Chapter Text
“If music be the food of love, play on, / Give me excess of it that, surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken and so die.”
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night-
11:54. The steering wheel shakes with every bounce of Addy’s knee as she waits for a few more minutes to pass, even though she’s been sitting in the parking lot of Upper Arlington High School for half an hour already. Her fingers flex in apprehension, or maybe it’s anticipation —Addy thinks she should probably be excited about her life, with a new job and a new city, and yet it all feels like such a downgrade. She’s back in Ohio after eight years in Texas, cheering in college and then coaching high school squads, and even though her new place is only twenty minutes from Columbus, Addy is already bored of the midwest again.
She has to remind herself why she’s here, and it’s becoming a little mantra to keep Addy sane. You’re doing this for Slocum. They had reconnected a while back when Addy returned to Sutton Grove for a visit at her mother’s behest, and Addy discovered that Slocum was working in construction, ultimately never having enlisted. Sarge Will left a bad taste in his mouth . Addy squeezes her eyes shut because she cannot think about him right now, instead shoving the door ajar and stepping out into the late summer heat that Addy knows so well. It’s nothing compared to San Antonio, but the Ohio humidity fills her lungs as she crosses the parking lot towards the worn brick building with ivy and lichen patched on its exterior.
The click, click, click of Addy’s footsteps echo through the halls as she walks, head swinging from door to door looking for something administrative. She’s supposed to meet with the principal and set up in her office before her first ever practice with the Upper Arlington cheer squad. They’re not a hopeless endeavor the way Sutton Grove had once appeared, but Addy isn’t exactly jumping for joy at the long months of grueling training it will undoubtedly take to whip these girls into shape, since they haven’t had a coach in a few years. She’s up to the challenge after leading an underfunded Sa-town squad to a shining silver medal at States two years in a row—Addy gets results, which is why nabbing the job here was the simplest part of their big move. Slocum struggled to renew his Ohio contracter’s license while they bickered over where to live, but it’s all working out fine now, two weeks in. Addy feels a peaceful settling of her heart, like maybe this new chapter of their lives spent together will spark something in Addy that Slocum has tried for years to evoke, a desire to settle down with him.
A high-pitched ring startles Addy, and she’s rushing to the side of the corridor as classroom doors swing open and students pour into the hallways, presumably on their way to lunch. She pushes against the flow of traffic until her gaze finds a “main office” sign in a window.
Once she slips inside and closes the door behind her, Addy is enveloped in silence, a stark contrast from the lively teenagers screaming in the corridors. She gingerly approaches the receptionist, wringing her hands while the woman taps away at her keyboard.
“Excuse me,” Addy says, and the woman looks up with a smile. “I’m looking for Principal Theado? My name is Addy Hanlon, and I’m-”
“Oh, the new cheer coach!” she exclaims, turning to point behind her. “If you go straight down the hall, it’s the last office on the left. Welcome to UA!”
Addy feels a smile creeping onto her face, and she wonders if everyone will be this kind. “Thank you.” She slides past the desk and heads down the hall, hesitating outside of the last open door on the left. The office is spacious, a few potted plants on the windowsill, beat up furniture pressed against the chipping walls. Roger Theado is bent over his desk, scribbling in a notebook until Addy’s sharp knock makes his head shoot up.
“Oh, Addy!” He stands from his desk, ushering Addy inside with a sweep of his arm. “It’s great to finally meet you. We’re so excited you’re here. The cheer squad has been out of commission for a few years, so this is going to be just great.”
“I’m really excited to be here,” Addy replies, and it actually feels sort of true. “I’ve seen some of the old videos, and I think there’s going to be a lot of potential for success.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Theado says with a decisive nod. “You’re an Ohio native yourself right? From up north?”
Addy swallows hard, shifting her weight. “Yes, that’s right.” She hopes and prays that’s all he knows about her, because she really doesn’t want to do the whole oh, yeah, I am from that town where the cheer coach’s husband went crazy and killed her side piece, and then yeah, she did try to frame me for it, crazy right? It happened enough when she first got to Texas Tech and the whole squad found out where she was from, calling her Addy French for the whole first semester. But Addy ignored it, and eventually it went away—a tried and true Addy Hanlon special.
“Well, we’re glad you came back for us” is all Theado says, and she can’t help but breathe out a sigh of relief. “I can show you to your office and you can get settled in before tryouts start?”
Addy just nods and follows as the principal steps through the door frame. He leads her out of the main office into a large, central hallway, launching into a description of Upper Arlington’s history. Founded in 1907 and home of the Golden Bears, the school has become a top contender in almost every sport within Ohio’s Division I athletic association, but cheer has been just out of their reach due to cuts in funding. The building itself, Addy observes, is falling apart at the seams. Theado cranks up the charm, but Addy is smirking at the graffiti-covered lockers and busted floor tiles, a dated checker pattern that makes her head spin a little.
“Well, this is you!” Theado stops in front of a window-paned oak door, opening it to reveal a miniscule office with stone floors and a metal desk. “It’s, uh- probably not what you’re used to, which I apologize for. It’s all we’ve got at the moment.”
It looks like a fucking prison cell, Addy wants to say. “It’s great. I didn’t have an office at my first coaching job, so…” It’s a lie. She doesn’t know why, but Addy feels compelled to comfort Theado about the condition of his school and the amenities he’s able to provide. She can’t imagine what it’s like being a high school principal. He probably wants to blow his brains out half of the time. Addy steps further into the cramped space, which is empty save from the desk and a dented filing cabinet in the corner.
“Well, I’ve got a meeting, but the gym is just down the hall,” Theado says with a kind smile. “You’re starting tryouts at…?”
“Three-fifteen,” Addy replies.
“Three-fifteen, great,” he echoes, slipping into the hall. “I’ll stop by and check in if I can!”
Then he’s gone, and Addy is left alone in the stone cell which, legitimately, has a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling by a wire. She dumps her backpack on the desk and pushes the door closed with her foot, noting that there is no shade on the window, so she needs to remember to buy one.
Addy really doesn’t want to sit in this nearly empty room for three hours, but the halls are flooded with students and she’s not that interested in getting caught up in a crowd of hormonal teenagers. It’s her fourth high school in six years, which seems like a lot to Addy, but Slocum is always reassuring her that it’s okay to move around in the years following college. When he brought up the contracting job in Columbus, Addy was fiercely opposed, only relenting on the condition that it would only be for a year. Addy knew, though, that Slocum would try to build a life for them here. You’re doing this for Slocum.
Eventually deciding to unpack the few things she brought, Addy unearths her clipboard stacked with drills and circuits designed to expose every weakness. She only wants the strongest on her squad, because weakness is what poisoned her in high school and again in college. Addy will not have it on her team.
She’s color coding a tryout Excel spreadsheet when the sound of the bell cuts through her thoughts, sending students shuffling off to class. Addy peers through the window, watches as groups of girls skip along and the guys slam lockers shut.
Down the hall, Addy spots a head of chestnut curls and she’s thinking huh, looks a lot like-
But then the head turns, and Beth Cassidy is standing by a classroom door with a stack of papers in her hand, ushering in students. Addy blinks to clear the vision because obviously she’s imagining this, but Beth is still there, and she looks exactly the same if not slightly more matured.
She doesn’t even realize what she’s doing until the door is open and Addy is walking out of the office, inching closer to Beth as she chats with a blond girl off to the side, more students filing into the classroom. She blends into the masses of people, inching closer until she’s no more than ten feet away, and Addy can see a generous dusting of freckles across her nose, no doubt from Ohio’s summer sun.
But then Beth is slipping inside, gone from Addy’s line of sight, and the bell chimes at double-time. Addy rushes back to her office, closing the door and leaning against it, a shield to protect her from the harrowing reality she’s discovered. Beth is here. She teaches here. Beth Cassidy is a teacher at the school I’m coaching at. Addy swallows hard to keep her stomach from contracting, because she never thought she’d see Beth again—not after Matt and Colette’s arrests and their botched performance at States, and certainly not after senior year, where they spoke less than ten words to each other.
She hears her old therapist’s voice in her head, from back in Dallas. You need to be adaptable. That’s how you keep your mind from spiraling out of control. Adaptable. At first, Addy was just supposed to be adapting to Slocum, tagging along back to Texas when she left Sutton Grove after her visit. But then she sensed a need to adapt to Slocum’s newfound interest in her, followed by his advances and his presence as a romantic partner. But now she’s adapting to a new school, a new job, and the presence of her tumultuous childhood best friend, whom she did not leave on good terms with.
What are the chances she could avoid Beth for the entire year? Addy doesn’t even know what subject she teaches. Probably English, she thinks. Maybe history, but probably English. She knows avoiding Beth is a longshot, because this place only has about a hundred faculty members, and she’s willing to bet they’ve all heard about the successful cheerleading coach coming to revive their program. It’s only a matter of time, really.
She can’t resist the urge to navigate to the school website, scrolling through the directory until she finds it: Beth Cassidy, English Resource Teacher. Addy forces herself to close the tab and return to her spreadsheet, despite the almost throbbing urge to Google her and see what she’s been up to after all these years.
It feels like mere minutes, but Addy jolts up when she sees the time on her computer change from 2:57 to 2:58. School will be letting out soon, and she doesn’t want to risk running into Beth in the hallway, so Addy grabs her clipboard and dashes out of the office and down the hall, slipping into the double doors of the gym. Half of it is set up for volleyball, a class of students beginning to clean up the balls and take the nets down.
She spies an equipment room on the other side and finds some beat up mats deep in the depths of it, beneath unwashed football pads and lacrosse sticks. Addy drags them out and onto the linoleum floor with grunts of effort, eventually getting them laid out into a tight rectangle. She can’t wait for the squad to be formed, because then it will be their job to lug the mats in and out for practice while Addy watches.
Quietly, the girls start to file in, congregating in twos and threes while they set their bags down and eye Addy up. She feels them watching her and stands up straighter, arms crossed over her chest. Addy doesn’t know what these girls will be like because she’s never actually coached in Ohio, but if they’re anything like her own team was nine years ago, Addy can’t afford to show any weakness whatsoever.
Her watch chimes with her 3:15 alarm, and Addy claps her hands twice to get the attention of the three dozen girls clad in compression shorts and colored sports bras. Addy can’t help the way her mind flits back to Colette’s first day, how they all shrunk under her heavy gaze. Should’ve seen it coming.
“Okay, everyone,” Addy says. “I’m Coach Hanlon, I will be the varsity- and I guess the JV coach, too. We’ll be having three days of tryouts, and our first game is this Friday, so we will be working very hard. Let’s start with bleachers.” She waves a hand in the direction of the rickety steps, and it takes about five seconds before a skinny blonde waves her arms to get the group moving.
“You heard Coach, let’s go!” she says, and then every single girl is spreading out across the bleachers and running up to the top. Addy thinks it’s the same girl she saw outside of Beth’s classroom, but she can’t be sure.
Addy walks the length of the gym with slow purpose, eyes trailing on each and every girl, mentally filing them into categories. Weak. Just out of shape. Weak. Weak. Out of shape. Weak. Actually pretty good. Weak. Some of the girls are doubled over after five minutes, and Addy stresses that they should not stop because every time someone stops, she’ll add a minute. Addy has all the control—she’s the only one who knows how long they have to run for, so the girls have to rely on their own mental fortitude to get through this. A tried method to strengthen the athletic mindset.
It takes twenty-five minutes for a girl to drop into a heap at the bottom of the steps, heaving in breaths. Addy approaches her and leans down. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m- I just have asthma,” the girl wheezes out, and Addy rolls her eyes.
“Then get your inhaler,” she says, standing up. A simple problem with a simple solution. Addy doesn’t mean to sound rude, but her tone is acerbic regardless. “Everyone on the mat.”
The girls scramble to spread out across the padded blue material, and Addy launches into a circuit of exercises, resting a foot on hips that rise up during planks. They’re panting and sweating, and Addy gives them nothing—she keeps her face guarded and arms crossed, watching them wince and listening to the melody of their pained grunts. Finally, she lets them stop, has them line up. Addy steps up close and looks at each of them, surveying, inspecting.
“What’s your name?” she asks, stopping in front of the blonde who is easily the strongest in the group.
“Chrissy,” the girl replies, chin high. She can tell Chrissy is an upperclassman from the way she shouted at the group to get tryouts started.
“You’re a senior?”
Chrissy nods.
“You’re strong,” Addy comments, not with any particular inflection. “Strong legs.”
“I run track,” Chrissy replies, and Addy’s ears are fine tuned to teenage attitude—she’s heard so much of it, from Beth in the old days to the head bitches on her San Antonio and Dallas teams. But from Chrissy’s mouth, there is only confidence and nonchalance, like she already knows what she can do and doesn’t need to act out as proof.
“Hurdles?” Addy questions, but she’s walking away before she can see Chrissy’s inevitable nod. “And you?” She stops in front of the tall brunette beside Chrissy, with bicep definition Addy links to softball, or another upper body sport.
“Um, Margaret. Mags,” she stutters, notably less confident than the blond next to her.
“Well, which is it?” Addy asks with a quirk of her brow. It’s your name. Say it with conviction.
“Mags,” the girl repeats, louder this time, and Addy doesn’t miss the way Chrissy meets Mags’ eyes. It’s too familiar, enough to make Addy dizzy.
She takes a few steps back, scribbling a few notes on a blank sheet of paper. Chrissy top girl? Mags strong base, lieutenant. Redhead and Neon Shoes have endurance. In big, bold letters: WORK TO DO.
“I think that’s it for today,” Addy says with a nod, looking back up at the girls. “Remember that if you make the team, you must have white cheer shoes in order to practice. I’m not flexible about that.” She’s making that clear now, because she can’t stand a pair of sneakers sticking out like two sore thumbs amongst her squad. “You’re all dismissed. See you back here tomorrow.”
The girls shuffle over to their bags, low whispers slowly rising in volume as Addy leaves the gym and makes her way back to her office, shoves her laptop in her bag and slings it over her shoulder on the way out of the undesirable office space. The halls are quiet now, almost two hours after dismissal, and Addy revels in the echo of her movements.
Addy is halfway to her car when she hears the chirp of an alarm, and she turns her head to see Beth climbing into her car. It’s a Jeep, but this one is black and slightly larger than the blue one she used to drive. Addy darts to her own vehicle, slipping into the driver’s seat and watching Beth start her car and pull out of the lot’s exit.
She was so good earlier, resisting the urge to look Beth up and stalk her online, but Addy doesn’t even think before she pulls out and makes a right, keeping a slight distance behind Beth’s Jeep. Oh my God, Addy, you’re insane. You are literally stalking her. The rational thing to do would be to turn off somewhere and make her way home, but Addy keeps driving until Beth is making a left into another parking lot, this one belonging to the elementary school and daycare.
Addy pulls in behind her and parks, but Beth is in the line of cars in front of the school. She’s waiting for pick-up. She watches from her car like a complete creep as Beth steps out of her car and heads through the sliding door, only to return a minute later holding hands with a raven-haired boy, Beth’s spitting image, clutching his dinosaur backpack to his chest as he skips to the car.
Her jaw is hanging off its hinges because Beth is scooping the child into her arms and situating him in his car seat before she gets back in the car, pulls out of the line and drives away.
Addy is adaptable. She has to be. She tells herself it’s okay, this is no big deal, just adapt. This was not supposed to be a big deal, Addy was supposed to coach a team with decent resources and be as happy as possible with Slocum for a year until they move on. But now Beth Cassidy is teaching at her school and she has a fucking kid? Addy makes the drive home white-knuckling the steering wheel, and if she wasn’t operating heavy machinery, her leg would be bouncing incessantly.
Slocum is, unsurprisingly, not home when she arrives. He works late into the evenings, sometimes not coming home until after nine or ten. The new job is taxing, and he usually just wants to crash when he gets back, which is fine by Addy. She reheats some leftover pasta and tries to work, but she keeps thinking about Beth and that boy, her son , and then she’s pulling up Facebook and typing in Beth’s name.
The first profile contains a photo of Beth smiling hugely next to the dark-haired boy, whose blue eyes shine just like her own. It doesn’t seem like she uses the account much, and Addy isn’t surprised, because Beth always used to say Facebook is for old people and Addy would always agree. But there is a picture from four years ago, where Beth is holding her newborn baby and a man stands smiling behind her. Meet Asher Christian Duval, 7 pounds, 4 ounces. Addy hadn’t even thought about the fact that Beth would likely have a husband, and here it seems that she does. The man’s hair is buzzed and his arms wrap around her shoulders, their hands interlaced with both their wedding rings visible.
Addy keeps scrolling, but it’s the only photo of the entire family. There are a few of Beth and her son— Asher —in various parks and seemingly at the zoo, but the husband is nowhere to be seen. She pushes the laptop shut and rises, placing her empty bowl in the dishwasher and curling up on the couch. The Netflix original she selects doesn’t hold her attention, though, because Addy is thinking about Beth being married, having a family. Even when Slocum gets home, Addy is elsewhere.
She gets into bed and feels Slocum’s arm slide across her torso, pulling her into his embrace, and Addy feels her skin burn where he touches it. Ordinarily, she might weasel out of his grip and put precious space between them, but Addy just lies there, trying to sleep but also trying to make sense of it all, like she’d done so many times so long ago.
***
“Ri, you’re never going to believe this,” Addy blurts the moment RiRi picks up the phone. It’s the first time she’s called since she and Slocum made the fifteen hour drive in a Uhaul. They cheered at Texas Tech together and stayed in touch even after RiRi moved out to Miami to cheer for the Dolphins, but it’s been years since they’ve seen each other in person.
“What’s up, girl?” RiRi replies.
Addy leans back in the swivel chair Theado brought by for her earlier, an extra from the conference room, eyes skirting her still blank walls. It’s only her second day, and Addy is already busy enough to know that this place is never getting properly furnished. She still needs to buy blinds, which Addy is sure she will never do. “So I just started with this new team in Columbus, right?”
“Upper Arlington isn’t in Columbus,” RiRi corrects, and Addy can hear the smirk on her face. “You’re still a suburban loser. But yes, continue.”
“Shut up,” Addy whines. “But seriously, guess who’s a teacher here?”
RiRi pauses. “No way. French is out of jail?”
“No!” Addy exclaims. “No, not French, Beth !”
“Oh! Wait, is that good or bad?” RiRi asks.
Addy’s feet slide off the desk and she stands up, pacing the small space. “I don’t know! She didn’t see me, so I guess she still hasn’t heard that I’m here.”
“You should talk to her,” RiRi offers. “You guys could clear things up, finally get the endgame you deserve! Wait, I’m so here for this!”
“For the last time, Rihanna, Beth and I are not endgame!” Addy huffs. “I have a boyfriend, and she’s married . She has a kid.”
“How do you know all that if you haven’t spoken to her?”
Addy hesitates. If she tells RiRi that she tailed Beth’s car like a Criminal Minds serial killer, she’ll never hear the end of it. “Google is free.”
“Okay, smartass, you should still talk to her. Otherwise you’re going to be in for a weird ass year of avoiding each other. She probably goes to football games, you know.”
Addy groans, because her best friend is right. The last thing she wants is tension, a repeat of their last year at Sutton Grove High, but Addy doesn’t want to be the one to make the first move.
RiRi soon excuses herself to get ready for practice, but she presses Addy on the topic of talking to Beth, and she relents by saying she’ll do it eventually. And she will. Eventually.
It takes her five minutes to focus again, but Addy gets in the groove of transferring names from yesterday’s tryout sign-up sheet to her digital list, and she only distantly registers the chime of the lunch bell. She left the door open, but now it’s too loud for Addy to concentrate so she moves to close it until a foot slides into the gap of the door, holding it open. Her eyes follow up a jean-clad leg and fall on the familiar face of Beth Cassidy.
“I didn’t think it was true,” she says, sporting a crooked grin. “Thought everyone was talking about a different Addy Hanlon, or playing some kind of practical joke on me.”
Addy wholeheartedly wants to jump into a swimming pool filled with bleach more than she wants to have this conversation, because she can already tell it’s going to be awkward. “Well, it’s true,” she replies with a shrug.
“It’s good to see you,” Beth says, and her smile looks genuine, crinkling the skin around her eyes. It’s not quite a Beth Cassidy showstopper, but it makes Addy feel warm inside, even after eight years. “You look good.”
“So do you.” It’s true. Beth is wearing a blue sundress with miniscule white flowers, and Addy can see the definition in her arms. She clears her throat. “How, um- How have you been?” She hopes it sounds normal, because asking Beth how she’s doing when Addy knows more than she’s letting on is strange. I better not sound weird as hell.
“I’m good. This is my second year at UA, I’m really happy here.” Beth is standing fully in the doorway now, and Addy has to force her legs to move back so she can usher Beth inside. “What about you? Last I heard, you were in Texas still.”
Addy wonders how she knows that. As far as she is aware, RiRi hasn’t spoken to Beth in years, and Addy doesn’t keep in touch with anyone else from Sutton Grove. But Beth seems to read her mind, the way she always used to.
“I saw your mom at the grocery store once,” Beth explains. “She said you stayed in Texas after graduation.”
“Yeah, I coached a few teams down there,” Addy says with a nod, picking at her cuticles to avoid Beth’s gaze. Do I mention Slocum?
“But now you’re here. You missed the great Ohio, huh?” Beth smirks, and Addy can’t help but laugh.
“Yeah, I couldn’t stay away,” she jokes back, and Addy can’t believe how easy it feels. “Where were you before coming here?”
“In good old Sutton Grove. I taught in Sterling Heights for a year and moved back. It’s even worse there than it is at home.”
It’s odd hearing Beth talk about their hometown, because it’s been much more important to her life than it has to Addy’s. She got out of there the first chance she got, while Beth stayed and built a life for herself.
“I got married, had a kid, everything was good,” Beth continues, staring out the tiny window near the ceiling behind Addy’s head. “Until it wasn’t.”
Even after almost a decade, Beth still buries the lead, but Addy thinks she has it figured out. I bet the guy cheated and she went apeshit. Classic Beth. “What happened?”
“Christian was an Army ranger,” Beth mumbles. “He got deployed to Afghanistan, and I got a telegram two months later saying he’d been blown up by a land mine trying to save his platoon. How do you explain to your two year old son that Daddy’s not coming home, that we have to mourn an empty coffin because his remains were ‘unsalvageable?’” Beth’s face is streaked with tears, and she abruptly reaches up to wipe them, like she didn’t notice she’d been crying.
It makes sense. The buzzcut, the sudden absence of family photos, the slightly vacant glint in Beth’s icy blue eyes. She’s a single mom. Addy feels like a piece of shit for subconsciously assuming that Beth hadn’t changed at all, when in reality, she had experienced a painful loss.
“Beth, I’m so sorry,” Addy offers, channeling all her sincerity into the words.
“It’s okay,” she replies, sniffling. “And, um- Then my mom passed a few months later, and I figured it was time to go, you know? Time to start fresh, just me and Asher. So we came here.”
Addy’s heart sinks. Her husband and her mother in the span of a few months? Beth had always acted out in response to the pain she felt, but they’re grown-ups now, and Addy wonders if Beth still reacts to loss in the same way.
“I’m sorry to hear about Lana,” Addy says, and Beth scoffs.
“Yeah, well, she’d been asking for cirrhosis since Bert screwed the neighbor,” Beth spits, and the acidity in her tone brings Addy right back to eleventh grade. “Not to speak lowly of the dead, but still.”
What Addy had assumed would be awkward becomes a long catching up session, sharing anecdotes and tales of their past eight years. Addy holds out about Slocum, still tentatively worried about how Beth would react to such a revelation. She and him had never gotten along particularly well, so Addy steers clear of the topic altogether. Their chat gets broken up by the bell, and Beth slips out of the office with a quiet “good luck with the team.”
Tryouts are a little more cheer focused on day two, Addy critiquing the minimal tumbling skills that a few girls exhibit, though most of them can barely do a cartwheel. Both Chrissy and Mags seem to have backgrounds in gymnastics and Addy smiles, because she’s found her captains. Chrissy, top girl, and Mags her lieutenant. Hope they don’t end up like us. She begins teaching them the routine that Varsity will be performing at Friday’s game, and it becomes increasingly clear who will make the team and who Addy will be forced to cut. Some of the girls can’t keep up with the pace of the choreography, while others simply have no rhythm.
She stays late in her office after tryouts making cuts to her list, trying to sort out a JV roster before she focuses on the main event. If Addy could have it her way, Upper Arlington wouldn’t have a JV team, but they have JV football and apparently those lanky freshmen need cheerleaders at their Saturday afternoon games that no one attends. She doesn’t want to deal with two different teams, especially when one of them is going to dissolve within a month and a half.
When her eyes start to burn from staring at the screen, Addy takes it as a sign that she should head home, and she walks past Beth’s classroom on the way out. There’s a hand-drawn sign taped to the door’s window, Ms. Cassidy in shaded bubble letters, but when she peers in, Addy finds that the classroom is sparsely decorated. The desk, however, is covered in loose papers, notebooks and haphazard novels, and Addy has to smile because it’s so perfectly Beth—messy and disorganized but Beth probably knows where everything is. Addy can hear her drawling it’s an organized mess when questioned, and the thought is enough to keep her smiling the whole way home. She hadn’t expected Beth to be nice to her, and she certainly hadn’t anticipated a forty minute discussion about their lives filled with laughter and jokes.
Slocum’s car is in the driveway, and when she enters, he’s sautéing vegetables in a large skillet.
“Hey, baby!” he calls from the kitchen as Addy sets her bag by the foot of the couch. “How was day two?”
“Uh, it was good,” Addy replies, striding towards the liquor cabinet and pouring herself a finger of bourbon. “Guess what? Beth is a teacher there. I talked to her today.”
“Wait, Beth from high school?” Slocum eyes her apprehensively, and Addy rolls her eyes because she can tell they’re about to fight over this. “Didn’t she turn the whole team against you? Make your senior year miserable?”
“We were teenagers.” Addy shrugs it off, downing her drink in one gulp. “She was actually really nice today. None of that old Beth crap.”
“Who says she isn’t playing you?” Slocum questions, plating their food. “Manipulating you like she always used to?”
“What, because I have a predisposition for manipulation?” Addy fires back, and it makes Slocum’s eyes go wide. “I’m not sixteen anymore, Slo. I’m not going to let Beth fuck with my head.” She wants to tell him that it was never Beth fucking with her head, because she knows that now, but it’s not worth the energy—Addy knows Slocum doesn’t like Beth, and that’s never going to change.
“I’m just saying she might not be as different as you think,” Slocum says. “People don’t change just like that.”
Addy is reeling at this, because of course Slocum thinks people can’t change. He refuses to acknowledge the mere possibility that Addy has changed since they were teenagers in Sutton Grove, and now he thinks that a near decade can’t affect a person at all. She stomps off in the direction of the bedroom, ignoring Slocum’s pleas for her to just sit down and have dinner. Addy isn’t hungry now, she just wants to sleep—hopefully rest will quell the headache blossoming behind her eyes.
“Hey, I’m sorry.” Slocum follows her into the bathroom and wraps an arm around her waist, which Addy immediately evades. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“It’s fine,” Addy says with a huff, splashing water onto her face. She doesn’t know why she’s mad, really—she’s only spoken to Beth once since seeing her again, but Addy feels like she might really be different now, like maybe they both are.
When she opens her medicine cabinet in search of an exfoliator, Addy’s eyes fall on the little orange prescription bottle half-full of anxiety medication. She’s been taking two a day for years now, but lately Addy’s been skipping a few and has felt fine. She didn’t take one this morning, and opts not to take one tonight, because she feels okay, like she doesn’t need it. Addy never wanted meds, couldn’t stand the thought of relying on them for her whole life, but now she feels like her anxiety is controlled enough by her coping mechanisms that she can skirt the pill altogether.
Slocum disappears again—once he realizes that Addy isn’t going to eat with him—and returns to the bedroom once Addy is already tucked in with the lights off. It’s her way of saying don’t talk to me for the rest of the night, and Slocum knows it, so he just slips into bed next to her and keeps his distance.
Addy forces her eyes to stay closed, even as her mind races with plans for Friday’s game and visions of Beth with her son. She worries about the squad, hoping she can motivate them and bring glory to the school’s name, and then Addy wonders if she and Beth could be friends, until sleep finally overtakes her.