luke," is all he says.

And then all eyes are on me.

My tactic is to engage the least amount as possible without entirely pissing off Liz. So I'm like, "Hi. I'm Dylan. I sell pretzels," and that's it. All done.

Ari/Emily, the ones running this shindig, seem pretty content with everyone's intros. So then they get down to business and start talking about books. I zone the heck out as the guidelines are set, which is probably a bad move, because I forfeit my chance at having any input whatsoever about my future (forced) book reading. But whatever. Hopefully, Liz has my back.

Once everything's set and agreed upon, Emily says, "Welcome to the club!" like it's a positive thing and then she opens up a book and starts reading out loud.

Now, I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure that if NATALIE PERRY (and Liz) wasn't here right now, then this is exactly what Hell would look like.