The-Lucky-List-Rachael-Lippincott

dust behind us.
I glance out the window to see Matt, Jake, Olivia, and Ryan standing stock-still in the parking lot by
Jake’s car, their mouths agape as they watch us speed away.
I lean back in the seat, my chest heaving as I look over at Blake, the two of us bursting out into
laughter.
I hold up the perfect apple triumphantly.
“You’ve gotta try it!” Blake says.
“Try it?” I say, raising my eyebrows in surprise.
“Yeah! I mean, what else are you going to do? Let it rot away on a shelf?”
I shrug. at’s definitely a fair point. I bring the apple to my lips and take an enormous bite, the
chunk falling from my lips as the most bitter, disgusting, rotten taste fills my mouth.
“Oh my God,” I say as Blake wheezes with laughter. “Oh my God, that is so bad. Like… raw-sewage
bad.” I grab a Honeycrisp out of the basket, trying to get the taste out of my mouth. “No wonder they
don’t want anyone picking apples from it.”
I hold it out to Blake, and she shakes her head, wiping tears away from the corner of her eyes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. This tastes like ass. Here, try it!”
I roll down the window and chuck the apple out onto the side of the road, watching it disappear in
the rearview mirror before I pull the list out of my pocket and press the paper up against the
dashboard, grabbing a pen from Blake’s center console.
en I put a small green check next to “10. Steal an apple from the First Tree at Snyder’s Orchard,”
that disgusting apple bringing me one step closer to completing the list, my friends’ expressions in the
parking lot a moment ago making it more than worth it.
“at reminds me!” Blake says as we pull up at Nina’s. “I talked to Jake yesterday at work about cli
jumping, and he said there was a cool spot we could go to at Huckabee State Park. Biest in the
county. You want to go on Wednesday?”
Biest in the county. My heart jumps at the thought, the bravado I had a moment ago slipping away.
Fast.
“I don’t know if I’d trust Jake’s judgment,” I say, hesitating. “I mean, the guy was just covered in
rotten apples and happy about it.”
She laughs at that, nodding. “I confirmed it with two other people just to be sure.”
I think of me practically crouching in a tree to hide from my friends, the soness in Matt’s eyes for
the tiniest moment when he looked at me, waiting for me to finally say something. I can’t keep running
away from cliffs. From burly football guys covered in mushy apples.
If Mom got over her fear, if the list made her face what she was most afraid of, maybe it can help me
do that too. Maybe this list could be the reset button I’ve wanted for so long.
e one that would actually make a dierence, pushing me to steal sacred apples and tackle giant
cliffs and to actually talk to unruly-haired ex-boyfriends instead of avoiding them.
“Yeah,” I say, smiling at her. “Let’s do it.”