The-Lucky-List-Rachael-Lippincott

Kiera crosses the divide and pulls me in, her arms tightening around me as tears unexpectedly begin
to stream down my face, completely soaking her Nina’s T-shirt. “Oh, Em. I’m… I’m sorry I was so
wrapped up in senior year, and making everything right, and all the shit with our friend group that it
felt like you couldn’t tell me. Or that I wouldn’t care unless you were with Matt,” she says as she rests
her chin against my head. “You know I’ve always got your back.”
“I know you do,” I say, giving her a tight squeeze. “I’m sorry, too. For shutting you out. For not
being honest.”
We stand there in silence for a few minutes, feeling closer than we have in a while.
Soon there’s a light knock on the door. When we pull apart and open it, Paul and Nina are standing
there, the open sign turned to closed, Paul holding up a bag of bittersweet chocolate chips.
“I think maybe we should just make some chocolate chip cookies today,” Nina says, wrapping us all
up in a hug. “How does that sound?”
“Will you tell me the secret ingredient?” I ask, my voice muffled against the fabric of her shirt.
“Yep,” Nina says.
I whip my head off her shoulder, my eyes wide. “Wait. Really?”
She nods, all of us laughing. “Really.”
We get all the ingredients together while I tell them everything.
About this summer and the list and Blake. Reliving the night at the beach, and what she said to me
before the bonfire. How I swooned when I first saw her at bingo, without even really knowing I had.
“I realized how much I like her,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I realized that I… that I like girls.”
My eyes flick over to meet Paul’s, and he gives me an understanding smile. “It may be a little tough
in a small town like this one,” he says, knowing from experience. “But I wouldn’t want to pass on the
post of resident gay of Huckabee to anyone else.”
I laugh and shake my head at him. “Thanks, Paul.”
“How long have you known?” Kiera asks as she measures out the brown sugar. Not in an accusing
way. Not in a doubtful way. She just… wants to know.
I feel a smile creeping onto my lips. “You remember Dominique? From Misty Oasis?” I ask her.
She drops the measuring cup she’s holding. “Dom Flores? You had the hots for Dom Flores?”
“I did not have the hots for Dom Flores,” I say, chucking a chocolate chip in her direction. “Maybe a
tiny, tiny crush, I don’t know.”
We all laugh, and I shake my head. “I think… I think I suspected something, but when we got back
from camp…”
Nina nods, catching on. “Your mom was sick.”
“Yeah,” I say, thinking of how I was swept up in doctor’s appointments, and surgeries, and my mom
getting sicker and sicker, withering away before my eyes. “I just ignored it. I pushed it down. Until,
well… until I couldn’t.”
I meet Kiera’s gaze over the mixing bowls. “Kiera, I couldn’t be honest with you because I couldn’t
be honest with myself. And I couldn’t be honest with myself because I couldn’t tell the truth to the one
person I wanted to tell more than anyone.”
She reaches out and takes my hand, giving it a sympathetic squeeze.
I let out a long sigh. “I think I just thought that being with Matt was what my mom would have