Breathe

by Melanie McCullough

  He called over the server, a young plump girl with curly orange hair and a gnarly overbite, and he ordered a bottle of wine with two glasses. She never even bothered to card me. Tom was younger than Maggie by a few years, maybe only thirty or thirty-one. I imagined I must have seemed older, sitting there with him under the dim lighting, my long hair curling from being wet and not blown dry. Maybe she thought we were together, I told myself. I pretended we were. That it was our first date and Tom had brought me a bouquet of calla lilies. That I’d laughed at his jokes because I wanted him to think I was funny and mature. Because I’d wanted him to like me.

  It became our regular thing—Tom taking me to meets and stopping to eat along the way. Then one night I drank more than I should have. I was never one to really drink, let alone get hammered. Maggie made alcohol seem like a crutch. Something weak and disgusting that I wanted no part of. But when Tom insisted I try a certain type of wine, I drank it to make him happy. Followed by another and then another.

  By the time we headed back to the car, I was a little tipsy, stumbling here and there. Tom wrapped an arm around my waist to hold me steady. And when he suggested a dip in the river so I could see how good a swimmer he was, my foggy mind thought it seemed liked a fun idea. We stopped at a public swimming area a few miles outside of town. When Tom stripped down to his boxers, I tried not to look. Heat rose to my cheeks, my skin was warm to the touch, and I was thankful the only light was from the moon and he couldn’t see that I was blushing.

  I felt foolish, like a child instead of a sixteen-year-old girl. A child that couldn’t even look at a half-naked man without getting all flustered. I sat on the shore while he’d paddled out. He turned after a few feet and waved at me. “Come on in,” he hollered.

  “Nah, I’m good right here,” I laughed and shouted back. Last October wasn’t as kind weather wise and I knew the water must have been cold. But he begged some more and I relented.

  “Turn around now,” I instructed, twirling my finger in the air. No way I was gonna strip down to my underwear with him watching. I knew my black cotton bra and underwear were no more revealing than a bikini would have been, but still I felt uncomfortable with him seeing me near-naked. He laughed, covered his eyes with one hand, and turned his back to me.

  I shivered as the river surrounded my body but I kept going. I kept going because he’d wanted me to and I’d wanted to please him. We played and splashed in the water like children, not getting out until our lips were blue and I was pretty sure I couldn’t feel my toes.

  Tom ran to the car and brought back a blanket, which he used to wrap around my trembling body. He ran his hands up and down my arms, trying to warm me. He stopped abruptly after a few seconds and looked at me with such intensity my entire body lit up like it was on fire. I swear I could feel the flames licking my skin, the cool breeze urging them on.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he’d told me and I think I was flattered that he even thought of me in those terms. Me. Some sixteen-year-old girl who’d never turned a head in her life. What girl doesn’t long to hear those words? And I’d gone my entire life without anyone ever speaking them to me except my uncle.

  The first time Tom kissed me that night, I pushed him away. The second time he leaned down and touched his lips to mine, I didn’t object. I didn’t kiss him back, but I didn’t object. All of a sudden something was happening and I had no idea how I’d gotten there. Stuck in that place. Stuck in that moment. But I knew it must’ve been my fault. A nice man like Tom wouldn’t have kissed me unless I’d given him reason to think I wanted him to.

  His hands slid to my waist, resting there a moment. When they continued south, I jerked away, stared at my feet, unsure of how to respond. There’s no training for that kind of thing. They teach us all about the effects of drugs and alcohol, and how the reproductive system works. But no one ever tells you what to do if you find yourself alone on a beach on windy night with your mother’s boyfriend’s tongue down your throat.

  Afterward, in the car on the way home, he’d apologized profusely. Blamed it on the wine and the way I looked with my hair wet and my skin glowing in the soft moonlight. I was just naïve enough to accept that for an excuse and the next time he came to take Maggie out, I got an entire bouquet of calla lilies.

  *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  Uncle Jim suggested dinner so we stopped at a steakhouse along the way. My stomach growled as our server, a tall, bony boy whose voice shook when he spoke, handed us our menus. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. Garrett and I had lunch together on Friday but I’d mostly just pushed my salad around in its bowl. I’d been too concerned with the rumors floating around to eat.

  I ordered a steak, well done, and a baked potato with butter and sour cream, then convinced Uncle Jim that we should split an appetizer. A few minutes later our waiter delivered our nachos. The mouth-watering aroma of grilled chicken and melted cheese assaulted my nose and I was suddenly all too aware of the force of my hunger. My stomach ached, dull and low, and I shoveled food into my mouth to calm it.

  “Slow down there, champ,” Uncle Jim chuckled. “You’re gonna make yourself sick.”

  “Don’t pay him no mind,” Becca countered, splitting her auburn ponytail and pulling to tighten it. She smiled at me, her teeth a vibrant shade of white surrounded by pearly pink lips. “He just wants more for himself.”

  I liked Becca, even though she reminded me of the girls from my high school that I hated. All pretty and sweet and perky. She also had this way of cussing that wasn’t really cussing. Exclamations like ‘fudge’ or ‘son of a biscuit’. Like a grown-up version of some PC character from a Nickelodeon show. It would’ve been annoying if she hadn’t also been one of the nicest and funniest people I’d ever met.

  She’d worked at the bar and been my uncle’s girlfriend for as long as I could remember. When I was younger, she’d played Barbies with me in their one bedroom apartment above the bar. Then when I’d gotten my first period and Maggie had been too drunk to run to the store for tampons, I’d called Becca to bring me a box.

  She smiled now and excused herself from the table to use the restroom while Uncle Jim and I fought over a particularly good-looking nacho. “You must be starving,” he remarked when I stuffed the chip he’d let me win into my mouth. “I’d thought with the way things went at the pool today…”

  “You thought because I lost, I’d be too disgusted with myself to eat?” I bit into another chip then licked my greasy fingertips. “I’m sorry, have we met?” Uncle Jim should know me better than that. We’d been fighting over food since I’d started swimming and burning several hundred extra calories per day.

  Uncle Jim chuckled again, his eyes crinkling at the edges. He rubbed his jaw line with one hand, moving from his ear to the prominent cleft in the center of his chin. He looked so much older than I remembered him being. I’d never noticed before that moment but the hair along his temples had faded from dark blonde to an almost white.

  A moment later, the lightness in the air evaporated and Uncle Jim turned serious, folding and unfolding his hands on the table and looking at me like he was afraid I’d bolt for the door at any minute. “I know Tom’s death can’t be easy on you,” he finally managed to say to me. “You two were close, I know that. And Maggie, well, she’s no help, now is she?”

  More than anything at that moment, I wanted to remember a time when Uncle Jim and my mother were happy together. When he spoke of her in a way that didn’t reek of exasperation. There was a picture behind the bar from when I was a toddler—one Becca had snapped and told me once was her favorite shot of my uncle. It was just Uncle Jim, Maggie, and me. There was a campfire in front of us and in the background a large khaki-colored tent set against a backdrop of a darkening and dusky sky. They were all smiles, me in a frilly pink dress not intended for the outdoors sitting on Uncle Jim’s lap, and Maggie behind him, her arms around his neck and her chin resting atop his head. I guess they were happy then.

&nbs
p; “All I’m saying is,” Uncle Jim continued as if I had been paying attention. “If you need someone to talk to, I’m here. Becca’s here.”

  “I’m fine,” I blurted out just to make him stop. I didn’t want to talk about Tom Ford any more. He was dead and I didn’t want to pretend I wasn’t happy about it. But my words came out too fast and Uncle Jim eyed me warily. “Really,” I tried again, slower this time. “I suppose it just hasn’t hit me yet.”

  He nodded in what he thought was understanding as Becca returned to an uncomfortable silence. “You told her without me?” she accused. Uncle Jim fumbled a response and Becca turned to me. “Abby, honey, I know it’s a shock but this is a really good thing.” Her eyes were as bright as the yellow light overhead when she spoke and I wondered what the hell she was talking about.

  “I mean,” she continued. “You’ll have a cousin. A little girl or a little boy that you can teach to swim—,”

  “You’re pregnant?” I shrieked and all around us heads snapped to gape in our direction. I lowered my voice and repeated the question.

  Becca palmed her stomach and nodded while Uncle Jim stared down at her, his eyes moist with a mixture of pride and awe. I wondered what it would be like for that kid. To be born to two people who loved it before it was even real. Before it even had a chance to show them who it was. Before there was really any reason to love it at all.

  I racked my brain for an appropriate response but, “I thought you couldn’t have kids,” was all I could manage to come up with. I knew that they’d tried before and failed. And I knew that it had nearly broken my uncle in two.

  Becca’s gaze fell to the tablecloth, a red and white checkered thing with stains I hadn’t noticed before but now couldn’t stop staring at. “I didn’t think I could,” she said. “Your uncle and I, we had a few near misses that I thought would ruin us. After that, we just quit trying. I guess at the time it seemed more important that he and I remain intact than it did for us to grow.”

  Our entrees arrived on a massive round tray. The waitress set our hot plates before us and cleared the forgotten appetizer while Becca sipped her water. It dawned on me that I should’ve realized something was up the second she hadn’t ordered a Coke. Becca drank Coke like it was her job. I was sure it was the source of her perkiness.

  “But last year,” she continued when the waitress departed. “After I lost my dad, and with you going away to college soon…I don’t know. It just seemed like the right time to start trying for a family of our own again.”

  I stuffed a piece of steak in my mouth to avoid saying something stupid again. “How long have you known?” I asked between mouthfuls a while later. As shocking as the news was, I had to eat. There’d be no food at home. If I didn’t remember to go shopping there’d be nothing in the fridge except vodka and cranberry juice.

  Becca cleared her throat, ran a hand across the front of her neck nervously and took another sip of water. “About twelve weeks,” she finally confessed.

  Maybe she thought I wouldn’t be able to convert weeks to months in my head, but I did the math rather quickly. “Three months! And you didn’t tell me?!”

  “I didn’t want to jinx it. The last time, I got so excited I was shouting it from the rooftops and then…” She didn’t have to say it. I knew what came THEN. I was only thirteen or fourteen at the time, but I remember the emptiness I witnessed in her eyes for months.

  I wondered how it felt to have a part of you die. I wasn’t whole. Just bits and pieces of things unwanted. But I’d be been born that way. I didn’t know any better. But Becca had been whole and a piece had been ripped from her. A gaping wound left oozing and festering. A wound, that even now with a new baby on the way, I didn’t think had properly healed.

  “So, what do you think?” she asked me.

  I should’ve realized I’d be expected to respond in some sort of coherent manner. My heart swelled with an emotion I suspected was joy, but there was something else mixed in. Uncertainty? Regret, maybe? A sadness because I wouldn’t be around to see their child grow up?

  If Becca were three months pregnant, my cousin would be born in the spring. I’d graduate shortly thereafter. And then what? The plan was to leave town, right? Never look back. Forget I ever sprung up amidst its mountains and rivers. Forget that the water there was as much a part of me as Becca’s child was of her. Would I feel as shattered as she had when I lost it?

  On the drive home through the dark and cloudy night, Becca talked non-stop about the house they were buying on Blue Ridge Road, because, well, you couldn’t raise a baby in their one bedroom apartment above the bar. Becca said there was a room there for me, which she planned to decorate in turquoise and black (my favorite colors) so I could stay there with them when I visited from college.

  “We’re getting married next month,” she told me and Uncle Jim reached over the console to squeeze her knee before he leaned in to kiss her cheek. I thought of how nice it would be to be kissed for no reason at all. No expectation of it going any further. No ulterior motives. But just because a man looked at me and remembered that he loved me, the way Uncle Jim did with Becca.

  “I know it’s sudden,” she continued. “But I want to do it while I can still pull off a wedding dress.”

  We sped past the high school and I spotted Garrett’s truck alone in the parking lot beside the pool house. “And you’ll be a bridesmaid of course,” Becca was still rattling on.

  “Stop,” I shouted and her face fell.

  “Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I just thought it would be nice.”

  “No, no. I’d love to,” I laughed and Becca’s face lit up again like fireworks. “I just need Uncle Jim to stop the car.”

  “What?” he asked. “Why?”

  “Garrett’s at the pool. Can you drop me off there? He’ll give me a ride home.”

  Uncle Jim grinned at me like crazy. I guess he was happy I was maintaining my friendship with Garrett like he’d asked. Little did he know I was just trying to keep the thin string holding us together from snapping apart.

  Chapter Six

  Garrett

  I finished my last lap and climbed from the pool. My body hurt like hell, every inch screaming in pain when I moved. Three hours in the pool and one on the track—just enough to hurt me, not break me. At this, Coach Scott was a master. He knew how to leave bruises no one would ever see.

  Abby waited for me at the edge of the pool, her bare feet dangling in the water, kicking up droplets with her miniature toes. There were times, like that very moment, when looking at Abby made everything seem right. Made the hurt seem bearable. When I imagined that the world revolved around her. That I revolved around her. She pulled me in with her gravity. Kept me spinning beside her—like the Earth and its moon. I was trapped. Unable to exist without her. I’d spent so much time being Abby’s friend—loving Abby—that without her, I was nothing. Just a rock floating through space. But with her? With her, I was the moon.

  My arms could barely handle the weight of my body as I pushed myself from the pool to sit beside her. They shook as I removed my goggles and cap and when I took the towel she offered. I ran it first through my hair then down my wet torso. “Sorry I wasn’t there today,” I apologized as I dried my face.

  Abby brushed a lock of damp hair from my forehead and ran her hand down the side of my face. Shivers tracked the line of her fingers. “He’s riding you pretty hard, huh?”

  How was it possible that she could move forward and pull back at the same time? It was an art form—touching without connecting.

  “He was still up when I got home last night. Smelled the alcohol on my breath,” I replied, and then in my best impression of my father’s condescending tone, “Decided I wasn’t taking my future seriously enough.” Not like Abby. Abby was a goddess in the pool. With a kind of single-minded determination my father desired from me. “Said, if I didn’t want to make a commitment to swimming, I shouldn’t bother going to Clarksburg today.”
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  Abby lowered her head, her gaze falling to her reflection in the water. “It’s my fault,” she said as Water-Abby screwed her lips up in frustration. “I should have listened to you. We should’ve stayed home last night.”

  Even if it had been her fault, I never would have let her believe it. “Nah,” I replied. “He’s just got a bug up his ass lately. Nothing to do with either of us really.” Tilting my head to the side, I shook water from my ear. “I think it might be menopause.” Abby gave a short laugh. It was nothing like the deep, thick, head-thrown-back-mouth-wide-open way she would have laughed if she were truly amused, but I would take it.

  “Speaking of which,” I continued. “He was severely pissed when he got home today. Hot flashes and everything. How badly did you do?”

  Abby groaned.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse.”

  “Lake Silverton bad?”

  Abby’s mouth fell open in feigned shock and she placed a hand over her heart. “You swore we’d never speak of that again.”

  I dropped back onto the tiled floor and chuckled, remembering Abby’s first away meet, when she’d thrown up on my feet. You’d never know it now, the way she was so desperate to leave, but there was a time when being away from home had made Abby nervous. That was the day I knew I loved her for the first time. Not because of the vomit on my feet, but because it was the first and probably only time I really knew exactly how she felt. Now Abby was an enigma. I couldn’t read her. One minute she was kissing me and the next she would push me away. It was the worst kind of whiplash imaginable.

  “Becca’s pregnant,” she told me as I lay there, and the way she said it—the slight hiccup in her voice—I knew that it upset her.

  “That’s a good thing, Ab,” I sat up and reminded her, thinking of the baby Becca and her uncle lost not too long ago. “You should be happy for them.”