Chapter Thirteen #2
Nancy is eliminated in the seventh episode, and it’s honestly pretty impressive that she made it that far.
Marina suggests seeing her off with a toast, so we make vodka sodas—Nancy’s drink of choice throughout the show—and raise our glasses in the air during Nancy’s final confessional.
Nancy says rather astutely that Wyatt wouldn’t love any of these women as much as he loves horses.
She also says her time in LA is just getting started, which is… less astute.
The show isn’t as fun without Nancy to stir up chaos, but we enjoy rooting for Alexis, the most genuine of the group, to come to her senses and stop chasing after this hopeless horse boy. We make more drinks and fall into giggles, that early awkwardness from a couple of hours ago long forgotten.
There’s something beautifully familiar yet exciting and new about today.
Bingeing shows and finding hilarity in whatever we’re watching was one of our favorite ways to spend time together.
We’d crack jokes between lines of dialogue, create elaborate backstories about unnamed extras, pitch absurd plot lines and treat them as canon.
Falling back into that again makes me feel like I’ve stumbled into something precious, a horde of buried treasure I’d lost the map to years ago, and found every gem shiny and intact, just as I’d left it.
The newness comes from the fact that we’ve never drunk alcohol together before, never been drunk or so much as buzzed in each other’s presence. This feels right, now: making up for lost time, hitting milestones we never got to reach together.
There are still things to discuss, still much to clear the air about.
We’ve yet to hash out our friendship-ending argument at the last apple festival, or have a real conversation about what’s going on in our lives now.
I want to ask her about how she’s coping with her broken engagement with Jess, about what she said back at the bar in DC about feeling like she always messes up, about why her house looks like a construction zone.
I want to tell her about my FIRE plan, how I’m going to make a difference before I leave Ryser.
But that could break the spell of this night, so light and full of joy.
So, I push those heavy thoughts aside and take another drink.
Marina is a surprisingly loud drunk and I love her for it.
As Alexis sobs about Wyatt not saying he loves her back, Marina shouts at the TV, “It’s not your fault you’re not a horse!
” sending me into belly-aching cackles. I’m laughing at everything, probably obnoxiously so, but that doesn’t feel all that different from how I used to be when I was around Marina sober.
I’ve never laughed harder than I did when I was with Marina, when we could be silly and loud and freely ourselves.
When we start the finale, Marina suggests taking a drink every time Wyatt says the word horse .
Naturally, we’re hammered within fifteen minutes.
We’re so far gone that when her phone starts ringing, we don’t even notice it. We’re too busy voicing the horse Wyatt’s brushing on-screen, laughing wildly as we utter equestrian innuendo between neighs. It’s Marina who pauses the show and traces the sound back to a buzzing on the coffee table.
She picks it up with a giggly hello. Immediately, her eyes go wide. It’s Nancy , she mouths. She puts the phone on speaker and places it between us on the couch.
“Hello?” Nancy’s voice rings through.
“We were just watching you,” I say, leaning over the phone.
“Okay,” Nancy says, and I love how unfazed she sounds.
Of course we’d be watching her. She must assume that every TV in Greenstead blares her show at all hours of the day.
“Look, I need a favor, and you owe me one. I’m supposed to have a chef on the show tomorrow for a crepe-making demonstration, but he just backed out because his mother’s in the hospital ,” she says, mimicking his words with annoyance.
“Can you come on? I have five minutes to fill.”
“You want us to make crepes?” Marina asks, her face screwed up in confusion.
“What? No, you can talk about your festival. Or you can braid each other’s hair. I really don’t care, as long as you’re there and you fill five minutes.”
“I finally learned how to French braid!” Marina says, turning to me. “Like five years ago.”
“That’s amazing!” I reply. I offer her a high five, but our palms barely graze one another. We try again, letting out a cheer when our hands meet in a satisfying smack.
“Say yes, or I just might have to take Juniper Park back,” Nancy says. Marina and I exchange shrugs.
“Sure,” Marina says.
“Nancy, you were robbed in Love Quest ,” I say. “I don’t think you should have been enumerated. No, elemon—eliminated.”
“Are you drunk?” Nancy asks.
“ No ,” I say, sounding overly aghast, and Marina and I break into a fit of laughter.
“Jesus Christ,” Nancy mutters. “Be at the studio at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow. I’ll text you the address.”
“Six?” Marina groans. “What time is it now?”
“You—you don’t know what time it is?” Nancy sputters. “Whatever, I don’t care. Just be at the studio at six, okay?”
“Okay,” we reply.
“You should probably drink some water and go to bed.”
“You’re not my mom,” Marina says, and I fall into more giggles. The last thing we hear before Nancy hangs up is a tortured sigh.
Then we’re left blinking at each other in the dark, lit only by the glow of the TV, paused on a still of Wyatt’s horse.
“It’s almost midnight,” Marina marvels, checking the time on her phone.
“Wow.” We sit there in wonder at the passage of time. “Can we finish the finale?” I ask in a small voice.
“Oh, obviously we have to finish the finale,” Marina says. “I guess we can switch to water.” She gets up to refill our water glasses, and I stretch, raising my arms above my head. “You can sleep on the couch,” Marina calls from the kitchen, “and we can go to the studio together tomorrow morning.”
“Okay,” I agree, immediately grateful. The thought of leaving this couch in the state I’m in feels impossible right now.
We watch the finale through to its foregone conclusion. Wyatt crushes Alexis’s heart by proposing to Deb, and they ride off on horseback into the sunset.
“They broke up before the show even aired,” Marina says, reading from her phone.
I snort. “Checks out.” I stretch again, rotating my stiff ankles. “What an amazing show.”
“It’s got four more seasons,” she says, clicking through the menu on-screen.
“Next time?” I ask.
“Definitely.”
Marina grabs me a pillow and a blanket, something heavy, soft, and plaid, that I immediately snuggle underneath. The room is spinning when I close my eyes, and the last thing I remember before I fall asleep is the creaking sound of her going up the stairs.
That night, I dream about horses, and Nancy, and engagement rings, set against the backdrop of the last apple festival Marina and I attended.
Except we’re not fighting this time. There’s only laughter, and caramel apples, and buried treasure, and it’s the only part of the dream that makes any sense.