The-Lucky-List-Rachael-Lippincott

calculus class she was probably the only one to show up to. I think Joe fell in love with her right then
and there.”
“It got so bad in the cafeteria, the police had to be called,” my dad says, all of us laughing. “A kid got
carted off for a flying-milk-carton-induced concussion.”
It’s weird to hear my dad talking so openly about the past, especially a story that has my mom in it.
Maybe even the moment he first started falling for her. How can he talk so freely with Johnny but
always clams up with me?
We’ve never been big on talking, especially about feelings, but I can’t help but be… I don’t know.
Jealous? Hurt?
“It took the whole school two days to clean up the mess we made,” Johnny says, wiping away a tear
from all the laughter. “I’m pretty certain there’s still a chocolate-pudding stain on the ceiling.”
“I almost killed you both,” Mrs. Carter adds, still doubled over.
I watch in awe as Johnny and Blake down an entire pizza by themselves through several more
stories, having absolutely no idea where it could possibly fit inside their lanky bodies. Soon the plates
rest on the coffee table, the laughter dying down, a single slice sitting in the center of the second box.
“We’ll clean up,” Johnny says, reaching for it. “You girls can work on Blake’s stu. I got a bit of a
head start today while you were at work.”
“If you call unpacking a single box and watching TV a head start, I’d hate to see what the rest of the
race looks like,” Mrs. Carter says, roasting her own son. Blake snorts, a look of camaraderie passing
between the two of them.
“I brought most of my boxes upstairs this morning,” Blake says to me as we head over to the pile in
the corner. “Didn’t want my grandma to have to do it,” she adds in a whisper. She rifles around in the
corner, pulling three boxes out of the mix, a strong cursive on the top dierentiating them from the
others. “Just gotta take these up.”
I hold out my arms as she hands me a single box, then balances the remaining two in her arms,
letting out a long exhale as she stands under the weight of them.
I follow her up another set of metal stairs and down a long hallway. e walls are a stark, barren
white, so dierent from the photo-lined ones at my house. Winston trails just a little bit behind us, his
claws clicking noisily on the floor. At the very last door, Blake turns, pushing it carefully open with her
foot.
“I don’t think it’ll take us that long to get everything unpacked,” she says over her shoulder. “I got a
little done last night.”
I step inside, and the room instantly feels homier than the rest of the house. Mostly just because it
feels more like… well… like Blake. Her warm, familiar smell washes over me, like the whole room is her
cozy sweatshirt.
I add my box to a small pile on the floor, looking around at everything. e walls are the same
bland white of the hallway, but Blake has added string lights around the entire ceiling, which cast a
warm glow on the overflowing bookshelf in the corner and the row of plants sitting in front of a wall
of glass.
I see what she meant about the no-privacy thing. If there was anyone even remotely close by, they’d
get a clear view straight into here.