“You’ve never done that.”
Blue had never once seen Oliver so incredulous. Actually, she had never once seen anyone so incredulous. Well, actually, actually, she had once before, when Mommy hadn’t believed her when she said that she would go live in a treetrunk with the bluejays. She was eight.
“No,” she repeated for the eleventh time, biting into the red peel.
“You have never finished a book under an hour? And you have that on your bucket list? You’re such a weirdo,” he snorted and she rolled her eyes, spitting a seed out onto the asphalt before them.
☑ #1: Hug the first person I see on the streets
☑ #2: Sleep under the stars (no tent or anything; just on the grass)
☑ #3:Learn to play the piano
☑#4: Go skinny-dipping
☑ #5: Trespass and have a picnic there
☐ #6: Finish a book under an hour
Oliver and Blue were sat on the sidewalk’s curb. The sun was overhead and the pavement was hot, so she had deemed it the perfect weather for an apple. Blue had learned today that Oliver, on the other hand, enjoyed lollipops in the sweltering heat. He was weird.
“I don’t meant one of those kid Junie B. Jones books, Oliver,” she told him in a duh tone. “I mean one of those terrifyingly large Dan Brown ones.”
“You’re going to read a Dan Brown under one hour.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“I think we’ve established that point.”
“You’re not going to read a Dan Brown under an hour, Blue.”
“Then what will I read, Oliver?”
“My favorite book.”
“Care to elaborate?” A drop of juice drippled down her chin and Blue swiped it away with her bare arm. Oliver took a silent moment to think and she watched the lollipop stick twirl between his [perfect] lips.
“The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane,” he answered finally and she scrunched her face up in confusion.
“That kindergarten book?” she asked, disbelieving.
“Have you read it?”
“No.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
He took her inside the house, through the halls, to his room and she sat carefully on the bed, eyes searching every inch for something interesting that she had somehow missed last time as Oliver went straight to his bookshelf. A moment later he drew his arm back, in it’s hand a big, hardcover book.
“Here,” he pushed it towards Blue and she took it, ignoring the warmness of his guitar-calloused fingers as she brushed them with hers. Carefully, she opened it and the spine bent out as if it was weak and had been folded many times. It probably had. Smiling, she imagined tiny Oliver and tween Oliver, and adolescent Oliver, and grown-up Oliver all reading the same book she was holding.
YOU ARE READING
The Bucket List
Short Story[a story] in which an ailing girl checks off everything on her bucket list with a little help from her weirdly attractive neighbor. [spiritual #8 // short story #41] WARNING: this shit is cheesy as hell i wanna gouge my eyes out
