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“Chasing Life” recap (1.07): Present Tense

Previously on Chasing Life, April found out her cancer treatments could affect her fertility, and Brenna started to develop feelings for Greer, partially in thanks to the incomparable Beth Kingston.

We open on April and Beth in the waiting room of the fertility clinic, chatting about April’s sex life. Half of them are questions on the form they’re filling out, half of them are just to quell Beth’s curiosity. A nearby super-enthusiastic lesbian couple interrupts their giggle-fest to ask them which of them will be carrying the child. See, one has a more demanding job, but the other can hardly keep a goldfish alive! Haha! So hilarious! Life is hard to sustain! WAIT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT A HUMAN, I VOTE FOR LESBIAN #1.

Beth, being the adorable human she is, decides to just play along and grabs April’s hand. Kind of like how in Playing House they just went with the assumed lesbianism, but without the epic awkwardness afterwards. April meets with the fertility doctor and finds out that storing your eggs is considered elective, even when you’re about to receive ovary-frying radiation, and the procedure will cost about $5,000. April has about ten days to decide if she still wants/can afford to freeze her eggs.

When April gets home, her mother pops up and starts interrogating her like a barky dog and April looks like she seriously regrets telling her mother anything. April snaps that she’s going to her support group because she needs SUPPORT, MOTHER and poor Sara’s tail sadly droops between her legs.

In group, April talks about the egg-freezing she can’t really afford, and confesses that she hasn’t told her boyfriend about her leukemia yet. She asks her fellow group-mates for advice; one man says his boyfriend left a human-shaped hole in the wall, he scooted so fast, which, by the look on April’s face, is exactly what she was afraid to hear. But they tell her that she has to do it; it’s a true test of friendship, of love, of loyalty. The way people react to big news like this is a way to see who they really are, and if they’ll be able to be by your side when the going gets rough. April chats with Leo after group, who is lighthearted and making “seize the day” seizure jokes, which still make April cringe a little. She tells Leo that she has a lead for a story on his dad that she wants to pursue, but in the spirit of being cancer buddies, she wanted to ask his permission first. He gives her the go-ahead, because he’s not the spoiled brat he sometimes pretends to be.

At the Boston Post’s staff meeting, Bossman Lawrence is swatting down story pitches like they’re mosquitoes. The sex columnist, Mallory, is the only one with a half-decent story, which is about sperm-napping (kind of like what Bette and Tina tried to do that one time). April is last to pitch her piece about Leo’s dad, and she sells it so well that she’s told that the story is hers, under Raquel The Wretched’s supervision, and if the story makes it to print, it will be her first byline.

At school, Brenna finds Greer at…a craft fair? At first I thought she was selling antiques or cleaning out her hoarder grandmother’s attic but apparently it’s a table for the Eco Club. Greer says she’s too busy to talk to Brenna, and doesn’t even have a dimpled smile for her today, but Brenna is persistent. She even signs up for Eco Club just for an excuse to keep talking. Brenna apologizes for the night of the party, about hooking up with Kieran in her room, on her bed. Greer shrugs it off and says it’s fine, but she does not look very fine at all. Meanwhile at the Post, while Dominic and April make their plans for the evening, Dom gets a gig offer. If he accepts, he’ll follow Daft Punk around for four months. April and Dom exchange uneasy glances. But April has other things to worry about. Raquel gives her back her story and tells her that it’s simply not publishing material and gives her an hour to fix it, in a tone that makes it clear that she does not expect her to be able to fix it in an hour. Danny, April’s annoying and sexist cubicle neighbor, calls April and Raquel’s argument a catfight because he’s the worst. But April takes it in stride, and takes Danny’s focus playlist, turns into a jungle cat and fixes her story quick like a cheetah. Bossman tells her that she officially earned her first byline, much to Raquel’s chagrin.

April and Beth celebrate April’s byline by drinking champagne on a stoop while Beth sells all her belongings to help April pay for her egg-freezing procedure. Beth tells April that she really needs to stop worrying about everyone else, and how they’ll handle her news. She’s the sick one, she has to do what makes HER happy, what will make HER the least stressed. To give the stress-free April a head start, she refills her glass of champagne. Has there ever been a better best friend than Beth? PROVE IT.

April goes home and starts getting ready for her date with Dom, while Brenna watches. It’s little things like this that make me really sad that I don’t have a sister. My brother is great, but he’s not particularly good at the getting-ready-chit-chat thing. Anyway, Brenna’s weirded out by her mom and sister fighting; usually it’s her that gets Sara’s temper flaring. April doesn’t want to think about that right now, because she just earned her first byline, and not even an insane mother is going to get her down. Brenna is crazy proud of her big sister. Sara is proud, too, as she lurks just outside the doorway, but doesn’t come in because she heard April’s exasperation and doesn’t want to interrupt.

Instead, April’s phone interrupts. She gets a text from Danny saying her story is being scrapped and she better get to the office ASAP. She drops everything and runs for her life, leaving a message for Dom about being late on the way. Luckily, she was honest in her message and said she was going back to the office, because if she had lied, he would have found out in three…two…one…SURPRISE! Everyone was at the office waiting for her; her story wasn’t scrapped, Dom had thrown together a party to celebrate her big win.

April is shocked. Beth is there, though she credits Dom for all the planning. Brenna comes in and April is even more shocked. Brenna says she wished she had been filming when April got Danny’s text, because her face was priceless. Even Dom’s cranky roommate is there, complaining about anything and everything as usual. It’s a full house, because apparently April is the most popular newbie to ever work at the newspaper.

Just when April thought everyone she knew was in one room, Leo appears. Dom says he invited him, and doesn’t notice that April looks wildly uncomfortable. Leo plays off the kiss like it was nothing, and promises he’s there as a friend and a friend only, and that he won’t spill any of her secrets.

Brenna, on a hunt for ice, runs into Dom’s roommate, who immediately starts not-so-subtly hitting on her. Beth descends from the heavens like a guardian angel and tells him that he better back off because Brenna is only 16. He panics and backpedals so fast he almost falls over. Back in the party, the gang plays Never Have I Ever (also known as I Never in some circles), a game that is somehow the best and the worst game ever invented. The first to go is Mallory, who says, “Never have I ever faked an orgasm.” Only Dom’s roommate drinks to that. Which…we won’t get into. Next up is “never have I ever been attracted to someone of the same sex.” Mallory drinks (which isn’t surprising, she’s the one who told April she sleeps with women sometimes). Beth drinks! Which is surprising in that I hadn’t really considered her sexuality but not in that of course she’s bi, very few straight girls would have asked Brenna if she was not straight. And also Brenna drinks, which isn’t surprising to us, but is surprising to April. Beth squeals in excitement-she totally ships Tennis Love. April asks about Kieran, but Brenna says it’s possible to like two people at the same time. The next turn is, “Never have I ever been attracted to anyone in this room” and April and Dom drink, making eyes at each other. Mallory drinks, making eyes at…Dom’s roommate? And Leo drinks, making sadface at April.

Cut to Mallory winning/losing Never Have I Ever. It was always unclear who wins and who loses, but it is clear that Mallory is hella drunk. Which is why generally you play ten fingers; to avoid giving the most…adventurous person in the group alcohol poisoning. Before they can tuck her into a taxi, Bossman Lawrence shows up and everyone hides. A bunch of grown-ass adults dive under desks in an open-plan office. Except Dom’s roommate, who sits at the nearest computer and pretends to work. Bossman tells everyone they’re fired, but no one laughs, because he has that kind of stern voice/face that doesn’t change when he’s making a joke. He clarifies by telling them that he doesn’t care what they do, as long as everything is gone by 6 am and that no one touches his desk. He also pulls April aside because he wants to tell her that she doesn’t have to go through Raquel anymore. She’s a proper reporter now, and she’s going to have a lot more work to do from now on. April nervously tells him that she might need time off for medical reasons, and he is remarkably understanding about it, and just tells her to let him know what she needs.

While these shenanigans were going on, Doctor Uncle takes Sara to a support group for people with family members who have cancer. She tries to introduce herself to a few people but they all roll their eyes and run away when she says, “Hello, my name is Sara, my daughter has leukemia.” It turns out, this group is more a way for these people to unwind and NOT talk about cancer for once, which is literally the opposite of what Sara wanted. She drags Doctor Uncle out into the hallway and tells him that she can’t make any sense of why April got cancer and it makes her so angry and YOU WOULDN’T LIKE HER WHEN SHE’S ANGRY. But yelling seemed to help, so support group wasn’t a total dud after all.

Back at the office, Brenna is (adorably) stashing pictures of herself all over April’s desk, when she finds a picture of Doctor Uncle, her father, and Mystery Sister.

Meanwhile April tells Dom that he should take the Daft Punk job. He’s hesitant to leave her, but she can’t let him stay just for her. It’s too much pressure, too much opportunity for resentment. Brenna interrupts this heart to heart to ask about the Mystery Sister. To April’s credit, she doesn’t beat around the bush. She tells Brenna everything she knows about Natalie Ortiz, and tells Brenna that just because their father cheated doesn’t mean he didn’t love their mother. Like Brenna said, you can like two people at the same time. Also, they don’t know if he would have told them about her eventually. Maybe he was going to, but died before he could get the chance. If April has learned anything since getting sick, it’s that being honest is harder than you would think.

Brenna takes this to heart and marches straight over to Greer’s house. Greer looks less than happy to see her, but Brenna says she wants to talk. Brenna confesses that she didn’t say everything she meant to say the first time she apologized. Brenna says that when Greer walked in on her and Kieran kissing, Brenna felt awful. And not just, “Oops we totally got busted and now I feel kind of bad about it.” More like a roundhouse kick to the heart seeing Greer so angry, having that anger be because of her. A knife to the feels, being asked to leave with so much hurt in Greer’s voice. All Brenna knows is that the idea that Greer hates her makes her feel like she’s drowning. Greer promises she doesn’t hate Brenna. She then says the simplest and yet most true statement: “It’s just hard when you’re into girls and you have no idea if they’re into girls.” You can think you know and you can think the flirting is mutual and you can think they feel the electricity you feel when their hand brushes yours, but then you can see them kiss a boy and you can feel a Jenga tower after someone pulled out the wrong block. Greer wasn’t mad that Brenna broke the code of social conduct and went into her room during a party. She was hurt because she thought they had a thing and seeing her with Kieran like that reminded her that they didn’t. Brenna looks hopefully at Greer and says they did have a thing, she felt it, too. Greer smiles sadly and notes the use of the past tense. But the English language is a tricky beast, and Brenna was speaking presently. Then Brenna leaves all of her doubts at the bottom of the stairs and leans in for a kiss. Fade to sunrise. (No, literally, their kiss dissolves into a beautiful sunrise.)

April and Dom have some real talk: Dom took the job, and will be away for a few months. He asks what that means for their relationship, and April tells him that she doesn’t want to get in the way of anything that comes up. She doesn’t want him worrying about her, and vice versa. So they decide to use the Daft Punk tour as a break. But the tour doesn’t start just yet, so they head back to Dom’s place for the night, where they find a robed Beth, looking a wee bit embarrassed as Dom’s roommate struts out of the bedroom. I was so hoping Mallory would come out, too, but alas, just Dom’s roommate the kale-hater and a mildly embarrassed, but incredibly sexy, Beth “The Best” Kingston. Oh also someone paid for April’s procedure but wished to remain anonymous. Say, LEt’s guess whO it is. (See what I did there?)

What did you think of “Unplanned Parenthood”?

Here are some of our favorite #ChasingLesbians tweets from this week:

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