8. Andrea

CHAPTER 8

Andrea

T he city bus drops me off a few streets over from my dad's place. I can feel the back of my shirt clinging to my skin by the time I'm punching the code into the house's gate. I wipe the sweat beading on my forehead away with the back of one hand, the other clutching a small bag from the drugstore.

Nothing like a box of hair dye to celebrate a questionable life decision. It's been three days since I told Naomi I'm sticking around, and I figured if I really am postponing my trip back to Toronto—and risking the wrath of my mother—I might as well seal the deal with a fresh coat of purple.

The air conditioning hits me like a chilly winter wind as I step inside. I kick my sandals off in the entryway and find Naomi sitting on one of the high stools lining the kitchen island, her laptop open in front of her and a wine glass filled with something fizzy resting on a coaster next to her elbow.

"Wow, is it happy hour already?" I joke, nodding at the glass. "Pretty sure last time I checked, it wasn't even noon."

Her cheeks flush pink.

"Oh, um, no, it's not—I mean, I wouldn't be drinking at eleven in the morning. I wouldn't even be drinking at eleven at night. I mean, not unless Shal raided the wine cellar again, and not that she, like, actually raided it. Sandy and your dad said there were a few bottles we could try, and…well, yeah. It's not alcohol."

She drops her gaze back to her laptop screen before I have a chance to tell her it's okay. Part of me wants to claim the stool beside her, sling an arm around her shoulders, and just give her a chance to breathe.

Kind of like I wish someone would do for me sometimes. I might not struggle to talk to people the way Naomi seems to, but I know what it's like to have the pressure of how you're supposed to act wrapped so tight around your chest it's like your lungs are caving in.

Hence me continuing to squat in my dad's house and dye my hair purple instead of facing that sense of suffocation during every second I spend with my mom.

"It's, uh, sparkling grape juice," Naomi says in a squeaky voice. "My mom always told me and my brother that juice tastes better in a fancy glass."

I smile when her eyes flick up to look at me again, and her lips lift into a sheepish grin.

"I love that," I say. "Juice deserves to be an occasion, especially if it's sparkling juice. You're really embracing the upper class lifestyle, huh?"

"I've always loved sparkling grape juice!" she shoots back, some of her reserve slipping away to reveal the spark of her personality underneath.

"Just like you've always loved pickles?" I joke, propping a hand on my hip. "Do I need to brace myself for some grape pajamas too?"

"What's wrong with my pickle pajamas?" she asks, slapping a palm down against the marble island. "Pickles are one of my favourite snacks, and the pajamas are cute, okay?"

I shrug and can't keep myself from smirking. "I never said they weren't cute."

She blinks a couple times before murmuring, "Oh."

Even though the kitchen is chilly enough she's got a cardigan on over her tank top, I still feel the back of my neck start to get hot, like I'm back outside with the midmorning sun beating down on me again.

Only this time it's her making me sweat.

She starts typing so fast I suspect she's probably just spelling out nonsense to fill the silence. I shake my head in a failed attempt to clear whatever haze just clouded the air around us and step forward to drop my purse and hair dye onto the counter. I grab a glass from one of the cupboards and fill it up at the fancy water and ice dispenser built into the double-door fridge.

I can't help thinking back to the night we met, when the topic of her pickle pajamas led to her blurting out she's a lesbian.

I raise the glass to my lips, still facing the fridge, and chug half the icy water down before filling the glass again.

I wonder if she's ever kissed a girl before.

I wonder what it felt like for her.

I kissed a few girls at parties before I met Nick, but always after I'd had a few drinks first. It wasn't that I needed the liquid courage; it was because the ‘wow, we're so drunk' excuse seemed like a prerequisite for getting my mouth anywhere near another girl's mouth, like if we didn't have the alcohol burning in our blood to blame for the way we reached for each other, that need would be too real.

It would mean something.

Something we couldn't take back.

So I'd down a few shots of whatever bottle was closest, just so I had an alibi in case whichever girl I kissed laughed and said, ‘I can't believe we were so trashed we made out!' the next time I saw her.

Turns out I needed that alibi every single time.

I wonder what it would feel like to kiss a girl who knew I wanted her, really wanted her, so bad I'd feel drunk and dizzy without needing to taste anything but her lips.

"Do you want some?"

I realize I've filled my glass so high the water is sloshing over the rim and into the overflow tray. I jerk my finger off the dispenser and whip around to face Naomi so fast I send an arc of droplets flying across the kitchen.

"Huh?"

She tilts her head and stares at me. I don't blame her; I'm acting like I'm coming down with heat stroke or something.

"Juice," she says, pointing a finger at her own glass. "Grape juice. Do you want some?"

I focus on not staring at her mouth.

"Sure," I say, my voice stilted. "Yeah, that sounds great."

"It's in the green bottle in the fridge."

I nod. "Right."

I turn and gulp down my water like my throat is on fire, which it sort of feels like it is. My whole body is burning up, and I have no idea why.

I set my empty glass down on the counter with enough force to make the clinking sound echo through the kitchen. I yank the fridge open, drawing in a deep breath of relief as the blast of cool air hits my skin.

As I reach for the bottle Naomi described, I tell myself I'm just excited to meet an out lesbian and that I'm still in the rebound zone after Nick.

I'm not developing some middle school style crush on Naomi after only a week of knowing her.

By the time I've poured the juice and walked over to prop one of my elbows on the island, I've got a grip on reality again. I roll my shoulders back a few times to shrug off the last of the thoughts about her mouth and ask what she's working on.

She pauses her typing and leans back in her chair. "It's my summer job. It's just this basic data entry position, but it pays pretty well, and I don't have to go into an office or anything."

I nod. "The dream. So is that what you're studying next year? Data…stuff?"

She huffs a laugh. "No, not at all. I'm not bad at math, but I didn't want to do a whole degree in it. I'm majoring in English."

I nod again and take a sip of my drink, the tiny bubbles in the juice fizzing on my tongue.

"That makes sense," I say. "You do seem to like reading."

Every time I've seen her around the house, she's either been on her laptop or had her nose buried in a book.

"So where will you be going to school?" I ask. "I don't think I've even asked you that yet."

"Carleton," she answers. "It's here in Ottawa. Actually, wait, I'm sure you know it's in Ottawa. Sorry. I probably didn't need to specify."

I press my lips together to keep from grinning. I don't want her to think I'm laughing at her, but those little stream of consciousness tangents she goes on are quickly becoming one of my favourite things about her. I could stand here and listen to her thoughts until dinnertime.

"It never hurts to be specific," I say. "So, sticking around Ottawa, huh?"

An image of her walking around some generic college quad with a backpack on and an armload of English classics and poetry books pops into my head. I bet she'd have a pickle-shaped keychain dangling off the bag.

I wonder who she'd eat lunch with. I wonder if there's some alternate universe out there where I'd live in an apartment in Ottawa and take the bus over to meet her at one of the picnic tables sometimes.

For a second, I see our futures hanging in front of me like two strings dangling just out of my reach, twisting around one another before they uncurl and drift away in opposite directions.

I shake my head. Maybe I really have come down with heat stroke.

"Yeah," Naomi answers. "Priya and Shal are going to Ottawa U, so they'll still be here too, but Shal almost picked the University of Toronto. Are you from Toronto originally?"

I shake my head again. "No, but my mom is. I was actually born here in Ottawa. We lived here until my parents split up when I was seven. My mom moved us to Toronto once they got the whole custody thing sorted out. My dad stayed here."

Naomi slides her laptop a few inches away. I feel a twinge of guilt over distracting her from work, but besides the night she was so high she couldn't get off the deck, she hasn't ever said this much to me.

"That must have been hard," she says, her voice soft, "at that age. Especially with a big move on top of the divorce."

I shrug and start tracing the veins of the marble with my fingertip. "I guess so."

The move wasn't the hardest part.

The hardest part was realizing my dad didn't really care what I did with my life while my mom cared way too much. It was like growing up in some hellish version of Goldilocks, where everything was either too hot or too cold and never just right.

"Not that I'd know. My parents are still together."

She sucks in a breath, and I look up to find her wincing.

"That sounded really insensitive, didn't it?" she asks. "I'm so sorry. I just didn't want you to think I was pretending to understand something I can't really understand because I've never been through it…and now I just keep sounding like I'm bragging."

Her shoulders curl in with embarrassment. I chuckle and lift mine in another shrug.

"Don't worry. I get it. It's no big deal. It's not like I'm the first kid to have their family ripped apart by divorce, and all things considered, it could have been way worse."

She nods and then gulps down a few sips of her drink before she asks, "So you're not doing the whole university thing?"

I tense up for a second and then let out a long breath before draining the rest of my juice. Just the thought of my post-secondary situation makes me wish the drink was spiked with something stronger.

"It's…a whole thing," I say once I've set my glass down hard enough to rattle the half-melted ice cubes left at the bottom. "The plan was always for me to go straight from high school to an internship with my mom's company, but then as the company grew and got more complex, we decided I should still do the internship to get a feel for things and then go get a business degree so I can help my mom run things someday."

I wrap my fingers around the edge of the island and squeeze hard, waiting for her to ask me a thousand questions I don't have the answers to.

Nick and his friends never asked anything about my long-term goals. They didn't care about degrees and internships, but somewhere along the way, I realized most of them didn't care about anything else either. That townhouse we lived in was like a revolving door of people looking for a good time. In and out and in again. All of us just seeking a distraction. All of us replaceable and easy to forget.

I was back in that Goldilocks story again: running from someone who wanted too much into the arms of people who wanted too little.

She might be shy on the surface, but something tells me Naomi is the kind of girl who wants a lot—who deserves a lot from the people around her. She's smart as hell, responsible enough to be the poster girl for teenage safety, and so dedicated to everything she does that even losing Sandy's cats for all of twenty minutes had her ready to dissolve into a puddle of shame.

On top of all that, the way she looks at me when I'm speaking makes me feel like she hears me— really hears me—in a way I've been craving for so much longer than I realized. Plus, she's hilarious in this quiet and watchful way I've never seen in anyone else before.

In short, she seems like the kind of girl you'd better be ready to work your ass off to be worthy of.

"Oh. So is that…still what you want to do?"

"That's the plan," I answer, my voice coming out terser than I meant.

She winces. "Sorry. I didn't mean to bother you."

I shake my head, plastering on a smile so she knows my mood has nothing to do with her. "No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. It's just…stressful to even think about it, you know?"

She slumps back in her chair and lets out a chuckle that's got a slightly manic tinge to it. "Oh, that I know. I can barely even think about September without feeling like I'm going to puke."

Now I'm laughing too. "Sounds about right."

"I should probably be embarrassed to tell you that," she adds, "but yeah, stressed out is a complete understatement for how I feel about starting university in less than two months."

I make a show out of cringing. "Don't even remind me of the timeline. We should just vow to not speak of it at all."

She sighs. "I don't know if that would help, but anything is worth a try at this point."

I lean over the island, all the joking fading from my tone. "So let's do it then. For the rest of my time here, we will not utter the names of Carleton University or Valerie Madden Pilates Studios. There will be this summer and this summer only. Our prime directive in life will be completing your bucket list and nothing else."

She taps the edge of the island and frowns. "But I still have so much to prepare, and—"

I hold up a finger and wag it at her.

"Ah ah ah. We do not speak of it. Do what you must in your own time, but when it's you and me, we are in the summer zone only."

She blinks at me, her lips parting as the weight of what I've just said settles over us both.

You and me.

Just three words, but in an order that links us together in a way that almost makes me believe I could grab those two strings representing our futures and tie them in a knot.

I realize I'm holding my breath and let it out in a sharp burst.

"And Priya and Shal," I add. "Of course."

Her shoulders jerk like I've shocked her before she drops her gaze to the slab of marble between us and bobs her head in a few nods. "Of course."

My heart is racing, and I know I need a distraction before I do or say anything else too stupid to take back. I whirl around and spot the drugstore bag sitting on the counter.

"So, uh, in the spirit of all things summery and reckless," I say as I walk over to grab the bag before turning to face her with it swinging from my wrist, "do you want to help me dye my hair purple?"