Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton (novels for beginners txt) 📕

at one another, and chasing people. It wasn’t my first time on a boat, but I think that ride was the first time I knew I wanted to adventure on the sea. Not as a pirate (duh), but as a researcher. I think my dad would’ve liked that.

“Hi, Dad,” I say, running a finger over his face on the screen. Tears fill my eyes, and I have to change the picture to the next one. It’s a selfie of us eating gelato at Italy in Epcot. Mom has her arm around me and we’re smiling broadly. Dad’s holding the camera, so his head looks huge, and his cherry gelato melts down his hand. The picture after that is of us in front of Space Mountain, where Dad puked his guts out and Mom and I rode three times in a row. The last picture, the one I always stop on, is of him and me by ourselves, standing on the edge of the Epcot lagoon at night. Mom took it from behind, so it’s just our silhouettes, illuminated by the fireworks. My head leans on Dad’s shoulder, and his arm is around me.

Even after all this time, I can’t believe he’s never coming home. That he’ll never see me off to prom or walk me down the aisle at my wedding or ever tell me another bad dad joke. It’s unthinkable that there’s not enough money in the world to bring him back. That nothing will ever go back to the way it used to be.

I hate that so much.

Swiping at the tears in my eye, I click open the Facebook Messenger window that holds the conversation I’ve been having with my dead Dad for the last few years. I already know what my last post from back in August says, but I can’t help but read it again.

August 19

Hi, Dad. It’s now been five years and two days since you died. I miss you for so many reasons, and it’s too bad you’re not here. My boyfriend, Holden, just broke up with me a few days ago, and I really could use a shoulder to cry on. Or someone to punch him in his stupid face. Though I suppose I could do that, but then I’d have to see him again. We dated for two years. But then he got bored or something. I guess I wasn’t enough. Sure, his excuse was that he “just needed some space,” but I think that means he wanted to see other people. I don’t know, and maybe I don’t care. But it hurts. So fucking badly. I feel like there’s an eel eating my insides.

Remember when you told me, “Never let one person be the only person in your life”? I’ve tried to keep that in mind as I started dating, but it seems like most people in high-school relationships at least want you to be their one and only. Maybe I wanted that too. I think I just wanted to be special to someone. To be their everything. To know they weren’t going anywhere. But clearly I wasn’t enough for Holden. Which I know is not the end of the world—I’m only seventeen, I’ll meet other people, but. Gahhh.

Remember when you told me, “The world is huge; go see it”? I think of that all the time, too. But I’m so afraid to leave this town. Even though I have things I want to do in the world. It’s stupid to be ruled by fear. I know. But I still wish you were here. Mom’s not doing well …

I stop reading. I haven’t written anything since then, but tonight I need to talk to my dad. Typing to him is like screaming into the void, I know, but it still helps sometimes.

October 16

Hi, Dad. Guess what? Pretty soon, I’ll officially be an adult. Remember how you told me that we’d go to Hawaii for my eighteenth birthday? I remember that. But that’s not going to happen now, I know. Almost being an adult is weird. And it’s only gotten stranger lately.

I pause over the keyboard, not sure how much I should say. But I need to tell someone. And it’s not like Mom has read any of the other conversations in this message thread. None of the messages are marked as read, and surely if she had seen them somehow she would’ve asked me about some of the things in there—like me coming out as bi, or when I had sex for the first time, or when Holden broke up with me. Surely she would’ve given a shit about some of these things? Secrets are safe, it seems, as long as I tell them to the digital ghost of my dead dad.

I keep writing.

Want to know something unbelievable? I won the lottery. I really did. Right now, at this very moment, between the pages of my favorite book—Sea Change—is a lotto ticket worth $58 million. But the truth is, I don’t know what to do with it. Oh, and also, since I bought it as a minor, I’m actually a criminal and can’t cash it. So, I’m trying to figure that out right now. It’s a mess. A hot mess of epic proportions.

What should I do, Dad? Everyone in town wants to know who won, and I just want to keep my secret until I find someone I trust to cash the ticket for me. But I don’t know who that is. I know you’d say I can trust Mom, but she’s so shaky right now. She’s not been herself for a long time, and I’m not sure what she’d do with it.

I wish you were here.

I start to sign off, but then I remember one more thing I have to tell him that I can’t tell anyone else.

Also, tonight I kissed Holden, a.k.a. that stupid boy who broke my heart two months ago. Actually, I kissed him twice. And it wasn’t terrible. But