The-Lucky-List-Rachael-Lippincott

My heart skips into double time. Maybe even triple time.
“And it was all wrong. Just like it’s always been,” I admit. “It’s… not like what you and Mom had. It
just isn’t, even though I know she wanted that for me.”
“But with Blake…,” I start to say, stopping to collect myself. “But with Blake, things have always felt
right.”
I look down at the leather bracelet on my wrist, those seagulls flying free.
“I thought that I could change who I was. at I could fix what was wrong with me and Matt, and
that things could finally fit into place like they did for you and Mom. But I couldn’t do it. I can’t
change who I am, Dad. I can’t change the fact that I…” I take a long, deep breath, all the air
disappearing from the room. “That I’m gay.”
Holy shit. I—I said it. Even though I told Kiera and Nina and Matt, this is the first time I let myself
say the word. My ears start to ring as I wait for him to say something. Anything. I can’t even look at
him.
Am I going to throw up?
Am I going to—
I hear him rifling around in the box, worried he’s just going to pack it up and leave. Glancing over, I
see him pull out a Polaroid picture. He holds it out to me, and there, in all their faded glory, are my
mom, Johnny Carter, and my dad, arms slung over one another’s shoulders, goofy grins on all their
faces.
I read the handwritten caption, in my mom’s neat cursive: Julie, J. C., and Joe.
Wait a second—I grab the photo from him, looking between it and the list, my mind exploding.
J. C.
Johnny Carter? Not Joe Clark?
I think of the cassette tape from the box, the note on it: “Let me know if you change your mind.”
Nina’s words a week ago: “Who said your mom got it right the first time?”
I look up to meet his gaze, understanding. Twenty years ago that kiss had meant exactly the same
thing to my mom as it meant to me.
It wasn’t about kissing the person who we were supposed to be with. It was realizing who we wanted
to be with.
My dad reaches out, his rough hand cupping my cheek. “I love you, Em,” he says, his brown eyes
getting a little teary, and making my brown eyes a little teary. “No matter what, okay?”
I nod, the tears spilling out of my eyes and down my cheeks as he pulls me into a hug. “And I’m not
just saying that because your mom’s little instruction list told me to,” he says, the both of us laughing.
“I would have said it anyway.”
I stare at the painting on the wall, just over his shoulder, thinking of how happy I’d been this
summer. How, even aer getting my luck back, I’d still been too afraid to take a chance on Blake. All
because I was scared.
I was scared because… to be with Blake meant that there couldn’t be any more hiding.
But I don’t want to be scared anymore. I’m not scared anymore. I don’t want to change who I am.
I need to be willing to play the game. I need to be willing to put myself out there, and be vulnerable,
and take chances, even though I might lose.