A Good Summer by Hilary Shirra (France, 27)

The room was tiny. $975 a month, and yet my suitcase just barely fit into the open patch of floor
between the bed and the desk. Jumbles of my clothing covered every available surface, half
sorted into piles. It was small, but it was home. Or rather, it was going to be. 

Despite the muggy heat of the Toronto summer, the first thing I had done upon entering the room
was rush to the window. Cracking it open, I was accosted by the clamor of the city. Car horns
honked, and street cars rattled. People in expensive suits scuttled below me, eyes scanning their
phones, hands clutching their lattes. The skyscrapers across the street appraised me from beneath
scrunched eyebrows, their roofs stretching up to touch the cerulean sky. 

Climate-controlled air rushed out and in crept the smell of grease from the corner hotdog stand,
woven together with the nauseating stench of the subway. It was all so overwhelming. So loud.
So foreign.

What an adventure I told myself, pausing to look in the closet mirror and bare my teeth like a
used car salesman.

I remembered the way Caleb had smiled at me when he asked me to move here.

“Take the job, Babe,” he said, cupping my cheek. “I’ll take the Go Train downtown to meet you
after work. We’ll try all the trendiest restaurants, and on weekends we’ll go to the beach.” He
flashed his most magnetic smile, and I melted.

He had smiled at me like that on the night we met, two and a half years ago. The party had been
hot and sticky. Too many students packed into a creaky old house, too many drinks spilled on the 
floor. I was standing by the stairs, sipping some vile concoction the hosts had dubbed ‘Purple
Jesus’ from a disposable cup when I saw him across the room, handsome in his ironic Hawaiian
shirt. Our eyes met, and a tingle of electricity ran through my body. A grin illuminated his face,
and he strode towards me, the crowd parting before him like the Red Sea.

“Caleb,” he said, stretching out his hand. “Economics major.” 

I took his hand and shook it with mock seriousness.

“Nice doing business with you Caleb. I’m Muriel, Biology major. Tell me, what kind of an
undergrad shakes hands?” 

“The kind who’s going places.” He tilted his head and the corners of his mouth twitched upwards
into that famous smile. “Want to come along for the ride?” 

I knew then, with a truly irrational sense of certainty, that he was The One. I had never
considered myself particularly romantic, and yet this sudden realization didn’t scare, or even
surprise me. It felt like subconsciously, I had been waiting my whole life for us to meet. The
moment our eyes locked, my future clicked into place like a puzzle piece. 

It was inevitable that he and I would fall in love. It was as natural as breathing. Now, he had been
my boyfriend for two years, and I still got that same tingle of electricity every time he told me he
loved me.

The memory settled over me like a warm blanket. He loved me. He wanted me here, in Toronto, with him.

Next year, after I graduated, I would move here full-time. We would get an apartment together in
the heart of downtown. All my plans for the future orbited around a neon vision of us, dancing in
the kitchen, high above the ground. I looked back at my reflection. This time, the smile I saw
was genuine. It was going to be a good summer.  

I scooped up a pile of blazers and got to work cutting off the tags. My mom had helped me pick
them out at a department store a week prior. 

“They all dress well in Toronto,” she said, watching from a stool as I twisted back and forth,
unable to take my eyes off the unfamiliar businesswoman staring back at me from the fitting
room mirror. “This is your first office job. You have to make a good impression.” Our eyes met,
and her forehead crinkled. “Muriel, Cupcake, are you sure that…” She took a breath and shifted
in her seat. “Are you sure that this job is what you want?” She spoke slowly, choosing each word
with care. “Management consulting is just so different from medicine. What changed your
mind?”

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. She already knew the answer to that question. It was so
hard to get into medical school these days. The odds of me getting accepted at the University of
Toronto were microscopic, and I couldn’t study anywhere else. I had to be in Toronto, with
Caleb. In August, he was starting a downtown job at a prestigious investment bank. He couldn’t
give up such an amazing career opportunity, and I couldn’t leave him.

It was bad enough that Caleb had graduated this spring while I still had a full year left in my
undergraduate degree. Even the thought of the two semesters we would have to spend apart filled
my chest with a fluttering feeling not completely unlike panic.

“Are you sure about Toronto?” My mom asked again. I let the silence stretch, heavy with the
questions left unasked. These days they often hung between us, looming like rain clouds. Are you
sure he’s right for you? Are you sure he loves you as much as you love him? I stamped out a
flicker of annoyance.

“Yes, mom. I’m sure”

She didn’t know him the way I did. 

The wail of a distant siren brought me back to the present, standing in a rented shoebox ten
stories above the pavement. On the other side of the bedroom door, I could hear the laughter of
my new roommates. There were six of them in total. I had met five in the hallway on the way to
my room. They were all named something like Zoey or Lucy; all beautiful, blonde, and friendly.
Teeth flashing white, they had one by one stopped to introduce themselves and their boyfriends,
here to help them unpack. Each time I had wrestled down a pang of jealousy.

But that wasn’t fair, Caleb was busy. He would have helped me if he was able, but Raptors
tickets were expensive. It could be years before he got another chance like this.

I turned my music louder. The din of the city harmonized with the latest Drake album, drowning
out the noise from the hall. 

My phone pinged from across the room, and my heart leaped. I vaulted over my suitcase and
scooped it up, then flopped onto the bed. The plastic mattress let out a squeal of protest, but the
sound barely registered. Caleb had sent me a Snapchat! He was thinking of me!

I tapped the notification and a blurry video met my eyes. A dark basement and a bright screen,
scored by the tinny ring of a televised crowd’s cheers. Saturdays are for the BOYS, read the
caption.

My stomach dropped. He had blown me off to watch the basketball game with his friends on
TV? I thought back to our call yesterday. 

“Sorry Babe, turns out I can’t help you move. Raj invited me to watch the Raptors,” he said. 

“No worries,” I replied, my mouth reacting before my brain could. “I’ll catch you later in the
week. After I settle in.” I forced a smile, as though he could see me through the phone. 

“Sounds good, Babe. You can take the train from the airport. Go Raps!” He barked the last two
words in a deep voice, enunciating every syllable. 

I let out an obliging chuckle.

“Go Raps,” I echoed.

He had never actually said that he was going to see them live. 

My phone buzzed. 

How was the move? The text from Caleb read.

Good, I replied. My roommates are cool! I locked my phone, then unlocked it, and in a flurry of
thumbs sent: When are you free this week? I’d love to show you the new digs. 

When he didn’t respond immediately, I followed up with a smiley face.

It was a miscommunication, really. My fault.

“No worries,” I had told him yesterday. And I had been so casual when I had first asked him to
meet me at the airport. He couldn’t have been expected to sense the tension lurking beneath my
words. The immobilizing fear of being so very far away from everything and everyone I knew. 

I needed to learn to communicate. It was too late now, but next time would be different. I would
be better.

I can’t this week, sorry Babe. Kelsey invited a bunch of us out to her cottage. Send pics of the
room. I love you.

I love you too.

I tossed my phone into a pile of clothes by the bed and buried my face in the mattress. It smelled
like rubber.

My phone rang from the floor, the sound muffled and distant. Even before I looked, I knew that
it was my mom. I took a deep breath and sat up.

“Hi Mom, how’s it going?” I asked, injecting cheer into each word. 

“How was the move?” Her voice on the phone seemed to reverberate, ricocheting off of the
thousands of kilometers that separated us. I looked out the window. The skyscrapers stared back,
impassive faces carved out of reinforced concrete. The city stretched out beyond the horizon. It
felt impossibly large, and so very empty.

“It was great. My room is really nice and I’m right by the subway!” I pinned the phone to my
shoulder with my ear and stood, picking up the pile of blazers. I hung them in the closet with
slow, deliberate movements, allowing my mom’s voice to wash over me.

“That’s great, Cupcake. Did that boyfriend of yours help?” 

 “Of course, he helped. I told you he was going to.” 

The lie slipped out far too easily.

Suddenly, I was outside my body looking down at a tiny room where a strange girl was lying to
her mother, too embarrassed to admit that her boyfriend had abandoned her. She was hunched
and shrunken, her dead dreams piled up around her like walls, closing her off from the world.
She looked pathetic.

For a moment I let myself imagine her running away. Throwing her blazers in the garbage, and
racing to the airport. She could escape from all the traffic and the noise. She could go back to her
friends and her family. When her plane landed they would all be waiting to welcome her. They
would drive her home and help her unpack her bags. She could leave all of this behind. 

But that girl wasn’t me. That girl’s boyfriend hadn’t bought her a dozen roses on her last
birthday. He didn’t hold her hand as they walked across campus, absentmindedly running his
thumb back and forth across her knuckles, or text her just to tell her that he loved her. Caleb did
all of those things and more.

I pushed my intrusive thoughts away, imagining them sinking down to the deepest part of Lake
Ontario where they belonged. I wasn’t that girl and there was no room for those kinds of feelings
in my relationship. Caleb would have helped me if I hadn’t told him it was okay to watch the
basketball game instead. So I hadn’t lied to my mom, really.

I took a breath and pasted on a smile.

“I would pass the phone, but Caleb’s out right now, picking up a pizza for me and my new
roomies. But he says hi… okay, I’ll talk to you later. Thanks for calling, Mom. I love you.” 

I tucked my phone into my back pocket and stood in front of the mirror, patting my cheeks to
force a flush of color. The noise from my roommates rose. They were all in the kitchen, talking,
laughing, and bonding. 

I took a deep breath and forced my rebellious emotions down. Caleb loved me. He had told me
so. I would be better. I practiced my smile in the mirror once more. It was going to be a good
summer.




​Hilary Shirra is an engineering graduate student living in France. Although previously unpublished, from a young age, she loved reading and writing. Born in Western Canada, she loves anything to do with the mountains, especially sports that make her loved ones nervous.