This Gorgeous Game (19 page)

But I didn’t expect this. Definitely not
this.

His story…it’s about…well…

I was just going to skim through it quickly.

Then I read the epigraph. A quotation from Thomas Merton.

And I remembered the poem Father Mark gave me, the love poem “For M. in October,” and what Jamie said about Thomas Merton, that he was a famous writer, a famous priest, who fell in love with a young girl, his nurse, and they had an affair.

Then I began to read and once I began I couldn’t stop.

He needed me to read this. That’s what he’d said. Now I know why.

Father Mark thinks he is Thomas Merton and that I am his M.

“This Gorgeous Game” is the story of Father Mark and me, told from the very moment he and I meet in the school office at Sacred Heart. All of it is there, every second we spend together, every thought that goes through his mind. There is only one twist to it, a single, horrible twist that twists me and my stomach into agonizing knots.

In Father Mark’s story we fall in love. He with me and I with him.

We fall in love and have an affair.

Just like Thomas Merton and M. We learn about love together, the meaning of love—his words. A gift from God we call it.
He
calls it.

He loves me.

Oh, God. Why me?

It is right there on the pages in gut-wrenching detail. He set a trap and stupid, naive me, I walked right into it and now I’m caught. Like an animal.

Father Mark writes this line in Chapter One.

I remember. I remember him saying this very thing to me.

And now I know.
I know.

Father Mark has not given me a story, he’s given me a proposition.

All this time, all these weeks, the meetings, the phone calls, the texts, the visits, the letters—so many letters and now, finally, I know.

And then I think how everyone loves him. Everyone thinks he’s the greatest, nicest, kindest man. So did I. I did, too. I let him do this to me. I encouraged him. I practically begged him to. I wanted all of it, in the beginning. How could I have been so stupid? How could I let this go on for so long? Get so out of hand?

I crawl into bed, curling myself into a warm cocoon. When I fall asleep, I dream about Father Mark. Even in my sleep I can’t get away.

It is a nightmare.

Father Mark is looking for me, following me, and I know he is there and he is approaching quickly. I want to run away but I cannot move. I am a sitting duck, a seventeen-year-old sitting duck of a girl, waiting, waiting for him to find me, corner me, trap me like a hunter’s prey. He comes closer and closer and I can hear him breathing, waiting, drawing out this moment. He knows that I know he is there and he is pleased. He knows that I want to run but can’t. He is enjoying this, knowing that he has me where he wants me. He likes this very much. Somehow I know this, in the dream.

I am afraid. Filled with fear. Paralyzed by it. Made of it.

And just when he is about to see me, in that awful moment when I am trapped by this endless game of hide-and-seek,
his game
, me hiding, me always hiding, him seeking without ever tiring of the game, the game I provide him…I am his game…

That’s when I wake up. Right then.

I am drenched. The sheets are drenched, my pillowcase is drenched. I am shaking so hard the bed shakes with me. My blanket is twisted, thrown off to the side. I am uncovered and shivering. I can’t stop the shivering no matter how many blankets I tuck around me. I am sick with nausea. That’s when I run to the bathroom because I am going to vomit. Again. But I don’t. I heave and heave and nothing comes out. I can’t rid myself of him.

I stay in the bathroom, rolled up in a ball on the tiny green mat. I don’t sleep because I can’t be sure he won’t come back and find me in my dreams. So I lie awake instead, until the shaking stops and the breathing slows and I begin to relax. Little by little, the fear leaves, and eventually,
eventually
the fear turns to hate.

Just like that, the fear turns to hate. Hate and anger.

And I am alone.

I wish that life would come to a stop. That everything. Would. Just.
Stop.

Please, God.
Make it stop.
Please.

And then in one of the darkest moments, the thought goes through my mind that if he had stolen my wallet I could have gone to the police and said,
That man stole my wallet
, or if he had gotten in an accident while drunk and driving the police would have hauled him in and said,
You were drunk driving and with a minor and that will land you in jail
, or if he had just hit me, if he had just punched me in the face even once I could have gone to someone and said,
That man assaulted me
, and gotten him in trouble. These thoughts grow worse and worse and worse until the very last one, the worst one of all comes,
That it would be easier if he had just raped me.
If he raped me then I could go to the police and cry,

There would be physical evidence and they would take him away no matter how famous or beloved he is. They would lock him up and then he could no longer

God. Make. It. All. Go. Away.

Make
him
go away.

I want to erase him from my life. I wish I had a Father Mark eraser that I could wipe across his existence. And then Father Mark would become Father Mark and then
Father Mark
and then
Father Mark
until finally, after a while, he was just

Father Mark.

Until he was no longer there at all.

With this thought comes a single shred of strength.

Erasing Father Mark. I can do that. I have a way to do that. I see the irony of it, how this time around, I get to play the role of God.

Right then, I know what I need to do. For me. For
me.

But before I move, before I get up off the bathroom floor and head across my room to the couch, I have one last thing to say to God:

Thank you, God, for this gift that is my writing. Thank you, God, for this space where I have all the power. Sorry though, God, because I think I’m about to fuck you over. Sorry ahead of time, okay?

Then I become God the only place I can. On the page.

I pull out my laptop and begin to type.
Click, click, click
go my fingers as they fly across the keyboard. I do not stop, not when the sun rises at dawn or the morning turns to afternoon and then to evening. I stay like this all day, writing, and everyone, my Mom, Greenie, my friends, Jamie, and Father Mark—of course Father Mark—tries to reach me. They worry. They think something is wrong.
Am I sick?
they want to know.
Will I go to a doctor?
they want to know. But I can’t answer. Not my cell, not texts, not e-mails, not voices or voice mails. Not yet.

I cannot stop until I’ve made him go away. Until I’ve made this story
mine.

Mine. Not
his.

I am no longer God when I finish. I am neither God nor priest. I am once again just a girl. A seventeen-year-old girl. Olivia Peters. Just a girl.

Like. Any. Other.

When I finally close my laptop, I know I am ready. I call Jamie and then I call Ash and then I call Jada and I tell them, I tell them that I need them right away, that I need them to come over, and that afterward, together, we need to see Sister June.

TAP, TAP, TAP
GO MY FINGERS.

My right knee bobs up and down.

They can’t get here soon enough. I might burst.

My mother is downstairs, sitting on the couch, worried, wanting to know why I won’t talk to her. Tell her what’s wrong. I am afraid she’ll be disappointed in me, that I will find out her faith in priests is stronger than her faith in me, and I cannot bear that possibility so I decide to wait and see, wait and see what someone else thinks. What Jamie and Jada and Ash think. What Sister June thinks.

I don’t hear my bedroom door when it opens.

A hand touches my back and I almost jump out of my skin but my skin stays firmly stuck to my body.

It’s just Jamie. Just Jamie.
Jamie
.

“Olivia? Everyone is worried.” He sits down on the couch, his hand still on my back. I am twisted away from him, facing the window. I fight the urge to shake him off. But Jamie will not hurt me. Jamie would never hurt me.

“Where are Jada and Ash?” I ask, so quiet.

“They’re on their way.”

“I’m scared,” I say after a long while and turn, looking into his worried eyes.

“I told you: you can tell me anything. I promise. What is going on?” he begs.

“It’s bad. It’s really bad. You are going to be upset. Everyone is going to be upset.”

“Olivia.
Please
.”

I force myself to look into Jamie’s eyes and all I see is kindness. Trust. My heart beats so fast, so hard, that I wonder if Jamie can hear it.

Jada and Ash enter my bedroom and close the door behind them. They rush over, move the coffee table out of the way so they have room to sit on the floor.

“Livvy, we’ve been so worried,” Ash says.

I am surrounded. Jamie to my left, on the couch. Jada at my feet, on the floor. Ash next to Jada, to my right, between the couch and the window, blocking my view of the space I’ve come to hate. For the first time in weeks I am not scared by my situation. I am relieved. Safe.

A long time passes with nothing said. My eyes bore out into space when I finally get up the nerve.

“I think there’s something wrong with Father Mark,” I say, and steal a glance at Jamie, trying to gauge his initial reaction. He doesn’t flinch. I gather my courage. I look at Jamie one more time. Then I look at Jada and Ash. Their faces say,
Tell us.
So I do it. I finally do it.

I tell.

And Father Mark has made this part easy now.

The story he’s written is gathered into a neat pile, again sitting on the coffee table with the title page on top. I lean forward off the couch between Jada and Jamie, tap the stack with my hand, and say one word only because there is only one word necessary to say it all:

“Read.”

Because it’s all right there.

“Why don’t you go first,” Jada says to Jamie. He nods okay, and she gives him the manuscript, picks it up off the coffee table and gives it to someone who is not me.

But I have more. I have plenty for everyone. Plenty to go around.

So I lean in a different direction this time, toward the place where Ash sits. I point at the Father Mark pile on the floor between the couch and the window, startling Ash who realizes she is covering part of it with her body, and again I say the one, the only word necessary:

“Read.”

Because it’s all right there.

And as Jamie and Ash and Jada read, when their eyes become wide with shock, that’s when I begin to cry for the second time in front of someone else. Now I am crying because soon I will no longer be alone in this. I don’t want to be alone another minute and I won’t be. I rest my head on my knees. I am exhausted. So exhausted. Like someone sucked the life out of me. And I am nervous. So nervous about what I am doing. About telling.

About making this accusation.

I am accusing a priest. I am making accusations about Father Mark, a beloved priest, a beloved Father, a beloved author, a beloved professor. Someone everybody loves. Everyone.

Everyone but me.

When I hear Jamie put down the manuscript, causing Ash and Jada to pause in their ripping open, reading, and putting aside, ripping open, reading, and putting aside, making a new pile, I bury my head further into my knees, afraid to look at him, so I don’t. I don’t look.

“I’ve read enough,” Jamie says.

“I think I have, too,” Ash says, and I hear Jada sigh.

“So…what do you…” My voice fades.

“He’s obsessed with you,” Jamie states. There is no question. Only certainty. Jamie is certain for me.

“Extremely,” Jada says.

“I know.” My voice is tiny. I look up at them finally, my arms hugging my knees tight.

Their next question is written across their eyes. They don’t need to say a word.

“I never, ever, ever,
ever
want to see him or hear from him or hear his voice or touch anything he’s touched ever, ever,
ever
again. I don’t want him to call me, text me, e-mail me, write me letters, leave me presents, write me stories. God, I want him to go away forever. And I want him to die.” My voice is hoarse and low and I am startled by my own words. “But I messed up, right? I mean, because I never told him to stop. I never did.” A lump fills my throat and tears slide down my cheeks. “I mean, look at all this.” I gesture toward the letters and torn envelopes and what remains of the stack between the couch and the window. “I don’t even know what they say. I haven’t opened anything in weeks. I can’t bear to touch them,” I sob.

“You did nothing wrong, Olivia,” Jamie says in a quiet voice. “He’s a priest. He’s your professor. He’s a powerful, public man. It doesn’t matter that you haven’t told him to stop. He never should have put you in this position, he never should have done this to you in the first place.”

I take my hands away from my face and look at Jamie through blurry eyes.

“Olivia, I may be your boyfriend but honestly—and please keep my love of the Catholic Church, the priesthood, in mind here—something is very,
very
wrong. Something is very wrong with this man and it has nothing to do with you. You are not to blame. It’s happened before, Olivia, to so many other people, and it is still happening to people and now it has happened to you, too. I’m so sorry, Olivia. I am so sorry that it had to happen to you, too.”