Trashy Todd´s Treasure

CW: This story contains references to substance abuse, mental health issues, and suicide.

Hey there, Stan, My Man. Happy New Year and all that. Hopefully not too happy though, considering...

Anyway, that intro only works if you find this book after you've come back to campus.

(IF YOU ACCIDENTALLY FOUND THIS BOOK BEFORE LEAVING FOR CHRISTMAS VACATION, DON'T READ ANY FURTHER. GO TO PAGE 110.)

BTW, if you hadn’t already guessed, it’s Todd.

Okay, so now that that's out of the way, let me tell you why I made this book specifically for you, My Man, Stan, and why I'm calling it the playbook.

You know the kind of guy I am. I'm exactly the type to make a playbook, and it's just what you'd expect.

Most people think I'm just the guy who goes home with all the girls, saying creepy things and getting away with it because I'm charming. Or so they tell me. I wouldn’t call myself a womanizer. First of all, it’s a terrible word. Second, I often asked them to bring their boyfriends. So if anything, I’m a people-izer. 

You didn’t use that exact word, but you told me that I was a man who had a way with women. You asked for some tips on how to be more like me, to be more confident. You acted like you were just joking, but I realised later that you wanted to do it for Selma.

Yeah, that’s right. Take a deep breath. I know about your secret crush.

Ready to continue? Good.

That’s probably where I should have made up some story about how unfulfilling and depressing this lifestyle was. But the truth is, I liked almost everything about it. It was the only part of my life I had any real control over, so I told you the only negative thing I could think of. Just so I wouldn’t pass on to you what my dad passed on to me.

It was after the party here on campus, two weeks before Christmas break. You and I actually had a conversation as friends—like bros. Trashy Todd and My Man, Stan. We were sitting across from each other on our beds in this dorm room that you’re hopefully reading this book in right now. You were prepared for a big lesson: Professor Todd’s course on how to talk to girls 101. But I gave you a really short and lame answer instead.

You remember it. I don't need to tell you all of this; I just needed you to be brought back to that night.

Stan did remember that night. As Todd had predicted, he sat on his bed in the dorm room, where he found the book. He had gone back to campus a day early. School didn’t start until Tuesday, but he had to get away from his family. He had four sisters and a brother who was better than Stan in every way. Maybe not in every way, but it sure seemed that way to their parents, even though Stan brought home better grades than any of them; they seemed to overlook this achievement. They always talked about Diana's wedding, or Angelo's second child, or that art contest for preteens that Stan's little sister, Jane, won a year ago, which meant she wasn’t even a preteen anymore.

Stan closed the book and ran his hand over the soft-textured cloth binding. It felt handcrafted, and his initials were even stamped in gold on the black cover. Well, not his actual initials. When he first saw the book, he didn’t know what MMS meant because Todd had only called him 'My Man Stan' a few times in the past. They weren’t even that kind of friends. Sure, they had been roommates for six months, but the two of them basically had opposite personalities. So why had Todd gone through so much trouble to make this book?

Stan closed his eyes and did what Todd had told him to do: go back to that night and remember it. 

He was trying to recall the lame short answer, but it hadn’t really been an answer.

“I'm not confident. It's fake,” he had said.

Stan laughed it off but quickly realised he wasn't joking.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“It means I’m not really confident. I put on this mask every morning and don’t take it off at night. I just put another one on top the next day. Every day.”

“But what's the difference between acting confident and actually being it?”

“You've seen me in class,' Todd said. 'You’ve seen how I talk to teachers when I hand in my late assignments and how I act during essays or exams.”

“You ruffle up your hair and get really jittery,” Stan said.

“Yeah, well, that's what I do when I'm totally nervous. I’m not good in school like you; you just stay cool like it’s nothing.”

“I thought you just had ADHD. You play it off pretty well, like you don’t give a shit.”

“Exactly. That’s what I’m always doing. I’m always the guy who doesn’t give a shit. At some point, you stop caring about not giving a shit. You get me?”

“Yeah,” Stan said, but he didn’t get him. Apparently, it had become his job to be the therapist for a guy everyone liked, so if he fucked up (which he did), it would all be his fault. Now it would be his job to tell everyone why Todd wasn’t coming back.

Todd had told Stan how his charisma hadn’t come naturally, how he hadn’t just worked hard for it. It was a constant grind, little by little chipping away at his personality until he became a caricature—the chick magnet with a heart of gold from any sitcom.

Of course, Stan had known it was bullshit. He had seen Todd as relaxed as ever, just flirting with girls without breaking a sweat. No one was that good at hiding their anxiety.

We just had a pleasant, deep talk that night. I told you how every time I talked to people, my skeleton would wiggle around inside my body, like it was trying to get out. That’s how I used to feel before we met, but now it’s the opposite. I have to be surrounded by friends—or just people—so I’m not alone with my thoughts.

That’s where I am right now while I’m writing this. Alone. It’s exactly one week since the party and one week until Christmas break.

You’ve gone home for the weekend, and I’ve just started this new project. Maybe I’ll call it 'Operation Wingman.' I can’t tell if that’s lame.

Over the weekend, I thought about our talk and how it made me feel. I think it meant more to me than it did to you, and that’s okay. I saw the way you looked at me at the party, and I noticed when your expression changed. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before, but I realised that you must have seen Selma and I on the couch, didn’t you?

Stan had seen them. It was five hours into the party, at that point where everyone was so drunk that they tried to gaslight each other into thinking they weren’t drunk enough.

Stan wasn’t drunk anymore. He had been about five minutes ago, but when he saw Todd on the couch making out with Selma, he sobered up in an instant. He couldn’t look away. His anxiety rose as Todd’s hand, which had been gently placed on her thigh, moved closer to the brim of her skirt.

But Stan had no right to be angry about this or even feel jealous. He had a crush on her since the beginning of the semester, but even though he had been given plenty of chances, he had never taken one. And why? Because he was afraid of coming off as weird or creepy? Wasn't it creepier to be the loner that nobody talked to?

He had never told anyone about his crush and could therefore not be mad at Todd for not taking him into consideration. All he could do was think that this was somehow for the best.

Although there was one positive: getting involved with Selma would probably give his parents a heart attack since she was 'one of those mixeds.' That’s what they would call her to her face. It meant she was half Cuban and half Danish, so other than her thick curly hair, she looked Scandinavian with a slight tan.

I don’t know why I made out with her. I didn’t really want her, and she didn’t really want me. But you managed to hide just how much you had fallen for this girl until this Monday. You had kept it inside throughout the rest of the party and our conversation afterward. God… I’m just realising that was the reason you finally talked to me. You must have hated me. Maybe I made out with her subconsciously to make you hate me. What a mindfuck.

Anyway, you were cold toward me the following week, and I’m sure you’re going to be cold to me next week. But that’s your last chance to forgive me; after that, I’ll be gone. You won’t see me again next year. But I guess you already know that if you’re reading this.

There was another long paragraph explaining the general idea of what he called The Playbook. He explained how he came up with it, how he made his own scrapbook from scratch, and how he used real 24-karat gold leaf for the initials.

The next page just held the title.

The Playbook.

Operation Wingman, by Todd

Are you ready for Operation Wingman? I'm about to take you on a journey, Stan, my man. For me, it was a week-long journey, but for you, it will be about a month and a half. That’s right—you don’t even have to look at a calendar to know that it ends on Valentine’s Day. Turns out I'm quite the romantic. I wrote this part after I finished The Playbook. I learnt a lot about myself in the last week. You probably never saw me keep so much to myself. I wonder how you didn’t notice it.

The truth was that Stan just hadn’t cared about Todd in that way. He hadn’t really seen him as more than the guy who had the other bed in his room. Todd was right about the conversation they had after the party; Stan definitely hadn’t cared as much about it as Todd had.

Let me tell you about my plan. Over the next six weeks, you and I will make sure that Selma falls in love with you. On the next page, you will see step one of twenty. Make sure to read every step carefully. I have arranged six weeks of happy little acts of fate and interesting touches of destiny.

In six weeks, the girl of your dreams will have fallen in love with you. I guarantee it.

You will notice that some steps require props or gadgets; there will be precise descriptions of where on campus they’re hidden.

Stan looked around as though he had done something embarrassing and was checking if anyone had seen it. He flipped through the pages of Todd's master plan. Some pages had large paragraphs of text, while others had floor plans and hand-drawn instructions. This felt wrong. How much time and research had Todd put into this, and why was he suddenly so keen on helping him?

One page stood out as Stan browsed the book. He reminded himself to check page 110 as well. But this page had a title in bold font that said, 'Where It All Came From.' He wasn't supposed to read it until he was at step eight, but who was going to stop him?

Welcome to step eight, my friend. I'm glad you've trusted me so far. And hey, rollerblades weren’t a bad idea, right? Works every time. Before I tell you what the next step is, let me explain where I got it from. 'Got what?' you might think. Well, just about everything written in this book. When I was fourteen, five years before we became roommates, my mom left my dad. To me, she was always the villain because I saw what being alone did to Dad.

But Dad slowly changed, and I changed with him because I hadn’t seen him like that before. He seemed… happier. He taught me how society forces people into monogamy and made me promise never to get married. If I broke that promise, he swore he would not attend my wedding. But I trusted him. He didn’t exactly understand, but he accepted who I was and who I had become. I don’t think he saw it as who he made me.

He taught me what 'hooking up' was and took me drinking until I was old enough to get in without him. By then, I had become some sort of legend among people my own age because I already had so much experience, and alcoholism was considered a cool trait at the end of your teen years. I could brag about doing coke with my dad and banging thirty-year-olds when I was seventeen—all that typical cool stuff.

Stan couldn't handle any more of that story for now. Maybe he should read it all from the beginning, but should he actually do this 'Operation'? Did he somehow owe Todd that? He flipped back to step one.

I know you're wondering why I'm doing this for you, and you’ll get some answers if you choose to follow along (which I highly recommend). So just relax and hang out with me for the next six weeks. Please don't read ahead until you’ve finished the step. Step one starts this Monday.

That was tomorrow. This made Stan think of page 110 again, where Todd would explain something in case he found the book prematurely. He flipped through the book until he found it.

Hello, Stanley. I know what this looks like, but I beg you not to look further into this book until you come back to school after New Year's. I won't be back for the next semester, but this book will explain why in due time. I know it’s a weird request, but please do this one thing for me. Just this once, I ask you to trust me.

Thank you.

—Your friend, Trashy Todd

Stan felt like he had to do this, but this book wasn't the blessing Todd made it out to be. It was something a crazy person would write. He couldn't imagine how bad Christmas would have been if he had found the book before he went home for the holidays. He probably wouldn't have looked at it immediately; he might have thought it was a gift. Maybe he would read it on the train home. Then, when he read page 110, he would be confused and skip to the last page to find out what the hell all this was about. And that's what he did now.

So, of course, you don't have to propose yet. You can wait up to three years, and in the meantime, you can arrange the wedding. Remember the colour palettes we discussed in step seventeen? So what you're gonna do is...

Stan skipped the paragraph, which took up two-thirds of the page. At the bottom, there was a shorter one:

So this is where I'm going to answer the last of your questions. I've addressed the most important ones throughout the book.

The most pressing question on your mind that I still haven't answered must be: Why did you kill yourself? Believe it or not, it wasn't just so you could use my death to get sympathy points for step two. Although I bet it worked flawlessly; otherwise, you wouldn't have come this far. God, this book has become my life's work. Literally. This is the last thing I will ever create. I think it might even be the first thing I truly created. The first thing I made, completely on my own. I'm glad my life's work is going to you, and I hope you and Selma will live happily ever after.

You know, when I kissed her at that party, I knew instantly that she would never be my type. She was too small, among other things, but later that night, I discovered who my actual type was. I knew that my feelings would never be returned, so I opted to just make one of us happy. I wasn't gonna stick around anyway. Not that I killed myself because of you, but maybe it was what tipped the scale. I'm sorry, Stan, My Man. It's been a great six weeks, even though it was only one week for me. By Friday, I almost reconsidered. I almost showed you the book and considered removing all the parts about my death, just so you could have it as a gag gift. But you left before I got to say Merry Christmas. You left before I got to say goodbye.

—Your friend, Todd.