The Bucket List // Alex Turner

PART 1: Intro

Sheffield, 2004

If you'd told Y/N a year ago that she'd be spending the rest of high school in a city where people ate beans for breakfast unironically, she would've laughed and then probably cried until her lungs collapsed. But here she was, standing in the kitchen of a house that smelled like dust and stale aftershave, watching her dad pour whiskey into his coffee at 10AM on a Tuesday like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Y'know," she said, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed, trying to mask the homesickness that had been gnawing at her insides like a rabid animal for weeks, "I thought the point of me moving in was to have, like, some actual parental supervision."

Her dad raised an eyebrow, taking a slow, deliberate sip of his undoubtedly disgusting mixture. The harsh morning light filtering through the kitchen window highlighted the premature gray at his temples. "Who said that? You?"

She rolled her eyes, scuffing the toe of her combat boot against the worn linoleum floor. "Right. I forgot you operate exclusively on loopholes. Your emergency contact is still Grandma, and she's been dead for three years."

He smirked, the corners of his mouth twitching in that infuriating way that made her want to both laugh and throw something heavy at his damn head. His eyes, the same color as hers, crinkled at the corners. "You're adjusting well."

She wasn't, really. Sheffield was different from home in every way that mattered. Colder. Greyer. Fucking wetter. And she didn't know a soul. Back home, she'd had friends, places to go, people who got her without her having to explain herself. Here, everything felt slightly off, like she was living in an alternative universe where she recognized the shape of things but not the details. Even the air tasted different, metallic almost, with none of the honeysuckle sweetness of Tennessee summers that she craved with an ache.

But she wasn't about to admit that to him. "I'm gonna go out." she said instead, grabbing her jacket from where she'd left it slung over a kitchen chair, the one with the wobbly leg that threatened to collapse every time someone so much as breathed near it.

Her dad didn't look up from the medical journal he'd started flipping through. "Try not to die."

"Your concern is overwhelming." she muttered, but he either didn't hear or chose to ignore her. 

The morning air hit her face like a slap as she stepped outside, a harsh reminder that even summer in Sheffield felt like fall back in Tennessee. She'd been here two miserable weeks now, and still couldn't shake the feeling that she was on some weird extended vacation that would eventually end with her boarding a plane back to the world she understood. But it wouldn't. This was home now, this quiet street lined with identical brick houses that all looked like they were stuck in a perpetual state of depression, the city that felt simultaneously too big and too small, too loud and too quiet.

Her mom's voice echoed in her head from their last conversation, the airport terminal buzzing around them: "It'll be good for us, honey. It's a rare opportunity and you'll get to know your dad better." As if seventeen years of holiday visits and awkward phone calls hadn't been enough to figure out exactly who her dad was, a surgeon with the emotional capacity of a teaspoon and a concerning fondness for coffee. With that occupation of his, he wouldn't even be around to spend time with her anyway.

She shoved her hands deep into her pockets, hunching her shoulders against the persistent chill that seemed to seep into her bones. Back home, she'd be wearing shorts right now and complaining about the humidity. 

The walk into town helped clear her head, at least. She'd been doing this every day since arriving, trying to map out her new world one street at a time, memorizing landmarks and shortcuts. The old stone buildings had a certain charm, she had to admit, even if she missed the sprawling openness of Nashville with an intensity that surprised her.