The Believing Game (2 page)

Maybe in real life, Addison and I wouldn't have registered on each other's radar. For one thing, he was muscular. Some girls appreciate that, but not me. Addison was built the way cartoon superheroes are built. Bulging. Cabled. His shirts strained across his chest; veins pulsed along his thick arms. The first thing you understood about him was that Addison could hurt someone. His hair was clipped so short, you couldn't make out its color. He always wore jeans — not thug-saggy or painted on. Just regular jeans, along with white or black T-shirts and work boots. When he first showed up in the middle of English class, I guessed he worked on the maintenance crew. And when he sat down, it surprised me that he didn't slump. Dr. Rennie asked him to read a passage on the handout aloud and I braced myself. Part of me expected that he would stumble over the words, that he wouldn't be able to read.

Now I understand how ignorant that assumption was. Joshua would call it
shaping the world to fit the hole in my heart
. Addison read the poem like it was a script he'd already memorized. It was the Browning poem about the duke who kills his wife, and he didn't even hesitate on the foreign names. It also made the poem creepier — hearing it read by the Incredible Hulk.

I noticed him. And then he noticed me back.

It surprised me. He didn't look like someone who would look at me. But he did. A lot. Mostly because his seat at the seminar table faced mine. It wasn't that my face was that supremely magnetic or anything. They gave me back shampoo. They didn't airbrush me.

But that first day, I felt Addison's eyes on me like tiny needles, embroidering my face with his gaze. He read the poem, then answered Dr. Rennie's questions with his clear, even voice. Dr. Rennie droned on, prodding us to psycho-analyze a fictional character from the nineteenth century. “Sir,” Addison said, “I'm not convinced the poet wants us to empathize with the speaker here.” Everyone in the room knew something was going on, that the new kid was trying out for something. It wasn't until the third time that he answered and then slid his eyes in my direction that I let myself believe it: Addison was auditioning for me.

Dr. Rennie held him back afterward, supposedly to check his books, but really to remind us all that he could. I paused in the doorway, but Addison didn't turn. I remember feeling myself carried out into the hallway, in the wave of everyone else around me. Already I was thinking about him. Already I felt his presence tugging me in the opposite direction.

 

My profound and unwavering appreciation for the penis certainly factored into my parents' decision to ship me off to McCracken Hill. They never said so, but I knew it anyway.

Ancient pagans used sex as a form of ritual worship, but I didn't mention that to Ms. Crane or Ms. Ling or any of the other perky women in polar fleece who had been recruited to teach me to keep my legs crossed. I dutifully picked at my
cuticles and pretended to be embarrassed. When they said, “Sometimes it's easy to trick ourselves into feeling powerful when we give up that gift,” I wanted to offer them techniques, because if they'd never felt mighty like that, then they weren't doing it right. One night, when Todd Gibbons and I had snuck into the botanical gardens back home, he'd taken a step ahead of me on the wooden, slatted path and I'd stopped and pulled my dress right over my head. I'd stood there in heels with nothing else on and watched his knees buckle when he turned back.

Todd Gibbons was shorter than me and talked too much about obscure bands. I hadn't even expected to go out with him again, but I could have watched him stumble over and over. I wanted to tell Ms. Ling that I was the one who'd caught him and tugged him to the patch of moss off to the side of the walk. And afterward it was me who hadn't called back.
Sometimes it's like that,
I wanted to say. Sometimes seeing your own bare limbs soaked in moonlight is sacred. Sometimes you need to know you can make someone else shake and sigh.

Both Ms. Crane and Ms. Ling could run the abstinence script by me all they wanted, but I noticed they both went still anytime Addison entered a room. Lots of girls did. He never made any kind of sly comment or stood up any straighter. Even when the female teachers would lapse into a beat of silence and then restart — more loudly, with their hands fluttering around their hair, the top buttons of their blouses — Addison just kept going, like he was used to having that kind of influence.

Early on, he let me see him notice. At McCracken, you were privileged with the choice of table for breakfast and lunch. But for dinner, they assigned you tables each week.
Everyone rotated. It was supposed to prevent cliques but mostly it meant eating a lot of meals in silence. A member of the faculty lorded over each of the tables, and conversations went something like this:

Ms. Crane: “Wow — Mondays, right? They can be tiring, but they're also an opportunity for a whole new beginning each week.”

Us: Silence.

Ms. Crane: “What are we all planning for this week?”

Us: Silence.

That time, Ms. Crane told us, “I'm looking forward to Friday's movie night. The film club has chosen an inspiring selection about a marathon runner who loses his leg after drinking and driving. It's intense, but it has an incredible message. What do you all have planned? Why don't we just go around the table so everyone has the chance to share — Hannah, why don't you begin?”

Hannah Green was looking forward to huffing the Scotchgard she'd lifted off the cleaning woman's cart. Her eyes darted back and forth; her mouth opened and closed. “Hannah.” Ms. Crane spoke firmly and slowly. “Please share your plans with the group.” A slight wheeze escaped Hannah's lips. She sounded like a deflating tire. I don't know why I decided to help. Maybe it was because Addison was there. Maybe it was my turn to audition.

“Hannah and I were going to sign out some board games from the rec room on Friday.”

“That's lovely, Greer. But I'm sure Hannah will tell me all about it.” Hannah's tongue darted across her lips. She looked tweaked out. Ms. Crane's pen hovered over her conversational scorecard. “Game night sounds like fun, Hannah. What do you like to play?”

Hannah reached out for her glass of water. I watched the liquid slosh toward the cup's lip, realizing I'd never heard her speak. Most of the kids at McCracken seemed hardened, not weak. It was just like Ms. Crane to zero in on one of the few who wouldn't fight back.

Addison reached across and laid his hand over Ms. Crane's. She looked down at it and her skin reddened — the blush first blossomed up her neck, then her whole face. “That movie sounds really compelling, Ms. Crane. Sometimes I think about the stupid mistakes I made, you know — back when I was drinking. Any night of the week, I could have destroyed my life. Or someone else's.”

She tore her eyes from the sight of his hand resting on her own. Ms. Crane didn't seem to see anyone else at the table. She just drank him in. That might have counted as the first time I saw a guy execute my moves. I pictured Ms. Crane's evaluations:
Addison takes initiative. Addison has a keen understanding of anatomy.

Addison flickered his gaze up to me and I willed my eyes to ice over.
Go for it, whiskey dick.
When the clock hand clawed over to 6:30
P.M.
, Hannah skittered from her seat and I pretended to be concerned so I could chase her.

“Hey, Hannah — slow down, speed freak.” I hoped he heard me being a good person. I hoped he laughed at my effortless addiction punnery. Hannah Green was not amused.

“Enough, okay?” But she stopped at the dining hall's little footbridge. She waited for me to convince her I cared.

I didn't. “Sure thing.” I pronounced it in two clipped syllables, like my mom does when she won't entertain a tantrum. Hannah Green had to hold on to the railing, I strode by her that fast. I hurtled over the stone paths until I could close
myself in my stark room and remember the minutes when I made myself matter.

 

I knew it was him knocking. Recognized the three short raps, even though I'd never heard them before. They sounded like Addison. I remember sitting straight up in the bed and glaring through the door. And when I swung it open, he stood there with his head bowed and pressed to the door frame. He looked guilty, which made it worse.

“Listen,” I said, “we had historic eye contact. That's it. You don't have to explain yourself to me.” I used my best assassin voice.

“Can I come in?”

Addison moved forward, but I stepped out around him, pulled the door shut behind me.

“Are you kidding?” I checked the length of the hallway. No Ms. Crane. Maybe he'd applied for a restraining order in the fifteen minutes after dinner. “If someone sees you here …”

He didn't care. And neither, really, did I.

“Do you not hear the bedsprings squeaking up and down the hall?” he asked.

“People are doing sit-ups, right? Working off dinner calories?”

“No — I mean — wait, you're just screwing with me, right?” Addison rocked back on his heels and grinned, and I felt my whole face flush hot. My right leg actually shook, and suddenly I developed a tiny shred of empathy for Ms. Crane. Miniscule, but there. And then Addison reached out. He rubbed his thumb across my cheekbone, like he was marking
me. I half-expected to go back in the room and find a bruise of war paint across my face. “Greer Cannon. You might be the most well-behaved delinquent here.”

The metal door cooled my back. I wondered if Addison's eyes would widen if I reached behind me and turned the knob, drew him into the room and onto the narrow bed. But then I remembered how Ms. Crane's eyes had glittered, tracing the movement of his lips when he spoke. I thought about all the girls straightening up in their seats when he first strode into a classroom. Any of them would pull Addison into bed.

I wasn't just anyone.

So I headed for the dorm doors. I heard Addison's steps, even before he gathered himself up to call after me. “Greer! Wait.” I paused at the vestibule for a few seconds. It was just dusk and I could see the barest outline of Addison's reflection behind mine in the window's glass. He asked, “Where are we going?” as if it were totally up to me.

That night, I learned it's possible to walk for hours around the same grassy quad and still see a fresh view on each pass. Addison listened to me. He looked at me too. But not the head-to-toe checking out that I'd grown used to. Addison considered me in the same careful way we considered the McCracken Hill scenery, finding something new every time. Sometimes you're just living your life and suddenly there's a moment that hits you harder than others. You think that flash will go on glimmering for the rest of your days. You'll always look back and remember it.

Addison made every moment feel like that.

We looped around the school grounds, sticking mostly to the stone paths between buildings. Most of McCracken Hill was fenced in wrought iron. I kept reaching out and grabbing
at it as we walked by. We didn't actually go anywhere. Even still, we traveled closer and closer to each other.

“How often do you go off campus?” he asked.

I shrugged. I didn't go off campus. I'd thought the gilded cage was the point.

“You don't ever just walk to town?” Addison looked at me incredulously. You had to ask for a treatment session in order to request village privileges. I pictured sitting at the vast conference table, arguing that I needed fresh air. Dad and I had bypassed the town on the way in. But I knew there was a Rite Aid nearby. A 7-Eleven. A Starbucks. Rite Aids usually use electronic surveillance devices on valuable items. Most 7-Elevens use closed-circuit TVs.

“I haven't really needed anything.” When you left campus, you had to return through the ornate gates near the administrative building. Security guards checked through your things. You signed a ledger book when you left and when you came back to campus.

“What do you do here all the time?”

I shrugged, thought of the journal full of scribbled letters that I kept. The hundreds of times I'd written
Always, Greer
at the bottom of pages I'd never send. “I study a lot” is all I managed to come up with. And then, because that sounded so pitiful, “I write a lot of letters home.”

“Do you miss it?”

I didn't. But the sympathetic tilt in his voice suggested that family was a big deal for Addison Bradley. For him, home meant sitting around the kitchen table late at night, shooting the shit with his dad, or maybe a brother. His mom stood at the stove, flipping pancakes and laughing at their stories. Or maybe he had a little sister who he picked up and
threw over his shoulder every time she mouthed off to their parents. He shook her until she dropped the attitude and finally smiled. Addison looked like he raked leaves, took out the trash, carried in groceries from the car.

“I miss them,” I said. I let him think I meant my family, but really I meant the phantom folks in his family portrait. I missed the Bradleys, whoever they were.

Except they couldn't have been too perfect. Addison had landed at McCracken.

Mostly we talked about school. What was bullshit. What made sense. Addison was better at picking out what made sense. Even with Ms. Crane. When I shook my head, he reached out and stopped me, held my chin between his thumb and finger. I thought he would tilt my head to kiss me, but he just said, “When you nod your head, you're so beautiful. Because you're accepting possibility.”

Accepting possibility.
I had never thought of things in those terms. Mostly because no one had ever offered them to me that way.

Addison told me that even if Ms. Crane's motives were flawed, they had to stem from kindness. “You don't sign up to work at a place like this just for money.”

“Maybe she's building her resume.”