Page 43
Story: The Summer List
My heart leaps into my throat. Before I have a chance to stand up and face her, Andrea squats down beside me and grins. She’s so close I can see the spray of freckles dotting her nose and cheeks. They remind me of a sprinkle of cinnamon dusting the smooth surface of a latte.
“Anything good?” she asks, turning to scan the shelf in front of us.
“I’m, um, still looking,” I say, the sudden dryness in my throat making my voice crack like a pubescent boy’s.
“This seems cool.”
She taps the Pride history book before pulling it off the shelf, and my brain fires up with a dozen questions as I watch her read the description on the back.
Do straight people think the history of Pride is cool?
Is this a queer-coded signal?
Is she trying to tell me she’s queer, or is she just trying to indicate she’s an ally and that it’s okay for me to talk about gay things with her?
Am I supposed to say something back?
“We should learn about this stuff in school,” she says, her eyes still scanning the back cover. “I bet a lot of people would feel okay to come out way sooner if we did.”
I can’t stop my eyes from flaring wide as my tongue itches to ask, ‘People like you?’
I rip my gaze away from her to stare at the shelf instead. I watch with my peripheral vision as she slides the book back onto the shelf and then lets out a soft laugh.
“Wow. Sizzling Sapphics?”
She reaches for the flame-adorned book, and I get a glimpse of the cover: a drawing of two naked women with their arms wrapped around each other, long tendrils of hair shielding their faces and conveniently obscuring their nipples and butts. They’re framed by a giant red and orange flame shooting yellow sparks up towards the title.
Andrea flips the book over and starts reading from the description.
“A fiery tale of passion and forbidden lust, this gorgeously detailed graphic novel tells the story of a young woman descended from Sappho herself who will stop at nothing to free her long-lost lover from the mysterious evil forces that split them apart.”
Her dramatic reading voice cracks, and she pauses to let out a snort.
“Wow,” I say, my nerves easing just a bit as I laugh along with her. “That is…really something.”
“Truly,” she agrees as she opens the book up. “Let’s see what it—oh. Oh. Oh wow. That is detailed.”
Her eyes go wide, flitting over the page before she snaps the book shut. I watch her throat bob as she swallows, and I notice there’s a soft flush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks—which is nothing compared to the way my whole face feels like it’s on fire.
She slides the book back into place without a word, but her fingertip lingers on the spine. We’re hunched so close together I can hear her breathing as she keeps her gaze pinned to the shelf.
“If I wasn’t already sure I was bisexual, that would have done it.”
Her body goes rigid as soon as the words leave her mouth.
Her hand drops to her side.
She’s not breathing anymore, and I realize neither am I.
Andrea is bisexual.
Andrea likes girls.
The whole universe feels like it’s rearranging itself around me. The earth’s tectonic plates crash and crumple into brand new continents. The stars shift and swirl to create new constellations in the sky, and above it all, a choir of angels draped in rainbow-coloured robes sing an operatic chorus of, “She likes girls! She likes girls! She likes girls!”
“Wow, I can’t believe I just said that.”
I come careening back down to reality and find Andrea still crouched beside me with her arms wrapped around her knees as she rocks back and forth on her heels, her gaze boring a hole into the bookshelf.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43 (Reading here)
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100