Rebels Like Us. Liz Reinhardt

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       SEVEN

      I scroll through Ollie’s Instagram feed and try not to let jealousy eat me alive when I see yet another picture of her laughing with friends at the new chocolate bar she and I were supposed to check out together. I want her to have a great senior year, but here’s another way moving sucks: I’m scared I’m losing Ollie.

      Not losing her like we’re not friends anymore. Losing her like our friendship is diluting.

      Which isn’t as dramatic as it sounds because we’ve always been a superconcentrated twosome, twined around each other for years. Conjoined, even. Ollie is pretty much reason number one that I dragged my feet over leaving Brooklyn.

      Sometimes I feel like I should have just stayed.

      But there was this whole other thing.

      It revolved around Ollie’s lifelong dream to go to Oberlin, this rad college with an intense music program located in the bowels of the godforsaken Midwest. The thing was, we’d also discussed staying close, geographically, so we could visit each other through college. Freshman year, our plan felt solid, but as high school went on and my life fell apart and my distaste for ever going to a college anywhere near Ohio became clearer, Ollie switched gears and started talking about Juilliard so she could be closer to me if I got into NYU, my dream school.

      Now, no doubt Juilliard is freaking amazing and it’s right in the city. But Ollie had done a million hours of research and Oberlin was her nest, not Juilliard. A few weeks before it all went to hell at my place I stumbled on her early acceptance letter to Oberlin hidden under her mattress. It had been stuffed there for over a month. She never said a word to me about it.

      I wasn’t sure if she thought I wouldn’t be happy for her. I don’t know if she thought I needed her too much, what with my life falling to pieces and everything. But, as far as I was concerned, Ollie and her bassoon were going to Oberlin, no questions. I pulled her mom aside and spilled about how I was afraid Ollie was settling and then I totally sold her on encouraging Ollie to go to Oberlin. Then I picked up and left for Georgia. I needed to show Ollie we could love each other from afar. That she had to go wherever she needed to go, and I’d be there for her no matter what.

      Only I guess I kind of thought it would all stay the same. And that’s exactly why it’s so brave and noble to sacrifice for the person you love—because it hurts like hell. Things change. And they may not go back to the way they were before.

      Ever.

      My mother comes in from work as I’m simultaneously hashing through all of this, listening to angsty, dark music, and contemplating the intolerable stupidity of my day at school.

      “Hey, honey.” She cracks the door of my room open. “You want to grab a bite?”

      “Nope.” It’s rude, but I have to put on a happy face for so many people all day long, and last night’s spat left a dull ache in my head, like a hangover headache.

      “You know, we have a couple episodes of our show waiting, and I’m kind of dying to see what happens with coma guy.” She leans against my door frame, but I can tell she’s working hard to look like she’s at ease. “I finally read the article you tried to show me. The one about the fan theory where the coma patient is—”

      “It was a dumb theory. So wrong. Spoiler alert—coma guy is one of the armed robbers who held up the bank across from the hospital. His crew dumped him because they thought he was dead and never told anyone. The head nurse helps him escape, but she doesn’t make it to Mexico to meet him because at the last second they bring in the victims of the horrible car crash and her ex-fiancé is one of the patients.”

      My mom’s face goes through a few expressions as she processes the information: shock at the twist, curiosity about how I know, disappointment over the fact that there’s no reason for her to watch it now. I realize I’m the worst kind of troll. Only a very messed-up person spoils three of five episodes in a series’s final season.

      Part of me takes sadistic delight in hurting my mom like she hurt me. Part of me wonders what kind of terrible, petty jerk I’m turning into.

      “I didn’t realize you watched the episodes. Well, at least one of us got to enjoy them.” She already looks sufficiently bummed. I could stop there. A good person would.

      “I didn’t watch,” I blurt out. It’s almost involuntary, like I’m possessed by the vengeful spirit of a chronic television drama spoiler. “I just read about it.”

      “You never look at spoilers.” I try to interpret the wrinkles in my mother’s forehead like fortune-tellers read palms. I realize there’s no secret mystery, just the stress-induced skin creases that come from dealing with a belligerent teenage daughter.

      “I do when I don’t really care about a show. It was getting so stupid.”

      Eight seasons. One hundred twenty-four episodes. Three flus, a few dozen snow days, rerun marathons during heat waves and summer vacations at my maternal grandparents’ lake house, episodes with pints of ice cream to forget boy problems, low-key birthday celebrations just the way we liked—One Hundred Thousand Beats had seen us through it all, and this is СКАЧАТЬ