Chapter 6.

My room is the most organized place in our house. I like when everything is in the right place, not just all around my room wherever I throw it like Rose does. She doesn't care much about that. I told her several times that she's going to lose her own head if she doesn't get herself together soon. I even offered to write lists for her, but she didn't even wanna hear about it. I gave up eventually, but I continued to write lists for myself. And I write lists about everything you can imagine. I even have a list of the other lists I've written. Maybe that's why I decided to write a new one that afternoon when both my parents and Rose were working, and I was dying from boredom. Not only boredom, if I want to be morbid again.

I was lying on my bed, head lolling down loosely on the edge and since I had nothing to do, I was scrolling through Instagram perfunctorily, liking every picture that I saw. I wasn't even paying attention to what were the posts about, until I stopped for a moment to prop my head up, because all my blood was in there and the world started getting dizzy. So, and it truly was an accident, I actually looked at that one certain post.

I furrowed my brows as I scanned through the text, skipping every other word just to get to the end quickly, but I still managed to figure out the message. Bored? Why not try something new? Write a bucket list, and try to check off every point on it! Start it today!

"A bucket list?" I asked literally myself. I would've freaked out if someone answered. No one did, fortunately.

After a few seconds of contemplating, I saved the post which I rarely do, got up from my bed, walked to my desk, and fished out a paper from the folder I keep my papers in. I grabbed a pencil, almost started writing, but before the tip of the pencil could've reached the paper, I dropped it. Because what the heck should I write? I pressed my hands against my temples and let out a moan, thinking maybe this would inspire me, but oh boy was I wrong.

I always said there are lots of things I want to do, but now I couldn't even remember one. And it irked me off. I didn't even notice that I picked up my pencil and was biting the top of it while I was trying to figure out something I wanted to do. Something, anything. And I couldn't. There, in the quiet of my room, I was unable to come up even with just one idea to put on my bucket list. What was the point, anyway? In a couple of months, I'll be dead. Or in the hospital, unable to move on my own. This was just stupid.

I shook my head, pushed myself back from the desk and got up to go down to the living room. Suddenly, the atmosphere in my room became pressuring, suffocating even. The white walls with the pictures on it seemed way too close to me. I felt like I was in a box and I needed to get out of there as soon as possible.

I went to the kitchen, to the fridge more precisely, to get ice cream. I thought maybe that'd help to figure out some things, so I sank into the couch with a bowl full of strawberry ice cream, waiting for the ideas to come. Understandably, this is not how it works. Not only creative ideas, or useful thoughts not came to my mind, but all I could focus on was the sweetness of the ice cream.

"Argh!" I let out a frustrated moan as I stood up to put back the ice cream. I leaned against the fridge door as soon as I closed it, and just stared at the wall opposite of me. Maybe, other families had family pictures on their walls. Not us, though. The last family picture we took was when Mom was pregnant with me, so I don't really consider it as a family picture, because I wasn't actually on it. I was in my mom's belly. Tiny, and most definitely not visible. As I was thinking about this, an idea struck into my mind. I could write this on my list. A family photo. It's not too much, but I wanted it.

I ran back to my room and without even sitting down, I grabbed the pencil and jotted down the first point. And then the second. The third. And so on. An hour later I had exactly fifty points on my list. I didn't know what happened, but after the first five points I just couldn't stop, and most of the things I wrote down are probably stupid and no big deals. It didn't bother me, though. I just wanted to have some things to savor, to enjoy. To live a little while I still can. And that was enough for me.

I grabbed a pin and carefully pinned the list on my bulletin board, a place where I could see it just fine. I nodded, pleasant with my work, and headed down to the living room. All I had to do was to wait for Rose. I wanted to show her the list, so we could start it together.

It was five o'clock, and it already started getting dark outside. The sun almost went down on the horizon, leaving only tiny traces of sunlight behind, so I had to turn on the lights in the living room. The light bulb flickered a few times before it remained bright. I thought about turning the TV on just for some background noise, but I wasn't in the mood for some shitty show that could've been on at this time so I aborted the idea. Instead, I sat on the counter, heels thumping on the side of it, and fingers tapping an offbeat rhythm on the top of it. I've never needed much to entertain myself.

The clock was ticking and I was focused on the little hand to finally reach the six. Unfortunately, I had to wait forty-five minutes for that to happen. But when it finally did, I happily jumped off the counter and, just like a loyal lapdog would do, I ran to the door and looked out the window next to it, waiting for Rose's car to pull up on the driveway. She was supposed to be home by six.

The street was empty, save for a few vehicles parked by the curbside. The street lamps didn't provide much light, but I still could see the wet, sparkly asphalt as their light reached it. It must've rained at some point which I didn't notice. I probably was so caught up in that one hour while I was writing my list that I didn't even apprehend the rainfall.

As I was looking out the window, I started nibbling on the skin of my right thumb which I always do, when I'm expecting something to happen that should've already happened. Rose was late. Mom and Dad went grocery shopping, this I knew, because it was a Friday and they always went shopping on Fridays. Always. No exception. Funny story: I was born on a Friday. They were in Walmart when Mom started having the contractions, but let me tell you, they had time to look at the dairy products for as long as they usually did. Maybe that's why I don't like milk that much.

The constant honking that came from our driveway put me off my daydreaming, and I waved at Rose who was just getting out of her car. She smiled at me, heading to the door, so I grabbed the handle and shoved it open for her.

"Thanks, Dee", she marched in with a constant, radiating smile on her face. She was never this happy after work, so I had to broach it.

"Is there a specific reason for your happiness, or have you just gone mad?" I followed her to the kitchen as I spoke, but she didn't seem to hear me for she has disappeared in the fridge waist up. "Hey, Earth to Rose", I tried, and she finally emerged from the depths of the fridge with a stick of cheese in her hand.

"What?" She asked absentmindedly, pulling off the wrapper from the cheese stick.

"Why are you so happy?" I repeated my question, scared that she was going to ignore me again, but she shrugged nonchalantly while biting into the food she literally squeezed with her hand. "Come on, tell me", I nudged her.

"Okay, okay. But promise you won't tell anyone", she gave in, and she looked kind of intimidating and stupid at the same time as she was pointing the chewed cheese stick at me.

"Come on, who would I tell?" I grimaced painfully. I literally only talked to Rose. No one else.

"That's true", she agreed, looking pensive for a moment as she gauged what I said and remembered that I, indeed, didn't talk to anybody else.

"Okay, so tell me", I couldn't hide my excitement, but honestly, I didn't want to.

"They fired me."

"Cool...wait, what?!" I furrowed my brows, examining my sister's facial expressions, but I'm sure I wasn't hallucinating and she was smiling like crazy. As if she'd been promoted. But it was the exact opposite. "They fired you...why?"

"I don't know", she shrugged, swallowing the last bite of the cheese.

"What do you mean you don't know? They must've had a reason", I spread my arms, confused and totally dazed. She can't be serious right now.

"They had", she nodded, starting to walk up the stairs, and I ran after her, chasing her like a predator would chase a prey. Except, I only wanted answers not her flesh.

"And what was it? Explain it to me, for God's sake", I shouted as we stepped into her room where I leaned against the door frame and she just casually started changing her clothes.

"I may...", she started, but she changed her shirt while talking, so all I heard was her mumbling into the fabric.

"What?"

"I may have been a little too aggressive with a costumer", she repeated. Rose walked to her bed and flopped down on it, carelessly taking her shoes off, throwing them into the corner.

"You? Aggressive? With a customer?" I tried very very hard to comprehend the acquired information, but the picture just didn't want to manifest in my brain. Rose was sweet. Well, yeah, she was hot-tempered sometimes, but not at work. And most definitely not with costumers.

"Yes, Daisy", she sighed resignedly.

"But...why? Did they do something?" The only thing I could assume was that that the costumer must've done something first, because Rose would never. "Because if they started it, then it's not your fault. I mean, we can go and talk to your crew about it, I'll go with you", I suggested, and I saw a tiny dimple appearing on Rose's face as her lips quirked up a bit, but to my biggest surprise, she shook her head vehemently.

"No, it was my fault", she admitted, grabbing her hair tie to loosen up her ponytail.

"But...did you know them? The customer?"

"Yeah", she answered curtly.

"Well, who was it?" I asked, getting more and more impatient.

"Eric's new girlfriend", she mumbled. "And Eric", she added.

"Oh, my goodness, what did you do?" I asked, already afraid of what she was about to say.

"I might've started bombing them with the ingredients of their sandwiches instead of, you know, actually putting them on the sandwich", she explained, and I wouldn't even believe this if I hadn't heard it from her.

"Why would you do that?"

I really was trying to understand her, but that was stupid and childish, and she needed that job, yet she couldn't have been more careless about it. And it made no sense to me.

"Look, I got upset, okay? And why was he even there?" She jumped up from the bed, walked to her closet and started going through her clothes in an unnecessarily aggressive manner. "I switched shifts, just so I can avoid him, but nooo, that would've been too easy. And that girl? She smiled at me slyly, like 'he's mine now', I know it meant that, because I used to do it", she finally grabbed a shirt to change into and she put it on right before she slammed the closet door.

I looked at her with a neutral expression as she popped down onto her bed again, holding her face between her hands.

"So, what are you gonna do now?" I asked after an amount of time I considered was enough for her to calm down.

"I don't know", she shook her head vehemently. "I can obviously never ever work in a Subway again. I don't know", she reiterated sadly, so I stepped next to her and put one hand on her shoulder.

"It's gonna work out", I said. She smiled at me and squeezed my hand.

"Yeah. But my problem isn't nearly as concerning as yours", she said as her smile started to fade away and eventually completely disappeared.

"This is always good to hear", I sighed.

"Sorry."

"It's okay", I reassured her quickly. I didn't want her to think I was miserable because I wasn't. "Actually, there's something I wanted to talk to you about."

"What is it?" I was happy to see her get all excited even though she didn't know what I was about to tell her.

"I...wrote a bucket list."

She looked confused for a second. "A bucket list?"

"Yeah. There are exactly fifty things I want to do before I die", I looked at her sheepishly, not knowing how she's gonna react now that I said the "d" word out loud, but she didn't react the way I expected. She stood up and hugged me tightly.

"I am going to help you do all of those things, Dez. And it is going to be the time of your life", she whispered.

"Thank you", I mumbled into her shoulder as a single teardrop escaped my tightly shut eyes.

We spent the rest of the afternoon making plans for the foreseeable future, discussing the possible alternatives about executing the points on my bucket list. Some of them were really stupid, but Rose didn't make fun of me which I was truly thankful for.

"So, which one do you think we should do first?" I asked, chewing on the tip of my pencil, ogling the points on the creased paper.

"It's your thing, you should decide", Rose said seemingly generous, but I knew she was just being indecisive as always.

"Let's just start with something little, something not too meaningful", I shrugged eventually.

"Oh, you mean there are not too meaningful things on this list?" She raised an eyebrow playfully, so I gently pushed her shoulder, knowing she was joking.

"Stop", I laughed.

"So, which one did you have in mind?"

"Let's go with this one", I pointed out number 15 after a minute of thinking.

Rose looked confused for a second, scanning through the points to find the one I chose. Then she found it and a sly smile tugged at her lips. "So you wanna start with pissing off the neighbors?"

I nodded.

"Great idea", she approved, high-fiving me. "What'd you have in mind?" Her eyes widened as she looked at me with sheer, unveiled curiosity.

"You'll see", I answered mysteriously as I stood up from the bed.

"Hey, tell me", Rose grabbed my arm and gave me the "big-puppy-eyes", but I shook my head and left the room, leaving my miserable sister behind.