Read Online The Believing Game by Eireann Corrigan - Free Book Online

jail? Imagine that.” Joshua shook his head.
    â€œI also like men.” I looked at Joshua and clarified. “Boys. I mean, I like sex.”
    Joshua nodded like it was no big deal. I felt like an amateur. But he said, “Yeah, that’s a kind of stealing too.”
    We sat for a while and then Joshua stood, stretched, and told me he’d go warm the car. “You skinny girls. I know you’re always so cold.” Holly dropped the check off after he left, and I stopped her.
    â€œThis 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.”
    â€œNo, 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 silencefor 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.
    â€œYou’re not going to sign me in?”
    â€œNo, just go straight back to your dorm.”
    â€œBut —”
    â€œIt’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.”
    â€œIt’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.”
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œThen where’s the rest of it?”
    â€œJoshua,” Addison warned.
    â€œThis is sick,” I said.
    â€œIt’s not at all sick.” Joshua’s voice crackled. “Your interpretation of