The-Lucky-List-Rachael-Lippincott

pumps are older than dirt.”
“No surprise there,” Blake mutters as she heads inside, her flip-flops clacking noisily as she walks.
I watch her go, wondering if this move has been harder for her than she lets on. Gas station pumps
that hardly work. Bad phone service practically everywhere. A town so dierent from where she came
from.
It can’t be easy.
I pull out my phone while I wait, posting an Instagram story of the suroards and writing “Blake is
trying to kill me” just underneath it. My first of the summer.
I can’t help but wonder if Matt will see it. Will he purposefully avoid watching it? I know Olivia
will.
I glance up to see Blake pushing through the exit, a white plastic bag around her wrist. She fills up
the truck and hops back into the driver’s seat.
“What’d you get?” I ask.
She pulls out some Lay’s chips, a package of Skittles, sour gummy worms, and a Hershey’s chocolate
bar. “Aaand,” she says, reaching into the back pocket of her jean shorts to whip out two brightly
colored scratch-off lottery tickets.
Bingo Boogie. I’d recognize that orange and pink anywhere.
It feels bittersweet to see it after all this time, the hand holding it out to me someone other than my
mom.
“Pick one,” she says. I reach out, hesitating over the right one before moving slowly over to the le,
something about this card calling out to me. “You feeling lucky, Emily Clark?” she asks, stopping me in
my tracks.
Lucky. I realize now that’s what’s drawing me to the card. It looks lucky.
I think about the past few weeks. The list. Blake. Matt. All of it.
When I think about it… I feel luckier than I have in three years.
I grab the card on the left and pull the quarter with a nick on it out of my pocket.
“Maybe a little.”