Page 7 of The Summer List

Instead of showing Jennifer Check the respect she deserves, Shal reaches over to grab the remote off the couch and hits the pause button.

My jaw drops. “Did you just pause Jennifer’s Body?”

She waves me off. “You’ve seen this a million times. We’re having an important conversation here. Pri, come on, give me something. Naomi already came up with skinny dipping.”

Priya sighs and stares up at the ceiling for a moment. “Okay. Fine. If I had to pick something wild and free to do this summer, maybe I’d want to…to…go on a date.”

Shal gasps, and Priya risks disturbing the cat on her chest to grab the nearest cushion and toss it at her sister’s face.

Shal swats it away and shrieks, “My baby sister, a temptress in disguise!”

“Shut up!” Priya wails. “I knew you’d be a jerk about it. Also, I’m only younger by eleven minutes.”

Aurora Rose decides this is officially no longer a safe space and climbs off Priya to join Bijoux in his blanket nest instead.

“I’m kidding,” Shal huffs. “I’m actually so proud! A date is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. Keep going!”

“What, are you making a list?” Priya asks.

I start to think Shal might be feeling the wine more than she’s letting on when her eyes do this weird glittering thing. She kicks away the blanket covering her legs and jumps to her feet.

“Now that is a good idea,” she mutters before marching out of the room.

Priya and I sit there in silence for a couple minutes, straining our ears to catch the distant sound of Shal’s footsteps.

“Uh…” I say once another minute ticks by. “Should we go find her?”

Priya shrugs. “She’ll be fine.”

We’re quiet for a little longer before I slide further down the couch and prod her leg with my toes.

“So…you want to go on a date?”

She groans. “Don’t tell me you’re going to make fun of me too.”

“Of course not! I just…didn’t know. I mean, I knew you were curious about dating, but we’ve always thought of it as more of a for university thing.”

She strokes her hand along the couch cushion, staring down at the fibers like they’ve suddenly become the most fascinating thing in the world.

“Well, it’s almost time for university, and I just… I don’t know if I want to be the same person there that I was in high school, you know?”

I feel like a rock drops to the bottom of my stomach. “Oh.”

We might be going to different universities, but we’ll both be staying in Ottawa. After spending first year living at home, we’re planning on getting an apartment together. We’ve been talking about it since the ninth grade.

We never mentioned being different people in university. Of course, I expected us to change and grow and do all that other normal human development stuff, but still, I thought we’d be Priya and Naomi through all of it, the same way we’ve been Priya and Naomi since we were the weird girls who read The Chronicles of Narnia during recess.

“I just—”

She doesn’t get a chance to finish her sentence; Shal storms back into the room, holding up a paper and pen like she’s got Excalibur in one hand and the Holy Grail in the other.

“I found paper!” she shouts.

Priya and I blink at her.

“Uh…okay?” Priya says.

Shal drops her arms to her sides and gives us a look of the utmost disappointment. “For the list. We’re making a summer bucket list!”

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