"Badass bitch or not," I said, raising my voice as if I were ending an argument by making an important statement, "I kind of feel bad about what I did."
My brain had been turning the issue over in my mind this whole time, and it'd finally solidly reached a conclusion: punching people was bad. What a revelation.
"You're such a goddamn Pisces," Summer giggled.
"What does that even mean?" I said, rolling my eyes, but I was grinning because I knew Summer was about to drop some of her classic Summerisms on me. I didn't know how she could possibly know so much specific, in depth information about such garbage, but I loved hearing about it.
"We've been through this a million times," she huffed, pretending to be tired of me. "I'm not going through Pisces 101 with you again."
"Fine, fine," I said, exaggerating my words to pretend I was bitter. "I didn't want to know anyway. Pisces is the scales, right?"
I would've sworn Summer's eye twitched. It was all I could do not to laugh, even though we both were just playing.
"You know it's not," she said, a pretty grin starting to tug at the corners of her mouth. "Don't play that shit, Jess," she laughed.
"So... not the scales. The twins?"
She smacked her hand against my shoulder and pushed until she'd tilted me an arm's length away from her.
"How many times--!" she cackled. "You know it's the fish, and you know it means you're selfless, you're compassionate, caring, generous, unconditionally loyal..." Summer trailed off, as if the list she herself was composing was becoming boring. Her arm sagged, letting me sit upright again.
"Tell me more," I said, giving her my best annoying grin.
"Ugh, you're just the best, alright?" Summer sighed, and her hand dropped from my shoulder. She put her head there instead. "No wonder you punched a dumb boy for me," she said, the words quiet as she settled herself beside me, one of her hands bunching in my plaid.
"I'd punch all the dumb boys for you," I said, almost under my breath.
I stared up at the cloudy sky since I couldn't look at Summer. It felt like everything had stopped, even though I could see the clouds slowly drifting by and hear the music thudding from David's party.
I thought about kissing Summer.
Summer sighed quietly, contentedly, and shifted against me, adjusting herself, and then after a pause she said, "I might stay here forever."
I smiled, tearing my eyes from the clouds to look down at Summer. Her eyelashes fluttered lightly.
"Do you think we could? We'd fail our exams. Why did we study so hard?"
"Mm, that's true," Summer said, a lazy chuckle in her tone. "And we'd starve eventually. There's no catering on this street corner."
"We could order pizza," I said, helpfully.
"I didn't bring my wallet," Summer groaned, wrenching herself up from my shoulder, as if it took her a world of effort to do so. "Wouldn't work."
"Well, I guess they'd just find our skeletons here, then."
"Ride or die."
"Die," I said, smirking.
"It's not a choice, like-- it's not a question," Summer laughed, pushing her hair off her face and cracking up.
"Like trick or treat, right?" I teased, starting to break as she threw her head back in laughter.
"Definitely not," she said.
"Y'know, it'd be pretty morbid to die here. Like, specifically here. On your boyfriend's street. The press would totally make up some weird stories about that."
"Teen girl in zany death skeleton ex revenge plot?"
I laughed, nodding. "Exactly! They'd have a field day, dude." Summer's fake headline had been funny, but it took me a few moments to register what she was actually saying. Ex?
"Whatever," Summer shrugged, "we can die somewhere else, I guess," she said, heaving out the last two words as if it were a chore to move along.
Then, despite her apparent lack of desire to make any effort to do anything, she practically sprang to her Converse-clad feet. She stuck a hand out to me and, when I took it, she pulled me up too.
"Where d'you wanna die?" Summer asked, grinning stupidly at the dumb, dark question.
I shook my head at her but smirked, nonetheless.
"Doesn't matter, as long as I can haunt the shit outta you," I said, before gathering up some bravery. "But if we're talking right now? Nora took me to the cutest diner, and it'd be even cuter with you there."
Summer made a happy little screechy noise and and squeezed my hand. My insides somersaulted.