Breathe (6 page)

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.”

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.”

“I am,” she insisted, but she hesitated to finish her thought.

“But?” I asked.

“
But
I was just thinking how this baby will only be an infant when I leave for Penn State. They’ll be this whole person that’s a part of me that I’ll never really know.”

“Wow,” was all I could think to say. I was struck dumb. I couldn’t believe she was still holding onto the idea that leaving Little Bend would be the solution to all her problems. Problems didn’t go away just because you ran from them. They would hunt you down. Make sure you paid for ignoring them.

“You know, Ab, just because you go away to college it doesn’t mean you can never come home again. Little Bend’s not going anywhere. Trust me.”

“Yeah, it’ll be right here where I left it, ruining the lives of a whole new generation.”

“It’s not that bad here.”

“ It’s not? Once I leave this place, Garrett, I’m never coming back. You know this.” She shook her head. Looked at me helplessly. Her green eyes big as boulders. “I told you this.”

“Five years ago, Abby!”

She flinched slightly from my tone, which made me feel like a dick. Then she lowered her eyes and stared at Water-Abby again. I wondered if Water-Abby would be as big a pain in the ass as Real-Abby was being right then. Maybe I should’ve asked Water-Abby to love me instead. Might’ve made things easier on the both of us.

“Nothing’s changed,” she finally said.

“Everything’s changed,” I countered and I meant it. We couldn’t go back. I didn’t want to go back. Loving Abby all those years was like having one of those dog cones wrapped around my neck and an itch I couldn’t scratch. So I said something I’d been afraid to say for a long time. Afraid of how she would react. Of how the truth when it spilled from her mouth would break my heart. “My parents don’t have money, Abby. We’re not poor but we’re far from wealthy. They can’t afford to send me to college.”

I stopped there to give her time to process the meaning of my words. To fully grasp what it was I was trying to tell her. She continued to shake her head at Water-Abby, like she didn’t believe it. “You’ll get a scholarship,” she insisted.

“I won’t. I’m not you. I’m not good enough.” Abby was the only one who ever believed I was. Even my own father knew I was talentless. And he should’ve been blinded by unconditional love. Only Abby thought I was great. Only Abby could make me want to be great.

“Don’t say that,” she cried. “The scouts are coming on Saturday. They’ll see what I see. They’ll see how good you are. Then we’ll swim together next year.”

“I hate swimming,” I finally shouted, cutting her off before she could lie to herself some more. She looked up and stared at me. Her face had warped into this horrified expression. You would have thought I’d told her I was a warewolf. “I hate it,” I said again to make sure she knew I meant it. “Always have. Did it first to please my father then for you. To be with you. Near you. To have you notice me.”

“I’ve always noticed you.”

“Only because I was in the water. You see only one thing, Abby. You’re so focused on swimming that if I didn’t put myself in your way, you’d treat me like you do everyone else. Like I was background noise. Scenery.” I lifted her chin with a fingertip and forced her to look at me. Really look at me. Maybe even see me. “Mr. McKenna told me at the end of the summer that there’s a job at the ranch waiting for me when I graduate. It’s mine if I want it. And I think I do.”

I was pushing. I knew it. But I couldn’t stop now. I didn’t want to stop now.  Her eyes grew moist and I longed for her to cry. To really bawl her eyes out. So I could see that what I was saying had some effect on her. But I knew she wouldn’t. She blinked back her tears and looked at me, her face transforming to stone. Cold. Hard. Unyielding and unreadable.

“Why are you being a jerk?” she asked. “What is it you want me to say?”

“I’m just trying to figure out where I fit in to this plan of yours.”

“You’re supposed to go with me,” she accused. “You were always supposed to go. That was the plan.”

“Your plan, Abby. Not mine.”

“I thought they were the same thing.”

“And if that doesn’t come to pass? If I don’t get in to Penn State? If I choose to stay in Little Bend? What then? Do I get left behind as well?” An overwhelming silence answered my question. I swear to God I could feel the distance between us grow. It pushed against my gut. My heart. Told me to walk away before I lost it. Before I said something I’d regret and ended up losing Abby altogether. “Yeah,” I growled. “That’s what I thought.”

“Garrett,” she called, trying to stop me, but I was already storming through the doors and out into the parking lot. My tires kicked up dirt as I reversed. I jerked the wheel to turn as I pushed the gearshift into drive and sped onto the blacktop. I was halfway to I-don’t-where when I realized that mine had been the only vehicle in the parking lot and that I’d left Abby stranded. Not that she couldn’t walk home. It was only a few miles. But it was late and dark and the streets were empty. And as safe as Little Bend was supposed to be I didn’t want Abby wandering around alone at night.

Then again, it would serve her right. Who would rescue her when she went off to college and left me behind? Cursing the part of me that couldn’t bear to let her suffer, I turned the truck around. It seemed impossible that I’d driven so far away from the high school but it took forever to get back.

A block or so away from the school, outside the bowling alley, I spotted Abby walking along the shoulder on the opposite side of the road. An old Jeep Renegade pulled from the Bowl-o-Rama parking lot and crawled beside her. The soft-top was off so I could easily identify Nolan and his football buddies. Nolan leaned to the side, his head poking out through the open passenger side window while he spoke to Abby.

I was too far away and the truck’s engine was far too loud for me to hear the conversation but I saw Abby turn to Nolan, her face coiled in rage. She spat fire in his direction and I knew it couldn’t be good.

When we were sophomores, Abby tutored Nolan—part of the community service project every student at our school was required to complete each year. Abby chose to tutor students failing math and she was assigned to Nolan. When she’d first told me about it she was near to tears because they’d never gotten along. The next time we talked about him, her voice was softer, her criticisms less harsh. Three weeks in, he asked her out and Abby said yes.

The night Abby and Nolan were supposed to go to dinner and a movie we got stuck in traffic coming back from a meet. By the time I pulled up outside her apartment, Nolan had been waiting for an hour, alone with Abby’s mother.

I waited until Abby went inside then I circled the block. I wanted to catch a glimpse of the couple as they left for the night. Really torture myself good. But on the second pass, Nolan was on the front lawn, shirtless and pulling his pants on over his boxers and Abby was slamming the front door.

Abby liked to lie to herself and pretend I didn’t know about Maggie. That I wasn’t as aware as the rest of the town what her mother was like. That because I wasn’t born in Little Bend I’d somehow missed the gossip floating through town. That I didn’t know Maggie was a drunk and that she liked to sleep around. Like I didn’t have to listen to Nolan Carter brag to his friends in the locker room the next morning about what he’d done with Maggie. Like I couldn’t sense the change in Abby when Maggie crossed the line. For the most part, I liked to let her believe it. It was easier for her. Easier for me.

Abby never wanted to talk about it and I never pushed. I hated myself now for not pushing then. Tore me up that I’d done nothing to stop it. To protect her when her mother refused.

I swerved into the Jeep’s lane, braked, and blasted my horn. The driver looked up, startled, and slammed on his own brakes, bringing the Jeep to a screeching halt inches from my bumper and sending Nolan’s head crashing against the metal frame.

I flew from the truck, leaving the heavy door swinging behind me as Nolan hopped from the Jeep. We stood toe to toe between our vehicles, the glow of the headlights bending around our legs as the sky broke and rain began to pound the ground around us.

“You could have killed someone, asshole,” Nolan screamed at me through the deafening downpour.

I shrugged. “Can’t say I’d be sorry if I had.”

“You really want to do this? You’re outnumbered.”

To be honest it was the last thing I wanted. I was freezing in a swimsuit that covered only the area between my knees and my hips. And I was pissed. What I wanted was a hot shower and some time to cool off. But I knew underneath the bravado Nolan was nothing more than a coward. That was why he picked on Abby—because she was tiny and fragile, and he assumed weak. But he didn’t know Abby. And he didn’t know me. Growing up in the Scott house hadn’t exactly been all sunshine and rainbows. I knew how to handle a bully. And I knew that if I stood my ground, he’d back down. So, I met his star without blinking and said, “Outnumbered, maybe, but not outmatched.”

Large drops of moisture fell from the sky, slicked my face, my bare chest, and gathered at my feet. Nolan laughed, trying to sound cooler than I’m sure he felt, and told me “I was lucky he was feeling generous,” that “I’d get what’s coming to me when I least expected it.” More cowardly words were never spoken. Then he got back into the Jeep and I waited while it peeled away, splashing water all over my legs and leaving Abby and I alone, standing in the rain.

She stood there, her arms wrapped around herself like they were the only thing keeping her from falling apart and she stared at me. “Get in the truck,” I ordered, my tone harsher than I intended. Adrenaline and testosterone were still surging through my veins.