Please, Won't You Push Me for the Last Time

~Kellin~

The whole way home I could think of nothing but Vic’s words. “I never want to lose you,” he had said, and it was killing me, tearing me apart with guilt after the promise I made to Alex yesterday. This morning was so wonderful. Vic without his cures is so passionate, at singing, at kissing, at talking, at caring about me. He is perfect.

I look over at my perfect boyfriend, who is cuddled up against me on the rails, and I let out a sigh. If whatever the boys in the tunnels have planned will lead to me having to leave him it’ll break me, and I am starting to understand what the kids wrote in the journals about heartbreak. Vic and I haven’t known each other long at all, and there’s so much we still don’t know, but the thought of losing him already hurts. It’s like I already decided somewhere inside me that I want every single day to be like this morning, and the thought of that being taken away might destroy me.

We finally get to our rail stop around 11, and I decide to walk Vic home. Meanwhile we clarify the details of our alibi, without giving away that it isn’t true of course.

“So it was nice meeting you and Mike’s friend last night,” I say casually to Vic.

“Tony?” he says, giving me the name I need, “yeah he’s great, and aren’t his parents kind, letting us all stay over?”

“They’re wonderful, and that was some good spaghetti for dinner.”

“Agreed. Isn’t it funny how they made a fuss about making sure you and I stay in separate rooms?”

“So awkward,” I reply, winking at him. We’ve just determined everything we will need to tell our parents about the previous night, and I feel much more at ease. Vic’s brother will probably be heading back on the rail after ours, so Vic can get everything clarified with his parents so Mike doesn’t have to talk too much considering his hangover. That’s a word I learned from the journals. In school they call it the “after effects of drinking that often inhibited daily performance” or something dumb like that.

I walk Vic to the corner where his house is and stop walking, pull him to me and kiss him passionately, taking him by surprise, though he kisses back. I smile at him, wondering if he’s feeling the same butterflies in his stomach as I am. I walk him all the way to his door this time, kiss him on the cheek and even say hello to his mother real quick. I wave a final goodbye and head back home, where my mother is waiting for me at the door.

“Kellin!” she says cheerfully, “I was starting to worry about you! You better get your pill real quick before noon, and lunch is almost ready.”

“Right, of course,” I grab one of the dreaded white pills with my prescription, and I pop it in my mouth and push it under my tongue expertly, before announcing that I’ll be right back since I’ve had to go to the bathroom since the rail station and need to change clothes. While we were in the tunnels, I changed back to the ones I wore yesterday so as not to look suspicious. I go into the bathroom, lock the door and quickly toss my pill into the toilet, stand there for a moment and then move away to trick the automatic sensor into flushing. Then I hop into the shower and continue getting ready.

When I get back downstairs my mom has lunch prepared, and she asks me about my night, and I recite our alibi. I am supposed to be at the meeting for the mission plan or whatever at 4, so I tell my mom that I am going to go visit the music museum in Baltimore with some friends I met yesterday. I visited there secretly a couple months ago so I could use the alibi if needed, I know she may be suspicious of another date, plus I won’t actually be with Vic. I actually enjoy lunch and casual conversation with my mom until she brings something up.

“Oh by the way honey, your singing class starts on Monday and they want you to have a doctor check up first, so I made an appointment for tomorrow, no big deal of course.”

“Right, of course.” I say, trying to choke down the feeling in my chest. Last time I saw the doctor they knew something was up and changed my cures a lot, which is unusual though not unheard of. I never took the new ones. I don’t know what they’d do to me. I try to keep up the casual tone of the conversation and eat at the same pace, but I can barely get any food down. I finally finish and head to my room, practice some of the simple singing pieces I learned last year in school, hoping it will calm me down, but of course it doesn’t. Singing school stuff just isn’t the same.

I feel so stressed and worried. I want to run away and never look back. I want the mission to go wrong so I can travel the tunnels to Baltimore with the revolution. I feel sick, my stomach is tensing up and I think I might throw up until my thoughts randomly wander to Vic. Of course I couldn’t leave him just yet. The thought of him, and our time together this morning comforts me a bit, and eventually I find myself just curling up and falling asleep. I haven’t gotten much sleep lately, and it is nice to stop thinking for a little bit.

My mom wakes me up about two o’clock, saying she shouldn’t have let me sleep so long but she figured I had probably stayed up late last night catching up with my new friends. I thank her for letting me sleep and fix my hair back up, continue singing the boring school pieces for lack of anything better to do, and try to kill time until 3 when I can head to the meeting.

Finally, it’s time to go. I nearly sprint to the rail station because I’ve been boiling over with excitement and stress and boredom. When I finally get to the area where the tunnel to the party room is I’m surprised to see nobody is waiting around outside. I guess everyone invited is trusted to find their own way in. I do so and find the room where the party was held empty, so I crawl into where Alex brought me yesterday, and find Jack, Alex, the two guys from their band, and a couple other strangers I recognize only from the party. They are all sitting casually, waiting for everyone else to get here and smile when they see me.

“Ah so this is your newbie,” one of the guys who played last night says and stands to shake my hand, “Kellin right? I’m Zack.”

I muster a smile as I meet the others, I discover the other guy from the band is named Rian, and I find out the others’ names and that some of them have been doing this for years, others only a week or two. A few more people show up and the room has around thirty people gathered around the table. There’s an atmosphere of formality that seems out of place after seeing all the same people partying just last night. Alex and Jack in particular are even dressed up, and it’s very odd to me, not that they don’t look great, it just seems out of character. They look like people in old wedding pictures look moreso than modern businessmen. Somehow though, it all just adds to the weight of the meeting; it makes it feel more serious.

“Alright everyone,” Alex begins, “here we are, time to finally get started on our first act of rebellion. I want to emphasize again what you all already know, that this is dangerous. That you are risking everything for this cause. I want to commend you all. Also, I want to give you one last chance to leave,” Alex pauses, but no one moves. We all want to do this, “alright, so, there are two plans that will go into action at once, a supply grab, and a radio hack. The supply grab will not be like our previous ones. We will be taking medical supplies, and we will be using the tunnels for transportation. There are rebellion sympathizers at the county hospital on the north side of town, they are going to set up a load of filtered supplies. Physical-only medications, bandages, and some information books. These will be located in the east wing, and a team of six, who I have already spoken to, will go in and make the grab. Pile it into backpacks and jackets, and exit. Meanwhile, the station cameras will be occupied with Zack’s skateboarding stunts through the halls as a diversion, and the police will be occupied with the second part of the plan, everybody with me?” Alex asks, scoping the room, he passes out a map and answers a few questions about plan details, randevu points, communications and failsafes, and then goes on to the next part of the plan.

“So while you six are robbing us supplies, there will be a radio special going on. Kellin and I have been invited to the class that will be featured on that special, and our good technical friends here,” he gestures to a few people in the group, “will be underground, in the section of the radio station that its current owners are unaware of. Kellin,” he looks at me, “you and I will have to work fast, our friends are going to pull a fire alarm downstairs that will sound in the building but not alert the station or call the firefighters. As soon as the rest of the class leaves, we lock the studio door,” he hands me a map of the building, “and we start talking, say we are the radio hosts, maybe sing for them, and if we can buy a few minutes doing that, our friends will hack the station to play some of the old songs we’ve selected and some new ones bands down here have recorded, hopefully they can take over the system for a few hours, get as many people as possible to hear it and maybe plant a little doubt in their stoned-out minds. When the police finally arrive or our group comes back in, we say the door locked on its own and we figured out there was no real fire, so we made the best of the situation and have no idea what is causing old music to play on the station. Hopefully, they will have no reason to doubt us.”

The plan sounds great so far, though it is a bit risky, expecting them to take our word, I think we can pull it off.

“Meanwhile, those of you not in a group will be here, helping stock supplies and keeping in contact as much as possible, take turns heading above ground for radio access, and Jack and Rian will keep everything coordinated from this end. After all is done, Kellin and I will be expected to want to go home and rest. The rest of you, with your assorted alibis, will need to be in range to communicators where you can reach your parents, who will be worried about your well-being on the night a rebellion acted. You will reassure them, tell them you aren’t listening to the radio, and meet back here. If all goes well, there will be a celebration party to prepare for. If not, Jack knows the steps for the escape plan, he will get you all to Baltimore and you will continue the revolution from there, help our allies with their plans working on a larger scale, and stay hidden. I know a lot of you aren’t completely ready for this step, which is why it isn’t actually planned for a couple years, but it will be in effect immediately if something goes wrong and any of us end up in the hospital. Because I guarantee you, no matter who you are, they will get you to tell everything you know,” his last words ring into silence as the room begins to understand the severity of what we are going to do.

I notice a few people, including Zack and Rian, who seem unphased, but they probably already knew the plan and are just here for formality. Jack, who had been watching Alex intently, now has his head down, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. Most of the rest of us are just, accepting it. We are ready. There’s four weeks between now and the night of the radio special, which is plenty of time to hash out the few remaining details, and if anything, I think a lot of us just grew up a little. We are now part of something bigger than ourselves, more important than our lives, and worth the risk.
I still have one thing to ask though, so as the group starts to split off and discuss the details of the plan with each other, I go over to Alex.

“Alex,” I say hesitantly, “about the singing class… apparently I have to…”

“See the doctor?” he interrupts, smiling, “I saw them yesterday, such a waste of time. How have you gotten this far if you don’t know how to fool them?”

“I don’t know I just go and then don’t take what they give me?” I reply. I never thought of trying to trick them. I wouldn’t even begin to know how. I mean, I don’t tell them everything, but I don’t lie either.

“Just lie, Kellin. It’s not hard. ‘Everything is going great, I met a guy and some new friends, I’m really excited for class,’” he imitates, a wide, fake smile on his face and vacant expression in his eyes. I’m almost fooled for a second. He looks just like someone on cures.

“Everything is going great, I met a guy and some new friends, I’m really looking forward to class,” I try, hoping to match Alex’s fake smile technique.

“You’re getting there,” he says, “I can still tell though. Try zoning out a bit.”

This goes on for a good half hour before Alex is satisfied I can convince a doctor, but I’m not so sure. I guess even if they do give me new cures, I can just skip them again. I mean, nothing will be any different from usual right?