Boot Camp

01

"I am telling you pistachio is the best-tasting flavor here."

It's around six o'clock at my favorite ice cream shop, Sweet Treat, and my indecisive friend Mina can't decide on a flavor, despite coming here countless times over the last four years. This wouldn't be a problem if we hadn't been standing in front of the counter for five minutes already, receiving angry sighs from the two boys behind us eager to get their hands on a sundae.

"But what if I—"

Before Mina can finish, I order us two pistachio bowls. The worker behind the counter, a grumpy teenage girl, mutters something under her breath and picks up an ice cream scoop. Even she is tired of Mina's indecisiveness.

"You didn't even let me order!"

I roll my eyes. "Mina, if I had waited for you to finally make up your mind, I could have hitchhiked to Mars and came back."

We take our bowls and start walking to the small red booth in the corner of the store, our favorite spot for the past four years.

"I swear you are the biggest exaggerator I know," she says, taking a seat in the red booth. She ties her straight black hair up and rests her fists under her chin like an upset five-year-old. "If this flavor tastes bad, you're paying me back."

"Haha—it won't." I take a big spoonful of the ice cream and regret it after feeling a giant brain freeze. I always thought I was stronger than this.

"You okay, Whitney?" Mina asks, putting down her spoon.

"Just peachy." Once I feel fine again, I take another spoonful and watch Mina take her third delightfully, her large coffee-colored eyes widening. Once again, I am never wrong when it comes to ice cream. "Guess I won't be paying after all."

"Do you ever think we have too much ice cream?" she asks. She looks down at her bowl and lightly pushes it away from her. Seconds later, she pulls it back closer and her fingers toy with the spoon, mentally debating whether to keep eating it.

Mina is forever conscious about what she eats, considering her mother has the body of a twenty-year-old at forty-six. Although they share the same Persian beauty, thick dark hair and a tan complexion that people pay money for, she still feels like she lives in mother's shadow, never quite perfect enough. I stopped reminding her that she's still pretty a couple years ago, realizing compliments only served to boost her strangely egoistic insecurities.

"Oh Mina, sweet, sweet Mina, you can never have enough ice cream," I answer, placing my hand on her arm. "Well, unless you're lactose intolerant."

"I guess not," she replies with a laugh. A distant look crosses her face, a look she gets when she's thinking about something on the back of her mind, and a sigh escapes her lips. "It's still not dawning upon me high school is over. It seems like yesterday we were clueless freshmen getting our hair stuck in lockers."

A wave of nostalgia washes over me at thought of how we met during our freshman year, helping each other get our hair out of our lockers, which we used to slam shut without looking. A month into high school, we grew out of that habit, and that was about the time we discovered Sweet Treat, our little haven from the drama of high school.

I had that dorky tween sense of fashion at that time, and Mina was a scrawny fourteen-year-old with braces, barely five feet tall.

I look between us. At least something has improved.

"Oh, it's hit me already," I say, "and I could not be happier. Hell school is over."

"But we're old now," she whines. "I'm not ready for all the responsibility yet."