Page 78 of The Summer List

Her eyes soften a little, but she stays planted in front of me with her hands on her hips.

“That’s the problem,” I tell her. “You’re this…this incredible person who does what she wants and is who she is no matter how scary that gets sometimes, and I…I have no clue who I am, despite spending an entire year trying to figure that out. I think maybe I’m just…I’m just a fundamentally disappointing person.”

I don’t know what kind of a reaction I expected, but it wasn’t for her to bark a laugh. I blink with shock as she drops her hands from her hips.

“Andrea, do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? Look at you!” She waves her hand towards me. “You had that whole bar eating out of the palm of your hand, and when you sang, you…you’re just magic, okay? You’re just goddamn magic, and who cares if you don’t know exactly what your passion or your dream is yet? Who cares if you need another year or five years or ten years to figure it out? I wouldn’t think any less of you if that were the case, and I don’t think anyone else should either, including your mom.”

I shake my head as my vision clouds and my throat gets too clogged to speak.

“Look.” She steps closer and lowers her voice. “Move back to Toronto if you have to. Take the internship if you have to. Just…just don’t tell me this was nothing. Don’t tell me it was just about a list. Don’t tell me it’s something you can leave behind when you get on that plane.”

I feel the streak of salty heat as the first tear slides down my face.

“I’m not always very good at reading people,” she says, almost whispering now, “and sometimes I feel like I’m getting everything wrong. It all makes so much more sense when it’s just words on a page, but…but I know I got this right. I know I got us right, and I know that whatever you choose, I want to be part of it.”

A sob lodges in my throat. It gets harder and harder to breathe as she stands there with her eyes boring into mine, but I can’t look away.

“When you met me this summer, you didn’t just see some shy and awkward girl with anxiety,” she says, “and when I met you, I didn’t just see some wild party girl with purple hair who’s really good at making people follow through on a dare. We both saw way past all that. You helped me be more me this summer, Andrea, and maybe that’s not the big revelation or sense of purpose you were looking for, but to me it’s…everything.”

Her bottom lip trembles, but she pauses long enough to draw in a shaky breath and then speaks more firmly than she has all night, maybe even more firmly than I’ve ever heard her speak before.

“I don’t want to say goodbye. This isn’t just a summer fling to me. I want it to be more, and I really think it can be, wherever you decide to go next. My brain is already trying to come up with a million reasons this won’t work, but I’m done missing out on things just because I’m scared of them. So…so I’m just going to say it.”

She stops to take another breath, and I know I should interrupt her. I know I should tell her the truth: that I’m not the magic girl she thinks I am. I’m a book with a cool cover that has way too many blank pages inside to keep someone like her entertained for longer than a summer.

“I think I might be falling in love with you, Andrea King.”

I stop breathing. I think even my blood goes still in my veins.

“So yeah, that’s…that,” she says, “and I need you to know that because I really need you to say you’ll see where this goes with me. This is the first time I’ve ever let myself have my own story, and I want it to be ours.”

For a second, I can see it. I can see all those blank pages inside me filled with words and pictures and cheesy stick figure drawings in the margins that are all about us. I can see myself in this city, taking her on dates every weekend, sitting in cafes with her while she pores over a pile of textbooks, and spending night after night huddled up under a blanket while we tell each other absolutely everything that’s ever happened to us.

I can see myself breathing here, in a way I’ve never been able to do in Toronto. I can practically taste life filling up my lungs with the air I’ve been gasping for, but just when I think I’m finally going to get that inhale I need, something sucks the wind right out of me, and I’m left gasping as hard as ever.

“Andrea…”

She takes a step closer to me. I shake my head, and she freezes, hurt flashing across her face.

“I don’t…I don’t know how,” I choke out. “I don’t know how to be the person you need me to be.”

I don’t know how to do that for my parents. I don’t know how to do that for anyone.

How the hell am I supposed to do it for her?

“You already are,” she says as her hands ball into fists at her sides. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

My lungs burn, but I force myself to keep speaking.

“And I’m trying to tell you I’m not. I’m just not, and if you knew me, you’d see that. I can’t…I can’t do this.”

Her face crumples.

“Andrea. Please.”

I sag against the wall and shake my head as more tears streak down my face.

“Do you really mean that?” she whispers.

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