Page 55 of Seven Lost Summers
We eat chips off the amp case and argue about pointless shit. Theo never says no when I ask to shoot him. Nate calls me Annie fucking Leibovitz and swipes my camera when I’m not looking, probably to fill it with fifty blurry crotch shots and one close-up of his left nostril. Bianca pulls faces at the lens and swears she’s going to start charging me.
Some nights we stay too long, sprawled across the back lawn with takeaway containers and shitty jokes. It isn’t perfect.
But it’s ours.
For now.
And I’ve caught all of it on film.
Today I was supposed to spend the afternoon in the darkroom. I had a plan—music low, gloves on, chemicals biting into the paper until those moments turned into something real.
Instead, I’m in a mall changing room, wrestling with a pair of jeans that feel five sizes too small. The zipper won’t budge, and I’m pretty sure I’m about to either suffocate or snap the damn thing in half.
“Quinn?” Bianca’s voice cuts through the curtain. “You alive in there or what?”
I peek out to find her sprawled on the bench, scrolling through her phone.
“B, these jeans are ridiculous,” I groan. “Why the hell did I think this would work?”
She looks up from her phone, tilts her head, and studies me as if I’m a puzzle missing a few pieces.
“Ridiculous?” Her smile curves, all sweetness. “You’re not ridiculous, Quinn. Just a little too adventurous with your choices.”
“Adventurous? That’s your nice way of saying dumb as shit, isn’t it?” I grunt, yanking at the waistband, but it’s a lost cause.
Bianca snorts. “They aren’t that bad.”
“They’re skinny jeans, B. I swear one of my ovaries begged for mercy.”
She bursts out laughing, then gets to her feet and saunters over. “Alright, drama queen. Step aside. Let me handle this.”
I poke my head through the curtain like a nosy meerkat, watching Bianca prowl the store with the focus of someone on a life-or-death mission. She tears through racks of denim as if she’s judging contestants on Project Runway: Jeans Edition.
Every so often she pauses, squints, then discards a pair with a shake of her head that screams, absolutely not, how dare you exist.
Then her hand stills.
She pulls a pair from the rack and holds them up to the light, eyes narrowing in thought. Slowly, she nods, as if she’s just uncovered the Holy Grail of ass-lifting denim.
A moment later she returns, looking victorious, a pair of jeans draped over her arm.
“I found them. These are perfect for you. I swear, you’ll look so good even I’ll be jealous.”
I shoot her a skeptical look. “Jealous? What, are these jeans spun from unicorn hair and fairy dust?”
She grins, planting her hands on her hips. “These jeans will do things to your ass that’ll have pedestrians walking into traffic.”
I snort. “Perfect. I’ve always wanted to be a public safety hazard.”
I close the curtain and shimmy into the jeans. They slide over my hips as if they were made for an actual human body instead of a Barbie doll. Snug. Soft. Not suffocating.
For once, something fits.
Bianca’s laughter explodes outside the curtain.
I freeze, glaring at my reflection in the mirror. “I haven’t even stepped out yet and you’re already laughing at me?”
“No!” she wheezes through the curtain. “God, no. It’s Theo. He just sent me the dumbest thing.”
