A Shrine to an Unknown God

CONTROL

"OF WHAT?" I say.

Marisol cups the side of her head in her hand. "Losing Dahlia."

"Because of your opinions on weed?"

"No—because I'm going to New York next year for college.  And she's my best friend, and I don't want to leave her behind, and—I know that we can, like, Skype or whatever, but our friendship is never going to be like it is right now ever again, and I'm scared of losing her. And—I'm scared of growing up, I'm scared of things changing. I never realized just how—just how quickly things can change, before. But now—now my brother's missing, and my parents might not be my real parents, and I almost died, and you're here, and I broke so many laws, and so many things have changed so quickly and I feel like I have no control over any of it and I don't like not being in control."

"What is Skype?" I ask.

"Something you can use on the phone or computer to talk to people."

"Nothing is ever very far out of your reach. You can hop on a plane, or get on a bus, and be with Dahlia within the day."

"Yeah, but—but we do everything together. We literally haven't been apart from one another for longer than twenty-four hours since I moved here." A tear drips down Marisol's cheek. "And everything is going to be so different. And I want things to stay how they are now, forever."

"But things don't stay the same forever," I tell her. "They'll change, and good things will come out of the change. And sometimes no good things will come out of them at all. But when that happens, you just move on to whatever's next on your list, and good things will come to you. It can't stay bad forever."

She nods, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I'm worried that it might."

"How come?"

"Because—what happens if I don't make it? What if I put all my eggs in one basket, and it falls through? I'll get stuck in some dead-end job I hate. And I don't want to be one of those people that just—goes through their days on autopilot, and is so miserable all the time."

"What do you mean, make it?"

"I wanna act," she says. "Professionally. Like, in theatre, you know? It's the—it's the only thing that could make me happy, I know it. But it's—such a hard thing to get into, and to stay into. And as a—as a biracial woman, that window of opportunity is so much smaller than it would be if I was—if I was white, you know? Especially since I'm not half-white. No one wants a half-black half-Korean actress, that just isn't a thing. You're either half-white or fully-white or you don't get shit. There are only so many roles that we get, it's all just scraps."

"However difficult it is to get into, you just need to work twice as hard. If it's what you really want."

Marisol nods. "You better work, bitch."