Page 40 of Our Scorching Summer

Lily

Not this again

Are you and Nico conspiring against me?

Avery

You just hate it when other people are right. I’ve put together a list of reasons

Lily

Please don’t

The chat bubble appears before another text message comes in.

Avery

1. You deserve it

Lily

Don’t know if I can agree

Can I deserve something when I haven’t completed any of my goals?

I don’t have my bachelor’s degree.

I’m unemployed.

Nothing I’ve done recently warrants an actual reward.

Maybe I can try and convince myself to celebrate the success ofCoastal Fling. But let’s be serious. A silly hobby isn’t worth halting my life for three months to do nothing.

Even if sitting at the beach is lovely, it’s still wasting time.

Avery

Stop it and let me get through my list

Lily

Fine

Avery

2. You’ve always wanted to travel around the world

Nico’s an expert at that, I’m sure he could take you anywhere you wanted to go.

Avery’s not wrong here. I’ve never had much time or money to travel on my own.

At eighteen, I’d planned a two-month backpacking trip, desperately excited to spend the summer touring Europe.

Vacations are for people who have no real goals to fill their time with.

The damn voice still flits around in my head like an annoying fruit fly, even after all these years.

I never got to go on the trip after theincident.Instead, I buried my brief spell of wanderlust between the pages of journals until I’d abandoned the desire altogether.

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