We’ll Always Have Summer

When it's finals week and you've been studying for five hours straight, you need three things to get you through the night. The biggest slurpee you can find, half cherry, half coke. Pajama pants, the kind that have been washed so many times they are tissue paper thin. And finally, dance breaks, lots of dance breaks. When your eyes start to close and all you want is your bed, dance breaks will get you through. It was four in the morning and I was studying for the last final of my freshman year at Finch University. I was camped out in my dorm library with my new best friend, Annika Johnson, and my old best friend, Taylor Jewell. Summer vacation was so close I could almost taste it. Just five more days. I'd been counting down since April. Quiz me, Taylor commanded, her voice scratchy. I opened my notebook to a random page. Define anima versus animus. Taylor chewed on her lower lip. Give me a hint. Um, think Latin, I said. I didn't take Latin. Is there going to be Latin on this exam? No, I was just trying to give you a hint. Because in Latin, boys' names end in us and girls' names end in a. And anima is feminine archetype and animus is masculine archetype. Get it? She let out a big sigh. Now I'm probably going to fail. Looking up from her notebook, Annika said, maybe if you stopped texting and started studying you wouldn't. Taylor glared at her. I'm helping my big sister plan our end of year breakfast, so I have to be on call tonight. On call? Annika looked amused. Like a doctor? Yes, just like a doctor, Taylor snapped. So will it be pancakes or waffles? French toast, thank you very much. The three of us were all taking the same freshman psych class, and Taylor's in my exam was tomorrow. Annika's was the day after. Annika was my closest friend at school besides Taylor. Seeing as how Taylor was competitive by nature, it was a friendship that she was more than a little jealous of. Not that she'd ever in a million years admit it. My friendship with Annika was different from my friendship with Taylor. Annika was laid back and easy to be with. She wasn't quick to judge. More than all that, though, she gave me the space to be different. She hadn't known me my whole life, so she had no expectations or preconceptions. There was freedom in that. And she wasn't like any of my friends back home. She was from New York, and her father was a jazz musician, and her mother was a writer. A couple of hours later, the sun was rising and casting the room in a bluish light, and Taylor's head was down while Annika was staring off into space like a zombie. I rolled up two paper balls in my lap and threw them at my two friends. Dance break, I sang out as I pressed play on my computer. I did a little shimmy in my chair. Annika glared at me. Why are you so chipper? Because, I said, clapping my hands together, in just a few hours it will all be over. My exam wasn't until one in the afternoon, so my plan was to go back to my room and sleep for a couple hours, then wake up with time to spare and study some more. I overslept, but I still managed to get another hour of studying in. I didn't have time to go to the dining hall for breakfast, so I just drank a cherry coke from the vending machine. The test was as hard as we had expected, but I was pretty sure I would get at least a B. Taylor was pretty sure she hadn't failed, which was good. Both of us were too tired to celebrate after, so we just high-fived and went our separate ways.