It takes one-fifth of a second to fall in love. That’s what popped into my mind the moment I saw her. It happened that quick for me, too. Quicker, even.
ALEXANDRE NORTON: Zach and I are second cousins. Blood is thicker than water, but we’d have been tight even without our blood connection. We started at Collegiate in pre-K. I know that guy better than I know myself. And I knew, that night, I knew bone-deep that this new girl, this Addison, was trouble. I knew my cousin would be throwing it all away for her. I could feel that he would do that, and she wouldn’t be worth it.
And I was right on every count.
LUCY LIM: That night of Addy’s exhibit in New York City, I was up visiting my dad on Lake George as usual. Not sure how, but Lake George had, since the last summer, become even worse than watching-paint-dry boring. The only halfway fun part was Addy’s first night in the city, how she looped me in and made me be part of it. So fun! My phone was going zzzp zzzp zzzp every thirty seconds. Every picture had my eyeballs zinging! The crowd was too beautiful! The art was too strange! I don’t get art. But Addy’s face was glowing, lit up, and you could tell she didn’t want to miss a thing.
Then she Snapchatted me a photo of this guy, Mr. Prep School with the swoopy haircut. He wasn’t model-hot, but he was sort of ass**le-hot. He was the guy with the best shoes and the quickest, cruelest put-down. In the picture, he was wearing a buttery-yellow summery silk shirt that looked like it cost more than my dad’s Sunfish. Next up was a double-selfie where they’re both raising wine glasses, and then the next one was the two of them nuzzling, and I was like, Ahhhhh. Okay. She’s feeling this guy.
But I knew Addy. She was Snapchatting because of The Lenox, and she didn’t want any evidence that she was into Haircut while poor, sweet Jonah was waiting for her at her dorm.
She’d told me that she and The Lenox had agreed, since they would be so far apart, that they wouldn’t be against seeing other people. But Addy confessed to me later that she hadn’t counted on meeting someone new that very first night.
Around midnight, Addy texted: look up Zach Fratepietro! When I did, I found out he was the son of this dragon-lady art gallery diva that I never heard of, and I found all these pictures of him and his pals like Alexandre at clubs and parties and fashion shows. I’d never heard of any of these big-money people or art people, but I was impressed. They were known. They were young and rich and almost famous.
It was only one summer before that Addy had been committed to Glencoe, where I’d visited her in that room with bars on the windows and seen her sitting balled up, her eyes glazed over, telling me she was finished with life. She’d seemed like such a prisoner of the moment. And now here she was in the heart of New York City, at her own gallery opening, becoming a superstar. She’d shot out of her house and literally straight into the arms of New York’s most eligible.
JONAH LENOX: After I’d graduated from South Kingstown, the plan was for me to drive Addison to New York City, maybe hang out a few days, and then head west to Boulder. Once Addison knew she was really leaving, and especially when she got some money in the bank from the Sadtler people, she started detaching. Even though we called it “taking some time off from each other,” I knew she was closing her chapter on me. She started buying me stuff, just small things—a sweatshirt, a cool cell phone skin—and I knew, even though I never said anything to her, that it was because she felt bad for me. She wanted to put a Band-Aid on it, but she knew I was just another person in this world who was more into her than she was into me.
We packed the Chevy with all her stuff—her paints and easel, her canvases, a mini-microwave, her millions of art books, her winter coats and boots. We said goodbye to everyone. Her mom and her dad and Charlie and Lucy and Lucy’s mom all waved from the front door, but once Addison got in the car, she literally never looked back.
“Hey, turn around and wave to your mom,” I said.
She just shook her head no. I knew she felt horrible to be leaving her mom, who had her faults, but who didn’t have much else happening in her life, especially once Addison was gone. Not that Addison should have been held accountable for that. But still. Hard.
The closer we got to the city, the more Addison started in on this rant. It was like she had to say goodbye by rejecting everything. Nothing was good in Peacedale. It sucked, the people sucked, the art sucked. She saw herself as having just barely escaped. The Fieldbenders were like her fairy godparents, and I was the nice guy driving the magical pumpkin.
“Can you believe we’re both out, Jonah? I’d have died to stay behind in Rhode Island once you’d left.”
“Aw, stand down, Addison. You’d have been okay. You’d have made it work. You’ve got Lucy, Bill and Arlene, and Charlie. You’ve got your head on straight.”
“That’s not true,” she answered. “I don’t have my head on straight. My head’s been on crooked for a long time now.”
Well, I didn’t want to get into it with her. Her crooked head was made up.
Once we got to the city, I decided not to tag along to the art opening. I was dead tired and wanted to sleep. The plan was that Addison’d come back, wake me up, and we’d roll out to a late dinner. She texted only once from the show that she was running late, and when she finally stumbled in at 2 A.M., I could feel my heart rip a little. I knew she’d had a great time, and that she probably hadn’t even wanted to come back at all. Even her skin smelled different.
She climbed into bed, cold and sweaty, complaining about bed spins. Addison wasn’t a girl who drank ever. Not with the meds she was on. She mumbled that they just kept feeding her cocktails. That every time she put one down, they’d stick another one in her hand, and even one sip from six glasses could lead to a pretty stiff drink.
“I stayed out too late, and you know I’m an amateur. I’m so sorry, Jonah.”
She kept on apologizing, even half asleep, which should have been a sign, but I didn’t want to see it. So I was like, “Cool, let’s sleep in tomorrow. Pop some popcorn, hang out, talk, maybe take the subway to the Met later on.”
We curled up together and crashed, and the next morning, I went on a Starbucks run, and when I come back, who’s sitting in the room right on the edge of the same bed where we’d just been sleeping, but this guy. He’s pressed and ready in his tassel shoes and knife-cut pants and a signet ring. “Hey there, I’m Zach!” With his shit-eating toothpaste grin.