Page 76 of The Summer List

The spotlights catch on the pale strands of Naomi’s hair as she adjusts the microphone. She’s wearing a flowy blue shirt that reminds me of the dress she wore on our date—the dress that’s etched into my memory like a tattoo. She pulls a folded sheet of paper out of her pocket and lifts it to her face with one hand while her other hand tucks her hair behind her ear.

That sight of that now familiar gesture makes me feel like someone just smashed a glass over our table and shoved one of the shards into my side. I curl my arms around my stomach and lean forward, watching as Naomi stands in front of the crowd and faces her fears.

She once told me I’m unstoppable, but really, it’s her that can’t be stopped.

When I met her, she could barely get a sentence out around me. She held a joint for the first time like she was scared it was going to bite her hand off. She almost fainted while waiting to get a piercing.

She still went through with all those things.

As I run through every item of the summer list we’ve ticked off, it hits me that it was never about the things themselves.

I’d already tried almost everything on that list before I showed up at my dad’s house, and they didn’t turn me into the kind of girl I now see standing on the stage.

What mattered is that Naomi didn’t think she could, but she did it anyway, the same way Priya didn’t think she could find her independence and Shal didn’t think she could show the truest parts of herself to the world.

They still did it all. They still managed to find the parts of themselves that refused to be strangled by what anyone else might have to say.

I’ve spent a whole year searching, and I haven’t found that. I haven’t found the part of me worth fighting for. I’ve just found distractions to keep me from admitting maybe that part doesn’t exist at all.

“I’m going to read a poem tonight. It’s by one of my favourite poets, William Butler Yeats.”

Priya groans and mutters, “Of course,” but I can still hear the excitement in her voice.

Naomi stares at her paper for a few seconds before she looks into the crowd. If I didn’t know from being up there myself that the spotlights make it too bright to see anyone, I’d swear she was staring straight at me.

“First, I want to say something, though.”

The breath whooshes out of my lungs.

“I don’t know why the poem itself is one of my favourites,” she continues, glancing down at her paper every now and then, like she’s reading from some notes. “To be honest, it’s always been a tough one for me to read. It…it kind of hurts to read it sometimes. It’s about this guy telling this woman to take down a book of his poetry when she’s old and grey so she can read this poem about how much he loved her, the real her, not just the shiny, idealized version of her a million other guys fell in love with too.”

I can tell everyone else at our table is looking back and forth from me to Naomi, but I can’t stop staring at her like she might disappear if I even blink.

“Only it must not have worked out for some reason, because she’s old and alone and reading this book by her fireplace without him. I’ve always thought it didn’t work out because he was too scared to tell her how he felt. He was so scared he could only do it in a poem that he’d only let her read when it was too late, and I…well, I’ve missed out on a lot of things because I was too scared until it was too late, but…but then I met this girl who’s sort of helped me get out of the habit.”

Priya squeals, but all I feel is hollow, like the hole in my side has drained all my emotions onto the floor.

Naomi must not know more than that shiny, idealized version of me. If she did, she’d know I’d only ever be able to disappoint her.

“So,” she says, “this one is for her. It’s called ‘When You Are Old.’”

The crowd gets extra quiet as she reads, the room so still you can almost hear the thump of her heartbeat in the microphone. She starts off a little too fast, but once she’s past the first couple lines, she seems to sink into the poem like it’s a well-worn chair she’s curled up in a thousand times. Her voice lilts from quiet to loud, strong to soft, tracing its way through the flickers of aching nostalgia, bitter regret, and solemn acceptance in the words.

By the time she’s done and her murmured, “Thank you,” gets swallowed up by applause, I’m convinced she’s got it wrong.

The man in the poem wasn’t too late.

He just fell in love with a woman who wasn’t good enough to love him back.

All of a sudden, it’s like every last drop of air has been sucked out of the bar. The room is too hot, too loud, too full of people.

“Andrea?” Priya says, turning from where she’s been waving Naomi back over to our table. “Are you okay?”

Somehow, I manage to choke out the word, “Bathroom.”

I shove my chair away from the table and stagger towards the back of the bar. The room doesn’t feel as stifling once I’m tucked into the narrow hallway lined with a few single stall washrooms, but there’s still not enough air back here. All the washrooms are occupied, so I lean against the wall and tap my foot against the floorboards, my rhythm getting more and more frantic the longer I wait.

My breaths are so shallow I’m getting dizzy. I try to suck in more air, but my lungs won’t let me.

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