Chapter 1 #2
A ladybug, the first and only tattoo I ever got, hidden on my hip so my grandparents couldn’t see it.
A four-leaf clover, like the ones I’ve spent hours and hours searching for my entire life.
I asked for a sign, didn’t I? Maybe this is it.
I am so lucky, and everything works out for me, runs through my mind unbidden.
I have the saying hanging as a print in my apartment, reminding me to believe that I have Lucky Girl Syndrome, even when it sometimes feels like the complete opposite.
Without a second thought, I point to the ticket beneath the glass. “Can I also get one of those?”
Connie smiles and moves to get me one, and I smile over my shoulder at the man. “Sorry, I don’t mean to hold you up.” He gives me a noncommittal look and a wave of his hand as I pay for my small haul.
After, I shift down the counter out of the way to scratch my lottery ticket. I can’t wait to do this at home, not when it feels like my future hangs in the balance. I guess, in a way, it does:
If I win, I decide I’ll take the hiatus and see what happens.
If I lose, I’ll accept the out-of-town position. Either way, I’m leaving here having made up my mind.
“Shit,” I mumble, as I dig through my bag, already hitting my first hiccup.
I turn to the man who is now checking out at the register.
“Do you happen to have a coin I could borrow?” His stoic, uninterested look transforms into confusion, and I expand.
“For my scratch off.” He stares, unspeaking once more, before moving to his pocket and pulling out a penny.
“How lucky!” I exclaim as he hands it to me.
“Thank you so much! I never have change anymore. Everything is credit.” He nods, the very edges of his lips just barely tipping up, and even though he’s not actually smiling, I see my guess confirmed: he’s hot.
Like, really hot.
So much so, in fact, I think his hotness short-circuits my brain, making me ramble.
“If I win, I’m going to quit my job,” I inform him as if he asked.
“I don’t know if a scratch off is great for life advice.”
“I’m not taking life advice from a lottery ticket. I’m taking life advice from the universe,” I say as if that’s any better. He looks at me as if I have completely lost it, lifting an eyebrow at me.
“Do you have a backup?”
I let out a laugh and shake my head.
“No. But I’m lucky. Everything always works out for me.”
“Everything?”
“Everything always works out the way the universe intends,” I correct, and he narrows his eyes at me, but despite everything, I believe that to be true.
It hasn’t been foolproof, but when I look back at hiccups in my life, everything has genuinely always worked out.
I was crushed when I got into my number-one pick college but didn’t get the scholarships I was counting on, but it meant I went to a state school on a full ride, where I met my best friend, Claire.
There’s also how Claire met and began dating Paul, the absolute worst person on earth, but after they broke up, she ended up living with his brother, Miles. Now they’re madly in love, and she lives in my hometown, where I get to see her all the time.
Or the time I desperately wanted tickets for an outdoor festival but missed the presale. It ended up raining the entire weekend, and no one got refunds.
It always works out. Everything happens for a reason, even if it seems like, in the moment, that nothing is going right. It’s what I’ve had to tell myself most of my life in order to make it through without losing my mind, and I won’t be stopping anytime soon.
“That sounds like how people justify things not working out for them,” the stranger says, not buying it.
“A little positivity never hurt anyone,” I tell him as I begin scratching at the small ticket. My heart races as I reveal different icons.
One acorn.
One ladybug.
One rabbit’s foot.
One four-leaf clover.
None of them is my lucky icon, which is a horseshoe.
Maybe I’m meant to take the safe option after all. Disappointment fills me, surprising me with its intensity. But when I scratch the last icon, I squeal as the corner of it is revealed. Quickly, I scratch the rest off to be sure.
“Ahhh!” I yell once it’s fully cleared, jumping up and down. “Oh my god!” The man watches me attentively as I celebrate, an entertained eyebrow lifted.
“Did you win?”
“Yes!” I shout, waving the lottery ticket in his face. “Look!”
“A hundred bucks,” he confirms, with a nod. “Will that cover your bills enough for you to quit your job?” I stare at the ticket again, a wide grin on my face, my chest light as I shake my head.
“No. Not at all. But I’m going to do it anyway. It’s a sign. Everything is going to work for me.” When I speak the words aloud, I believe them, each one settling into my chest and a sense of peace washing over me as I make my decision.
“Because you’re lucky,” he says.
“Exactly.” He grabs his things and moves to step away, but I stop him. “Thank you,” I say, the penny in the palm of my hand. He looks at it, then at me, before shaking his head.
“Keep it. It might be lucky.” He walks out before I can say anything else, and I turn to Connie, who is grinning at me.
“You’re a nut, girl.”
“I know,” I say with a laugh. We chat for a bit as she cashes out my lottery ticket, and with one hundred dollars I didn’t have before in my pocket, I’m feeling a bit more confident about the choice I think I was always going to make.
I’m terrified, but it’s the right decision—somehow, I know that in my bones.
When I get into my car, the air conditioning starts up without a problem, and I decide it’s another sign that I’m moving in the right direction. Somehow, some way, everything is going to work out for me, because I am lucky and everything works out for me.