Breathless

by Jessica Warman

  “Why do you tell everyone he’s dead?”

  I lean my head against the wall, bumping it hard. “I don’t know.” It feels like we have had this conversation at least a hundred times before.

  “You’re ashamed of him.”

  “Well, yeah. Obviously. What’s not to be ashamed of?”

  She nods to herself, like it’s something she’s already thought of a long time ago. “That’s understandable.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah.” She presses an open palm to her mouth, as though she’s just realizing something. “Oh my God. Can you imagine what Estella would do if she knew? And Drew? Everybody would hate you.” She adds, as though I don’t already know, “Because, you know, it’s a terrible lie you’ve told.”

  “I have my reasons.”

  Mazzie yawns, bored. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever, I don’t care.”

  I close my eyes. “I’m going to sleep. Will you please go back to bed?”

  “What do you care?”

  “I guess I don’t.” But I grasp a fistful of her hair, fine and straight; it will not hold a curl to save her life. It pulls between my fingers and falls across her face like water. I have to scrape her cheek with my fingernails just to get another grip.

  I’m tired of talking about Will, even with Mazzie; I’m tired of worrying about him and lying about him and pretending everything is okay.

  But Mazzie isn’t moving. I know there’s only one way for me to shut her up.

  “How did your mother die?” I ask.

  Her smile slips away. “Shut up.”

  “Come on, don’t you want to talk about it?”

  She shakes her head. “Shut up, Katie.”

  “Why are you so secretive, huh? Why can’t you just open up for once? It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone—” And before I know what I’m doing, it’s obvious I’ve gone too far.

  She looks me straight in the eye. “There was an accident,” she says.

  “Oh.”

  “I’ve never talked about it. Not even with my dad. He told me what happened, right after it happened, and that was it.”

  “Mazzie, I’m sorry. I was just trying to get you to leave me alone.”

  She shrugs, but she’s obviously tense, her shoulders creeping toward her ears as she begins to fold into herself. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m sorry, Mazzie. I really am.”

  She’s quiet for a minute. Then she says, “Do you ever have nightmares?”

  I shake my head. “I usually have dreams. About what things were like before we moved to Hillsburg.”

  “I have nightmares.”

  “I know you do.” I pause. “You know—you aren’t easy to live with sometimes, Mazzie.”

  She stares at me. For a second, I’m almost afraid she’s going to reach out and punch me. “I’m not easy to live with? Katie . . . imagine how hard it is to live with me sometimes. Then imagine what it would be like if you could never get away from me. Imagine you were stuck inside my head all the time, even when I’m sleeping at night and all I can think about is my mother. I know I’m not easy to live with, Katie. I live with myself every second, every day.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Calm down, okay? Everything’s all right. Isn’t it?”

  She nods. “Right. Everything’s fine.”

  But she doesn’t get back into her own bed. Without a word about what she’s doing, she tucks herself under the covers with me and curls up like a baby lima bean, so soft and little I can almost forget she’s there.

  “Can you hand me my mouth guard?”

  I feel around on the floor until I find it, and push it back into her mouth. She grins at me in the dark, her speech slurred. “Shanks.”

  “No problem.” I almost ask her what she’s doing in my bed. But I want her to stay, so I don’t mention it. Instead I ask, “Can we go back to sleep now?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “. . . ”

  “. . . ”

  Crunch-phee-crunch-phee-crunch-phee.

  “Hey, Mazzie?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you love me?”

  “God, no. I hate your guts.”

  I smile in the dark. “Well, I love you. I think you might be my best friend.”

  “Shut up, Katie. Really, before I puke. Just shut the hell up.”

  “I’m just telling you how I feel.”

  “Whatever.”

  Crunch-phee-crunch-phee-crunch-phee.

  “You should let me take you someplace normal sometime,” Drew says one night after we leave yet another party—this one at Dana Thomas’s house. Dana is a junior and, like almost every other girl in school, is dying with envy that Drew Bailey is off the market. I make sure to hold his hand and stay by his side all night, especially when Grace and Leslie and Dana are looking.

  “Like where?”

  “Like somewhere other than a party. You don’t have to drink to have fun. How about a movie?”

  He takes me to see a Pixar movie. Leave it to Drew to take me to a cartoon. Afterward, we go back to his house. His mother is waiting up for us. I’ve seen her before at swim meets—she never misses one, even when they’re hours away—but this is the first time we’ve been officially introduced.

  Drew’s mom’s name is Patricia, but she tells me right away to call her Penny. “I’m so excited to see you without a swim cap,” she breathes. “Oh, Drew honey, she’s adorable!” And she reaches out to feel my hair. “Look at all that blond hair! Your mother must have put your hair in braids every morning.” She takes a step back to look at me, beaming. “Am I right?”

  “Oh, no. My mom always said my face was too round for braids.”

  Penny frowns. “Oh. I don’t think so, honey.” She sighs, giving Drew a sideward glance. “I always dreamed of having a little girl, but I suppose it wasn’t in the good Lord’s plan.” She winks at me. “Maybe sometime you’d let me put those braids on you?”

  We’re standing in the kitchen, just the three of us, and I know that for the rest of my life I’ll remember exactly the way this moment smells, like brownies and soap and Penny’s perfume, which is called Flirtation, and which she tells me she’s worn every day since the seventh grade. And I know I’ll remember how Penny looks tonight: tired and hopeful and proud all at once. I’ll remember how her fingers feel on my hair, and how she is wearing an actual apron, and how their fridge is full of nothing but real food and gallons of low-fat milk and fresh fruits and vegetables. At home, in my parents’ fridge, there are mostly condiments and dietary supplements and wine.

  That night, we spend four hours at the kitchen table with Penny, talking until almost midnight. At our next swim meet a few days later, she shows up early, tapping me on the shoulder as Drew and I sit on the bleachers together.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” she says, “but I thought it might be more comfortable underneath that swim cap if . . .” She hesitates, her smile hopeful. Even though the air is thick with chlorine, I can smell her kitchen on her clothes. She smells like cookies and scalloped potatoes. Lucky Drew.

  She holds up a hairbrush and ponytail holders. “I thought maybe . . . we could give those braids a try? I mean, as long as your mother doesn’t mind.” She looks around. “Where is your mother?”

  Penny is right: the braids feel great underneath my swim cap. After the meet, I let them dry in place. When I take them out the next day, my hair is wild and wavy.

  “You look great,” Drew tells me. “You should let my mom braid your hair all the time.” We’re in his car again, parked in Lindsey’s driveway.

  “My mom really likes you,” he adds.

  “She does?”

  “Oh, yeah. She thinks you’re wonderful.” He lets his hand drift to my hair. Tucking a wave behind my ear, he says, “Tell me about your family.” He pauses, suddenly remembering, and then says, “I mean, you don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to . . . if you want.”

  I can’t look at hi
m. “Thanks.”

  “But what about your parents? You never mention them. What do they do? I want to meet them!”

  “Drew . . .”

  “My mom was thinking that maybe we could all go to dinner sometime soon. Maybe after OVACs.”

  A pizza delivery van pulls past Drew’s car and comes to a stop at the bottom of the Maxwell-Hutton driveway. Beyond the sliding glass doors, I can see Mazzie building a house of cards while she sits alone at a table. Beside the pool, Lindsey, Estella, and a couple of other girls—Jenny Walker-Howard and Samantha Gray-Piper, who are both cheerleaders—are walking like Egyptians along the cement, arms bent in opposite directions. Their boyfriends watch from rafts in the pool. Even from so far away, I can tell that everybody, even Mazzie, is laughing.

  “Let’s go inside,” I say.

  He frowns. “Why? We’re talking out here.”

  “I’m starving. I want some pizza.”

  As we walk toward the house, our fingers laced together, he says, “You didn’t answer my question. Your parents?”

  My father is an apparition, and my mother is semiconscious. “My father is a psychiatrist,” I say over my shoulder, “and my mother is an artist.”

  I step past the pizza deliveryman, into the thick, warm air of the pool room, pulling Drew along with me. Once we’re inside, it’s too loud for him to ask any more questions.

  We haven’t been at the party ten minutes when Drew takes me by the sleeve and pulls me inside Lindsey’s house. As we pass everyone at the party, they give us knowing grins. We even get a wink from Stetson.

  Drew leads me to one of the spare bedrooms on the third floor. He locks the door behind us. We sit down on the bed, and before he can say anything, I start kissing him, and he is kissing me back—everywhere—my lips, my cheeks, my neck. His body against me feels strong, not at all suffocating, and I wrap my arms around him and feel all the muscles in his back and along his arms. His touch is gentle and tentative at first, but then it becomes almost frantic. He takes one finger and draws a slow circle around my exposed belly button. I can feel every part of him against me. We’ve been dating for months now. Is this it? Is this how I’m going to lose my virginity? I’m nervous, sure, but it feels right. I feel ready. I wouldn’t want it to be with anybody else but Drew.

  He moves his hand from my belly to my cheek and tucks my hair behind my ear. “Katie,” he says, “I love you.”

  I could melt into the mattress right now. I feel like my clothes could be pulled away with the tug of a single thread. He’s so beautiful, so genuine.

  “I love you, too,” I murmur. I start to unbutton his shirt. My fingers are trembling; I’ve kissed boys before, sure, but never anything close to this. Since Drew is older, I’m sure he’s a lot more experienced. I’m afraid to admit to him that I don’t exactly know what I’m doing. Instead, I keep kissing him, aware of how excited he’s getting as I continue to unbutton his shirt. He sits up and shrugs it off, tossing it onto the floor behind him.

  I sit up and begin to take off my own shirt. He freezes. “Katie. We need to stop.”

  “What?” I’m out of breath. I lean back, resting on my elbows. “Why?”

  “Because. We just do.” Drew is breathing so heavily, I’m afraid he’s going to hyperventilate. “I brought you up here to talk with you. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  “What’s happening? Drew . . . we love each other, don’t we?”

  He nods, still panting. He’s sweating all over. “Yes.”

  “Well . . . what’s the matter, then?”

  He climbs off the bed, finds his shirt, and puts it back on in such a hurry that it’s buttoned all crooked.

  “Katie,” he says, sitting beside me again, his breath more steady, “I don’t want to have sex with you.”

  “Oh.” I stare down at the bedspread, which is a silky cream color, thick and soft beneath me. All the warmth drains from my body in an instant. I feel cold, humiliated for being so stupid—to think that Drew Bailey would want to sleep with me.

  “Katie,” he continues, grasping my hands, “I’ve made a promise to—”

  “To who?” I glare at him, willing myself not to cry.

  “To God,” he says. “I’ve made a promise to stay a virgin until I’m married.”

  All I can do is stare at him. “But what if you don’t get married until you’re forty? What if you never get married?”

  Drew shakes his head, like he feels sorry for me. “There are ways to make love to a person without having sex. We can kiss and touch and . . .” He pauses, like something’s occurring to him for the first time. “You are still a virgin, right?”

  I nod.

  “Oh. Good. Because if you weren’t, we would have to break up.”

  I feel like the room is shrinking. “Why would we have to break up?”

  “Because, Katie. You’re sixteen.”

  “So?”

  “Whatever. If you’d had sex already, that would make you . . . well, you know. I mean, you’d practically be like Estella.”

  I can’t help but feel defensive for Estella. Drew barely knows her. “Estella’s not so bad.”

  “She’s not a Christian. She’s unscrupulous. She’s using Stetson, you know, and someday she’ll be sorry. I’ve tried talking to her—”

  “What do you mean, someday she’ll be sorry?” I interrupt. “When will she be sorry?” I blink at him. My whole body throbs with the sting of rejection. “I’m sorry, I think I might be hallucinating. Are you telling me that everyone who isn’t a good Christian is going to hell?”

  He nods. “Of course.”

  “But Drew, I’m not a Christian. I’m an agnostic.”

  He puts his hands on my shoulders. He brings his face close to mine and gives me a kiss on the nose. I think he’s trying to reassure me. “It’s okay, Katie. I’ve told you, you’re just lost. I love you. I want to stay with you and share our lives. You’ll see how beautiful God can be.”

  I feel numb. “As long as we don’t have sex before we’re married?”

  “Of course.”

  “But what about different religions? What about Mazzie? What about . . .” I stop myself before I say, What about my brother? “You think Mazzie is going to hell because she’s a Buddhist? She’s a good person! It doesn’t make any sense, Drew.”

  He shakes his head. “It makes perfect sense. It’s all in the Bible. Katie, I know it’s hard. Sometimes I can’t even think about it. But that’s why it’s so important to share God’s word.” He puts his arms all the way around me. “I love you, Katie. Everything will be okay.”

  I want to push him away. I can’t believe he could be so nice to Mazzie’s face—he’s even been nice to Estella lately, now that she’s my friend—all the time believing that everyone who doesn’t think like him is going to burn in hell.

  But then he starts to kiss me again. “I love you,” he murmurs, in between kisses. “I love everything about you. You’re so innocent and lost and beautiful. When I watch you in the water”—he moves his mouth to my neck, leaning me back on the bed again, lacing his fingers through mine—“you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I don’t think anyone besides my parents has ever called me beautiful before. And I know Drew means well. He’s just confused. He doesn’t know Mazzie the way I do. And as far as sex is concerned, he can change his mind—he will change his mind. If there’s one thing I’ve heard, over and over again from the Ghost and Mrs. Martin and pretty much every other adult, it’s that teenage boys think about only one thing.

  After practice one day, Solinger keeps me late. He takes me into his office and pushes a pamphlet across his desk for me to look at.

  It’s an application for Yale University.

  “I’m only a sophomore,” I remind him.

  “I know that. But every summer they accept two hundred high school students—just two hundred—to study there.” He adds, as though it isn’t obvious, “It’s a huge honor, Katie.
”

  But I’ve been looking forward to spending the summer in Woodsdale with my friends, swimming at school every day for as long as I wanted, spending all my free time with Drew. I’ve already gotten the okay from my parents, and Mazzie and I have already claimed a room to share at Lindsey’s house.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “What does this have to do with swimming?”

  Solinger leans back in his chair and clasps his hands behind his head. He’s shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of red swimming trunks and flip-flops. “It has everything to do with swimming. You know Yale has the largest college athletic center in the country. I’ve already talked to the coach. You can practice with the team.” He adds, before I can ask, “They practice year-round, unofficially. So this will give you a head start at getting in. You do well there, you go back next summer and do even better, and you’re in like Flynn.”

  He licks his lips, grinning at me, and gives me a wink. “Come on, Kitrell. You want to be captain, right? You do this and you’ll be the first junior captain we’ve ever had.”

  I smile. Grace will be seething with jealousy. And Drew can always come visit me.

  But there’s Mazzie, too—what is Mazzie going to do?

  And there’s so much else—will I even get in?

  “You’ll get in,” Solinger assures me. “Trust me. I’ve made a few calls. You’ll get in.”

  I pick up the application. It’s never crossed my mind before that someone like me could end up going to an Ivy League school. Even though I’ve been at Woodsdale almost a full year, there is still a feeling of separateness. People from Hillsburg just don’t get that far away, no matter how hard they try.

  Estella has an expression that she loves to use around me, anytime she catches me doing something even slightly wrong, like forgetting to put my napkin in my lap as soon as we sit down for meals. “You can take the girl away from the white trash, but you can’t take the white trash out of the girl.”

  Mazzie will be okay without me. I mean, she’ll just have to be.

  Solinger slides an envelope across the desk.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s your letter of recommendation. You need two. Mrs. Martin has another one waiting for you, back at the dorm.”