Artifact 3 All-Access Wristband #3
“You’re…wow. You’re gorgeous,” he said, and I grinned as he held the passenger door open for me and guided me inside with his hand on my lower back.
We drove across Long Beach to a tiny art deco theater I’d never been to before, tucked in between cute vintage shops and bright murals on Fourth Street.
“This film has gotten really good reviews. It’s not A24, but it’s, like, A24-adjacent, you know what I mean?”
“Oh, I love A24.” I had no idea what A24 even was, but it sounded like something I should know about. Like everything Oliver liked and I had to learn to like by googling the way I was supposed to feel about it later.
Anyway, I got the general idea after it started. No characters to root for. No moments to make you swoon or giggle. No budget for any lighting, for some reason. No point…Well, I’m sure there was a point, but I missed the point because what I was really focused on was Oliver’s hand.
It rested on the edge of his seat, and even in the dark theater, I could see it flex, his pinkie reach. Just that tiny movement made my body tense, made my stomach stir and reach back.
So instead of whatever this guy in a turtleneck was monologuing about on the screen, I was thinking about how to casually, in a totally-not-a-big-deal way put my hand on my seat, too, face up. So he’d know it was available.
And after that, when he did reach for my hand and his pinkie brushed against my thigh, exposed by my short dress, I was making a mental note to thank Gaile later because she was so right about this dress.
And I was trying not to float right on up to the ceiling or hyperventilate or spontaneously combust, because our hands were touching!
Our fingers were intertwined! I was memorizing every guitar callus, composing sonnets in my head about every guitar callus, and trying to plot a way to hold his hand forever because it made me feel so warm and chosen and present.
It made me feel like this was what my hand was meant to do, that it was just killing time until this very moment.
Except, then the movie was 75 percent over, and I started to panic that I had no idea what it was about and Oliver would probably want to talk about it after, like he always did with the other things he recommended, and I wouldn’t have the cushion of a night to google and figure out the right thing to say.
And if I didn’t have anything to say, he might realize that this was all a mistake and never hold my hand like that again.
“The bathroom. I’m gonna go—um, yeah,” I said, pointing to the back door and reluctantly unthreading my fingers.
Under the cover of a stall, I scrolled a movie review site and Reddit, but it all was just so…
esoteric, cryptic, and convoluted just for the sake of it.
And honestly, scrolling through the essays people wrote online about why this movie was good, why it was important—it seemed as if the people who liked it only liked it because of that.
Because it set them apart as the people who got it.
And it was just so different from what I liked—movies that can inspire big feelings, unashamedly, pleasurably.
Art that gets right to the truth, plainly, of what we all can understand—and connects us in the process.
But I knew I could never say that to him. At least not yet. I definitely was not gonna make a great argument about why When Harry Met Sally is actually better than, like, Citizen Kane when my brain was all scrambled from touching his hand and wanting more.
So I texted Gaile.
Help! I hate this movie even though I have no idea what it’s about and he’s going to expect me to love it and get it
Also, we held hands!!!!!!
And, of course, she was there for me instantly.
Just tell him you thought it was really profound, what it had to say about the ephemeral nature of life. I feel like that’s what all those boring-ass movies are about
Also, !!!!!!
I took her advice when Oliver and I were sitting in his car after the movie, and he smiled and reached across the console, cradling my chin like I was a treasure.
“God, Harriet, you’re just…really something special. How am I the first guy to snatch you up?”
I felt a twinge of guilt that he was saying that because of something I didn’t even really believe. That maybe he didn’t actually know me at all, and did that mean these feelings were false, too?
But then he leaned in, pressing his lips to mine, coaxing them open with soft, sweet pressure, and those worries drifted away like passing clouds. And all I was thinking about was how right, how good it felt, being kissed like this. Being his.
When I got back home, after speeding through Mom’s questions and escaping to the safety of my room, I started dancing.
Even though I never dance. It just felt like the only natural, normal thing to do—other than call Gaile, which would come later.
First, though, I threw my arms up in the air and spun around and did something that vaguely resembled Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl.
I slipped into the electric slide, still stored in my muscle memory from elementary school PE.
I shoulder-shimmied and body-rolled and even considered the worm—
“Harriet, oh, Harriet—honey. Is that what you’re doing in here?”
I’m jolted right back to my room now, in the present, where I’m sitting on the floor surrounded by the artifacts of my relationship with Oliver, plus scissors and glitter and cardstock and the elusive double-sided tape that must have fallen down into the mess, too.
So I guess I kinda get why Mom is looking at me like that.
She drops down next to me on the floor, petting my head and then my shoulder.
“Honey, I know this breakup probably feels like the end of the world. But it doesn’t have to be—it can be the beginning of your new world.”
And there’s your spoiler for how this all ends, if the hot glue gun–battling and Bella-cosplaying and BO wasn’t enough.
I was dumped.
“High school boyfriends are rarely forever. And I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but eventually, down the line, you’ll be glad he wasn’t forever.
You’re figuring out who you’re supposed to be, so it makes sense that who you’re with would change.
I think you’re going to find that this was a lesson, and one you’re going to be so thankful for. Actually, I have a book—”
“It’s fine, Mom. I’m fine.” I don’t roll my eyes, but it takes, like, all of my life force not to.
Her gaze flickers to my unfinished poster, but she doesn’t say anything, thankfully.
Instead, she leaps to her feet and slowly backs away with her palms up like I’m some wild, unpredictable animal ready to attack…
which it sorta feels like Mom thinks I am ever since puberty entered the equation.
“I’m going to get it for you. You don’t have to read it, but just be open, okay? Jenna Bush Hager recommended it.”
She’s out the door before I can protest, and I unleash the eye roll I was holding in. And look, I know she’s right. But no one wants to think oh, that’s a valuable lesson while they’re living it. It’s hard to have perspective when you’re still boots on the ground.
Plus, it’s not like I thought we were going to get married someday.
But, you know, maybe we’d go to the same college and then live together in a tiny apartment while he was working to get a record deal and I was writing my first screenplay and then eventually, when we both made it, he’d casually pull a little box out of his back pocket and…
Ugh, okay, I was delusional. And stupid. I was so, so stupid. But I’m not stupid anymore. I know what I need now, and I know what I’m going to do.
And maybe tomorrow, when I’ve fixed everything, I can smile at Mom and say you were right and read a few pages of her book. I know she’s just trying to help.
I survey the mess of artifacts around me, the building blocks of my relationship with Oliver. The note he passed me in January that read Are you my girlfriend? Check yes or no. My corsage for the spring formal in April.
Then I pick up the neon green all-access wristband from the Mode, the one I wore to every Football Team show, the glowing reminder to me and everyone else that I was his, chosen.
And I remember how I felt that last night, the one that changed everything and every night since: blindsided, heartbroken… ashamed.
Artifact 3: All-Access Wristband
I didn’t see it coming, because it was a Saturday night like every Saturday night.
We were at the Mode. By May, that’s where I spent most weekends, swooning over Oliver as he played guitar onstage or leaning back onto his chest with his hands on my hips as we watched some other band.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when that became the norm instead of hanging out and giggling in my room with Gaile, and I missed that—I did.
But even though she was always invited, her parents continued to see the Mode as a den of sin and hormones, and never let her tag along.
And she said she understood why I had to be there if I wanted to be with Oliver.
Anyway, she had James…They weren’t dating yet, but I knew it would work out for her eventually, like it had for me.
“Harriet, I think that maybe we should call it.”
That’s how I was informed that my first relationship was ending, on the dirty burgundy couch backstage at the Mode. I was wearing the Velvet Underground shirt Oliver gave me, even though I never really got into the Velvet Underground.
“It’s just…you know I’m starting at UCLA in the fall, and I don’t want to, um…hold you back. You deserve to have fun the rest of high school.”
UCLA is just up the 405, I wanted to say. And I already have fun, with you.