12. Naomi

CHAPTER 12

Naomi

I stand in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom, holding my hair aside with one hand so I can squint at my piercing and assure myself it's really there.

Yesterday really happened.

The me who graduated high school a few weeks ago would never have gotten a piercing. She wouldn't have touched even a speck of marijuana. She wouldn't have been able to put enough sentences together to make a new friend, and that new friend certainly wouldn't be one of the coolest and hottest girls in the world.

That new friend wouldn't be someone she just spent a whole night thinking about kissing while her heart thundered with something dangerously close to hope.

When we made our summer bucket list while giggling and tipsy on wine, I imagined a version of me who could really do all the things we wrote down. I imagined what it would be like to rip through every page I've ever read until I was the girl doing things, not the girl burying herself in books to spend every day reading about the people who make things happen.

I thought that's all I'd do: imagine her.

I thought that's where it would end—the same place every possibility of a different life or a different me always ends: in my head.

My hands shake even more, and I realize it's because I'm breathing so heavy, pulling in sharp bursts of air through my nose until my head starts to feel all fuzzy.

What's happening to me?

The rap of someone's knuckles on my door splits the silence of the bedroom.

"Hey, you in there?" Andrea's voice asks, muffled by the door.

I let my hair fall back into place as my heart leaps into my throat. I try to come up with the words to answer, but all I can think about is her crouched beside me in the bookstore yesterday, so close I could count every one of her freckles while she read the description of Sizzling Sapphics and then admitted she's attracted to girls.

I couldn't look at her the whole ride home. Today I woke up at a quarter past seven to be sure she'd still be sleeping while I fed the cats. I've spent the rest of the morning locked in my room because I know there's a very good chance that the second we're face to face again, she'll see everything.

She'll see every first kiss scenario I spent last night playing out in my head like a dozen movies starring the two of us. She'll see the way my hands shake at just the thought of holding hers. She'll see all the excuses I've tried to batter into my brain only to have each and every one wiped out by a truth I can't ignore anymore, not after what she told me yesterday.

I like her.

I don't just think she's hot and cool and impressive.

I like her, and I want her to like me back.

"Oh, um, yeah," I answer, my attempt to sound natural just making my voice slide from way too high-pitched to way too low in the span of a couple words.

If she notices how weird I sound, she doesn't comment on it. "I was just wondering if you need anything at the grocery store. I'm taking the bus over to pick up a few things."

I take a few steps back from the mirror and end up bumping against the end of my bed. I collapse into a seat on the edge of the mattress.

"Naomi?"

I curl my hands into fists in my lap and suck in a shuddering breath, but I still can't pull myself together enough to answer.

"You could, um, come with me." Her voice gets a little clearer, like she's leaned up against the door. "If you don't know exactly what you want. We could go together."

I do know exactly what I want.

I want to fling the door open and tell her to kiss me. I want to tell her I've been thinking about kissing her since I found her raiding the fridge in the middle of the night while I threatened her with a table lamp and a tiny Venus de Milo.

I want to tell her I like her and that I'm not even totally sure what I mean by that but that whatever it is, I haven't been able to snuff it out and bury it beneath a bunch of books like I do with everything else I'm too scared to do or feel or be.

"Are you okay?" she asks, her voice edged with alarm. "Naomi?"

I dig my nails into my palms so hard it hurts. "I'm okay. I…I…"

My voice trails off into a rasp. I swallow and start to try again, but she speaks first.

"Hey, um, I'm sorry if I made things weird yesterday. I guess you didn't ask for that information, so if this is about me…me being bi, then yeah, I'm sorry."

The door jiggles like she's shifted against it.

"I don't…I don't really know a lot of people, um, in the community?" she says, pausing to let out a self-deprecatory laugh. "See, I don't even know if that's a thing people say. Anyway, I don't know if there's some, like, etiquette about it, or whatever. I just… I guess I just wanted you to know, and I'm sorry if that was weird."

My heart feels like it's swelling up too big to fit in my body.

She wanted me to know. She didn't just blurt it out by mistake. She said she hasn't told many people, and she wanted one of those people to be me.

A wave of guilt hits me so hard I raise one of my hands to cover my mouth so she won't hear me gasp.

She trusted me to be there for her, and now I can't even look at her because of a stupid crush.

"Okay, well, that's all I have to say." Her tone has gone flat now. "I'll see you later, I guess."

Panic squeezes my chest. I push up off the bed and take a shaky step towards the door.

"Wait."

She doesn't say anything, but I don't hear her leaving either.

"I…"

I squeeze my eyes shut and force myself to go on.

"I'm the one who's sorry. You…you didn't do anything wrong. There's no, um, etiquette. If you want to tell someone, you should tell them, and if they care about you, it's their job to be there for you. At least that's how I see it. So…yeah. I'm sorry. I'm just…a very socially awkward person. Sometimes I just don't know how to, uh, be a person like other people do, but I really am so glad you wanted to tell me, even though I'm super weird."

She's quiet for so long I start to wonder if maybe she did leave, but then she speaks again.

"Thank you. That means a lot. Also, I don't think you're weird. I think you're…you, and you don't try to be anything else the way other people do. That's way weirder, if you ask me. I think you're pretty damn cool, even when you're refusing to have a conversation without a door between us."

She laughs again, and I force myself to join in, but my pulse is racing with alarm again. I want to be there for her, but I don't think I'm ready to do that while staring at her gorgeous face.

"Seriously," she says, "come to the grocery store with me. It'll be fun. We can buy more pickles, although I think you already own every kind they have."

I wrack my brain for an excuse that won't make her think I'm avoiding her and end up blurting the first thing to pop into my head.

"I have diarrhea."

I haven't even finished my sentence before I'm praying the floorboards will split apart and reveal a black hole ready to suck me down into oblivion.

"Ohhhh," Andrea says after what feels like an eternity. "I see. Yeah, to be honest, that McDonald's we stopped at on the way home yesterday seemed a little sketchy."

I can hear her straining to hold back a laugh, and I wonder if I could hold my breath long enough to literally die.

"Well, in that case, you'll probably appreciate me leaving as fast as possible," she continues. "Good luck, soldier."

She hovers at the door for a moment, and I force myself to let out a strained, "Thanks."

I wait until her footsteps reach the end of the hall before I collapse face first onto my bed and smother a groan in my pillow.

"Diarrhea?" I demand to the universe. "Seriously? Diarrhea ?"

I might as well spend the rest of the summer in this exact position. There's no way I can recover from telling Andrea King I'm suffering from an explosive poop episode.

The longer I lay sprawled on the mattress, the more I realize it's going to be impossible to pull myself out of the depths of my shame alone. I lift my head enough to spot my phone on the nightstand and then flail my arm out towards it, nearly knocking over the miniature Venus de Milo I put back after my would-be attack on Andrea. I fumble through the process of dialing Priya's number and then hold the phone to my ear. She answers after a couple rings.

"Oh, hey! Great timing. I was actually just going to text you. Shal and I were wondering if—"

"I have a crush on Andrea, and I told her I have diarrhea."

The line goes silent for a moment before she clears her throat.

"Right. Okay, yeah, maybe you should go first."

I roll onto my back and let out an incoherent moan before demanding she tells me what's wrong with me.

"I mean, it sounds like what's wrong with you is…diarrhea? Was it the McDonald's?"

"Oh my god, no! I don't actually have diarrhea!" I wail. "I just told her I did. Why the hell did I say that, Priya?"

I drape one of my arms over my face for dramatic effect even though she can't see me.

"I think I need some more information here."

I shift my arm up enough to give her a brief synopsis of this morning while avoiding any mention of Andrea coming out to me yesterday, since that's not my news to share. I'm hoping the adrenaline and endorphin cocktail of getting a piercing is enough to justify coming to the conclusion that I have a crush.

"Wow," Priya says when I'm done. "So after all that, you really went with diarrhea?"

"Priya!" I shriek. "You're supposed to be making me feel better."

"Sorry, sorry. I couldn't help it. Look, we've all done embarrassing things in front of our crushes. Remember that time Jake Tran caught me putting an anonymous Valentine in his locker and then I for some reason told him I only did it because Cupid's evil twin cast a spell on me and took control of my body?"

I scoot up a little on my pillows and readjust the phone's position against my cheek, holding back a laugh at that particular memory.

"Um, yeah, in the sixth grade ," I tell her. "I don't think you've done anything like that since then."

"Well, I gave up trying to even talk to any of my crushes after that. You're literally living with yours. Embarrassing stuff is bound to come up. Let's focus on what's really important here: you like her."

There's a finality to hearing the words out loud that makes us both pause.

"Do you want to, like, date her?" Priya asks, her voice low enough to almost sound cautious.

"I mean, she's only here for the summer," I answer. "Her mom wants her to start an internship at her company in Toronto in the fall. I don't think Andrea actually wants to do it, but that's her plan so far."

"And if her plan changed?" Priya asks. "Then would you want to date her?"

I shake my head as soon as I realize my thoughts are veering into ‘what if' territory.

What if she stayed in Ottawa?

What about long distance?

What if we didn't have to say goodbye at the end of the summer?

"It doesn't matter," I say, more for myself than for Priya. "Have you seen her? I'm crazy for even thinking about it. I just don't know how we're supposed to keep sharing a house. I couldn't even look at her today."

I roll onto my side and cradle the phone between my shoulder and my cheek so I can curl up into a fetal position.

"Look, I know it's scary, but maybe this is all a good thing. This is what the summer bucket list is all about, right? Facing our fears, meeting new people, not staying chained to each other all the time anymore."

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

"Chained?"

The word tastes bitter. I knew she wanted us to make new friends, but she never said she felt chained to me.

"I mean, not, like chained ," she says in a voice that's a little too high-pitched. "I didn't mean it like that."

"How did you mean it?"

She sighs. "I just meant… I just meant our lives are going to be really different in university, and it's good to try things that scare us. That's all."

I don't answer. For what feels like a couple minutes, the only sound is the rattle of static as she breathes into the receiver.

For the first time in my life, I wonder if maybe I shouldn't have called her.

"Oh, come on, Naomi," she says after we've been quiet for so long my phone screen starts to stick to my cheek. "We're always going to spend time together. Seriously, I was just about to text you and say Shal and I want us all to do a road trip to that big water park on Saturday. You know, the one we went on a field trip to in grade eight?"

I release my knees from where I've been hugging them to my chest. "Oh?"

"Yeah, since a road trip is on the list but you can't leave the cats overnight, we thought that could count. We could sleep over at the mansion on Friday and then leave early Saturday morning."

I pull the phone off my face and hold it above my ear so my cheek will stop sweating. "I guess we do need to get the road trip done soon. We're not even halfway through the list."

"That's exactly what I said. It will be so fun! You've been telling me we should go back there for years."

Some of the tension leaves my body as I listen to the excitement in her voice.

"That is true. Okay, let's do it."

She whoops and then tells me Andrea should come too.

"You're right. It would be awkward if we didn't invite her," I say with a sigh. "I'll just have to somehow figure out how to exist around her between now and then."

"Maybe you two will have a romantic water slide ride together, and you'll find out she likes you too!"

"Ha," I deadpan.

We spend the next few minutes hashing out details about the trip. It's only a two hour drive, but we come up with an extensive snack list and some mandatory songs to include on the road trip playlist.

"Maybe we'll get really crazy and film our dance challenge at the water park," I say. "A bucket list two-for-one."

Priya stays silent for a little too long.

"Oh, um, I guess you didn't see my post."

I sit up straight on the bed. "What post?"

"I, uh, did the dance challenge thing already with someone I know from my music classes."

I know I'm being ridiculous, but that doesn't stop the blood from rushing in my ears as I answer, "Oh. I see."

"It's just, we said we didn't have to do everything on the list together, and I figured a dance challenge is a good way to solidify a new friendship. It's just like you said: a bucket list two-for-one. Right?"

I wrap an arm around my stomach. "Right."

When she speaks again, there's a forced brightness in her voice. "But you, Shal, and Andrea should do it with whoever you want. I'm sure yours will be great! I can't wait to see it."

I sound like a robot when I answer, "Right. Yeah. That sounds good."

Another moment of silence passes before she tells me she has to go to a clarinet lesson. We say our goodbyes, and I lower my phone to stare down at the blank screen in my lap.

She has a new friend—a friend I haven't heard anything about even though she's clearly already close enough with them to be doing dance challenges.

I try to do what my therapist would suggest and put a name to the feeling that's making the back of my neck break out in a sweat, but my self-awareness isn't cooperating. Instead, I unlock my phone and pull up Priya's profile, where I find the post she was talking about.

It was uploaded three days ago. I've been freaking out about Andrea too much to pay much attention to social media the past couple days, but it's still weird Priya didn't say anything about completing a new list item.

The bottom of my stomach drops when the video loads and I see Priya and her new friend doing some kind of Macarena-esque routine to the latest pop hit in what looks like an empty music room.

Her new friend is a guy.

I might be a lesbian, but even I can tell he's obnoxiously cute for a man, and I know my best friend well enough to realize she's into him after just a few seconds of watching them laugh together on the tiny screen.

At least, I thought I knew her that well, but as I click the video off, I realize I called her less than twenty-four hours after figuring out I have feelings for Andrea, and she hasn't said a word about this guy to me.

I decide if I had to name the feeling that's perched on my chest like a boulder, I wouldn't call it jealousy, or betrayal, or even anger.

I'm not angry.

I'm afraid.