The Deepest Breath

by Meg Grehan

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  epilogue

  Find Your Story

  Read the Vanderbeekers Series

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH on Social Media

  First US edition

  Copyright © 2019 by Meg Grehan

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  hmhbooks.com

  First published in Ireland as The Deepest Breath, by Little Island Books, 2019

  Cover illustration © 2021 by Ahra Kwon

  Cover design and hand lettering by Andrea Miller

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Grehan, Meg, author.

  Title: Deepest breath / Meg Grehan.

  Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021. | Originally published in Dublin, Ireland, by Little Island Books in 2019. | Audience: Ages 10 to 12. | Audience: Grades 4–6. | Summary: Struggling with her feelings for a female classmate, an eleven-year-old Irish girl tries to confide in her mother, the person she trusts most in the world.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019037075 (print) | LCCN 2019037076 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358354758 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780358355458 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Novels in verse. | Identity—Fiction. | Self-acceptance—Fiction. | Coming out (Sexual orientation)—Fiction. | Lesbians—Fiction. | Mothers and daughters—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.5.G7 De 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.5.G7 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037075

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037076

  v1.0121

  For Dylan

  For always making everything

  A little less scary

  one

  I know a lot of things

  About a lot of things

  But the thing I know the most about

  Is me

  Stevie

  I know that I am eleven years and two months old

  And that my hair is brown

  And my eyes are green

  And I’m allergic to peanuts

  I know I have a mum

  Whose room is right next to mine

  And that sometimes we tap and scratch on the wall at night

  Morse code is good for scaring nightmares away

  I know that

  I know I have a dad

  And I know that he lives far away

  And I know that’s not my fault

  And I know that that’s

  OK

  I know that I have a funny name

  Because the doctors said my mum was going to have a baby boy

  But then I popped out

  A slimy wriggly baby girl

  And she liked the name too much by then

  So Stevie it was

  And Stevie I am

  I know I like the color purple

  And things that sparkle

  And science and books

  And cats and stars and space

  I know that I broke my pinkie finger once

  And that now

  It sticks out funny

  I know I’m afraid of zombies and clowns

  And not much else

  I know I can be brave

  But that sometimes it’s hard

  I know a lot

  About me

  There’s only one thing

  In the whole of me

  That I don’t know

  It’s something funny

  It’s in my chest

  And sometimes my tummy

  And always my head

  It’s a fizzy feeling

  Warm and squishy

  And it makes me blush

  And it only happens

  When I look at my friend

  Chloe

  And I don’t know what it is

  Exactly

  two

  At school I share a desk

  With Chloe

  And Andrew

  And Robert

  Us girls on one side

  And the boys on the other

  Robert likes football

  And is really good at math

  Way better than me

  And he’s nice

  Though we don’t talk much

  Mostly he talks to Andrew

  Andrew has been my friend

  Ever since we were babies

  And even though we didn’t choose to be friends

  I’m glad we are

  Though we don’t talk at school too much

  Because I read a lot

  And he likes to listen to Robert

  Talk about football

  Way more than I thought anyone could

  Chloe paints her nails

  A new color

  Every week

  On Mondays they are sleek and shiny and new

  And on Fridays

  They are all

  Chipped

  And bitten

  And you have to look

  Really close

  To see what color they were

  But I always know what color they were

  I know last week they were pink

  And the week before they were yellow

  And the week before that they were orange

  With tiny black bats on her pinkie nails

  For Halloween

  Chloe bites her nails

  And the last of her nail polish

  (Green this week, with sparkles)

  Falls like radioactive snow onto our desk

  I wipe some off my book

  And try to concentrate

  We’re learning about

  Whales

  Whales scare me a little

  Because they’re so big

  That I must be

  So small

  But still

  I try to concentrate

  And I write down

  The most interesting things

  In my notebook

  My notebook

  Is gigantic

  It has five hundred pages

  And a yellow cover

  And a ribbon

  For keeping your place

  I’ve only used 124 pages

  So far

  But I will use them all

  I’ll fill them up

  And when every page

  Is full of words

  I’ll know

  Just about

  Everything

  There is

  To know

  After school my auntie Judith picks me up

  Because Mum is still at work

  And it’s way too cold to walk

  Although honestly

  I think I could handle it

  Because I’ve read about explorers

  Who’ve survived way worse

  And it isn’t even snowing

  But Mum says I’ll catch my death

  Which sounds

  Dramatic

  And scary

  So I buckle myself into Auntie Judith’s car

  And I listen as she tells me about

  “The absolute rubbish the boss came out with today”

  At dinner I tell Mum about whales

 
; “And then there’s the bowhead whale

  And no one really knows how long they live

  But once

  Scientists found one

  With a weapon from 1879

  Eighteen seventy-nine!

  Embedded in it

  And that means

  That it might’ve been

  More than one hundred years old!

  A hundred!

  And once

  They examined a bowhead whale’s eyes

  And the amino acid inside them

  Means that one of them

  Might’ve lived to 211

  Two hundred and eleven!”

  And she gasps

  And I feel smart

  And interesting

  And good good good

  Except for deep inside

  Where I feel

  A squirming kind of

  Fear

  I have a nightmare that night

  The first in three years

  And seven months

  I dream about the sea

  Deep down

  Where it isn’t really blue

  But black

  Like bruises or ink or midnight

  Where you can’t tell up from down

  Or right from left

  Where there’s nowhere to go

  I wake and I’m still underwater

  And for a second

  I hold my breath

  Even though it hurts

  Even though it feels like there’s gallons and gallons and gallons of water

  Pressing down on my chest

  Pinning me to my bed

  I fling my arm out

  Searching for the switch

  To turn

  My lamp

  On to fill

  The room

  With light and then

  When it’s on

  When the room

  Is orange

  And warm

  I can breathe

  And the water is gone

  I sit up in bed for the rest of the night

  And read a book

  I run my fingers across every page

  Under every line

  Every word

  I make myself focus

  On the paper

  On how

  Dry it is

  And that

  Makes me feel

  Safe

  I don’t like my room to be

  Messy

  But I think it likes to be

  Just a little

  Because it always is

  I think it must do it

  All by itself

  Maybe while I’m asleep

  Or at school

  Or reading

  Or whenever I look away

  For just a minute

  Because my clothes are always

  On the floor

  And I swear

  I didn’t put them there

  On purpose

  And because my teddies

  Don’t like to stay on my bed

  In their neat line

  When they have places to be

  And important business to discuss

  And because books never seem to make it

  Back to their shelves at night

  They have sleepovers under my bed

  And holidays on my desk

  And naps under my pillow

  But I think

  That’s OK

  Because maybe

  When I sleep

  They’ll whisper to me

  And maybe

  When I wake up

  Everything might make

  Just a little

  More sense

  By the time the sun comes up

  I’ve decided

  I won’t tell Mum about the nightmare

  I’ve decided

  I don’t want to worry her

  My mum worries a lot

  About a lot of things

  I don’t think she knows that I know

  But I see it

  I see how she picks at her nail beds

  And looks all around her

  When a what-if pops into her head

  And I

  Definitely

  Don’t want to be a

  What-if

  three

  Chloe’s nails are blue today

  And she’s talking about magic

  Chloe is great at magic

  Which makes sense to me

  Though I’m not sure why

  She can flip cards and make little balls disappear

  And she can pull coins from behind your ear

  I know it isn’t real

  I do

  But there’s a part of me that doesn’t

  At the same time

  It’s raining

  So hard you can barely hear anything else

  And at lunch

  We have to stay inside

  I try to read my book but the noise of the rain

  And my whole class yelling

  All at once

  Makes my head

  Feel like it might fall off

  So instead

  I watch Chloe practice her magic

  “For my next trick!”

  Chloe says

  In a voice that sounds like

  Glitter and cotton candy and popping candy

  “I’ll need

  A lovely assistant!”

  I stare at her hands

  At her blue nail polish

  And the way she’s holding the playing cards

  Like she knows

  Knows for certain

  That she won’t drop them

  Even though there’s so many

  And I know

  For sure

  I would drop them

  “Stevie

  Stevie?”

  I blink

  And she’s looking at me

  “That’s you”

  She says

  “What’s me?”

  I say

  “My lovely assistant”

  She says

  And I say

  Nothing

  Instead my throat closes a little

  And chomps down whatever words I would’ve said

  Her lovely assistant

  “OK”

  I say

  And my voice sounds funny

  Not at all like my voice

  More like

  A squeak

  “Pick a card

  Any card!”

  She booms

  And I do

  I pick a

  Three of hearts

  And blush a little

  Why am I blushing?

  And put it back in the pack

  I don’t know

  She shuffles the cards

  In a showy

  Exaggerated way

  And it looks so cool

  I can’t take my eyes off her hands

  Then

  “Ta-da!

  Is this your card?”

  She booms

  Not caring that she’s louder than everyone else in the room combined

  Or that she’s made Andrew and Robert both jump

  I laugh a little

  Because they look so startled

  But also

  Because

  It is my card

  And despite all the things I know

  I have no idea

  How she’s done it

  And for once

  For the first time

  I love not knowing

  four

  I know a lot of things

  I know that

  Because I can look at my notebook

  And see pages and pages of things I know

  And because people say it

  A lot

  Sometimes in a good way

  Sometimes not

  But there are so many things

  That I don’t know

  There are so many things to know

  And the list gets
bigger every single day

  New plants are found

  New animals are discovered

  Inventions invented

  Diseases diagnosed

  Places charted

  Words spoken

  Decisions made

  And sometimes

  It all feels

  Too much

  Too big

  Like I’m running behind a train

  And it’s chugging along

  Fast fast faster

  And I’ll never catch up

  I don’t even know everything

  There is to know

  About trains

  It makes my stomach ache

  Thinking about it

  It makes my stomach ache

  And my head feel

  Noisy

  I tell my mum at dinner

  When she’s putting too much cheese on her spaghetti

  Mountains of cheese

  I tell her

  I feel like everything moves too much

  And I feel

  Like everything is too much

  And I’ll never understand it all

  Or know it all

  Or see it all

  And it makes me

  Sad

  And angry

  And tired

  And over-over-overwhelmed

  Mum stops piling grated cheese on her food

  And looks at me

  Like she isn’t sure what to say

  This happens sometimes

  And I always

  Always feel bad

  Because she worries

  I can see the worry

  Slip into her head

  And pour down her face