Page 43 of The Summer List

My heart leaps into my throat. Before I have a chance to stand up and face her, Andrea squats down beside me and grins. She’s so close I can see the spray of freckles dotting her nose and cheeks. They remind me of a sprinkle of cinnamon dusting the smooth surface of a latte.

“Anything good?” she asks, turning to scan the shelf in front of us.

“I’m, um, still looking,” I say, the sudden dryness in my throat making my voice crack like a pubescent boy’s.

“This seems cool.”

She taps the Pride history book before pulling it off the shelf, and my brain fires up with a dozen questions as I watch her read the description on the back.

Do straight people think the history of Pride is cool?

Is this a queer-coded signal?

Is she trying to tell me she’s queer, or is she just trying to indicate she’s an ally and that it’s okay for me to talk about gay things with her?

Am I supposed to say something back?

“We should learn about this stuff in school,” she says, her eyes still scanning the back cover. “I bet a lot of people would feel okay to come out way sooner if we did.”

I can’t stop my eyes from flaring wide as my tongue itches to ask, ‘People like you?’

I rip my gaze away from her to stare at the shelf instead. I watch with my peripheral vision as she slides the book back onto the shelf and then lets out a soft laugh.

“Wow. Sizzling Sapphics?”

She reaches for the flame-adorned book, and I get a glimpse of the cover: a drawing of two naked women with their arms wrapped around each other, long tendrils of hair shielding their faces and conveniently obscuring their nipples and butts. They’re framed by a giant red and orange flame shooting yellow sparks up towards the title.

Andrea flips the book over and starts reading from the description.

“A fiery tale of passion and forbidden lust, this gorgeously detailed graphic novel tells the story of a young woman descended from Sappho herself who will stop at nothing to free her long-lost lover from the mysterious evil forces that split them apart.”

Her dramatic reading voice cracks, and she pauses to let out a snort.

“Wow,” I say, my nerves easing just a bit as I laugh along with her. “That is…really something.”

“Truly,” she agrees as she opens the book up. “Let’s see what it—oh. Oh. Oh wow. That is detailed.”

Her eyes go wide, flitting over the page before she snaps the book shut. I watch her throat bob as she swallows, and I notice there’s a soft flush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks—which is nothing compared to the way my whole face feels like it’s on fire.

She slides the book back into place without a word, but her fingertip lingers on the spine. We’re hunched so close together I can hear her breathing as she keeps her gaze pinned to the shelf.

“If I wasn’t already sure I was bisexual, that would have done it.”

Her body goes rigid as soon as the words leave her mouth.

Her hand drops to her side.

She’s not breathing anymore, and I realize neither am I.

Andrea is bisexual.

Andrea likes girls.

The whole universe feels like it’s rearranging itself around me. The earth’s tectonic plates crash and crumple into brand new continents. The stars shift and swirl to create new constellations in the sky, and above it all, a choir of angels draped in rainbow-coloured robes sing an operatic chorus of, “She likes girls! She likes girls! She likes girls!”

“Wow, I can’t believe I just said that.”

I come careening back down to reality and find Andrea still crouched beside me with her arms wrapped around her knees as she rocks back and forth on her heels, her gaze boring a hole into the bookshelf.

---