Kim Rapoport
Kim Rapoport
Kim Rapoport hopes this email about your car’s extended warranty finds you well. A writer, post-production editor, and producer, Kim served as a producer on the 2021 indie film The Chinese Tourist, which showed at the Local Sightings Film Festival in Seattle and the Los Angeles Women in Film Festival. When she is not working on film sets or attending classes at Boise State University with a goal to obtain a BFA in Film and Television Arts and a certificate in Narrative Arts, Kim splits her time between Boise and Reno.
Miller
You meet Miller at your community college while he slowly works toward becoming an electrician. What he really wants to do is be a White rapper; Miller brags that he’s going to be “The Marshall Mathers of Reno.” Miller works at his cousin’s vape shop part-time to pay for gigs at the venues he raps at, but Miller’s dad wishes Miller could work at the Tesla Gigafactory in the desert. Miller refuses to work for billionaires, but he likes to smoke a joint and listen to Gary Vee and David Ramsay’s podcasts at the end of the day to unwind and dream.
Somehow, you and Miller fall in love. You buy Victoria’s Secret bras one size too small because he loves your breasts. He takes you jet skiing on Lake Tahoe. He buys you heart-shaped pizzas. He takes you to University of Nevada basketball games and promises you that he will buy you a sports franchise. That declaration of love is cheesy, but seventeen-year-old girls are into cheese.
You introduce Miller to your family during a Sunday brunch buffet at the Silver Legacy. Your sister wants you to date someone “respectable.” Dad and Miller make small talk before Dad shuffles off to the sportsbook to watch the Vegas Golden Knights game. After brunch, your mom psychoanalyzes Miller and claims that he has an “addictive personality.”
Miller gets you pregnant and takes you to Planned Parenthood for an abortion. After the procedure, he ghosts you for a week, then two, then three; he claims that he was busy because his cousin is opening a second vape shop in Fallon. He takes you to a rap battle as an apology, where he comes in 2nd place. Afterward, you and Miller drift apart. You leave Reno for experiences you never dreamed about while you were with Miller–Grad school. A semester abroad in Tokyo. Trying bisexuality on for size.
You don’t think of Miller until you hear on the news that he got drunk and crashed his car into a Jack in the Box. Everyone’s okay, but Miller does a stint in prison, then rehab. You dwell on Miller for the rest of the day; when you hear about someone from your past, memory demands that you think of them. Miller did so much for you, then did so little for you after the abortion. It’s hard not to think of a guy like Miller.
A day or two after Miller’s crash, you move on.