The-Lucky-List-Rachael-Lippincott

nervous for once.
“It’s really good!” I say, and it wipes the crease away as her whole face lights up. “I think my mom
would’ve even liked it, if she could’ve gotten past the seaweed. It’s definitely the best Spam has ever
tasted.”
She laughs at that, and we keep diing in, until the container of Spam musubi is all gone and it’s
time for the apple tarts, crispy and sweet and delicious.
Aerward, we scour the grass around our picnic blanket while I try to find a four-leaf clover, the
countdown clock for list completion now sitting at less than ten days.
My mom had been so lucky, she probably found it in an afternoon.
Meanwhile, I’ve been staring at the ground everywhere I go for the past two weeks, and still
nothing.
“So,” Blake asks from behind me. “How was talking to Matt? It, uh, didn’t look like it went too
well.”
“You can say that again,” I say, letting out a long sigh. I lean forward, plucking a clover from the
grass, dismayed to see it only has three leaves. Just like the last five I’ve picked.
I try to think of a way to talk to her about all of this, without giving too much away.
“I just want to make things better. Kiera says I’m going to ruin our senior year if I don’t, and I know
she’s right. I’ll ruin it for my other friends, too. And… I don’t know. I really feel like I can now. Like the
list is leading me to it. A way to make things feel right between us, you know? I just have to keep
going.”
“Is that why you kissed that other guy?” she asks. “Because things didn’t feel right between you and
Matt?”
Is that why I—wait. What?
I whip around to face her, my heart going into triple time in my chest. “You know?”
“Yeah,” she says with a shrug. “Since like the first day of work. Cassie Evans told me by lunchtime.”
She’d known all along. When we’d gone to the bookstore, and unpacked at her house, and sat atop
the cliff at Huckabee State Park. Even now, standing here.
I search her face, but there’s no sign of judgment. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t think of me any
differently.
Which is maybe why she’s the first person I tell the truth to. “Yeah. It is,” I say.
I’ve always given another excuse for our breakups, cloaked it in clinginess or needing to focus on
schoolwork, or Jake’s flask. Never the real reason.
I shrug. “But a lot of things haven’t felt right the past three years. I haven’t felt right. Not until the
list showed up.” I look up at her, smiling. “Not until you showed up in Huckabee and made me jump off
cliffs and stuff.”
She smiles back at me, and I notice she’s clutching not one, not two, but three four-leaf clovers.
“Blake,” I say, pointing down at her hands. “You do know if you pick all of them, there’ll be none le
for me to find.”
“Good point,” she says, opening her hands, a small shower of green falling from her palms.
We look around for a few more minutes before I accept defeat. I lie back on the checkered picnic
blanket, pulling the list out of my pocket and unfolding it, using a pink pen I brought from Nina’s to