When they got to the beach, London took her shoes off and waded into the water, although it was already October and Lake Superior is freezing cold even in the middle of the summer. “What are you doing?” Anastasia called from the shore. London was making her feel uncomfortable. She liked to be around calm, sane, rational people, not people who went barefoot into lakes in, like, zero degree weather.

“Are you in love with Andy?” London asked.

Anastasia sighed. Is that what this was about? “Come on, London. I expected more of you than that.”

“What?” said London, without turning around. “You expected I didn’t give a shit about being in love?”

“Yes,” said Anastasia, crossing her arms over her chest. “Love just slows you down.”

“Maybe I want to slow down,” London said. She waded out a little farther, the inky-black water rippling out around her ankles.

Briefly, Anastasia thought about following her into the lake. What would happen if she did? Would the sky open up and rain fire? Would the water rise up over them, would their skin turn to stone? She pressed the toe of her left shoe against the heel of her right, about to apply the pressure needed to pull it off.

“Or maybe love slows you down,” London added.

Anastasia planted her left foot firmly back into the sand. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “Have you even met Andy?”

But London just raised her arms over her head and clasped her hands together. “Look at that moon,” she said.

“Are you high or something?” Anastasia asked. “Because if you are, that would explain a lot.” This angsty side of London’s was getting pretty tiresome. Like, what was she going to do next, dye her hair blue and get a tattoo? Run away from home for the weekend to go to the Marianas Trench concert in Winnipeg? OD on oxy in their drug dealer’s squat on Simpson Street and have to have her stomach pumped? She had thought that London had a little more originality than that.

“My grandfather knows everything about this lake, you know,” London said. “Every rock under the surface, every place where a ship went down. Did you know that there have been forty-five shipwrecks in Lake Superior?”

“Are we going to work this into Julius Caesar somehow?”

London turned her gaze slowly towards her. “You know, you’re remarkably short-sighted for someone who always talks about the big picture.” She air-quoted “the big picture,” as if it was something Anastasia just made up, and not something that was a true universal thing.