“Do you want to focus on requirements first?” I can’t conceal the judgment from my voice.
Her expression clouds over. “Honestly, I can’t even think about classes right now. First, I have to fix things with Olivia. Then I’ll worry about everything else.”
“What’s happening with Olivia?” I guess I was kind of caught up in Ethan this week. It occurs to me I haven’t had a real conversation with Dylan in days. If I’d had, I’d know what drama Olivia was causing now.
“Over the Rainbow” ends, and the stage falls silent while the lighting drops into darkness. Dylan lowers her voice, her words pinched like the subject pains her. “We’re just going through an adjustment period. I know it’ll be fine when I’m on campus with her. Everything will go back to the way it was.”
I wonder how it would feel, envisioning next year the way Dylan does. Looking into my college years and wanting nothing but a revival of high school with improved production values and a couple new cast members. I’ve watched Dylan wait for what she already has increasingly often in the past weeks, my frustration growing with everything she ignores while she focuses on Olivia. On the way it was. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I ask, unable to hold the question in. “College isn’t about reliving high school.”
“I’m not reliving high school.” I hear hurt in her whisper. “I’m making it work with a person I really care about.”
“Dylan, come on.” I wrestle down the impatience in my voice, knowing I’m pressing a sensitive subject. “You’re holding on to a relationship that isn’t good for you. It’s not even what you remember. You and Olivia were always tumultuous, but now—I haven’t seen you happy with her since you got together. Next year at Berkeley, you have a real chance to start fresh, but not if you’re stuck on something that should be over.”
When I finish my speech, the director in the front turns in his seat, gesturing for us to be quiet with an annoyed finger to his lips. I mouth an apology, then hide behind my notebook. We’ll have to finish this conversation later. I turn to whisper as much to Dylan, but she stands. I assume she’s going closer to the stage to take more photos, but instead she storms out the back and into the lobby. She punches the exit doors so forcefully Amy breaks character to frown in our direction.
I grab my things and follow Dylan, doing everything I can not to make a sound. Dylan’s waiting in the empty lobby when I ease open the theater doors. She’s glaring. I’m caught off guard, not having expected the force of her reaction. I say what first comes to mind, my voice sounding strangely small in the quiet space. “Not every relationship is meant to last.”
I intend it consolingly. But with the change I watch come over Dylan’s expression, I know it didn’t come out well. “You’re right,” she replies waveringly. I know Dylan well enough to recognize when she’s furious and fighting to keep her composure. “But I don’t mean Olivia. I mean you. You’re who I’m clinging to even though our relationship’s not what I remember.”
I flinch. “You don’t mean that.”
Dylan pauses, and I wonder if I’m right that she didn’t mean it. I wait, hoping she’ll withdraw her words and we’ll figure this out. While neither of us speaks, people on their way to the parking lot wander past the wide windows of the lobby, laughing loud enough for us to hear.
“You’re so judgmental,” she finally says, softer now. “You think you’re so much more mature than me, and I’m tired of it. You don’t have all the answers, Alison.”
Fear drains into me when I realize she’s not retreated from what she said. My mind frantically replays a hundred memories simultaneously, Starbucks dates, studying and sleepovers and just doing nothing in my room, homecoming dances and trips to the beach. I hadn’t realized I was holding on to them until they crumble in my fingers.
I don’t want to have to say I was wrong about Olivia. I wasn’t. Everything in me hopes—wills—Dylan to recognize it.
She doesn’t. Shaking her head, she spins and heads for the doors. It sparks frustration in me. I guess those Starbucks runs and sleepovers aren’t enough for her to dignify them with a discussion. “Real mature, walking out in the middle of an argument,” I say to her back.
“I have enough shots of the show.” She waves her hand flippantly. “I’m done here.” Slamming open the doors, she leaves the lobby and me and everything we should have said.
Half of me wants to follow her, wants to force her to finish the conversation. The other half roots me in place. What’s the point? Dylan was clear about how she felt. I won’t indulge in the needless drama she’s used to.
Instead, I work to reduce the problem rationally, replacing panic with probabilities and heartache with objectivity. While it hurts, maybe Dylan was right. We’ll be on opposite coasts next year. The odds are our friendship wouldn’t have remained intact. It’ll be better this way.
I turn and head back into the theater, ready to do the job I said I would.
Forty-Nine
PRODUCTION WEEK IS COMING up the week right after spring break. Knowing I have to get a jump on the issue because my staff will be useless over the vacation provides welcome weekend distraction from my fight with Dylan. I don’t text her, and she doesn’t text me. Instead, I hurtle headfirst into my work. It’s the middle of April, so I assign stories and photos while reviewing for AP exams coming up at the start of May. Sunday morning, I get up early to “help” the designers format the front page, which really involves me micromanaging and reworking layouts they had finished.
The whole weekend, it’s not unclear to me what I’m really doing. I’m running. I pretend I’m running in the direction of the next Chronicle issue, when really, I’m running away from how Dylan and I left our friendship. When I send in my commitment to Harvard, I’m fully ready to move on to the next period of my life, leaving high school behind.
It edges resentment into every moment I devote to working on my other gigantic obligation, the reunion. As if the Chronicle and APs weren’t enough. It’s in four weeks now, and while we’ve paid for the major pieces, the small details have started stacking up. I force myself to focus on making decorations, charting attendees, and, of course, emailing the rarely responsive Adam.
In my work-fueled haze, I haven’t seen Ethan outside our classes and normal routines. I’m surprised when he shows up in my office on Monday after school. On my desk, I’ve organized in rows the name tags I’ve printed for the reunion, which I’m cutting to fit the laminated clips I ordered.
“You started without me,” he says.
I glance up, remembering suddenly we’d planned on doing the name tags together. Evidently, I overlooked the detail in my workaholic frenzy and the fight with Dylan.