The Believing Game (6 page)

“This is wrong, I think.” I looked at the scrawled list of items: three muffins, four cookies, a bag of organic chips. “We just had tea and coffee.”

“No, he wants it to go.” She handed over a paper grocery sack. “His usual.” I looked out the window, past the painted deer. Joshua had pulled up to the door. He tapped lightly on the horn. I dug into my wallet and handed Holly a twenty-dollar bill. “Thanks!” she said brightly. “I'm sure I'll see you again.”

When I climbed into the car, Joshua took the bag of snacks. “Thank you, Elizabeth.” He reached back to toss it on the backseat. I heard the chips crunch. We drove in silence
for a little until he said, “You might be a master thief. You won't be able to steal him.”

There it was. “I'm not trying to.” I smiled. I couldn't decide if it was a lie or not. Joshua smiled too. Like we were just being friendly, two jokers joking.

He slowed the car and stopped at the curb outside of the campus's iron gate.

“You're not going to sign me in?”

“No, just go straight back to your dorm.”

“But —”

“It's all right, Elizabeth. It's cleared with the dean.” I stood with my hand on the car door, considering. “You have a lot to think about. Go back to your room and think about my promise. I would like you to know how it feels to be cared for.”

My room seemed even colder than usual. The standard navy blanket. Schoolbooks stacked on my desk. On the inside of one of my wardrobe doors, I had taped up the drawings and writings that Addison had given me. That was my secret gallery. There weren't any family pictures on my walls or stuffed animals perched on the bed. If I shut the door to the wardrobe, it looked like a robot lived there — a zombie. Someone unloved, who didn't care for anything at all.

Three weeks later, Joshua asked to sleep in my bed.

Addison was there at the table. When Joshua brought it up, he straightened his back, set down his fork, and chewed his food slowly. The two of them were eating spaghetti and meatballs. I waited for Addison to say something.

He smiled. “I think Greer is going to need a little more information.”

“It's not a sex thing.” I just sat there, looking from Joshua to Addison. Joshua kept going. “This is what I do for those in the circle. You might think of it as a ceremony. It's an exercise in trust.”

I watched Joshua twirl the pasta on his fork. “I don't get it.”

“I know what it sounds like.” Joshua looked steadily at me. “It must trip all those alarms society has built around your body. You're a young girl — white, upper-middle class. That's one well-guarded body. And I'm the enemy they've warned you about. Older. A stranger. A black man, no less. Parents used to lock up their daughters, you know. And I mean in attics and cellars, not ritzy rehabs like McCracken Hill. Well, now we lock daughters up in different ways. We teach them fear. We teach them to loathe their bodies.”

I decided to skip the first part. “I don't loathe my body.”

“Then where's the rest of it?”

“Joshua,” Addison warned.

“This is sick,” I said.

“It's not at all sick.” Joshua's voice crackled. “Your interpretation of an innocent request shows your illness. The word is
depravity
, actually. It shows that you are depraved.”

I sighed. “Well, we knew that.” I turned to face Addison. “How is it an exercise in trust?”

But it was Joshua who answered. “When you sleep, you are vulnerable. That will be hard for you. I don't think I've ever seen you with your guard down.”

“So you just sleep next to me?”

“It's most important that you sleep.”

“I'll bet. Do we wear clothes?”

“I'm not interested in being insulted.” Joshua's jaw set. His eyes shifted from mine and moved to focus on some space past my shoulder.

Addison reached his hand across the table. “Greer. It's okay if you're uncomfortable with the idea. But try to be respectful, okay?” I nodded and he looked relieved.

But then I asked, “When did Joshua spend the night in your bed?”

“That's not how it works.”
Of course not.
I tried to keep the smirk off my face.

When Joshua pushed himself up, the plates rattled. “I don't want to sit at this table right now. I'm sickened.”

I kept my eyes on Addison. When the door slammed, he bit his lip. “Are you going to go after him?” I asked.

“No. Joshua and I can talk later. It's okay if you're not comfortable with this.” But Addison's voice was hollow. We both knew that was just how the script read. That's what the good guy was supposed to say.

“I don't even sneak you into my room.”

“This is more important.”

“If I get caught …”

“You won't.” He was pleading just a little.

“It wouldn't just be bad for me, you know —”

“No, it would be much worse for him,” Addison told me. “Joshua knows that. I hope you understand that. He's still offering this.”

“Okay.” I don't know why I said it. Because it was late and I was tired of smelling marinara sauce. We'd miss our sign-in, and that would bring its own kind of trouble. Really I just wanted Addison to stop looking at me in that disappointed way. He reached out, held my face in his one hand, like he did when we had just met and he hadn't kissed me yet.

“But listen,” I said. “If I do this, I'm doing this for you. You can't expect me to also be thankful for the honor of hosting Joshua in my bed. It's weird. You know it's weird.”

“It's about trusting people, though.”

“Well, for me it's about trusting you. That's all.” Addison didn't say anything. I pressed harder. “Can you take that? I mean, is that enough?”

“Yeah.” Addison's voice sounded rough at the edges. “That's plenty.”

 

Sophie's red Chucks were the first things I spotted when I got back to my hallway. She'd parked herself right outside my door. She had on black leggings with a black leotard, so she looked like a skinny little insect wearing red sneakers.

“It's our very own cheer squad — Sophie Delia.” My voice boomed through the corridor, announcing.

“Shut up — I hated those bitches.”

“You were totally on cheer squad.”

“We called it
dance team
. And I still hated it. Where have you been?”

“Same old.” She looked blankly up at me. “Sal's.”

“You're late even for you, though,” she said. I shrugged. “Did you get in a fight?” Another shrug. “A big one?”

“Do you want to come in?” I nodded toward the room four doors down and across the hall. “Or do you want Jenn Sharpe to blog about this?”

“God — is she still writing that shit?” Sophie shouted toward Jenn's door. “Someone needs to learn the definition of
the spirit of confidentiality
. This is a THERAPEUTIC environment.”

Jenn started screaming back even before the door fully swung open. “Relax, Sophie — you're not interesting enough to write about. And our day-to-day lives aren't supposed to be confidential.”

“You're a parasite,” Sophie hissed theatrically.

I poked her in the back. “Get inside there, Sophia Maria.”

“She's a tabloid.”

“Fuck you, Sophie,” Jenn said. “People find recovery memoirs inspiring.” I closed the door on her.

Sophie opened it a crack to say, “Shut up, Sharpe. No one wants to see you recover.”

“Sophie, seriously.” I closed the door.

“Fine. What happened with the creatine prince?”

“It's Joshua. Again,” I said. “He wants to sleep with me.”

“Well, yeah, I mean, isn't that already happening?” Sophie crinkled her face into a question.

“What?” I shrieked loudly enough to put Jenn Sharpe on high alert.

“Wait — who?” Sophie asked. “Addison?”

“No. We're talking about Joshua. JOSHUA.”

“Wants to sleep with you?”

“It's an experiment in trust.”

“Wait — sleep with you?”

“Yeah, but just sleep.” I felt awkward then, because I hadn't really meant to tell Sophie. I could already see Addison in my head: the sad, quick shake of his head, as if I had confirmed some misgiving he'd felt. This wasn't something he'd want left open to Sophie's analysis. My voice scurried, trying to fix it. “He would just stay the night. The idea is to spend time together and prove that I'm comfortable enough to fall asleep. You know, like an experiment —”

“In trust?” Sophie sounded more than dubious.

“Right.”

“So the dean cleared this?” My eyebrows lifted up into their are-you-crazy? position. Sophie said, “Of course not. Because it's bonkers. Capital
B
bonkers.” I felt my chest ease up. Maybe I shouldn't have told her, but it was a relief to hear Sophie agree with me. She kept going, “And you'd sneak him in here?”

“Addison said he'd take care of it.”

“And he didn't say anything else? Like ‘Hey, guru, paws off my lady friend'? Jesus. You can't do this, Greer.” She sounded so definitive. And then she saw my face. “You're kidding, right? You're going to do it?”

“I know it's nuts.”

“Yeah, exact —”

“It actually helps to hear you say it's nuts. Because sitting at Sal's, I felt like maybe I was crazy. Or mistrustful. You
know?” Sophie nodded. “It's really important to Addison, though. Like I'm not sure …” I didn't want to finish, but Sophie nodded again like,
Go on
. And so I finished, “We might be done if I don't do this.”

Sophie sat forward a little. “Greer, honey, did you ever go to summer camp?”

“Like Girl Scout camp?”

“Or any kind of camp.”

“I went to Girl Scout camp.”

Sophie sighed. “So this might be new for you, then. But I am a summer-camp veteran. From fourth grade to freshman year, I went to one every summer. Horseback riding camp, hot-air ballooning camp, theatre camp … you name it. And every year, around week five of the six weeks, I'd decide some brace-face kid was going to be my boyfriend and we'd sneak off behind the cabin or the boat dock or whatever and make out and we loved each other and wore each other's lanyards or something. And when it was time to board separate buses at the end of the whole thing, we'd promise to write and visit. And I'd cry the whole way home and maybe we'd send e-mails or something. Or I'd even bake cookies and mail them, but by the end of September, the rest of my life started back up again. And real life wasn't camp. And I was busy picking out a new camp anyway. Do you get it?”

“It's hard to get past the idea of hot-air balloon camp, frankly.”

Sophie exploded in giggles. “Shut up, judger.” But then she got serious again. “Maybe this isn't real life.” Sophie waved her hand around my sparse little dorm room. She must have seen me back away from that because she rushed
to say, “I know that it feels real. The system and the treatment team and all the serious talks we're having. But eventually we're all going to have to go home. And God, I hope you and Addison stay close and he drives out to see you. I hope your frosty-pants parents love him and you go apply to the same colleges or move to Seattle together or whatever you crazy kids have planned. Whatever you want, Greer, I wish it for you. But maybe you'll get home and want something different. So maybe you shouldn't jump through so many hoops for him now. These are some serious hoops, you know?” She sat back. I felt myself exhale. “I'm sorry.”

“No, it's okay.” My eyes felt hot and shiny, though. I couldn't make myself imagine home. That word didn't even really fit anymore. Addison. He was where I lived now. That's how it felt.

“You're still going to do it, though.” Sophie sounded resigned but not in a bad way. I realized then that I didn't like thinking of home without Sophie there too.

I told her a little while later, after the lights had blinked on and off, three times in quick succession —
Lights-out. Bedtime. Moving on.
— I said, “If we met at camp, you would have been my best friend and I would have e-mailed you every single day afterward.”

“No way.” Sophie stood up and tossed her hair back. “I would have been too busy making out with my camp boyfriend to even learn your name.” I threw my one lonely pillow at her. She slipped out and the door clicked closed behind her.

My toothbrush and its accompanying liquid privileges sat in their plastic bucket on my dresser. I ran my tongue over my
teeth and considered making a run for the bathroom to wash up. But the lights blinked again. Warning. I didn't want to risk an infraction for something as stupid as brushing my teeth. Curfew needed to be as uneventful as possible for the next few days.