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“Chasing Life” recap (1.18): A is for Anxiety

Previously on Chasing Life, April and Leo decided to go on a break because they might not have anything besides the cancer in common, Sara kissed her office neighbor, Brenna and Greer started to rekindle their friendship, and April got a nosebleed and freaked out that her cancer was back.

April is pacing around the hospital waiting room, wondering if it’s possible for things to change so quickly, but she supposes that’s how cancer happens, not at all and then all of a sudden. Dr. Hamburg comes out and says that her blood test came back relatively normal, that the nosebleed was probably just dry air and stress, and that she’s 99% sure that April is just fine. Everyone takes this as good news, except April, who only heard that there is a 1% chance everything is not fine at all.

In her cancer support group, April says that she hates not being able to trust her body anymore, but that she’s grateful she’s still able to trust in somebodies instead, giving a pointed glare at the late-coming Leo who had decidedly NOT been someone she can trust lately.

Brenna comes home from school to find her newest sister doing laundry, all happy to see her.

Natalie tries the big sister role on for size and asks Brenna how her day at school went and Brenna tells her school is school and her torture isn’t over because Sara is hosting a college prep info sesh at her house later that night. Natalie suggests going out in JP (that’s Boston talk for Jamaica Plain…a place that was not cool to hang out in when I was growing up, but is apparently the place to be now) but Brenna says her mom would freak. Though she’s grateful her mom isn’t anywhere near as intense as Greer’s parents. At the mention of the blonde beauty, Natalie perks up, hoping that the Grenna ship is sailing once more, but Brenna says they’re just friends. No matter, Natalie had a plan for that scenario too and shows Brenna a top she thinks will be perfect for a night out on the town for a couple of single sisters.

Unfortunately, Sara is not a big fan of aforementioned top.

Brenna is embarrassed to be caught by her mother and goes to change and Sara says she thinks that’s best since the college prep class will start soon. Natalie jokes that if she wore that top, she’d get into any college she wanted, but Sara is far from amused. And probably wishing she just let Brenna hang out with Greer instead of leaving her free to be influenced by Natalie.

At the college prep info sesh, the life coach asks them about having a GPA over 3.8, at least 4 AP classes, and some volunteering experience, and Ford surprisingly raises her hand for all three things.

When Sara sees that Brenna didn’t raise her hand for a single one, she starts to panic. When the instructor says that the parents should know what their kids are doing at all times, since one mistake in their junior year could ruin their entire lives, Sara panics even more. And as someone who went to a private college preparatory high school, I can tell you that this is not too far off from real life. The pressure is legit.

Across town, April is trying to vent to Beth, but her boss keeps her too busy to fully disengage from her phone. Speaking of which, she also invited Graham to hang out because she no longer has time to see both her boyfriend and her best friend at the same time. Graham comes with flowers that used to be Dom’s and, as though that wasn’t enough to shake April up a little bit, confirms her fears that the 99% chance of being okay wasn’t a sure enough statistic to hang her hat on.

This sets off April’s anxiety. The potential for her cancer to come back haunts her every thought, and she can’t sleep all night. As soon as the clock strikes eight (OK, digitally changes to eight), she calls Dr. Hamburg and asks about a bruise she found on her arm, asking her if it’s a cancer bruise. Dr. Hamburg isn’t worried about her bruise being a cancer bruise, but she IS worried about her stress levels giving her a heart attack, so she tells April to focus on controlling her anxiety, starting with exercise.

I’m not sure that was the best idea, though, because it results in April talking about her mother’s sex life. It toes the line between a sweet bonding moment and an uncomfortable conversation.

At work, Raquel tells April that she owes her for saving her life and gives her a stack of articles to edit, including one about the dangers of microwaves, which does literally nothing for April’s anxiety. Which is why I don’t watch the evening news, because that’s exactly the kind of news it reports. “How what you’re holding in your hand right now could kill you! Tonight at 11.”

Back at Casa Carver, Sara confesses to Emma that she’s worried about Brenna, but Emma says that Sara should let her make her own mistakes; Sara wasn’t exactly the model teenager either but she managed to survive to adulthood. And raise two humans at that. Sara wants to be comforted by this, but isn’t, especially when Brenna comes downstairs with Natalie, both of them dressed to the nines.

When Sara asks where they’re headed, Brenna lies (poorly) and says they’re going to The Charles for dinner, and Sara grabs Grandma and says they were going to, despite the fact that Emma had just been chopping vegetables for dinner.

When they get to The Charles, Natalie is bummed they have to bail on their friends, but Brenna asks her to just go along with it. It’s trivia night, so the girls giggle over silly things like Uranus, and instead of seeing it as sisters learning how to be sisters-one who’s never had a sister before, and the other who’s never had a sister this close in age-Sara sees it as Natalie dumbing her daughter down. Sara scoffs about girls who pretend to be dumb to look cool and Natalie feels the sting of that burn.

April goes to her friend’s bat mitzvah and when she hears that her friend used to be super anxious before she found God and religion, she asks the rabbi for guidance. She explains that she looked for God when she was in the hospital, and even went to the chapel for help, but He was nowhere to be found. The rabbi asks her if she found any help when she went to the chapel, any comfort, and when April says she did, the rabbi suggests maybe that was God being there for her after all. He also tells her that what she’s looking for is a way to connect to God, and that she should figure out if that’s what she really wants before leaping into religion. Religion and spirituality are two very separate things, and converting to Judaism or Catholicism on a whim isn’t going to solve her problems.

The bat mitzvah girl finds April in her tailspin and gives her a pot cookie to take the edge off – medical marijuana of course. April is confused, because she just heard her friend say God calmed her anxiety, and her friend says that God and weed are not mutually exclusive.

The next day, Sara is telling Emma that she’s worried that Brenna’s not living up to her potential when Brenna comes downstairs without so much as a “good morning.” Sara tries to act all causal and ask what Brenna’s plan for the day is and she responds with a list of delinquencies she’s considering partaking in. Emma plays along and says that sounds like fun, but Sara is trying to be serious. She tries plying her daughter with compliments, but Brenna isn’t buying it.

April and Beth are hanging out and April is trying to figure out if she should go to Dom’s book signing when she gets an email from her friend Meg saying her cancer was back. This is the last thing Anxious April needed and she starts to freak out; she just saw Meg this morning, and Meg was fine, and now she’s not, and this is exactly what she was afraid of.

When they get to the book signing, Beth tries to give April a glass of wine to calm her the eff down but April admits she shouldn’t have wine since she had some of a pot cookie. Beth is 1000% in support of this plan and asks how much of the cookie she ate. When April shows her a cookie with the tiniest nibble taken out of it, Beth encourages her to eat at least half of the cookie.

Unfortunately, she can’t stick around for High!April. Beth has to go put aloe on her boss’s just-waxed vajayjay. Lovely.

So April finds herself alone in the Death & Dying section of the bookstore, half a pot cookie deep. Dom finds her and is surprised to see her, but she says she just wanted to support him like he supported her. She can sense he’s being shady and she’s pretty sure it’s not just the paranoia talking, and Dom confesses that his mother is out of jail and at this very book signing. Dom has to go sign some more books, and leaves a high flying April alone with his mother.

Meanwhile, Leo also goes to the doctor to check on his symptoms. He’s been moody and depressed and he’s had headaches and anger outbursts and he wants to know if it’s something to do with the tumor. Leo’s doctor has significantly less awesome bedside manner than Dr. Hamburg and basically shrugs, not looking Leo in the eye at all, and nonchalantly is like, “This is your life now, get used to it.”

At the bookstore, April is shoving cookies and her foot in her mouth while talking to Dom’s mother. After some awkward prison jokes, Dom’s mother asks about how April and Dom know each other, and before you know it, April has recapped the entire season of Chasing Life for her. Dom’s mother says that she too once lied to Dom, and all they can do is be ready to accept his forgiveness and wait for the day he’s ready to give it. April is jealous of her utter peace and so Dom’s mother gives her a Buddhist book that helped her get through her prison sentence.

Dom finds April outside after the signing, and as adorable as she is trying to figure out what the word is to describe why “pot” and “potent” sound so fun to say together (since it’s not ‘rhyme’), Dom knows she needs to be escorted home. He takes her to his place and tucks her into his couch as she rambles about his mom being nice, and him being nice, and her being not nice and feeling really bad about it. Dom tells her that he forgives her before saying goodnight.

April wakes up at Dom’s place and reads a phrase from the Buddhist book that says everything is exactly as it should be. She walks by a sleeping Dom and smiles, she gets a voicemail from Leo and smiles, and then she spits blood into the sink and does the very opposite of smiling. Though luckily it was just her imagination. Well, not THAT lucky, because when your anxiety causes you to start hallucinating, you might need more help than half a pot cookie.

Natalie shows up at Sara’s door to talk, admitting she didn’t like being told she was stupid. In fact, she doesn’t like how Sara’s been treating her ever since she arrived. She came here to get to know her sisters and maybe learn something about the father she never knew, and Sara’s treating her like SHE’S the one who slept with her husband. She says maybe it’s not up to Sara’s standards for life goals, but she’s doing the best she can.

Sara admits that she is probably taking out some of her frustration about the whole situation on Natalie and apologizes. Natalie appreciates her candor and reminds her that she’s not her mother, and that Brenna isn’t Sara.

April goes to cancer support group and finds everyone crying. She hugs Meg and is surprised to hear Meg ask her how SHE’S doing, since she’s not the one whose cancer just came back. Meg hates to be the one to break the news to her, but there was a train going from Boston to NYC that crashed, killing multiple people, and one of them might have been Leo. April goes into full panic mode now and runs home to her family to keep from falling apart, and is relieved to see Leo standing in her kitchen talking to Sara.

Leo says that after talking to Meg, he was too sad to do anything but walk, and missed the train and let his phone die. But when he heard about the crash he came to April’s house to see her. Leo’s a mess; he doesn’t understand why he just keeps surviving, why people with dreams and goals are dying and he, who has no idea what he wants from life, keeps going. April understands and uses her new Buddhist wisdom to calm him, telling him that maybe it’s okay that he doesn’t know the reason why he’s still here, but maybe knowing there is a reason is enough to hold on. He thanks her for being sweet and she thanks him for being honest. Leo says he’s never been this open with anyone, that he’s never felt this way before, and April holds him close.

Later, Sara brings Brenna a giant cupcake as a peace offering. She apologizes to Brenna for things being tense, for all the pressure she has been putting on her. Brenna says it’s okay and anyway she’s been looking at all of Sara’s materials and she has an idea of what she wants to do when she graduates. Brenna holds up a “gap year” pamphlet and says she wants to travel for a year before starting college and Sara suddenly regrets saying she’d stop pressuring her daughter.

What did you think of “Rest in Peace”?

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

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

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