The next morning, I woke before everyone and made breakfast. I found an old can of oatmeal in the back of a cupboard and mixed it with brown sugar and raisins to try to jazz it up. We’d brought up mix for pancakes, but I didn’t feel like standing in front of the griddle like a short-order cook. If Joshua complained, I figured I’d tell him that oatmeal seemed more like army food to me.

Wes slept sort of half-on, half-off the sofa. He’d wrapped a down comforter around himself and arms and legs dangled out. He snored and his head lolled sort of adorably. But the night with Addison had broken the Attractive Asshole spell that Wes had cast over me. I might have meant for it to give Addison a preview of what life might be like waking up next to me each morning, but I also managed to sell myself on the idea. So I stood there in the state-of-the-art kitchen of Sophie’s lavish home, fantasizing about seedy motel rooms.

Sophie wandered in first, with her hair sticking out in all directions. She’d clearly packed her supply of fancy nighties. She wore a long ivory gown with this frothy, floor-length robe. It looked like a Tennessee Williams episode of Bridezillas. “Good morning, darling. Coffee?”

“I’m working on it.”

She nodded grumpily, saw me examining the silk getup. “It’s not mine.”

“A whole new side of Jared, then?”

Sophie climbed up onto one of the kitchen stools. “From Mommie Dearest’s closet upstairs.”

“Wow. What would Dr. Saggurti say?”

“Probably between this and me giving you and Addison my parents’ bed, she would have a lot to say.”

I put on my best pompous professor voice. “When we feel hostility, our actions display hostility, even if we believe we are presenting a different attitude. Resentment seeps through.”

“Do you buy into that yet?”

“That yet sounds ominous.” I felt like saying, Next you’ll tell me that Dr. Saggurti tried to convince you I’m an angel sent down by God. Instead I said, “So you and Jared …?”

She nodded, then opened a cupboard door to hide behind. “Yeah. Is that crazy? Or utterly predictable?”

“Neither. It’s perfect. Maybe inevitable, but only because I think he might have come up here just for you.”

“Not at all.”

“Quite possible.”

“Hmmm.” Sophie seemed to consider it. “I’m pretty hot, after all.” She spun around on the stool. “I’m very flexible.”

“Downright bendy,” I agreed, and we both giggled geekily. “Serious confession, though.” I figured it was the best time as any to come clean about it. “When I first sought you out … well … a lot of it had to do with Addison —”

She cut me off. “Yeah, I know.”

“I mean, he told me how great you were, so I wanted to get to know you, but I also worried and figured that, this way, maybe I could head you off.” It came out all wrong.

“You are so not slick.”

“You knew?” I hadn’t meant to earn a nomination for the Awkward Awards, but it appeared I was in the running.

Sophie laughed. “I think everyone within a five-mile radius knew what you were up to.”

“I’m sorry.” I looked her in the eye. Her smile never wavered. “If it’s worth anything, I’m so glad. Even if things between Addison and me didn’t work out, I’d still be glad.”

“Me too.” Sophie spun again. It’s like she found it impossible to handle anything without absolute class. She stopped herself with her palms on the counter and told me, “You weren’t wrong. I was gunning for Addison.”

My mouth must have gaped open. “I knew you were! See, I didn’t make it up. Joshua says that I make it a practice of preemptively making enemies.”

“Does he say that like it’s a bad thing? I don’t think it counts as paranoia if you’re accurate in your read of the situation. Of course I harbored a secret yearning for Addison — I think most of the female population at McCracken do. Students. Faculty. Lunch ladies. Still, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Thanks.” I said it simply and went back to stirring the oatmeal.

Joshua’s voice rang out as he descended the stairs. “Why are we wasting this day with our sleep?” He tweaked Wes’s big toe as he shuffled past the sofa. Joshua wore socks and I worried we’d have to wash his feet again.

Jared stumbled out of the back room next and Addison bounded down the stairs. “Why are you yelling, brother?” Jared asked.

Joshua grinned at us. “That’s the first time Jared Polomsky has called me brother. We have achieved another breakthrough.”

“’Cause I’m going to kill you, brother.”

“Cain speaks.” Joshua laughed and then grew serious. “What happened to Cain after he killed his brother Abel?”

Wes groaned from under the covers. “Cain went back to bed.”

“The opposite, actually. God doomed him to wander all over the world, and wherever he tried to lay down roots, the people around him learned of what he’d done. He never found another moment of peace. Instead the brother he betrayed haunted him for the rest of his days.” I swore that Joshua was looking at me as he told us.

“I made oatmeal,” I said. Brilliant diversion tactic.

Wes sat up on the sofa. “That doesn’t really count as cooking, Greer. That’s boiling water. I vote Greer has to do the dishes this time.”

“No, it’s not instant. I made it with brown sugar and crushed walnuts and raisins.”

“I was promised pancakes.” Addison started bringing down bowls from the cupboard.

“You got plenty of pancakes last night,” Wes muttered.

“We didn’t eat pancakes.”

“I was using pancakes as a euphemism for sex.”

“How about cocoa?” Sophie spoke up shrilly. “Let me boil the water for cocoa. Cocoa and marshmallows. Warm and sweet.” She sounded like a maniac.

It was too late. Joshua had already gone and embraced Addison. I watched him whisper something in his ear. Addison smiled at him and then at me. I turned away. Good thing we finally had a sex life. Now he had something else to share with Joshua.

“How are you, Elizabeth?” Joshua stepped close to me and spoke softly in my ear. I felt like slapping Wes for starting the whole thing.

“I’m good, thank you. Excited for another day.”

“Do you and Addison need more time to yourselves upstairs?” He was trying to get me to react, and then he’d attack me for being embarrassed of my sexuality. I could see a map of the ensuing argument laid out right in front of me.

I tried to step around it. I smiled brightly at Joshua and then the whole rest of the room and said, “Addison and I can always find time for each other.”

“Did we buy this oatmeal? At the supermarket?” At first, I thought that Sophie was just saving me with another distraction. But she’d fished the empty cardboard carton out of the garbage and held it up. That seemed like a lot of effort just to switch the topic. When I saw the look on her face, I knew something was wrong.

“I found it in the cupboard — is that okay?” I asked, even though it was pretty obvious it was anything but okay. “Will someone miss it?”

She struggled to hold it together. “No, it’s fine.” We all stared, waiting. Sophie brushed tears from her eyes. “Jeez, guys. Sorry about the melodrama.” But even as she said that, she kind of petted the carton and laid it down gently on top of the garbage bin. I had a pretty good idea of what was wrong, and I felt awful.

I waited until Joshua had focused back on Addison, and then asked her, “It was Nick’s?”

She nodded. “It’s stupid to make such a big deal of it.” Sophie rolled her eyes at herself. “He’d launched this crazy cholesterol kick, though. He made a list of old-man foods and that’s what he’d eat up here. Steel-cut oats. He spent the whole last grocery run lecturing Josie and me about the heart benefits of steel-cut oats.” She stopped. “I mean, on our last trip up before — not the very last weekend. I’m being ridiculous.”

“You’re not. It’s a sweet story. I’m sorry — I should have asked.”

“No, what are we going to do, enshrine a carton of oatmeal?”

Joshua spoke to her from across the kitchen. “Nick’s care with his health — doesn’t that change our interpretation of events, Sophia?”

Her eyes still shimmered a little with tears. “I’m sorry?”

“Well, you don’t normally hear about the health kicks of suicides.”

“Holy shit.” Wes seemed to sum up my thoughts exactly. It felt as if Joshua had just tossed a grenade into the breakfast nook.

Jared took a step closer to Sophie. “All right, that’s not necessary right now.”

Joshua held up his hands. “I am truly sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, Sophia. Rather, one would expect this kind of news to hold some comfort.”

“I never said I thought my brother killed himself.” Sophie’s voice sounded like a thin razor wire.

“Oh no, you just implied it when you mentioned that others had drawn that conclusion.”

“Actually, you brought up that possibility, Joshua. I sat in our living room and listened to you guess about why Nick took the highway that night.” Sophie spoke in lashes. “You asked me why Nick didn’t go to town instead. You asked those questions. I never thought Nickie left us on purpose.”

“I’m so sorry for your pain.” Joshua reached for her hand. “I just remember our conversation differently.”

Sophie snapped back her hand like he had physically hurt her. “I’m going to go straighten up the back bedroom.” She headed out without even looking back and we heard the door in the back of the house slam seconds later.

Joshua shook his head slowly and looked at Jared. “I would have thought that Sophia had a better night than that.” I waited for Jared to haul out and hit him. At least call him an epic asshole. But Jared just took slow breaths, inhaled then exhaled, like he needed to count to ten slowly a few times to calm down. Not the kind of heroics I knew Sophie would expect. More along the lines of Addison’s helpless cooperation, actually. Maybe it was contagious. Even Wes concentrated fiercely on his mug of cocoa instead of calling out Joshua on his cruel bullshit.

We were all afraid he’d start picking at our own freshly healed wounds next. Joshua fixed his gaze on me. “Sophia’s usually so tough. That just doesn’t seem normal for her — dissolving over a carton of oatmeal. That’s not typical.”

“Sophie’s grieving.”

I heard the threat in Joshua’s voice when he told me, “It’s really hard to lose people.”

I lost my appetite. It was the first time I’d had a problem with food all weekend. I sat there on a bar stool, with Addison on one side of me and Joshua on the other, struggling to eat a dead kid’s oatmeal. “Where’s Hannah, Joshua?” I asked him, preparing myself to hear him say something like, Dismembered in the bathtub.

“She asked to sleep longer. Hannah has experienced so much growth this weekend, but it has sapped her energy. She’s truly blossoming with your friendship.” He looked around the room. “I’m glad to have a moment to address this with the group, actually. Jared, bring Sophia back.”

I straightened up, ready to point out that maybe Sophie’s energy was pretty sapped also, but Addison stopped me with his hand on my arm. Jared looked miserable, but he still went to fetch her. She stood in the doorway, rigidly.

“Thank you, Sophia. I just wanted to remind everyone how very fragile Hannah is. For some reason” — he seemed to single out Sophie and me for this part — “she doesn’t feel completely accepted. She’s also worried she’s inadvertently offended others here with her honest assessments. We all need to stop being so sensitive.” He stared right at Sophie until she looked down at her feet. “We must begin to support a source of much strength and potential for all of us. If a single member of our circle feels alone, then we have already failed. Is that understood?”

Joshua turned to Addison. “I have something else to share with you. Forgive me. Brother, I have held my own burden.” Addison glanced up toward the top of the staircase, as if to ask if he should wake Hannah. “She knows,” Joshua told him. Addison’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t question him.

“You may have noticed my weakening state. I’ve asked for more than I usually do; you’ve all been so generous to care for me.” I searched the room for reactions, but everyone stayed very still. Addison’s face had drained of color. Sophie had folded her arms in front of her chest. Otherwise, no one moved or spoke. Joshua continued, “I’m sorry for withholding news so important from you. But I valued this weekend. And if this is all the time we have together, then I know we spent it the right way. And I know I’ve prepared you all to support each other in our future battles. You don’t actually need me anymore. And if my condition deteriorates to the point that I become a distraction or a hindrance to our cause, then I will take the steps that I see fit to remedy that situation.” As he announced that last part, Joshua straightened up and bellowed as if arguing against questions we hadn’t asked. Then he faltered a little and reached out to steady himself on Sophie.

She propped him up. “Joshua?” He went limp. “Joshua, are you okay?” Sophie braced against his full weight and Jared leapt forward to help her. They dragged Joshua into the living room and settled him into a chair.

“Sophia, I am sorry. But it’s so cold in here.”

“Let me get a blanket.” Wes handed over the comforter he had wrapped around him and stood there in boxers and a T-shirt.

I looked at him and he shrugged. “It’s actually pretty warm. I was just preserving my modesty.” He padded off to put on clothes.

Addison sat on the stool, with tears running down his face. Joshua said, “Brother, don’t waste your time on anger.” Addison shook his head. “Or hurt.” Joshua pointed up. “Last night, I experienced trouble breathing. I fear my fate most at night, in the darkness. In a moment of shaken faith, I confided in Hannah. She tended to me.” Addison brushed the tears from his face. “I would have rather sat you down and shared this with you first. But you’ve had other things on your mind.” Addison looked down. I waited for him to meet my gaze, but he didn’t. “That’s certainly no reason to feel guilty,” Joshua said in a way that seemed to imply that Addison ought to feel extremely guilty. “Life happens when we are busy enjoying it.”

“What is it? Is it cancer?”

“We’ll meet with the doctors when we go back. They’ve urged me to bring you in so they can explain it all. I told them that my son” — Joshua’s voice rang out clearly on the word son and Addison started weeping all over again — “I said that my son is so smart. He’ll be able to understand all the lingo that I’m too ignorant to absorb. I’ll need that from you.” Addison nodded.

Joshua looked around. “I have struggled my whole life, been beaten and scarred. Tread on. But I have also inflicted damage on myself. With alcohol. Narcotics.” Joshua enunciated each syllable of the word so that it sounded like nar-COT-ics. “And now my body has turned on me. My blood platelets are attacking healthy cells.”

“That sounds like leukemia,” I said.

“Elizabeth, you are so powerful, but you are not a doctor.”

“Of course not, I’m sorry.” Addison still wouldn’t look at me. “What can we do to help? I mean, logistical stuff?”

“Look at what a gift she is to me.” He beckoned me and I knelt by the chair. “Addison will help by meeting with my team of doctors. I will work as long as I can, but there may come a time when my body just gives out. It embarrasses me to ask, but —”

“Anything you need, man,” Jared spoke up. “We’ve got a lot of resources to pool between us. We’ll take care of you.”

“That’s the kind of love that stuns me.” Joshua closed his eyes and nodded to himself. “That’s it. I don’t know why I thought for a second that you all would abandon me.” He sobbed into his own hand. “I apologize for my doubts. You know, people see how much I support you all. The hours and hours, the immense energy …” Addison nodded tearfully. “I tell them — these kids are my heart. They are my children. We sustain each other. No one else is willing to play the believing game for you all. This, this outpouring would shame them. Your generosity would silence them.”

I rose and took stock of the room. We all seemed to be standing up straighter. Addison had finally come forward, but he bypassed me and moved right to Joshua’s side. I remember chastising myself for noticing that. Telling myself that it wasn’t the time to selfishly wonder if my boyfriend was mad at me.

And Joshua wouldn’t be the only one who needed me in all this. Addison faced the prospect of losing the most important person in his life. I promised myself to support him no matter what. I heard them whispering behind me.

“Tell me more about these doctors,” Addison prodded.

I moved away then and went to work cleaning up the kitchen. A few hours before, I’d been trying to convince Addison to skip town and maybe send a letter later. Had he listened to me, we would have snuck off without knowing about Joshua’s condition. “Someone should check on Hannah,” I announced to the room, but what I really meant was Look at me, Addison, I’m trying to be that best version of myself for you.

Hannah didn’t answer when I knocked, but the door pushed open when I leaned on it. She’d already showered and combed out her hair. It seemed a little odd that we hadn’t heard her walking around. When I stepped into the room then, I realized it had its own bath. I could still see the steam. She must have just gotten dressed.

“I didn’t realize this room had a bath,” I said. Hannah sat in a little rocking chair by the window. She turned to me as if I’d made the most inane comment she’d heard. In light of everything, it might have been. “Usually the master has the bath.” Silence. “I don’t mean to say that we should have had this room — our room is lovely. Not that your room shouldn’t be lovely.” Hannah Green kept staring at me. “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to start over. “Joshua told us.”

That earned a gasp. I went on. “I feel so awful that you had to deal with that on your own. I wish I’d have known. I would have helped. Even just moral support.” The more I talked, the more uncomfortable Hannah looked. “We’re all going to help from here on out. Once we get back to McCracken Hill, we’ll work out a schedule or something so that he’s taken care of.” Hannah slowly stopped rocking. “We’ll take turns.”

“What are you talking about, Greer?”

I figured that maybe she knew more of the details. Maybe she was in shock.

“Joshua told us about his illness.” She pursed her lips together. “He said he had some kind of episode last night and you took care of him.” Hannah seemed to consider that carefully and then she nodded. She went back to rocking in the chair. “It must have been really scary.”

“I thought it was just an asthma attack or allergies.” She looked down at her hands. “But Joshua said it’s much more serious.”

“It sounds like it.”

“Do you think he’s dying?” she asked in her strange, flat voice. As if she didn’t care about the outcome either way.

“I guess we’ll get more information soon. Addison’s going to meet with his doctors. I thought it sounded like leukemia, but I guess not?” I looked at Hannah, waiting for her to volunteer an opinion. “The two of them are having a powwow down there now. Joshua told us you needed your rest. But are you hungry? Do you want breakfast?”

“Why do you like to feed everyone so much?” Hannah asked in her abrupt way.

“You know, when we got here, Joshua gave us all jobs. I get to be cook.” I said it in a joking way, but Hannah didn’t laugh or even smile. “I guess I took it kind of seriously.”

“I think you like to feed us because that helps you feel like you deserve to eat too.” I made sure not to grimace, remembering what Joshua had said about Hannah’s blunt way of talking. If Sophie had said it, I wouldn’t have gotten angry.

“Maybe. That makes sense.”

“It doesn’t really.” God. Hannah certainly didn’t make it easy.

“I meant that your interpretation makes sense to me. I see how that could be true.”

“What’s my job this weekend?”

Acting really bizarre and making everyone feel uncomfortable.

But I didn’t say that. Instead I said, “It seems like your job has been comforting Joshua.”

She snorted a little. Like some kind of dainty, wild pony. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

“Hannah, are you angry at me about something?”

“Why would you even ask that?”

“You just seem … I don’t know. You’ve kind of had your own thing going on this weekend. But I hope you haven’t felt like I’ve been excluding you from anything. Addison and I … well — this weekend was special to us. I mean, it was supposed to be. I’m just sorry that we didn’t all get a chance to spend more time together.”

Hannah stopped rocking again. She stared up at me and her tiniest smile emerged. “You really love him.”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t quite sure how Addison felt about me right then but I didn’t say that. “I didn’t mean for this whole weekend to be about that, though.”

“No, we did a lot. We learned a lot.” Hannah’s voice kind of cracked then.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“What’s it going to be like back at school?”

“After this? I’m not sure. Probably a little intense. But we’ll have each other, you know? We’ll all have to remember that and reach out when we need something.” She nodded and turned her gaze out the window. Outside the pine trees stretched high up against the mountains. “Come on downstairs so that I can feed you, okay? It’ll improve my self-worth.”

I made Hannah a cheese-and-toast and scrubbed the rest of the dishes. “Sophie, should we strip the beds?”

“Will we have enough time to run a load of laundry?”

I looked back at Joshua and Addison, still deep in conversation by the fire. “I think so. We’re not due back on campus until dinner.”

She handled the sheets from the beds she and Jared had pushed together. And I went upstairs to her parents’ room. I was just rolling all our linens up into a big ball, when I heard her calling quietly, but frantically, “Greer! Greer!”

I found her in the guest room. “What?”

She had pulled back the quilt from the bed. Beneath lay a bare, tufted mattress. I didn’t get it. “What’s the problem?”

Sophie stared at me. “Where are the sheets?”

“Well, don’t go all crazy about it. I’m sure if he was so uncomfortable, he would have mentioned it.”

“No, there were sheets. I checked.”

“Sophie, relax.” I stepped out onto the landing. “Hey, Hannah.” She looked up. “Where are the sheets?”

“What sheets?”

“From the bed? Upstairs.”

Hannah paused. She looked toward Joshua. He appeared riveted by whatever Addison was saying. He didn’t even raise his eyes. Hannah said, “I washed them.”

“Oh. Are they in the machine?”

“I washed them in the tub.”

“What?” Sophie went back to check the bathroom. “You didn’t have to do that, Hannah. That must have taken forever.” She emerged carrying the wet linens.

Hannah had rushed toward the stairs. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you had a washer.” She looked panicked. “If I’ve ruined them, I’ll replace them.”

Joshua finally glanced up. Addison shot me a look, like Seriously? I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I’m sure it’s fine. Let’s just get everything in the wash so that they can dry together.” Hannah looked like she was edging toward tears. I put my hand on her shoulder. “It’s really no big deal.”

Sophie laughed. “You’re making Greer look bad, though. She’s trying to show off her housewife skills and here you are, playing pioneer woman.” She showed us the laundry room and Hannah loaded everything into the washer. Sophie stood in front of a closet, staring at shelves of flannel sheets.

“Maybe we should just make the beds now?”

“Yeah, but what if your parents make the trip up? Won’t your mom notice the difference?”

Sophie just said, “No. They’re not coming back here.”

“We might not either,” Hannah volunteered. We looked at her. “If Joshua dies.”

 

It wasn’t until we were packing up that Addison and I had a moment alone together. I was putting the sheets back on our bed when he popped his head into the doorway to ask if I’d seen his phone.

I couldn’t stop myself. “So you’re speaking to me now?” I said. “Because you can’t find something?”

He stepped back. “Greer — seriously. Please don’t fight with me now.”

“You haven’t spoken to me. All morning. Since I came downstairs and started prepping breakfast, all happy that we’d —” I didn’t know how to put it. And I didn’t want to embarrass myself any more than I already had by whining. We just had sex and now you’re ignoring me. It was, after all, the same old story.

So I tried to maintain some dignity. “I’m sorry if I pushed earlier. I wasn’t thinking clearly. But I also didn’t expect that as soon as we actually slept together …”

“Of course not.” Addison spoke in his same old earnest way. “Jesus, Greer. I’m the asshole. Seriously. That’s not what I meant.” He stepped closer to me and reached out his arms, but I ducked away. “I’m sorry.” I watched him warily. “I wish we’d never come downstairs this morning, but when we did. Well, when I did, I just —” Addison choked back sobs again. “I had no idea he was sick, Greer. And I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

I’m not a monster. By then Addison was full-on crying. Huge, wracking sobs that shook his whole body. I wrapped my arms around him and whispered in his ear that Joshua would be okay, we’d figure it out. I told him I knew he had to devote himself to helping Joshua get well and I’d help in any way I could. And in the meantime, I’d wait for him. We’d found something incredible between us. Miraculous. Nothing would interfere with us. But right now we had other obligations. And we wouldn’t let something amazing like finding each other interfere with fulfilling those either.

Slowly, Addison went from weeping in my arms to nuzzling at my neck. I kissed his eyes and his face before his mouth. And then, once we got really swept up in kissing and pressing and craning toward each other, we tangled up the sheets of the bed I’d just made.

We treated each other less gently in the morning. Maybe because the sunlight streamed in through the gauzy curtains and there was no point in acting bashful about our bodies. Maybe because the whole house was awake, creaking with footsteps. We heard doors slamming and occasional laughter.

I guess I was trying to console him. But there was something else. At some point, Addison whispered, “We should try to be quiet.” And I nodded and then pretended to find that impossible to manage. Just a little. And I resolved to make sure that Addison needed to yell out also. I could make him forget for a few minutes. Just like earlier that morning, when Joshua had fixed it so that Addison hardly recalled how he felt about me. I could work my own miracles. Or maybe we would call it creating a circle of belief. If anyone called us on inappropriate timing, I’d argue that Addison and I chose a life-affirming activity. So I threw back my head and celebrated. Loudly. And I remember hoping that, down the hall, Joshua would hear.