Ship It(98)

“Oh, she just wants to be supportive,” Tess says, grabbing a handful of chickpeas. “I think it’s nice.”

She settles back into me, and I hit RESUME on Netflix. I pulled the TV out of the closet when she arrived and we haven’t put it away since. We’re shotgunning season one of Time Swipers so we’ll be all caught up before the premiere next week. The show, it turns out, is really fun and action-packed, and yes, there is a juicy interracial femslash ship that we have been absolutely squealing over.

Tess has been here visiting me for four days and we’ve barely left the couch. Not that there’s anything to see in Pine Bluff anyway, but it’s been nice to spend this time talking and getting to know each other better and—when we’re absolutely certain Mom and Dad are out of the house—making out like crazy.

But Tess has to leave tomorrow to get back home before school starts, and I don’t know what’s going to happen next year, except that that I’ll have Skype open almost constantly so we can video chat. And Tess keeps telling me I should apply to UCLA with her, and every time she says that, I can hear Caty’s words about getting me an internship in LA ringing in my ears. But I haven’t decided where to go to college. I haven’t even decided whether to watch season two of Demon Heart.

My phone buzzes with a text, and I almost don’t want to move in order to look at it because the way I’m situated across Tess’s side right now is just too luxuriously comfortable to get up, but I do.

When I open the text I bust up laughing and hand the phone to Tess. It’s from Forest, and it’s a selfie of him with Jasper Graves. Forest looks so glow-y and delighted that I can’t look away from his big, dumb face. He finally met Jasper Graves. I hope it was everything he dreamed it would be.

His text reads: EVEN MORE HANDSOME IN REAL LIFE.

I fall back into Tess, giggling.

“I kind of ship it,” she says.

“Oh my god, I can’t ship him with anyone anymore. He’s too real now.”

“Well, he’s not texting me selfies, so I’m gonna go ahead and ship it.”

I smile at the thought of Forest and Jasper finding a secret love together, but I know it’s not real. It’s just not Forest.

She nudges me. “You know what time it is.”

I do. We haven’t talked about it. I still don’t know how to feel about it.

“It’s almost nine,” I say.

“Are we going to watch?”

I burrow my face into her shoulder. “I don’t know,” I mumble into her. “Do you want to?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “On the one hand, I’m mad at Jamie for being a jerk, and I don’t think I’ll like the show without Smokey. But on the other hand…”

“I want to know where they’re gonna go from here,” I say. I’ve had these same arguments with myself for weeks now.

“What’s gonna happen to Heart?”

“Will he be emotionally destroyed after Smokey’s death? Will he cry?”

“God, I hope he cries.” She tips her head back against the couch and stares at the ceiling. I hope so, too. That’s such good fic material.

“If we don’t watch,” I say slowly, “how will we know what the fanfic is talking about?”

Tess looks at me seriously. “That is a good point.”

“Gotta eat your broccoli before you can have dessert.”

“So true.”

I look at the Demon Heart print hanging over the TV. It’s the hand-screened one Ms. Greenhill gave me when we were on the road. Mom framed it and hung it up, and it looks perfect there, and not just because it took the place of one of my mom’s nude portraits. Looking at it reminds me of all the feelings I once had for this show, and all the feelings I might still have for it.

It’s 8:59. Decision time. I look at Tess. She smiles. Who am I kidding? I need to know.

I grab the remote, hit the channel, and land just in time for the “Previously on…” to begin.

The theme song swells and all the old emotions come back. We sing along with the song as it plays under the clips from season one. I used to sit right here in this spot last year and watch these episodes every Monday night. The only difference was, I did it alone.

Now my knees knock against Tess’s, and she’s wearing an old Demon Heart T-shirt of mine, and I’m getting selfies from friends on the road. A lot’s changed.

The “Previously on…” reaches the last clip. Smokey lies bleeding and dying in Heart’s arms in the alley at the end of last season’s finale. They stare into each other’s eyes, and we say the lines right along with them.

Smokey and Tess say in unison, “I’ll be with you…”

And I finish the line along with Heart. “’Til the dirt hits my chest.”


THANK YOU TO Aya Burgess, who was the first person I told the nugget of this story to while we waited in the dark for a concert to begin. After listening carefully to the whole idea, she said… “I don’t get it.” Thank you for always encouraging me, rooting for me, feeding me, and nudging me out of bed when the alarm rings even—especially—when you don’t get the idea. It must mean you believe in me.

To Jim Ehrich, my wonderful agent, and the essential Helen Burak, who both read the original screenplay version of Ship It and saw a story people might relate to. This wouldn’t have happened without you and everyone else at Rothman Brecher Ehrich Livingston.