Page 84 of The Summer List

I fly up the driveway, weaving through the chaos to get to the front door. Everyone else is heading for the backyard, and the slightest bit of relief dulls the panic taking over my body when I remember the whole house is locked—or at least it should be, unless I also screwed that up while I was drunk.

I punch in the code for the keypad on the front door and zoom into the kitchen without bothering to take my shoes off. The backyard is already packed with people filling up the deck and the pool. The blaring heavy metal music is so loud I can hear every lyric even inside the house.

I run straight for the fridge and fling the double doors open, praying to whoever’s listening that my phone still works after a night of being shoved behind Naomi’s pickle jars. I have no idea why I decided on that as a hiding place.

“Oh, thank god!” I gasp when the screen turns on after a couple tries.

I swipe through my texts to make sure I’m remembering things right, and all my fears are confirmed.

Brayden, Nick’s sketchy friend who drove me to Ottawa at the start of the summer, texted me to ask if I knew anyone in my dad’s neighborhood who wanted to host a pool party for one of the heavy metal event things he’s always organizing.

Drunk Andrea decided a truly momentous way to end a truly disastrous summer would be to volunteer my dad’s backyard for the cause. I even texted Brayden the code for the gate.

I flinch when I hear a glass break out in the backyard, followed by a chorus of cheering, but I can’t look away from my phone.

A text from my mom just came in.

I open up our conversation and see things are even worse than I thought. I have no memory of messaging her last night, but the record shows she decided to pick me up tonight instead of tomorrow because our flight is so early and it would be easier for me to sleep at the hotel.

Her most recent text says she’s fifteen minutes away.

Sweat coats the back of my neck as my nausea comes back full force. I drop my phone onto the counter and glance at the backyard just in time to see somebody stumble into one of my dad’s sculptures and send it sliding off its pedestal to shatter against the pool deck.

I drop my head over the sink and start puking.

CHAPTER 22

Naomi

The tips of my sandals dig two trenches into the sand as Priya and I dangle in the swings in the small park two blocks over from my house. The creaky old chains groan as we sway back and forth, both of us slurping down giant Slushies we got at the corner store. A few birds are serenading the first stains of orange streaking the sky as the sun begins setting.

It’s the same way we’ve spent a hundred summer evenings before. Back when we were so small our feet barely brushed the ground, my mom would come to the park and push us for so long I’m sure we wore her arms out. Once we got old enough to come to the park alone, we’d sit in the swings talking about all the things we’d do once we finally finished high school for so long our butts went numb.

The tops of the swing chains are rusting, and the red paint on the support poles has almost completely flaked off, but in all the years I’ve lived here, they’ve never changed anything about the park. Even the corner store we always get our Slushies from still offers the same selection of flavors they did when we were little.

“Isn’t it crazy that we were on this swing set when I got accepted to Ottawa U?” Priya asks. “It’s really hitting me. Everything we always talked about is finally here, and there’s no going back. We’re about to start the rest of our lives, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”

I look up from where I’ve been swirling the slush around in my cup. My swing has ground to a halt, but I don’t bother pushing off from the sand again. I let myself hover in place as I watch Priya pick up more and more speed.

“Would you want to stop it?” I ask. “If you could?”

She presses her lips together, her expression caught somewhere between fear and determination.

“No,” she says after a moment. “I think if this summer has taught me anything, it’s that I’m ready. I mean, unless Shal gets us drunk again and we come up with a university bucket list too. I don’t think I’ll be ready for another bucket list for a while.”

I hadn’t thought about Andrea for the whole fifteen or so minutes we’ve spent on the swings. At the mention of the bucket list, it’s like the cork gets pulled out of whatever bottle I’ve shoved all my feelings into. They come pouring out so fast I gasp for air, like I’m drowning in the memories and fighting to keep my head up high enough to breathe.

“Oh, Naomi!”

Priya hops off her swing and runs around to the back of mine so she can lean over and wrap her arms around me. She almost knocks my Slushie out of my hands, but I don’t care. I lean back into her and sniffle as the corners of my eyes start to burn.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she coos.

The park blurs as tears threaten to spill down my cheeks. I blink them back, staring at the golden light filtering through the leaves of the maple tree at the edge of the park. The whole sky is a soft orange edged with pink.

I can’t help wondering if Andrea is watching the sunset too.

It’ll be her last one in Ottawa.

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