List, Love and Everything Above

Chapter Two: The List

"Hey dad!" I exclaim, standing on my tippy goes to give him a kiss on the cheek.

"Hey pumpkin! How was your first day at work?" Dad asks, mixing cookie ingredients in a bowl.

Dad owns a bakery on the pier. All his life he's been baking and cooking and it's like a restaurant at my house every night. My house pretty much permanently smells like cookies and cakes because of all the baking he does in here.

"It was good. I made friends with someone who also goes to Kindlewood and works there as well, and I made a lot in tips," I tell him.

"That's great sweetie! I'm so proud of you," Dad says, taking a break from mixing to give me a hug.

I chuckle. "Thanks dad," I say. "Where's father? I want to tell him about my day too."

"Your father is still at work. He's not going to be home for a while because he's working late today," Dad informs me.

"Oh, okay. I'll just tell him tomorrow I guess. Oh, and Finn is sleeping over tonight," I cheekily slip the last part into the sentence, hoping he wouldn't think too much of it and send me off cleaning like he usually does.

"Not until you clean out that closet of yours! I've been telling you for the past week to do it and it's still not done yet," Dad tells me.

I groan. I guess my master plan of trying to ask him nonchalantly didn't work. "Fine I will right now," I give in.

"I was going to ask you to bring some of my new cookies over to him anyways, since I need a good critic, so it's fine if he comes over as long as he tries my cookies," Dad says.

Finn as been my Dad's official taste tester ever since we were little. If Finn loved anything, it was food, and it was the best thing ever to him that my dad made food all of the time. My house was like heaven to him because of all the intricate and exotic foods my dad cooked every night, and because my dad relied on Finn to test his new recipes for the bakery.

"I'm sure he'll love it, as always," I tell him.

I pop one of the unbaked cookies into my mouth and Dad gives me a disapproving look. I give him an apologetic smile, and then run up the stairs to my room.

I shut my door softly behind me and look over at my closet. It probably wasn't that bad, right?

I walk over to my closet and open the doors, just to have a pile of clothes fall out of it and onto me. I screech and throw the clothes off of me. I guess it really did need a cleaning out...

I fish out a pair of light blue ripped jeans and and a white t shirt with the adidas symbol on it and change into that. I delicately fold my work uniform and set it on top of my gray comforter, promising myself I'll wash it later.

Then, I begin to take everything out of my closet and put it into one big pile on the floor. I cross my legs and begin to sort my clothes into different sections.

One for blouses, one for jeans, one for T-shirts, one for shorts, one for tank tops, one for skirts and dresses, Finn's clothes, and finally, one for clothes that I don't want anymore.

I slowly begin to work my way through the humongous pile, making it slowly increase in size one by one.

Once I finally finish the large pile, I stand on my tip toes to reach the couple of clothes left on the shelf above my closet. They all fall down onto the floor below me, and suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see a large paper flutter down with it.

Curiously, I pick the paper up off of the floor and gasp. It's the list. It's the list! I can't believe it, I finally found it after all these years!