Page 35 of Seven Summer Weekends

“I am in a work crisis, not a relationship crisis.”

Addison wasn’t being entirely truthful. She didn’t really understand how she had become anchorless, but ever since she’d heard that was how Gicky imagined her, she hadn’t stopped thinking about it.

She shifted gears again, explaining, “Remember playing Chutes and Ladders as a kid? I feel like I made it three-quarters of the way up the board, then landed on that one shitty slide that takes you all the way back to the beginning.”

“You will get another job. You’re exceptional at what you do,” Lisa consoled her, before going right back to her own theory.

“Have you ever been cheated on?”

Addison thought back through her relationships, way back, and landed on the very first.

“Does it count if it was in the eighth grade?”

“It may count more. Wasn’t that around the time your grandfather died?”

“A year later. I’m surprised you remember that story. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. You may be the only person I ever shared it with.”

“Well, that could be a part of the problem. Nothing stays bottled up forever. Tell me about the boy who cheated.”

“Come on. Are we really doing this?”

“We may as well. Summer of Addison, remember?”

“I never agreed to that.”

“Just tell me.”

“Fine. It was eighth grade, and everybody was constantly asking each other, ‘Who do you like?’ ”

“God, I remember that,” Lisa said. “Suzy Carmichael texted me that question in biology, and I said Chris Tevlin—who I didn’t even like, but I had to answer something. Then she told him.”

“Bitch,” they both said at the same time, before laughing.

Her response made Addison wonder whether Lisa was the type of therapist who sat silently nodding, admitting zero personal information, or the type who shared with her patients like they were a couple of chatting friends. Addison had never been to therapy. Thinking back, aside from the broken engagement, things had always gone as planned, and she never felt she had to. Now she wondered if that was really the case.

“Eighth grade was hell,” she said, with a wince.

“Complete hell. So, what happened to you?” Dr.Lisa asked, again.

“Let me set the scene. I’m fourteen, haven’t got my period yet, flat as a board. I had been dating Jeffrey Pearlman, the cutest boy in school, for six whole months.”

“That’s a long time for middle school.”

“Right? I thought so too. Hell, it still is! So, we are all at Jonathon Strauss’s house playing spin the bottle, and it’s my turn. I carefully spin it—more like place it—toward Jeffrey. We kiss, and everyone yells eighth-grade things like ‘Whoa, baby,’ and ‘Get a room.’ We were good at kissing, probably much better than the other kids, you know, ’cause we had been practicing for six months, and there was literally nothing else to do. I mean, maybe I was at the point in development where it felt like there were marbles under each nipple. Remember that?”

“Not till you reminded me—but yes. Now I do. They really hurt, remember that?”

Addison nodded and grimaced.

“So, as per the rules of spin the bottle, it was his turn next. He spun without manipulation, which was the first stab in my heart, and it landed right in between me and Sofie Bonelli. Let me give you a visual. Sofie Bonelli was already five foot six and at least a 34C. She was adopted, and people were convinced she was really sixteen. Forget looking like her little sister. I looked like I could have been her kid.

“So Jeffrey leaned in, and I closed my eyes and puckered up for a repeat performance. When I opened them, he and Sofie were all out making out, as if we were playing seven minutes in heaven—not spin the bottle—and the entire circle of kids just sat there with their chins on the floor. The next day he broke up with me and the two of them became a couple.”

“That is really messed-up,” Lisa acknowledged. Addison greatly appreciated the magnitude of her empathy.

“Though you must know now that it was all about the boobs.”

“I knew it then too, but from that day on, I was convinced that the dreamier the guy, the more likely he was to break my heart.”

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