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“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?”