Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler (the read aloud family .txt) 📕

ass if it were true, and even though he already said it isn’t about how I look, I can’t help feeling like if I shed too much of the summer, he’ll realize I’m the same girl he wasn’t interested in last year or the year before that.

“You can always join me at the salon,” Gia singsongs. She is the queen of spray tans and is always trying to convince us to come along, but I just can’t get on board. I would end up leaving splotches of orange on white surfaces all over town.

“Not gonna happen, G,” says Shannon, slathering on another layer of sunscreen at the mere mention of tans. “Painting your skin is weird.”

Kiki, who’s Japanese American and naturally darker than the rest of us, just snorts and does a somersault in the pool.

“You’re all gonna change your minds when it comes time to buy homecoming dresses,” Gia warns.

“Speak for yourself,” says Shannon. “I am wearing red lipstick and it’s gonna look perfect with my paleness, thank you very much.”

“How do you know what you’re wearing already? We haven’t even gone shopping yet,” I say. I haven’t given a ton of thought to Homecoming this year, but I’ve imagined myself on Chase’s arm at it enough in the past. The dress is always nebulous, though—I like clothes, but being on a tight budget means shopping always feels like a mixed bag, for fear I’ll find something I absolutely love that I can’t take home in a million years.

It was a double-edged sword shopping with Jasmine—she knew my limitations, and like that night at the poker game, she never acknowledged them out loud; she just made sure we went to places that’d work for me. It was uncomfortable in its own way, but it didn’t have that overhang of dread that shopping with Shannon did, the worry that she’d find something she thought looked so good on me she’d say “Just pay me back later” or “You have your mom’s card—who cares if it’s a little over budget?” And I couldn’t get mad when she was trying to be nice. It wasn’t her fault she was spoiled and completely clueless. But I couldn’t exactly get mad at my mom either. All it left me with was a lot of frustration that usually had me going home with a headache.

This year, though … this year I have a date. The date. Chase hasn’t officially asked me yet, but we’d had a good time the night before, and he’d asked me out again for the next weekend. He wouldn’t ask me out again and not ask me to the second biggest dance of the year that was only a month from now, would he?

I lift my face to the sun, just in case.

“Some of us don’t pull off every single color,” says Gia with a sniff, as if I should somehow feel bad that green doesn’t make me look sick the way it does to her, and white looks good as long as I’ve gotten some sun, the way it never would on Shannon. “We have to do some advance planning.”

“Speaking of advance planning,” says Shannon, “has Chase asked you yet? You were very stingy on date details last night.”

She’s referring to the group text that went on for half an hour after I got home, and she’s full of crap because I told them everything from how much of the movie we spent making out (at least half) to what snacks we got (popcorn with extra butter and Milk Duds—he’s a man of taste) to his exact wording when he asked me out for the next weekend (“I had a great time tonight—do you maybe wanna hang out again after the game next Friday?”) But she’s right that I didn’t say anything about Homecoming, because it never came up.

Maybe it’s more of a third date conversation?

“I can’t believe you went on a date with Chase Harding and you’re not talking about it nonstop.” Kiki sends a delicate splash in my direction. “Who even are you? This is like the only thing you’ve wanted for six years.”

Is it? God, that’s sad. If you ask me what I want now, it’s so many things—to learn how to sail, to show everyone my newfound poker skills, to spend a Sunday taking pictures at the botanical garden, to make perfect latte art, to meet Clementine Walker, to get my bookselling job back, to maybe even finish writing that romance novel someday.

But these girls don’t know any of that. They know I like to party. They know I’m a dependable listener when it comes to relationship drama and a good roller coaster buddy and I find great discounts. That I like movie nights where we wear face masks and throw popcorn at each other, and that I can quote every word of my favorites (and that those favorites include everything from the fluffiest rom-com to the goriest horror flick). They know I’m a good shopping buddy, and the one you turn to if you need help with an English assignment. That if we go into the city on a weekend, I’m gonna push to eat at my favorite Russian restaurant. And all of that is true. It is who I am. Who I’ve always been.

But now I know I’m all this other stuff too, and I certainly don’t wanna be first and foremost the Girl Obsessed with Chase Harding.

Except I was the girl obsessed with Chase Harding, so where has that obsession gone, now that we’re finally together? Was it only the thrill of the chase (pun not intended), or is there more to it?

How do you tell your closest friends, when you only have one year left before you all head off in new directions, that they don’t know you as well as they think?

How do you have that conversation when it means facing that you didn’t know yourself as well as you thought you did?

I close my eyes and think of all the things