The-Lucky-List-Rachael-Lippincott

his arm around me. “Hey! I still need that.” He laughs, pulling me close as I dissolve into a blubbering
mess as I think about stepping o the Misty Oasis bus and seeing her there, swallowing the words I
never got to say to her.
I think about the clothes and all the donated items, things I thought were pieces of her. ings I
thought were what made Julie Miller, Julie Miller.
But it’s us. Me. My dad. Nina. e people who would always tell me stories about her. e things
she did and the places she went and the lives she touched. It’s talking about her instead of hiding in a
literal closet, shutting out the world. It’s learning new things about her and finding ways to honor her
without living exactly the life she wanted me to live three whole years ago.
If I can learn new things about her aer she’s gone, maybe she wouldn’t be disappointed there were
things she never knew about her daughter.
Which is why I pull away, knowing it’s time to tell Dad.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the list that I’ve taken with me everywhere for the past month
and a half. I don’t need a pile of clothes, or a closet, or a whole house to feel close to her, when I can
have moments like this.
Moments like I had all summer.
Carefully, I unfold it and hold it out to my dad.
“I spent the summer doing the list I showed you,” I say.
“ ‘Julie Miller’s Senior Year Summer,’ ” he reads, a smirk appearing on his face. “at explains the
sunflower tattoo.”
The what? How—
My mouth drops open. “You knew about that?”
“Em, you’re terrible at hiding things,” he says with a laugh. “at, and you have a habit of rolling up
your sleeves.”
I look down to see my forearm skin on full display, the cardigan sleeves pushed up to my elbows. I
laugh, sning as I wipe my tears away with the back of my hand. “No more, though,” he says, in full
Dad mode, a stern look plastered on his face. “You get another one, and we’re gonna have problems.”
I think of that glittering silver needle and swear my life on it.
“You going to tell me about it?” he asks as he hands the list back to me.
I let out a long sigh, everything blurring together in my head, a montage of feelings and emotions,
of Blake’s eyes and sparkling water and the summer sun.
He opened up to me tonight, so… I open up to him. I tell him about the book, and cli jumping,
and the beach, all the times I felt my mom right there beside me, guiding my footsteps. How much this
list has changed me. How much it has made me the person I was too afraid to be again.
He listens. Really listens. Smiling and laughing and nodding as I recount my whirlwind summer to
him, everything leading up to item number twelve.
“So, I kissed him. And…”
I look at the list in my hand, the lucky list that was my mom’s.
But now I need to make it mine.
Because there’s something I have to do if I’m going to really be the person that this list helped me to
see I am. I have to tell him the truth about Matt and Blake and… me.