Rebels Like Us. Liz Reinhardt
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on my native-tongue grammatical failures by my own trilingual flesh and blood.
“You’ll tell me when you hear back?”
“Of course.” I cross my heart with the hand that’s still clutching my bikini, and Ollie freaks out.
“Are you going swimming?” The screen goes down for a second and her shocked voice floats through the speaker. “WeatherBug says it’s eighty-five in Savannah. How is that possible?”
Her face pops back on the screen, and I roll my eyes. “Because Savannah is actually an outer ring of hell. Don’t be jealous. I spent all day with sweaty pit stains. It’s gross.”
“It’s actually not frigid here. Like we could have watched those hot Puerto Rican guys play basketball from your fire escape if we’d had a blanket. Or three.”
“Are you trying to drive me to suicide?” My voice wobbles like the ankles of a first-time ice-skater.
“Sweetie.” Ollie says it on the longest sigh. I know exactly what direction her lecture is going to take, because she’s given it to me a few dozen times before. “Why didn’t you stay here in the city? With me? My parents love you. Or with your abuela. Even if she would have welded one of those chastity belts on you...it maybe would have been better than getting trapped in Georgia. Right?”
“It’s not chastity-belt bad here.”
“No...?”
I think about how I can go to an Episcopal, Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Nazarene, or Seventh Day Adventist church if I walk five blocks from my house, but an Americano is an unknown species around here. I haven’t found a single decent coffee shop.
“You have a point...”
“You could come back.” She makes her voice small, like she’s trying to disguise the hope so that I won’t even notice it. Fat chance.
Not only do I notice it, big and comfy and bright as it is—it makes me ache.
“I know.” I do. I made a huge, complicated pro-and-con list on butcher paper in my room and stayed up for a full twenty-four hours contemplating it the night before I made my final decision. “But she’s still...”
“Your mom.” Ollie nods.
“Yup.” The word swings like a wrecking ball.
She chews on her lip and gives me space to be angry. I’ve needed the geographical equivalent of Russia and most of China in terms of anger space. But all that roaming anger is getting narcissistic.
“And he’s still...” She lets the words hang.
“Olls,” I beg, but she’s relentless in her quest to make me face my emotions.
“He was your first love, Nes. And he broke your heart. He’s a dog, but you can’t beat yourself up because you miss him. You need to let yourself feel everything. Don’t clam up.”
The tears coat my eyes like a hot, glistening windshield. When they plop out and make their pathetic slide down my cheeks, I know Ollie won’t say, “Don’t cry.” I tend to squeeze my emotions into a bitty ball I can ignore. Ollie is a “cry it out” advocate.
“I do miss him.” It’s hard to be honest when honesty makes me feel so weak and stupid.
“That’s okay.” The sound of her voice is a balm to my frayed emotions.
“I mean, he was my best friend other than you. I can’t think about him without remembering how good the good times were—it’s bizarre how it changed so slowly. How did he go from being the guy who could always make me laugh to the guy who pulverized my heart?”
“I know,” she says.
“I was scared, really scared to leave home and Newington and you,” I say as I lick a few salty tears off my cracked lips. “But I was more scared of staying and facing him every day, because what he did to me is unacceptable—but sometimes I forget because I’m busy remembering how sweet he can be. How can he be such a snake in the grass and legitimately one of the most interesting, caring people I’ve ever met? He messed up so badly, but I know he still cares about me. That’s dangerous.” I take a deep breath and look at Ollie’s face, just a screen away. “I was scared of falling for him again after everything he put me through. Because a little part of me is always going to love the goofy, smart, sweet guy I fell in love with two years ago.”
“Oh, Nes.” I know Ollie would hug me if we were together, and I want to cash in on that hug more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
“I’m a coward.” I close my eyes.
“Stop it. Right now. You’re the bravest person I know. I love you.”
“I love you, Olls. And I’m going to be okay, promise. I’m letting all the gross feelings come out, just in little drips and drabs. Did I produce enough tears for you today? Can I go back to pretending I’m hard-hearted and cool?” I joke. Or half joke.
I know Ollie still wants a full rundown of my first day of school, but I don’t have any energy to tell her about all the crazy crap that kind of threw me for a loop today. It’s childish, but I want to pretend I started the second semester of our senior year at Newington Academy with her. We met in the friendly halls of our Quaker school when we were in second grade and she yelled that she loved my glittery stockings and I yelled that I loved her heart necklace and our teachers shushed us as we tried to yell more compliments back and forth. We found each other at recess, and we’ve been madly, completely best friends in love since then.
“I miss you like butter misses popcorn,” she mourns, and the sight of her tears firms up my backbone.
“Stop crying! Did Parson give you permission to run your bead-and-bracelet biz in the front hall?” I change the subject fast, and it works. Sort of.
“Yes! The middle school girls were all primped out in their Christmas/Hanukkah duds... Nes, they’re crimping their hair! Why didn’t I ask Santa for a crimper too? I both want to scorn them and buy a crimper with all the fat moneys I’m making weaving little unicorn beads into their hair. Advice?” She wipes the tears away with the tip of her fingers.
“No scorn. They’re littles. Remember how much the scorn of the cool upper-class girls hurt our souls back when we were tiny? Also, no crimper. If you want your hair to look like Bride of Frankenstein’s, just braid it when it’s damp.” I tap my finger on the screen, over her face. She opens her mouth like she’s going to bite it.
Our laughs are sadder than I want them to be.
“And, I almost forgot to tell you... No, I’m going to make you guess. Guess how else my life is turning to crap,” Ollie orders.
Her words stab more than a little. I know I’m one of the main reasons the tail end of her senior year is going to look nothing like what we’d been planning since elementary school.
“Thao is moving back across the hall.” She rolls her neck the way she always does after a grueling bassoon session to get the tension out.
“And I’m not even there to help you booby-trap your house like we did in fifth grade! What kind of crap friend am I?” I laugh around the next words because the idea of Thao being anything but a nose-picking cretin is hilarious. “Maybe he’s changed since you last saw him? Or maybe your parents won’t make you two hang out every time they get together. I mean, you’re not little kids anymore. You have a life. Thao probably does too. If you count sneak-attack farting on people a life...”
“That’s right.” Ollie nods enthusiastically. “I do have a life. A life that does not involve disgusting boys who think it’s cool to squirt milk out of their eyeballs.”
I gag at the memory. “I’m telling you, I became lactose intolerant right after that.”
We both crack up remembering gross Thao.
“You know I want to