Breathe

by Tracey E. Chambers

  When the final bell rang, Logan was there again waiting for me by the door. Everyone in class was gawking at us, trying to figure out the puzzle of why he was pursuing me. I almost wanted to shout, “Hey, if you figure it out, will you let me know?” Logan was seriously gorgeous. Judging by the looks he was receiving from the girls filing out of the classroom, they all concurred.

  He was about 5’ 10’’ with dark brown, almost black, hair that was tapered short in the back and his bangs were a little longer in the front, almost down to his intense eyes. Sometimes it was impossible to look away from those eyes; they were a deep brown and framed by thick lashes that most girls would envy. He had a square jaw with a dimple on his left cheek that you could only see when he smiled. He must work out because he was all muscle with a serious set of biceps.

  By the time I made my way toward him, he was alone with that heart stopping grin on his face. A weaker woman would have melted into a puddle on the floor. Fortunately, I was only slightly dazed and managed to form a coherent thought once I looked down.

  “Thanks for helping me out today. I really appreciate it,” I stammered.

  If accepting help was awkward for me, so was thanking someone for it. Logan hooked his finger under my chin and lifted my face toward him.

  “Bethany, it gave me a great excuse to spend time with you today, but it wasn’t enough. Do you have plans after school?” He asked hopefully.

  Seriously? Did he imagine that he was taking me anywhere after the way Jack reacted to an innocent ride home? My new survival plan included robotically obeying every decree Jack demanded. The instant I turned eighteen, I was running as fast as I could go, as far as I could go. Until then, I had to avoid Jack’s rages at all costs. I didn’t want to contemplate what would happen to me if I didn’t walk straight home after school. I started to tell Logan there was no way I was doing anything but walking home alone when he surprised me.

  “Please Bethany? I know you are worried about how your step dad will react, but I promise it will be okay. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. You name the place and we will go there.”

  He smiled sadly at me waiting for the rejection he knew was coming but willing to try anyway. Ugh. One glimpse of that pleading face and I couldn’t seem to remember the word no. Whoa, that was an alarming thought.

  When Logan promised he would take me anywhere, my immediate thought was the ocean. I hadn’t been there since I was a kid. When it was still just mom and me, she would bring me to the ocean at least once a month. I think she loved the beach as much as I did. Back then, I was the center of her world.

  I never remembered meeting my real father. I asked about him once when I was five because I noticed most of the other kids in my kindergarten class had dads. My mom just smiled at me and explained that he had to go away when I was born. That was the only explanation I ever received. It was okay that he went away because in the early years I never missed him. My mother lavished all of her love and attention on me. The days when she fixed my hair for school, cooked dinner, and listened to my prayers before bed seemed like a dream now. Back then, my world was a beautiful place where I was loved unconditionally and everyone lived happily ever after.

  That lasted until third grade. When Jack first appeared in my life, I was excited. I thought I would finally have a daddy like the other kids. He usually just ignored me, but when he was near, my mom was ecstatic. I was content until he demanded more and more of my mom’s attention. Soon, it was necessary for me to learn to fix my own hair, prepare my own food, and become invisible to avoid Jack’s wrath.

  For a while, I still said my prayers at night by myself but eventually those stopped too. It soon became apparent that my mere presence made Jack furious. Once he started voicing his displeasure with his fists, my childhood was over. God had abandoned me. After that there were no more carefree, joyous days, no more Tooth Fairy, or Santa Claus, no more magic or happily ever after.

  My happiest memories were those days at the beach with my mother. We would take a picnic, build sand castles and my favorite—look up at the clouds and watch dragons and unicorns in the sky. Mom would patiently walk up and down the beach with me while I went in search of the perfect seashell. After lunch she would tell me magical stories about princes and princesses. I loved the feel of the wind whipping through my hair and the warm sun on my face. The memory made me smile. I decided right then that I wanted to see the ocean for myself again. I would just have to worry about Jack when the time came. I bravely met Logan’s stare.

  “Okay, I want to go to the beach,” I boldly declared.

  A wide smile graced his handsome face as he reached toward me and grabbed my hand. I surprised myself by letting him lead me out to his car.

  “Okay, we’re heading out to Galveston. I’ve only been there a couple of times. Is Stewart Beach okay?”

  I nodded. He barely took a breath before he went on.

  “Are you hungry? We could grab something on the way.”

  It was astonishing how excited this boy seemed over the prospect of driving me three hours round trip to the beach. I had a few dollars in my backpack. I could afford dinner if I steered him towards fast food. If I was going to pay for this little outing when I got home, I might as well go all in.

  “We can stop at Subway and eat at the beach. We should get there around dinner time,” I suggested.

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Logan led us to the passenger side and actually opened the door for me. I’d never seen a guy do that for a girl before; I’ll admit I was impressed. When he reached under my shoulder to help me ease down into the Mustang, I was mortified when I couldn’t stop myself from flinching at his touch. To my immense relief, he didn’t react. If anything he gripped under my arm a little tighter as he helped me in. I wasn’t comfortable with people touching me, usually it meant something painful would follow. There was no way I could explain that to Logan, so I was grateful that he didn’t ask.

  After we got our sandwiches, we still had over an hour drive in front of us. At first, I turned my head and pretended to be fascinated by whatever was outside the window. While I stared out the window, I continued to wonder what Logan found so fascinating about me. It was strange because I had spent my time in junior high and high school carefully keeping everyone away from me. I still wasn’t sure exactly how I found myself in this place, sitting alone in a car with a guy, on my way to the beach. The most daunting part of the whole situation was not what was waiting for me when I finally went home. Deep down inside, the scariest part was I wasn’t afraid of Logan. I felt safe with him.

  I slowly turned my head towards the windshield again.

  “Welcome back.” Logan chuckled.

  He studied at me for a second, and I had to remember to breathe. Sometimes when the boy looked at me so intensely, I was sure he could see past all my pretenses. He could never know the real me or how pathetic my life was. I didn’t want him to feel sorry for me or worse, be disgusted. I put on my best ‘everything is fine’ face and attempted to have a coherent conversation.

  “Sorry, I guess I was zoning out,” I tried to explain.

  Logan gave me another one of those intense looks that made my insides start to feel fluttery. This was definitely not good. Thankfully he looked back toward the road before he responded because the next words that came out of his mouth stunned me.

  “Hey, you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. I was just teasing. You seemed a million miles away there for a while. Honestly, I am happy to be with you. That’s all I want.”

  I didn’t have a clue how to respond to that statement, so I fiddled with the radio until I found a different station. I could only take so much Katy Perry. I liked some of her songs, but I was more of a Taylor Swift kind of girl. I didn’t believe in fairy tales or love, but I still liked hearing stories of happily ever after.

  I was hoping the music would distract me from the constant pain in my back. Sitting at school all day and now sitting in a
car only made it worse. The only comfortable position for me these days was on my stomach. It had been a week since my ordeal with Jack’s belt, but my muscles and flesh still burned like crazy. After taking four Tylenol at a time for a week, the bottle was quickly emptied, so I had gone all day without it and the pain was catching up to me. I surreptitiously leaned forward in an effort to take some of the pressure off my back. After about twenty minutes of subtle shifting in an attempt to ease my discomfort, I gave up and carefully sat back in my seat.

  Five minutes later we were pulling into a Walgreen’s drugstore. I eyed Logan questioningly.

  “I need a few things from inside. Do you want to come with me or wait here?”

  I had no intention of walking any more than was absolutely necessary, so I declined with a shake of my head.

  “No, I’ll wait here if it is okay with you.”

  “Okay, do you need anything?” he asked.

  My mind was screaming “YES!!!” but my stubborn pride refused to admit to him that anything was wrong.

  “No but thanks. I’m good.”

  He looked like he wanted to argue the point with me for a minute, but he just shook his head as he made his way into the store. Fifteen minutes later he walked out with two very full bags. He put the bags between us and dug around until he found what he was looking for. Wordlessly, he handed me a Dr. Pepper and dropped two pills in my hand.

  “I can’t take watching you in pain another second. I know you were trying to hide it, but you are obviously suffering. This might help a little,” he explained.

  Then he reached back into the bag and pulled out two huge icepacks already filled with ice.

  “Where would these help the most?”

  I was horrified to feel tears stinging my eyes. He was being so considerate it caught me by surprise. I quickly let my hair curtain my face to hide my tears as I leaned forward.

  “My back,” I croaked.

  Logan put one icepack on my lower back and gently pushed me back a little before he put the second one up a little higher.

  “If you aren’t feeling better in an hour or so we can try something else. I got several different pain relievers; I wasn’t sure what would work best.” he said matter-of-factly.

  I continued to sit there hiding behind my hair. I was fighting for control before this guy turned me into a blubbering mess. He tucked my hair behind my ear and tenderly pulled my hand from my lap and laced his fingers through mine.

  “Is there anything else that will help?”

  It sounded corny but just someone caring made me feel better. I refused to tell him that so I just shook my head and squeezed his hand in mine. I hoped it was enough to thank him when words failed me. Logan started the car and headed towards the beach. The pills started to alleviate some of the discomfort after about thirty minutes. When the pain started to ease, I felt so sleepy I could barely keep my eyes open. I soon fell asleep with Logan’s hand wrapped tightly in mine.

  I awoke to the sound of waves crashing and sea gulls crying. I took a deep breath before opening my eyes. I must have been asleep for a while because the sun was low in the sky. The car was parked on the beach, with the sunroof open, and the windows down. When I peeked over at Logan, he was not watching the waves roll in or the sailboats in the distance, he was watching me intently. He didn’t seem embarrassed that I had caught him staring at all. I looked down at our joined hands wondering if he had held my hand the entire time I slept. He released my hand and very slowly reached over to brush a stray strand of hair out of my eyes.

  “I wanted to let you sleep, but it is getting late and I was afraid I was going to have to wake you up soon. Are you hungry?”

  Amazingly, I was. That nap was actually the best sleep I’d had in days and for the first time in a week, I actually felt hungry.

  “I am starving!”

  Smiling, Logan reached into the backseat, grabbed our sandwiches and got out of the car. As he headed over to passenger side, the ocean breeze whipped his hair every which way. By the time he made it to my door his hair was tousled like a little boy who just got out of bed. The amusement must have showed on my face because when he opened my car door he looked down at me nervously.

  “What?”

  I wasn’t about to tell him what was on my mind so I tried to distract him.

  “I can’t believe I am actually here. It has been years since I’ve been to the beach.”

  Wow. That sounded kind of sad. Maybe I should have stuck with “I was just thinking how incredibly adorable you look with your hair that way”. Yeah, no, I would just have to settle for sad and pathetic. Logan just shook his head but being the gentleman that he was he let it go.

  “Alright, I am going to help you out because you’ve got to be stiff after sitting there for almost four hours. You ready?”

  I didn’t answer. My jaw dropped. FOUR HOURS!!! It took an hour and a half to get there, so that meant I slept for over two hours. It was later than I thought.

  “You sat in the car for two hours while I slept? Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  “I knew you needed the sleep. I had the ocean and a beautiful girl to look at, I have no complaints.”

  I turned a brilliant shade of red at that point. I wasn’t used to getting compliments. If you get called an ugly worthless whore long enough you start to believe it.

  Logan was a nice guy trying to make me feel better in an awkward situation. I knew I wasn’t beautiful. My crazy curly hair was constantly going in a million different directions. I decided long ago to just to go with it, taming it was futile. I was ridiculously short, most of the time people thought I was twelve instead of fifteen.

  My only vanity was my eyes. They were huge, almond shaped and an unusual shade of light green. The rest of me was fairly boring. The popular girls at school probably thought I needed to lose ten or fifteen pounds. My body type would never be the stick thin ideal most girls my age aspired to. Being fashionable was never high on my list of priorities.

  Sometimes, I was jealous of my classmates whose biggest problems consisted of whether they passed last week’s algebra test or who would ask them to the homecoming dance. I had other things to obsess about, like staying as invisible as possible so I could dodge Jack’s abuse. Instead of dreaming about the perfect boyfriend or a career, I dreamed about leaving home. I just wanted to find a place where I could live without fear or anxiety, somewhere I could feel safe. Long ago, I accepted the fact that the place I dreamed of would not include my mom. It broke my heart to think of leaving her there with Jack, but I knew I could never convince her to leave. I had save myself.

  Once Logan helped me out of the car, I took a few stilted steps to the beach but actually sitting on the sand was another question entirely. I painfully made it to my knees on the sand and that was going to be as close as I got to sitting for our picnic. Logan knelt beside me and handed me my sandwich. The sun was sinking lower in the sky behind us. The sea breeze felt wonderful on my face. We ate while watching the waves roll in.

  After I finished my sandwich, I closed my eyes to enjoy the moment. I wanted to memorize the cry of the seagulls, the roar of the waves, the feel of the sun on my skin, the warmth of the sand, and the smell of salt and fish in the air. This was a place where I had so many good, happy memories. I could almost remember the little girl I was all those years ago…looking up at the clouds and pointing to Pegasus gliding through the sky. Memories flooded my mind and I took the time to savor every one. Through it all, Logan just knelt beside me in the sand, giving me the time and space I needed. I wished I could just freeze this moment forever, but sadly I knew it was time to head back into the real world.

  Chapter Six

  LOGAN

  I knew I should wake her up, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Looking down at our joined hands made me smile. She was still clutching my hand in her sleep. Watching Bethany sleep made me realize just how tense and watchful she was when she was awake. It had to be exhausting having your g
uard up all the time. The relaxed girl peacefully napping next to me had a spine of steel, but in some ways she was as fragile as glass. The slightest pressure and she could break.

  After a couple of hours, she covertly peeked from behind her hair. Bethany was a little startled to find me staring at her, but she offered me a shy smile as she stiffly sat up. She allowed me to help her out of the car without flinching before we made our way to the beach.

  It was pretty quiet on a weekday during late summer. School had already started, and the tourists went back to their busy lives. The lazy waves greeted us as we slowly made our way towards the water. We spent a couple of hours eating our dinner and soaking up the atmosphere. She didn’t talk much and that was okay with me. There are times when words just get in the way. We focused on the horizon, content leave the world behind for a while.

  It was still as school night so we gathered our things and made our way to the car as darkness fell. With each mile that passed Bethany became increasingly apprehensive. Her facial expression was as cool as a cucumber but her breathing increased and she was fidgeting. I tried distracting her but after a while my questions went unanswered and I quit trying. I reached over to pick up her hand from her lap. It was a physical way to remind her that she wasn’t alone anymore.

  By the time we pulled up to her house, she had been silent and still for over half an hour, militantly staring straight ahead. It freaked me out a little to see her going from the sweet, shy girl on the beach to this lifeless robot. I let go of her hand and I purposefully grabbed her elbow. Her eyes snapped up to mine immediately. She was annoyed rather than scared.

  “I told you no one was going to hurt you, and I meant it. It is going to be okay,” I promised.