This Gorgeous Game (20 page)

I blink through more tears. I feel Jada’s fingers weave gently through mine.

“Let’s gather everything he’s given you,” Ash says, and stands up. Takes charge. “The letters, the invitations, the e-mails, whatever you have. And Sister June, I know you trust her—Jada and I trust her—let’s call her now and tell her she needs to come over. I bet she knows how to handle this sort of…situation. You are not going to go through this alone. There are so many people who love you, Livvy, and who are going to help make this stop.”

“Okay.” My voice is a whisper. “Okay.”

“Do you have her number?”

I gesture toward my cell, sitting on the table. This time I have no voice left.

Ash picks it up and scrolls through the address book.

For the first time since Jamie arrived however long ago, he touches my arm. And I am not alone anymore. Jamie and Ash and Jada are helping me. They take on my burden. They do it for me because I cannot do it any longer by myself.

LETTERS. EVERYWHERE. PILES OF THEM.

Jada handles these.

E-mails. Most unopened.

Jamie takes this task.

Voice mails. Filling up my mailbox. And texts. Endless texts.

Ash has it covered.

They go through everything, all of it, systematically now, as we wait for Sister June to arrive. There are so many things. Almost too much to count. But count everything they do, because Jamie says it’s important to know how many of each. How many in how much time.

My mother paces outside, worried. We’ll tell her when Sister June gets here. We’ll all talk together.

“What if she doesn’t believe me,” I whisper at one point.

“Everyone will believe you, Olivia.” Jamie’s voice is firm. Full of conviction.

“Because of the story?”

“Because of the story, yes. But because of everything else, too. There’s just so much evidence.” He sounds almost overwhelmed.

Evidence.

“I hate God sometimes.”

“Sometimes I hate God, too,” Jamie says. “I think I hate God right now.”

“But I hate Father Mark even more.” Low sounds from my mouth.

Ash reaches up from where she sits on the floor and grasps my hand. “Try to sleep for a little while. Go to sleep. We’re not going anywhere. I’ll wake you when Sister June gets here.”

Before I close my eyes I say one last important thing. “Guys…thank you. I don’t know what I would have done…I don’t know…”

“It’s going to be okay, Olivia.” These are the last words I hear before sleep comes and carries me away.

I WAKE TO THE SOUND OF VOICES.

Jamie and Ash and Jada and Mom and Sister June.

The story of me and Father Mark is told for the first time out loud, and it is Jamie who tells it for me. I listen and watch as Sister June’s face and my mother’s face go from concerned to shocked to outraged as they peer at the letters and other things. Then Sister June glances through the story,
his
version. “This Gorgeous Game.”

“That’s not even all of it,” Jamie says to her—and before the talk of phone calls and lawyers and therapists and meeting with deans and bishops, before all of that happens, and it does happen—Sister June’s arms reach out and pull me in. And next, my mother pulls me close and kisses my hair.

“Oh, Olivia.” She is crying.

“He is stalking her,” Sister June says.

Stalking.
Father Mark has been stalking me. That’s the first time the word is used and I’m not the one who uses it. Sister June does, then Mom, then Jamie, then Ash, then Jada, one by one by one, like dominoes falling down.

Stalking. Stalking. Stalking.
Olivia is being
stalked.
I have a stalker. A priest stalker. A famous novelist stalker. I have a priest, famous novelist, professor stalker.

And then Greenie comes.

When I hear the story told for the second time out loud,
my
story, told by my family and friends, it is a different story. It becomes a story about a girl who is stalked by a priest. Taken advantage of by a priest. I learn that it’s not her fault. How of course she’d be afraid to say anything, how it’s scary to make that kind of accusation about someone like Father Mark, especially someone like him. How manipulative he’s been. How I’ve been manipulated, how they’ve all been manipulated. Father Mark found shocking, clever, creative ways of getting to me, playing with me like it was all one great challenging game and me, his favorite plaything.

I am Father Mark’s favorite plaything.

But not anymore. Because now, now I am surrounded by people who love me, and not that other kind of surrounded I’ve felt for so long—the threatening kind—and I am grateful after so long to finally feel protected. To not be alone.

My mother sits on one side of me on my bed and Jamie on the other, holding my hand, and Greenie on the floor nearby and Sister June on the couch with Ash and Jada. They sit there for I don’t know how long. As long as it takes. As long as I need them to. As I go in and out of sleep, I think about everyone’s arms around me, embracing me, loving me, and I think about the framed poem that is perched on a little stand on my mother’s dresser. The one I’ve always thought so cheesy, that famous poem about footprints in the sand, the one where the narrator thinks those places on the beach with only one set of footprints are the moments when God has left her, even though God promised never to leave, and finds out instead that those were the moments when she could no longer walk, that the one set of footprints is God’s. That God has carried her when she cannot walk herself.

I’ve never been able to give myself over completely, in that
I surrender to you, God
sort of way people talk about, that Mom and Greenie talk about as if it’s something they do every day. I’ve thought before how this must be what taking a leap of faith really is. Faith is letting yourself fall and believing,
knowing
that someone, something, this being we call God is waiting there to catch us in a big, soft, God-sized baseball mitt.

I’ve never had that kind of faith before.

But I have faith in the people that surround me now, and I know, I
know
beyond a shadow of a doubt that they will catch me if I let myself fall. I
know.
And so I do. I let myself fall.

When I wake, everyone is still here. All of them.

And I know. I know I know I
know
that everything is going to be okay.

I no longer have to carry this burden alone.

I am not alone.

IT’S A BEAUTIFUL AUGUST EVENING, ONE OF THE MOST
perfect nights so far this summer. The dresses in my closet, untouched for so long, beckon, in particular the long white linen one with the blue sash. Slipping it over my head, I let the fabric fall around my body and look in the mirror. The reflection shows a girl I no longer recognize, eyes sunken from lost sleep, long thin arms, face gaunt from not eating enough. Hair stretched high into a tight ponytail.

“Olivia?” Mom calls from the living room. “Everyone is here.”

This news sparks a smile—just a small one—but with it comes a glimmer of the person I’ve always known looking back from the mirror. I tug on the band holding back my hair and watch it fall around my face, a bit tangled and knotted, but I don’t reach for a brush.

Better,
I tell my reflection. It’s just a matter of time when things will get better and better, and then maybe someday, all better.

I descend the stairs one by one, my hand gripping the banister, my feet a bit unsteady, until I reach the bottom and look up. This will be my first time out since everything…it all…

Began.

“Hey, Livvy.” Ash meets my eyes with a smile. “Don’t you look fantastic.”

Happiness ripples across everyone’s faces. Mom, Ashley, Jada, Greenie, Luke.

I try to copy their expression but can’t quite manage to. Everyone keeps their distance. Or maybe they give me space.
Will things always be this awkward? Will I always feel this weird? Damaged? Ashamed?
For a second the urge to turn around and walk back upstairs is almost overwhelming. But it passes. And I stay where I am, both feet firmly on the floor.

Before anyone can say more, Mom ushers Ash, Jada, and me out the door and soon the three of us are walking along Commonwealth Avenue—Ash and Jada acting like my official chaperones for the evening. Jada has one of my hands, dragging me along—I guess I’m not untouchable after all—and Ash keeps us laughing with her nonstop chatter.

You can always count on Ash.

Before long we reach the tall iron gates of the Public Garden. The park is teeming with people enjoying the break in the August heat. Parents pushing strollers. Couples walking hand in hand. The sky is vivid with reds and pinks as the sun sets.

At first I hesitate, nervous to be out, to be so exposed, to be in a place where
he
could find me. Us. Or even just watch. See. But I know my family, friends, and Jamie are right, that I have to start somewhere, start taking back my life, and here is as good a place as any. Maybe even the best place because I care about it so much that if I lose it my heart might break.

Soon the bench comes into view,
my
bench, the calm lake, the weeping willow, and I see Jamie, waiting there like he said he would. Ash and Jada hang back, giving us some space. Then, when they are sure that I am okay, when I tell them it’s okay, they turn to go, leaving Jamie and me alone.

“Olivia,” he says when I come around to the front. He stands. “You look…” He stops, as if my appearance is not the best place to start. “I’m glad you’re here. I was worried that maybe…”

“I’d decide this was a bad idea?”

“I guess. Yes.”

“Well, I’m here,” I say, sitting down. Jamie offers his hand and after a second’s pause I take it and our fingers weave together, his warm skin surging with life like a shot of energy I’ve needed. “Back in our place,” I add, and he smiles.

Then Jamie, his voice soft, like he’s afraid it might sting, says, “There are movers boxing up Father Mark’s office, Olivia. His nameplate is gone, too.”

“Really?” My voice is hushed. I lean my head on Jamie’s shoulder. I don’t ask where Father Mark might be moving to. I don’t want to know.

“Yes,” he says. Then, “What are you going to do with
your
story?”

I’d e-mailed “This Gorgeous Game”—my version,
my
story—to Jamie after I told him about it, when he asked to read it. “I’m not sure yet,” I say, and Jamie puts his arm around me.

“Don’t worry. You’ll figure it out. In time, you’ll know what is right.”

“Yes,” I say, because it’s true. I will. “I wish this was all over with. It’s not, though. There is so much ahead to deal with.”

“But the worst is behind us,” Jamie says.

“Us?” I watch as he nods his head.

“Yes,
us.
Keep repeating that to yourself if you have to,” Jamie says gently.

“Oh.” I am unable to keep back the tears that spring to my eyes.

The sky turns from twilight to deep blue and the stars begin to brighten the night and we sit in silence, Jamie and I, on the bench by the lake under the weeping willow in the Public Garden. I think about “This Gorgeous Game,” how it sits, stacked in a pile, on my coffee table. I think about how maybe, maybe someday, someone will publish this story.
My
side of the story.

“This Gorgeous Game” by Olivia Peters.

I can wait for that day. Even if it’s a long way off. There will come a time when I can share this. When I
will
share it. But now, right now is for letting go. Making peace. Finding some peace.

Finally.

And that’s the moment when I look at Jamie, really look at him, as if for the first time, as if I can see right through those big, beautiful eyes into the depths of his soul, his gorgeous soul, and I know this is not a dream, this “us.”

That he won’t leave or disappear.

He is real. This is real. And this relationship, this love, I know I want. There is no doubt.

I. Just. Know.

Eventually, after a long time gazing into each other’s eyes, we rise and begin making our way back down the path toward the gates. And I am so grateful. I am so grateful as he walks me home, holding my hand, because that is all I need right now.

That is all.

This story has been a long, intense journey, in which I have too many friends, teachers, and loved ones to thank for accompanying me along the way. You know who you are. My gratitude to those who read drafts—Lisa Graff, Lauren Myracle, and Marie Rutkoski. To everyone at FSG, especially you, Frances, for your faith and patience with this challenging project. To my agent, Miriam, as always. Two others I must name: Molly Millwood for your insight, and Michele Burrell for the same. And to Dr./Father/Monsignor Stephen Happel, who I know is still out there, somewhere, looking out for me.