The Believing Game (26 page)

“Yeah? What's that?”

“It's just like man class. Gender responsibility stuff. We have to buy a pregnancy test.” The best way to lie is to tell as much of the truth as possible.

Addison set down his glass. “Whoa, Greer.” His ruddy face had drained of its color.

“No!” I almost shouted it. Sophie glanced up from her table. The other kids assigned to ours looked either smug or uncomfortable. The power couple of group therapy was arguing again. “No.” I turned down my volume. “It's not that.”

“Because we were careful,” Addison whispered to me.

“Right.”

“You're sure? Because I would have known, right? If there was anything to worry about.”

It's weird the things you remember. Because just then I found myself thinking about the deft way Addison handled
condoms. No big deal afterward. He'd just slip the thing off and tie a quick knot. Maybe that's a gross thing to admire, but I have more trouble tying my shoes. Anyway, I remember after we first had sex, I saw him conduct condom detail and thought that Addison must be some kind of sexpert. Even more so than me and that made me oddly sad. There was so much about him I didn't know.

“I'm positive,” I told him. “Nothing to worry about.” My throat ached. It never occurred to me that Addison might know that Joshua had slept with Hannah Green. It hurt to keep the secret from him, to think that Sophie and I were building a case against the one person in whom Addison had found shelter.

“Maybe we should go spend time with your parents?” I blurted it out. I meant:
I want to know that someone else loves you.

Addison looked around, like I'd embarrassed him. “What are you talking about?”

“They're close by, that's all. If you don't want me to meet Chuckie — that's fine. But maybe they could visit here. Or just meet us for breakfast. We don't have to tell them that Joshua's sick or anything —”

“Yeah, no.” Addison's voice could have hammered a nail into a board. “Thanks, though.” I pushed the food around my plate with my fork, feeling ill and not at all hungry. “You need to eat that.” He spoke more gently. He always spoke gently to me about food. “We could all walk to town together.”

Maybe it makes me manipulative, but I saw an exit strategy and took it. Faked that I felt hurt that he wouldn't introduce me to the folks.
“Yeah, no,”
I mimicked, and then, because I didn't want to start a real fight, I added, “You don't
want me to be that girl, dragging her boyfriend into CVS to buy pregnancy tests.”

“Nope. And no one wants to be the guy buying the First Response either.”

“You even know the brand!” I pretended to pretend to be scandalized. Really, I was a little scandalized.

Addison said loudly, for the whole table to hear, “I might even have a coupon in one of my issues of
Seventeen
.” He thought that would shock people. I should have advised him that we had plenty of other material to trot out for dinner-table shock value.

Somehow we skated through without having a real fight. Addison sat with me until I finished eating and even carried my tray to the kitchen. I watched Ms. Ling watch us and scribble something into her little notepad. I'd probably end up having to talk about my adherence to archaic gender roles because I had let my boyfriend carry my tray.

“Joshua will miss seeing you,” he told me.

“Oh, I'll miss him too. But he'll be glad we're having girl time.” We walked out, but Addison steered me around the corner, to the vestibule by the science wing. I took advantage of the extra time together and tried to gather some facts. “Hey, how does he think Hannah's doing?” Very subtle.

Addison had tipped my chin up and reached his hand to rest on the back of my head. Midswoop, his faced reared back. “What?”

“I just wondered if he said anything?”

Addison kissed me and then pulled me even closer against him. “I don't remember.”

I held him off for a second to ask, “Really? He'd been so worried that she didn't feel comfortab —”

Addison sighed. “I don't even remember who Hannah is right now.”

“Add —” I pushed him away, but only lightly.

“Shhhhh,” he told me. And we kissed until we heard the
clang
of pots and pans in the kitchen. That meant the cleanup crew had started dish duty and if either of us planned to head off campus, we needed to move it along.

Heading off campus with Hannah gave me a chance to exercise my new resolve to be a more patient person. Sophie and I had grown used to our nightly expeditions. We slipped through the gates and assumed the blustery pace of the McCracken sneak — head down, hands in our pockets, walking swiftly as if we had an extremely important appointment. Hannah basically crept on tiptoe like a cartoon character. “Hannah, really, it's just not a big deal,” I said. She rushed to keep up, her eyes sliding around like she was waiting to hear sirens. “We signed out.”

“We signed out to the coffee shop.”

True. Most nights we signed out to the coffee shop. It should have gotten some kind of subsidy from McCracken, really. Whenever our treatment teams gave us the chance to walk to town, they suggested the coffee shop as our destination. Apparently, that's what healthy, well-adjusted teens were supposed to do — go to Common Grounds and sip soy lattes and consider community service opportunities.

“So are we going to stop there?”

I didn't like Common Grounds. It smelled fake, for one thing, like a limited-edition Febreze scent: Colombian Free Trade. Inevitably, some sad member of the faculty sat there — maybe keeping tabs on us, maybe just living out his or her own desperate existence. And either the men leered or the
women glared at us for taking up the comfy chairs. So I said, “We don't have to stop there.”

Hannah paused. Completely. She stopped walking and everything. Sophie tugged her forward. “Do you want coffee?”

“I don't want to get in trouble. Maybe someone's waiting to check that we actually get to where we've signed out.”

“That's the least of our troubles now, right?” As soon as I said it, Sophie glared at me. I would have too, because it set Hannah off on a tear.

“Yeah. I mean, that's right. What will they do? And I won't tell them.” She turned to Sophie. “You don't have to worry — I won't say anything about where — where it happened.” She grabbed my arm. “If Addison's worried, I would never get Joshua in trouble. I just won't tell them anything.”

“I didn't say anything to Addison.”

Hannah looked surprised. “Really? Does he know, do you think? About me and Joshua?”

“Of course not,” I told her. I told myself that Addison would have told me. Or consulted me somehow. “After our time at the cabin — did anything else happen? Between you and Joshua?”

“You mean sexual?” she asked. I tried not to cringe. “No. We weren't really alone much. And then Joshua's illness took a turn for the worse.” Sophie and I glanced at each other. Hannah veered off topic. “I don't want to go for coffee. You're right. I mean, who cares. What can they do? Give me a kitchen-duty detention?”

“Exactly.” So instead, we were just three wild and crazy kids, shopping in CVS. Someday I want to work at a pharmacy, just to see if they train employees to make teenaged
girls as uncomfortable as possible when they dare to purchase pregnancy test kits. The three of us browsed the aisle together. A balding man with a manager tag moseyed up to ask if we needed any assistance.

Hannah appeared to suffer a seizure. I gave him my flat, would-you-like-me-to-seduce-you look. “No. We don't need your help.”

“Okay, ladies. Well, we'll just look out in case it turns out you could use the advice of a sales associate.” I felt tempted then. To sit in the chair where they have the free blood-pressure machine and pour out my heart to him. I'd say,
My friend here has been seduced by a forty-year-old man who claims he's having all of his blood replaced with pig's blood. He is also training us for the apocalypse. But right now we're most concerned that Hannah might be pregnant. After all, what if the kid turns out to be the leader of the militant vegan movement? Won't that throw us all for a loop?

I knew Manager Man's game well. His kind and I had faced off through most of last year. And honestly, he threw down the gauntlet. He made it a matter of pride. “Which one, do you think?” I asked Sophie. I almost asked Hannah what her usual brand was. That proved I was still kind of a terrible person.

She glanced over at Hannah, who had begun pacing up and down the aisle. Totally playing it cool. Sophie stated the obvious. “Easiest to read.”

We went with Clearblue. I handed her one test. “Take it up and then change your mind. We're not giving that douchebag any money.” I nodded over to Eagle Eye Mahoney, standing at the end of the aisle with his arms folded. Sophie shot me a withering look. As soon as I told her, “I need this,” I realized it was true. So Sophie dragged up Hannah to the checkout.
Eagle Eye made a big show of walking over to the register in order to personally ring up the sale.

“Well, how are you ladies doing this evening?” I heard him ask.

Sophie's eyes stayed bored. “We're buying a home pregnancy kit. How do you think we are?”

Beat of silence. “Is there anything else you need tonight?”

Hannah kept glancing back at me. I shook my head sharply at her.
Stop drawing attention to me,
I meant, but she took it as
stop that sale. Right now.

That worked too. Hannah reached to squeeze Sophie's arm. While she leaned forward and bent to whisper in Sophie's ear, I picked up a second test kit. The strange thing about stealing is that it works best when you don't try to disguise it. I'm sure I'd need to learn some more tricks besides the old backpack-covering-the-bottom-of-the-shopping-cart routine before graduating to art or jewels, but my style of thievery mostly involved just staying calm and walking deceptively fast. It can't look like you're fleeing, only that you have important places to go.

I don't know what Hannah said to her, but Sophie squealed loudly and fussed with her jacket. She made a huge production out of shrugging off her sleeves and tying them around her waist in the classic, tried-and-true method of butt cover. “Turns out I don't need this.” She slid the Clearblue box back across the counter. “Maybe Midol?” she asked Hannah. While I sailed out of the doors to the sidewalk outside, I heard Sophie deciding, “I'll just tough it out.”

“Thank you!” Hannah called out as the two of them followed me into the cool dusk of Main Street. “You have a terrific night!” I could hear the shrieking laughter poking through the surface of her voice.

“All right, settle down.” I handed over the box and Sophie slipped it right into her messenger bag. My ears pricked, half-expecting the alarm system to yelp or the manager to place his meaty hand on my shoulder.

Instead Hannah breathlessly hugged me. “I can't believe you just walked out with it. Insanity. Sophie, did you see that?”

“I actually missed it. I was too busy faking menstruation.”

“That a first for you?”

Sophie tilted her head a little. “Actually, yes.”

“Well, that certainly earns points for creativity.” My voice shook a little bit. I recognized the rush of stealing. Dr. Saggurti and I had discussed that — the kick of adrenaline and how that had its own hook. She said it explained why I might put myself in “at-risk situations.” I wondered if Dr. Saggurti was working with Hannah on those too. If she would have seen this mess as a therapeutic failure. Or simply our fault.

One time, we'd listed healthy ways I could pursue that quickened heartbeat, that dry thrill. I'd come up with rock climbing and watching horror movies. Now I thought:
What was I thinking? Not even close.

Hannah's eyes glittered and she squeezed my arm. “Thanks. Really, Greer. That was heroic.”

“Not so fast, there, Stockholm syndrome,” Sophie reminded her. “You still have to pee on the stick.”

“Whatever happens, it'll be okay, though,” Hannah professed. “Right?”

Sophie's eyes flickered over to mine. I ran through the possibilities. We'd tell someone and they'd probably pack up Hannah and ship her off to another facility. Depending on which pieces of the story came to light, they might find
alternate arrangements for the rest us too. And Joshua probably wouldn't be able to get a doctor's note to excuse him from statutory rape. Not that it mattered to me, I reminded myself.

Or we wouldn't tell anyone. We'd go to a clinic and support her through it and cover for her back at the dorms. We'd find a way to excise Joshua from our lives on our own. If Addison didn't choose us, then we'd cut him out too.

Fighting a war against vegans sounded easier.

But at least for the windy walk back up the hill to campus, our problems seemed surmountable. We linked arms and replayed Sophie's snarkfest at the CVS counter. We signed back in and remarked that we needed to venture into town together more often if we could — even just to sit together in front of steaming mugs at Common Grounds. And then Sophie and I waited in the dorm bathroom while Hannah Green disappeared into a stall to pee on a stick. The three of us leaned against the restroom door so that no one else could push her way in.

We watched the test turn positive together.

The pale blue plus sign on the test stick worked like an on switch. Hannah immediately started wailing in the middle of the girls' room. Between us, she slid down the door and puddled at our feet. Sophie stared at me over Hannah's head. “What are we going to do?” she mouthed at me.

“What am I going to do?” Hannah moaned below us.

I knelt down. “We're going to deal.” Hannah looked searchingly at me. “Really.” She covered her face with her hands and her shoulders shook with sobs. I motioned for Sophie to crouch down with us.

“You had a feeling, right?” Sophie rubbed circles on her back. “So maybe we should just trust your instincts here. Right now let's just get you to bed. You need a good sleep and then we can sort through everything tomorrow.”

“Together?”

“Right.” I motioned for Sophie to get Hannah's other side and tried to help her up.

Hannah stopped us midway. “Wait. You're not going to turn me in, right?”

“What are you talking about? What would we turn you in for?”

“You could say you thought I looked pregnant. Then it would be easier to just play it off like I was crazy. No one else would get in trouble.” Hannah's eyes stared at me,
defeated. “It's okay. I get it. But I don't want to go to sleep feeling like I have you guys and then wake up and find out that I have no one.”

“Hannah, stop,” Sophie said softly.

“Honestly, just tell me now.” She started weeping again and I wondered again who had hurt her so much that she expected that we'd turn on her.

“You're going to wake up tomorrow and it's going to be really hard,” Sophie said. “But the one thing you can be certain of is that you'll have Greer and me on your side.”

“You think I'm weird,” Hannah wailed. “I know you think I'm weird.”

“Well, yeah.” Sophie swung to look at me. I kept Hannah's gaze. “You're kind of weird, dude. That doesn't mean we're going to abandon ship, you know. I mean, you make life interesting.”

Hannah exhaled and sniffled. “I do.” Sophie and I nodded solemnly. Hannah snickered a little.

When we got to her room, Hannah asked, “Could you tuck me in? You know? That's a little crazy, but —”

“No — it's not crazy.” Sophie said it first. I nodded, next to her. “I miss having someone tuck me in too.” Sophie bent down and brushed the hair from Hannah's face. I tugged up her blanket and folded it carefully under her chin.

“Night, night, Hannah,” I said, and Sophie even kissed her forehead.

“This baby will always have someone to tuck her in,” Hannah told us. “Or him. Someone will always tuck him in.” I saw Sophie cringe as we headed out.

In the hallway, she blew out a long breath. “Holy crap,” I said. “Why was that so bad — what Hannah said?” Sophie
just looked at me. “Because she's thinking of it as a baby? Right?” Sophie started walking down the hall. “Soph — what are we going to do?”

“We're not going to do anything until Hannah makes a decision. And then we're going to do what we have to, right?” I guess I didn't respond quickly enough because Sophie said, “Greer, you can't tell Addison anything.”

“Of course not.”

“Seriously. We might need the element of surprise, and it wouldn't be fair to put Addison in that position.”

“What position?”

“Choosing.”

But that sounded so stupid to me. I'd thought we had already decided that Addison would need to decide between Joshua and us at some point. And seeing Hannah, having proof of what Joshua had done — well, Addison couldn't exactly argue with that.

“You'd be surprised,” Sophie warned me. “He's brainwashed.”

“Stop it. He doesn't have all the information yet.”

“And he can't yet.”

“Fine. But eventually we'll tell him. And you'll see — Addison will surprise you.” Silence from Sophie. “He's a really good guy.” Still nothing. “All that stuff that Joshua lectures about — integrity and respecting the universe and believing — it's not all wrong just because of who Joshua is or what he's done.”

We'd reached my door. Sophie still hadn't responded to me. Finally she said, “I know. We just used up my special reassurance powers on Hannah. I can't do this right now.”

That stung. I felt my face go hot and my body kind of coil up, ready to lash out. And then I didn't. I couldn't afford to
be angry with Sophie too. “Night.” I still bit off the word and spit it.

Sophie didn't seem to notice. But she turned and called to me as I slipped into my room, “Greer.” I figured she would say she was sorry. But she said, “We have to stop him. Think of what he did to her. To all of us, really.”

It's all I thought about — that night and long after.

 

I don't remember a single class from those first few days after we found out about Hannah. Mostly I sat at desks, running scenarios through my mind. Then I'd notice people packing up books to leave and get up to go to another room. To sit at another desk. Addison assumed it was anxiety about Joshua that was distracting me. I let him think that, even though it made my chest hurt.

Once, after I'd missed two questions in lit class, Addison reached over and grasped the nape of my neck and said, “Try to be present, Greer. Joshua wouldn't want us to use him as an excuse to slack off.” I must have looked up at him, dumb. “Greer, Greer — try to be here,” he said, in the familiar singsong that used to make me feel shaky in a different way. “Seriously, you okay?”

I shook myself out of the zombie state to say, “Sure. I just had a lousy sleep, is all.” But it was too late — Dr. Rennie had already pounced on the moment.

“Greer Cannon? Why don't I write you a late pass?” I looked to Addison for rescue, but Dr. Rennie had already patted the seat next to his desk. “Converse with me,” he requested. “Please.”

I mustered my most dramatic sigh, but felt secretly relieved. Addison stalled a little, lingering at the door with
his brow furrowed into a question. “I'm good,” I told him. “No worries.” He held on to the door frame.

“I'll take good care of her, Mr. Bradley.”

In the hot seat, I tried to focus on convincing Dr. Rennie I felt okay. “I'm just not used to the mattresses here,” I told him.

“Really? How long have you been with us now?”

I shrugged. “Months.”

“Because even in those first weeks, before you had any kind of privileges, I thought,
We've got a sharp cookie here. Maybe those bastards in the admissions office finally gave me something to work with.
”

I doubted that. Maybe he'd thought that about Addison. Addison was the one who'd walked into class quoting Browning.

He went on. “Something's wrong. Usually I'd dismiss it as star-crossed lovers, but Boy Wonder over there seems as attentive as always. You okay?”

Sometimes the disguises people put on — the smarmy voices or lame attempts to relate — they just fall away all of a sudden. That's what happened with Dr. Rennie. He seemed human, briefly. Like he actually cared. This sad comfort washed over me.

I pressed my lips together and made myself keep my mouth perfectly straight. No quivering lip. If you stare long enough — unfocused, over someone's shoulder — you can stop yourself from crying. When I felt steady enough, I answered, “Yeah.”

When Dr. Rennie asked me, “Do you feel like you're making progress here?” I felt myself deflate. Back to the school-approved lingo.

I didn't feel like playing the game. “No” was all I said.

Dr. Rennie didn't seem angry or disappointed. I waited to see him reach for a pen and jot down a note to pass on to the deans later. But he didn't do that. He just kept gazing at me patiently. Waiting.

“I don't really feel like the goal was actually for me to make progress,” I heard myself say. Then I tried to make it sound more cooperative. “I mean, there's a system here that works, I guess. But that's not why my parents sent me here. I don't think that's why most of us came here.”

“Oh?” Dr. Rennie asked me in a way that made me think he wasn't allowed to agree with me.

“It just feels like the ultimate grounding.”

He nodded carefully. “I can see how it might feel that way to you.” They must all have taken classes to talk like that. They must have all attended professional workshops in the bullshit vocabulary of caring.

“It's not like I've undergone this miraculous transformation. Just now my parents don't have to deal with me.” Dr. Rennie just let me talk. “So what happens? McCracken scrubs my transcript and now I can go to college or something. My parents can have four more years of ignoring me.”

Dr. Rennie swallowed. I watched his Adam's apple bob in his throat. “You haven't had a family visit yet.” I couldn't tell if he was asking or just remarking.

“Sometimes my dad remembers to call during our scheduled family sessions. I get to hear him on speakerphone.” Dr. Rennie grimaced. “It's okay. I don't want to deal with them either.” We both heard the lie in that. How freaking embarrassing. I spoke quickly. “Listen, I know how it goes. They're writing tuition checks and all; you can't take my side. But don't expect me to buy into it. That's all.”

There was a long pause, during which I guess Dr. Rennie weighed the professional risk of being honest with me. He went with the old standby: “I hear you and I appreciate your candor.” He gestured at me, sitting in the chair beside him. “But this is different. We wouldn't have been able to have this conversation when you first arrived at McCracken Hill.” He sort of grinned at me then. “Without you throwing something, I should add.”

That got a nod. Point awarded to Dr. Rennie. But I still wasn't buying what McCracken Hill was selling. “I don't think this place did that, though.” In a split second, I saw his eyes flicker toward the desk where Addison had been sitting. “Not just Addison. Other people — I have really good friends here. That hasn't happened for a long time.” God, I sounded pathetic. I really hoped he wouldn't report this crap in a faculty meeting. I could already see Ms. Crane's smug look. “I just didn't have relationships like that at home.”

“Well, that's good news.” He sounded like he meant it. “But give yourself a little credit, Greer. You've readied yourself for those friendships. Maybe the system doesn't seem like it's working to you. I'm going to keep believing in it.”

“Well, if it pays the bills …”

“Don't —” Dr. Rennie interrupted me sharply. “Don't presume to know my intentions.” Then he muttered, “We're not exactly raking it in over here.”

“Yeah, I'm sorry. That was out of line.” He gestured at me again, like,
See? Look how reformed you are.

Maybe I was trying to make up for insulting him and that's why I went balls-out honest. Or as close to honest as I could afford to be. “What if I don't buy everything? Like I know there's something fundamentally wrong with it?” Dr. Rennie thought I meant McCracken, but really I was thinking
of Joshua's limp up the stairs to the second floor of the cabin, leading Hannah up behind him. And then his jog to the taxi stand. I thought of Wes's resentful silence and the little blue plus sign on Hannah's test kit.

“You mean, does that discount the learning you've done?” Dr. Rennie asked me. “What do you think?”

“This could also work well if you'd just give me the answers,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but I'm human, correct? This will shock you, but I have flaws. Maybe not devastating ones.” I took this to mean that Dr. Rennie did not actually sleep with his students in the name of pseudoreligious rituals or claim to undergo medical treatments lifted from sci-fi scripts. He wore tacky ties. In lecture, he used the phrase
for what it's worth
too often. But I let Dr. Rennie go on with his bad self — fine, he had flaws.

“Do those flaws mean that you need to discount my F. Scott Fitzgerald lecture? Do we write him off because he was a drunk? You know?”

I knew. Dr. Rennie sat back, like he was thinking long and hard about something. “You could always look for a way to point out those shortcomings. In a respectful manner, of course,” he offered. Dr. Rennie was probably envisioning me standing in front of my treatment team, glancing at notes I'd carefully penciled onto index cards. “I can't imagine that an institution so focused on growth would shut down that conversation.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Well, not outright anyway,” Dr. Rennie said, then sighed. “Perhaps this hasn't been as helpful a talk as I'd hoped.”

“No, it has.” We both just sat there. Finally I said, “Thanks.” And then decided to dwell in the possibility that
Dr. Rennie was actually not an asshat. “Hey, Dr. Rennie? Maybe if someone else needed to hear this …”

“Bring him in.”

But later on, even the suggestion made Addison choke on his fruit punch. “So you had a heart-to-heart with the great Dr. Rennie and you think I need to schedule a session?” He'd stopped me on my way to my assigned table at dinner. I held the tray low, by my waist, so Mr. Mikkelsen couldn't see that Addison's hand gripped my thigh.

“Not a session. Just talk to him.”

“About the reading?”

“No, just about stuff that's going on.”

Addison whispered, “What did you tell him?” His fingers tightened around my leg. It hurt.

“Nothing. We mostly talked about my parents.”

“Bullshit.” Addison glowered at me.

“No. I swear.”

Mr. Mikkelsen finally noticed me. “Move it along to your assigned table, Greer.”

Addison stood. “I'll walk you —”

“No, that's okay,” Mr. Mikkelsen said. “I'm sure Greer can handle it. Besides, we're waiting for you to join the conversation. What inspired you about this year's Winter Olympics?” I felt Addison's eyes boring into my back as I made my way to my assigned spot three tables down.