Breathless

by Jessica Warman

  She’s told everyone about Will. People stop talking when I come into classrooms. Even my teachers—even Solinger—treat me differently. In art class, once again disappointed by my work, Mrs. Averly frowns at my macramé and says, “I thought your mother was an artist, Kitrell?” Then, pretending to think better of it, she says, “Oh, I forgot. You get confused about your family members, don’t you?”

  The whole class giggles, some more loudly than others. And it’s funny—I can’t say that I blame them. I know from experience that it’s way harder to be the only different one in the room.

  But, since I’ve already gotten into Harvard, I start spending as many art classes as possible under the sink. Most of the time, Mazzie is there, waiting for me, skipping Chem III (her favorite class) so I don’t have to be alone.

  After a few weeks of silence, I feel certain that Drew doesn’t want anything else to do with me. In a way, I feel a sense of relief that things are probably over between us. But one day, when Mazzie and I are walking back from class by ourselves, he’s there: parked outside our dorm, waiting for me.

  “Let’s go for a ride,” he says. He opens the car door for me.

  Once we’re at the highest point of Oglebay Park, Drew puts his car in idle and we roll all the windows down; the wind is blowing hard enough on top of the hill that my hair whips around my face, across my closed mouth. I shut my eyes and enjoy the feeling, trying to soak up the last few seconds of calm in the afternoon.

  Drew breaks the silence. “I understand, Katie. You know—everything made so much sense after I found out. It always bothered me that you didn’t want me to meet your parents, and that you had Mazzie come home with you for your grandpa’s funeral, instead of me.” He pauses. “Mazzie always knew, didn’t she?”

  I nod. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell anybody, but she found out when he called—I mean, besides, we’re roommates, and we’re best friends, and—”

  “Katie. You don’t have to explain.” He puts his palm over my fist and rubs my knuckles. He has always shown genuine concern for me, no matter how I’ve treated him. In a way, I think this quality has made it harder for me to like him sometimes. I’m not sure why.

  Knowing that he isn’t angry with me makes it easier to breathe. If I wanted to, I could leave it at that and we could go on like this, maybe forever. But there’s something else he should know.

  I close my eyes. “If I tell you something, Drew, can you make me a promise?”

  “Anything.”

  I turn my head and look at him, trying to smile. “Love me?”

  “Sure, Katie.” His voice crackles a bit with concern. “Hey.” He puts his hand over mine. “Tell me.”

  I figure there’s nothing to say but the truth. “The night we were at UVA, when Estella said she walked in on me and Stetson?”

  “Yeah . . .” Drew’s concern shifts to mild panic.

  “Drew.”

  He shakes his head. “Oh, no. No, you didn’t.”

  I put my head down and start to cry. I can’t tell him that it was just after my brother murdered someone, that it was right after my whole family fell apart and I didn’t know what I was doing, that I just wanted to be wanted by someone, and Stetson had never given me any attention before—because those are all just excuses. They aren’t reasons.

  For a while we don’t speak. And then, after a few moments, I hear Drew feeling around in his pockets for something—his wallet—which he takes out and starts emptying onto his lap.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “You’ll see.”

  He reaches a hand out and brushes some hair from my face. “Don’t cry, Katie. I’m the one who should cry.” He adds—and I realize that he is crying—“I want to break up with you right now. I want to hate you.”

  I feel my heart flutter. It doesn’t sink—it flutters. “Oh.”

  “But I’m not going to.”

  There is silence. Drew passes me a card that he’s removed from his wallet. It’s a small laminated piece of paper with a passage from First Corinthians: “Love is patient, love is kind,” etc.

  “What’s this for?”

  “It’s for you.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugs. “Keep it.”

  “Drew.” I put my hand on his arm, leaning into him, and try to wrap my arms around him. For the first time in the three years I’ve known him, I feel amazed by how lucky I am to have Drew. Not because he’s gorgeous or popular or anything like that. Because I’ve done the worst thing imaginable to him, and he’s strong enough to keep loving me, despite what I’ve done. His faith isn’t just something he clings to or hides behind—it’s real, and it’s amazing. I feel sorry that I’ve never been able to understand it.

  I hold on tight to his body, knowing it’s one of the last times we’ll be together like this.

  But Drew shakes me loose. “Katie, I can’t right now. I love you, and it’ll be okay—but you need to stop.” His whole body is trembling. He punches the steering wheel with his fist. “He’s my best friend! You had to choose him.

  ”

  “I’m so sorry—”

  “I’m always trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, you know? I thought he was good, deep down inside.” He shakes his head. He glares at me. “You were just another notch in his belt. You know that, right?”

  I nod.

  “He’s only interested in getting laid.” Drew sighs. “It’s kind of like how some girls are the marrying kind and some girls aren’t.”

  I shake my head. “What?”

  “You know—some girls you marry, and some girls you mess around with.” He fiddles with his keys, still in the ignition. “So I’ve heard.”

  I’ve always known that I am different from my friends here, and different from Drew. But I want to tell them—don’t they know?—I’m not supposed to be different. I might not be going to Yale, but I’m still going to swim my way through Harvard. I’m going to do just as well, if not better than, all the rest of them.

  It has never dawned on me that I might just be the type of girl a boy has a good time with, but suddenly I feel like it is impossible for me to be anything else. Is Drew trying to tell me that Estella was right about why I didn’t get into Yale?

  “What is it?” Drew asks. His tone is still bitter.

  “It’s nothing.” I look at him while I chew at the corner of my bottom lip. “You would marry me, right?”

  He shrugs. “Sure, Katie. Maybe I’ll marry you someday.” He stares straight ahead. “If you can stop cheating on me.”

  I start to cry again. “Oh, shit. I’m one of those girls, aren’t I? Have I always been that way? Don’t marry me, Drew.”

  “Look at me,” he says.

  I look at him.

  “I love you, Katie.” He takes a deep breath. “Love is about forgiveness. And you’re wrong about what kind of girl you are.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Even though I’m from Hillsburg and my brother is in a federal institution for the criminally insane?”

  “Yes.”

  “But what’s there to love about me?”

  “What’s not to love?”

  I look down, at the space between us. “Lots of things.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He blinks at me through his tears. He smiles. “I mean, you’re no Margo Duvall. . . .”

  For a brief second, I consider accepting his promise that we can stay together. I could hold on to it, and follow him through Harvard, and if I wanted it badly enough, we probably would get married.

  But it isn’t what I want. “Drew,” I begin, “we aren’t getting married.”

  “Well, not right now or anything. But we’ll be in school together, and we’ll stay together, and then who knows?”

  I could stop there. I could let him believe I feel the same way. But Drew has been so good to me—I can’t do it.

  “I want us to be friends. At Harvard, I mean.”


  He pauses. “Just friends?”

  “Drew, we don’t have anything in common besides swimming. I’m not religious like you want me to be. I love you, but not like . . . not like I should. The past three years with you have been the best years of my life. But I think . . . I think we can both have better years. Apart.” I put my hand on his arm; he flinches. “I love you,” I repeat. “You need to believe me. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

  At first, he doesn’t say anything, and for a minute I think he’s going to try to talk me out of breaking up with him. But he just nods. “Yeah, I know. I was just hoping . . .”

  “So was I.” We are both crying.

  We put our arms around each other. His hug feels so familiar and warm that I don’t want to let it go, but I know I have to. When we pull apart, I say to him, “You’ll be the only person I know at Harvard.”

  He smiles. “You too.”

  “We’ll be friends, then?”

  Drew nods. “Sure.” He takes a deep breath. “Great.”

  I think it’s the most he can let go, for the moment. As we sit in his car together, staring over the town, my head on his shoulder and both of us still crying without making a sound, I realize this afternoon is the closest I’ve ever felt to Drew.

  The next afternoon, when I come back from freshman intramural practice—which is actually just as awful as Solinger described—Lindsey is in my room, talking to Mazzie. They go silent when I walk in.

  “Hi,” I say, trying to be casual.

  “Hi,” Lindsey says. She and I haven’t talked since Estella’s party. But she hasn’t been outright mean to me, either—Lindsey doesn’t have it in her.

  “I miss you, Linds,” I say, after the silence gets so heavy that I can’t stand it. “School is almost over, and we won’t see each other, and—”

  “I didn’t think I could forgive you for lying,” she says.

  I nod. “Oh. Okay.”

  “But then I put myself in your shoes. And I remembered that, at first, you didn’t actually lie. You just misled everyone.” Before I can say anything, she adds, “Not that that’s any better. And for a while, I didn’t want to forgive you. But what Estella did to you that night was so much worse than what you did. What she did was just . . .” Lindsey shakes her head. “It was evil.”

  I nod. “Yeah. It was.”

  “I’m still mad at you,” Lindsey says. “You should have trusted me. I wouldn’t have cared about your brother.” She thinks she means it, but she doesn’t realize the truth. She never could have accepted me the way I was.

  “But I want us to be friends again,” she continues.

  “Okay . . . why?” I’m almost too exhausted for this conversation.

  “Because of Estella.” Lindsey nods to herself. “She’s been awful—my whole life, she’s been awful. And no matter how mad I am at you . . . well, you know the expression: ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend.’ ”

  After Lindsey leaves, Mazzie and I smirk at each other. “They’ll probably be spending the night at each other’s houses by the weekend,” Mazzie says. She’s right, too. It isn’t that Lindsey didn’t mean what she said; it’s just that she’s that kind of person. Given the chance, no matter how much she can’t stand her, she’ll do anything to be close to a girl like Estella.

  It’s hard for me to hold the fact against her. As Mazzie and I sit alone in our room, as I think about everything that’s happened with Drew and how much stronger than me he is, how genuine and kind he’s proven to be, it occurs to me that if it weren’t for people in my life like Drew and Mazzie, I could have been just like Lindsey. In a lot of ways, that’s how I’ve acted.

  It’s one week before graduation. The seniors are lined up along the wall of the gymnasium for a rehearsal, shifting back and forth on our feet, fanning our faces with programs for the ceremony. Most of the girls have removed their skirts and tossed them in a pile in a corner, so we stand in button-down shirts, boxer shorts and knee socks rolled down to our ankles. The heat is so intense that I’m dizzy.

  Estella rolls her head back and forth against the wall. “This is ridiculous,” she mutters. “Like we don’t know how to walk single file. This is completely lame. I’m leaving.” But she doesn’t move. She rolls her eyeballs upward in their sockets, her lashes fluttering.

  Behind her, crouching with her elbows on her knees and face flushed to the point where I can see the veins in her neck beating against her white flesh, Lindsey is quiet. Mazzie and I are a few bodies back in line, and it doesn’t surprise me that Lindsey is pretending not to ignore us, even though she’s actually ignoring us.

  “What are you doing after this, Linds?” Estella asks.

  “Um . . .” She tries to lower her voice, but we all hear. “Going to Amanda Hopwood’s graduation party.”

  I haven’t been invited to many parties lately. I could just show up, and it might not be a big deal—but then again, it might be a bigger deal than I can imagine.

  “Good.” Estella smiles. “I’ll be there. We can ride together.”

  Lindsey won’t look at me or Mazzie. “Okay.”

  Everybody is quiet again. In front of the crowd, the headmaster and his administrative staff are arranged in a tight circle, his secretary’s hairline dark and glossed with sweat.

  Classes are over. The upcoming week is finals week, and since seniors don’t have to take finals, we are free to do pretty much whatever we please. But it’s too hot to do much of anything but stand there, waiting for everything to be over.

  In our dorm room, I know, Mazzie’s bags are packed, six suitcases and a duffel bag piled in the center of the room. The only thing left is her open backpack, containing loose toiletries and a few changes of clothes. Her bed is stripped down to a fitted sheet.

  • • •

  The night before graduation, Mazzie and I are awake, the only two students left in the dorm. Mazzie’s things are completely packed now, except for the outfit she plans to wear tomorrow and what she’s wearing right now. Even her toothbrush has been thrown away; I walk into the bathroom and find her using mine, giving her gums a good scrub.

  In our room, the beds are now stripped completely. We’ll sleep on my bare mattress tonight. “You should smoke a cigarette in here,” she says.

  I’ve been trying to quit for good. “I don’t have any. Why should I, anyway?”

  “Because you snuck so many with your fat head sticking out the window. You could light up right now in the middle of the room and nothing would happen to you.”

  “I guess.”

  “. . . ”

  “. . . ”

  “Mazzie,” I begin, but she sees the way I’m looking at her and holds up a quick hand to interrupt. “Shut up, Katie. I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t want to hear it.”

  “What do you think I’ll say?”

  “A bunch of sappy bullshit about how much our friendship means and how important it is that we keep in touch after graduation. That kind of crap.”

  “Don’t you want to keep in touch?”

  “No.”

  “Come on.”

  She sighs. “Listen, you. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen.”

  She’s right. I lean toward her, as if to give her a hug, but it seems like the most awkward thing I could possibly do right now.

  She steps back. “I’m serious, Katie. Don’t.”

  “Won’t you miss me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll miss you so much.”

  I look past her, out our window, at Puff raising his leg against Mrs. Christianson’s newly planted tulips.

  “I want to tell you something,” Mazzie says.

  “What’s that?”

  She licks her lips. I feel the room tilting a little bit as she speaks. “I want to tell you how my mother died.”

  In three years, I never would have expected this.

  “Okay,” I say. “So tell me.”

  She comes close to me,
and we both sit on the floor, our legs folded. She closes her eyes—I love the way her eyelashes are long and flutter shut with such grace—leans toward me, and whispers in my ear.

  What does she tell me? After so many years of her keeping my secrets, there’s no way I’ll ever tell a soul. Not ever.

  We both stand up. “You ready?” Mazzie asks, staring me straight in the eye.

  “For what?”

  “For your party, dummy.”

  As a graduation present, Drew is throwing me a surprise party tonight. Mazzie told me about it weeks ago.

  “I guess so. I don’t feel like going.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for starters, it’s going to be you, me, Drew, and his mom at Elbow Room.” Elbow Room is a local Italian restaurant. “You know—same stuff, different day. At least, that’s how it’s been for the past few weeks.”

  For some reason this is amusing to Mazzie. She cocks her head at me. “But not for long.”

  “You ready?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Do you have everything? Keys? A good surprised expression?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s see it.”

  I flash her my most surprised face.

  “Okay, then,” she says, “let’s go.”

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  We don’t move.

  “I love you,” I say. “You’re my best friend.”

  Mazzie’s shoulders slump. She’s trying not to cry. “Yeah,” she says. “I know.”

  “Don’t forget about me.”

  She nods.

  We stand there looking at each other. I remember the first day I ever met her.

  “I’ll miss you, Madeline Moon,” I tell her.

  She moves toward the door. “You won’t have to. You know where to find me.”

  I take one last look around the room. With all of our things packed, I barely recognize it. Everything will be different soon. Everything will be new. I don’t know what’s going to happen. The only thing I know for sure is how to swim.

  epilogue

  ten years later

  Once I get through airport security, I easily spot Drew’s head of curls above the crowd gathered to meet their loved ones. It’s the day before Christmas Eve.