The Bucket List

t h i r t y - t h r e e

A month had passed, and graduation was approaching quickly. I was laying on the couch watching a movie when dad walked in. He rolled his eyes at me and shoved my legs to the side where he then took a seat beside me. I glared at him but sat up straight and continued watching the movie.

"Aren't you supposed to be studying?"

"Taking a break," I mumbled.

He nodded. Halfway through the movie, Meg Ryan was sleeping in the train with Kevin Kline trying to steal from her bag. I tried ignoring the fact they already started kissing. I hated seeing these scenes in front of dad. Made me so awkward.

"What's wrong with you?" dad asked suddenly.

"Huh?" Where dd that come from?

He furrowed his eyes brows together. "Don't 'huh' me, young lady. You've been acting very strangely lately. What's wrong?"

I forced a smile. "Nothing's wrong," I reassured him. I haven't told dad about the break up yet. I didn't know how to. I knew he liked Daniel. He enjoyed tormenting him with his 'overprotective dad' act.

"I'm a father. I can tell when my own daughter is bullshitting," he retorted.

"Dad, language." I frowned.

He rolled his eyes. "You remind me of your mother, you know," he said, suddenly changing the topic. It was a nice topic at least. He rarely ever spoke about her.

"How?"

"You're both stubborn and overthink a lot, always trying to do the right thing. But quite often, when she overthinks too much, she ends up doing something stupid and yells at me for not stopping her earlier. When she doesn't, she suffers through the pain of her mistakes or heartbreak alone, eating ice cream," he explained. "And it's always ice cream. I don't know why," he mumbled thoughtfully.

Where was this going? I thought this was meant to be a reminisce of mum, but I was starting to think this was turning into a lecture.

"So, why were you eating ice cream?"

"What? How do you know I ate—"

"If you don't want me to notice the newly bought, but now empty, ice cream container, you should've thrown the container in the shared bin outside," dad noted.

I bit my lip together. Woops.

"I sometimes wonder if you're a doctor or a detective."

"Did you and Daniel break up?" Well, I always knew he would figure it out eventually. I nodded in response. "Did he break up with you? Because if he did, I'm a doctor and I can hurt him in places that he doesn't even know existed," dad threatened.

I laughed sadly. "No, dad. I broke up with him," I corrected.

"Why?"

"He wants to go to Sydney, and I'm the only person that's preventing him from getting it."

"Because you don't want to go?"

I nodded. "It's what he always wanted ever since he was a kid. He was about to not go because of me."

"I'm not sure what it's like for you teens but isn't that considered romantic?" dad asked.

"It's not. It's dumb," I mumbled. "Picking me over his childhood dream doesn't make any sense. I don't know whether Daniel and I will make it in the long run. We don't know that. We might like each other now, but for all we know, we might break up in five months because we're not into each other anymore. We only started hanging out this year. So, why would he drop everything for someone?"