The Bucket List // Alex Turner

PART 1: Intro

The thrift store had caught her eye yesterday, wedged between a record store and a café with a name she couldn't pronounce. Y/N ran her fingers along the frayed sleeve of her jacket, a vintage find from a Nashville flea market, reworked with patches she'd sewn on herself. She'd spent countless hours hunched over her mom's sewing machine (which she had to leave behind), transforming thrift store castoffs into something uniquely hers.

Fashion had always been her outlet, her way of controlling something in a life that often felt chaotic and unpredictable, a life that had been yanked out from under her feet yet again. Her sketchbook was filled with designs, reimagined silhouettes, fabric combinations that shouldn't work but somehow did, margin notes filled with measurements and material ideas scribbled in her messy handwriting. Back home, her friends used to joke that they could spot her a mile away, her style like a signature that was impossible to miss, all mixed patterns and unexpected textures, vintage pieces paired with modern cuts. She decided to tone it down a little as she didn't feel as confident here, opting for safer choices that wouldn't draw too much attention. The last thing she needed was to stick out more than her accent already made her.

She passed the thrift store, making a mental note to check it out properly another day when she felt more like herself and less like a transplanted organ that might be rejected. Aside from fashion, music had always been her constant, the one thing that made sense no matter where she was. Her childhood had been split between her mom's country music collection and her dad's British rock albums, an education in itself. Conway Twitty to Joy Division, Dolly Parton to The Smiths, a musical heritage as split as her parents' marriage.

Maybe that's why she found herself pushing open the record store's door instead, bell chiming overhead like a welcome. The musty smell of vinyl and aging cardboard hit her immediately, along with the faint scent of cigarettes and incense that clung to everything. It was exactly the kind of place she would've hung out at back home, dimly lit, slightly cramped, with band posters plastered on every available surface and price stickers that were yellowing at the edges. For the first time since arriving in Sheffield, something felt familiar enough to loosen the knot in her chest that had been there since the plane landed.

The shop was mostly empty except for an older man with thinning hair flipping through the jazz section and a couple of teenagers huddled by the new releases. Y/N headed straight for the used section, where the real treasures were usually hidden. Her fingers trailed along the spines of album covers, familiar names jumping out at her.

She was flipping through a bin of used records, considering whether fifteen pounds was too much for a slightly scratched copy of "Unknown Pleasures," when she heard them, four distinct voices getting progressively louder and more frustrated, cutting through the quiet of the shop like a chainsaw through butter.

"Come on, mate, it's just a few fucking flyers." one of them was saying, his accent thick with that particular Sheffield drawl she was still getting used to. "We're not asking you to advertise in the bloody Times."

"I've told you lot before," came the shopkeeper's weary response, the kind of tone that suggested this wasn't their first round of this argument. "I can't have every kid with a guitar putting up posters. Where would it end? I'd have no damn wall left."

Y/N peered around the corner of the aisle, curiosity getting the better of her. Four boys, probably around her age, were clustered around the counter like wolves surrounding prey. The one doing most of the talking had messy brown hair like a hedgehog that fell across his forehead. He had this nervous confidence about him, like he was still growing into himself. Next to him stood a taller boy with a more reserved demeanor, another with spiky hair and drumsticks tucked into his back pocket and a fourth who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else, shoulders hunched in a worn jacket that was slightly too big for him.