Reason to Breathe (51 page)

I pressed my palms against my fiery cheeks,
knowing she saw way more than I intended.

“Not what you think,” I corrected. “But, it
was… interesting.” I couldn’t hold the smile back. I stared out the
window, unable to make eye contact with her.

“Uh, ‘interesting’ is not details,” she said
impatiently. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“Not today.” I grinned. But I would
eventually. Not in the explicit detail that she would have liked,
but enough so that she knew.

I was so caught up in the mind buzzing
thoughts that fueled my glow when I returned home, that I barely
registered my discomfort as I limped around on my leg, completing
my chores. I was also oblivious when Carol came up behind me while
I washed the previous night’s dishes.

The knife slipped through my soapy hands with
a quick, forceful withdrawal.

I inhaled sharply at the sting of the blade
against the inside of my fingers.

“Oh, did I get you?” Carol remarked snidely.
“I needed it.”

I held my fingers tightly, glaring at her
while what I really wanted to say screamed in my head. The blood
dripped through my clenched fingers and spread in the water below.
She set the knife on the counter, with no intention of using it,
and left the kitchen with a malevolent smirk.

I reached across the counter and grabbed a
handful of paper towels, leaving a trail of red in my wake. I
wrapped them around the padded section of my sliced fingers, right
below my knuckles. The blood easily soaked through the papery
material.

I cradled my hand and walked into the
bathroom, turning on the water to flush out the wound. My fingers
pulsed as the blood flowed freely, swirling with the water down the
drain. I had to use a towel to apply enough pressure to stop the
bleeding. I knew I’d have to do everything I could to remove the
bloodstains later.

Within a few minutes of strangling my
fingers, the gapes in the fleshy tissue only trickled instead of
gushed. I wrapped them with bandages as tightly as I could to allow
the slices to clot. I clenched my teeth, shaking my head in
disbelief at her cunningness. I pressed my lips together, flexing
my jaw. The anger she provoked was not as easy to push away
anymore. I was overtaken by the fury, and it lingered long after it
should have been tucked deep inside.

Sara and Evan both eyed my wrapped fingers
throughout the day on Monday, but it wasn’t lunch that Sara said
something.

“Are you going to tell us, or what?”

I rolled my eyes at her insistence. “Cut my
fingers washing a knife,” I responded flatly.

Sara shook her head and folded her arms
across her chest. “All four of them?”

“The truth,” Evan demanded, not allowing me
to get away with the weak explanation. I didn’t like the accusing
way they were both staring at me. This wasn’t their problem. They
didn’t need to make me feel like
I’d
done something
wrong.

“Listen, I’m not going to tell you what
happened. If you don’t like my explanation, then you can fill in
the blanks as you see fit. I’m not going to tell you anything more.
You know where I live, and you know who I live with. I don’t need
to relive it again by telling you.” Aggravated beyond what I could
contain, I pushed myself away from the table and walked, or
slightly limped, out of the cafeteria.

Neither Sara nor Evan said anything to me
during Journalism class. They allowed me to fester in my own space
for the fifty minutes of class. But as soon as it was over, they
bombarded me again.

“You can’t be mad at us,” Evan implored. I
kept my back to them while sitting at the computer.

“Emma, you have a tendency to downplay your
injuries,” Sara added. “You have to understand that we’re going to
be concerned.”

“I can handle it,” I snapped, spinning around
in my chair to face them.

“Didn’t you tell me something similar that
afternoon on the track, right before you ended up in the hospital?”
Sara’s raised voice cracked as she finished the sentence. I
remained silent and stared at the floor.

Evan scooted a chair in front of me and
gently held my uninjured hand in both of his.

“We know you can handle more than you
should,” he stated soothingly, “but this is making us… nervous. I
really think we should…” I shot my eyes at him, becoming
panic-stricken when I realized how he intended to finish that
sentence. He didn’t finish his thought. The silence said
enough.

“You don’t understand,” I whispered, dropping
my gaze. “I can’t leave their house. Not yet. I don’t want to risk
ruining Jack and Leyla’s lives. I could also lose everything I’ve
worked so hard for. Besides, I have nowhere to go.”

“You...” they both began.

“Nowhere that I could stay without it causing
more problems or exposing my secret,” I corrected. “Do you really
think they’d let me leave quietly, or live in the same town,
wondering what I was telling your parents? I would have to leave
Weslyn, and then people would start asking questions. I have no
choice.”

They understood. I could see it in their
broken expressions. I shared with them the thoughts I’d already
processed a hundred times before in my head. They finally got a
glimpse of the true threat in exposing my situation. We would all
lose. I hoped I convinced them that the risk of staying was worth
it.

“I promise you,” I vowed, looking between
Evan and Sara, “I will know when I can’t do it anymore, and then we
can go anywhere you like.” I finished my sentence looking at Evan.
Sara’s eyes flinched in confusion, but she didn’t ask for an
explanation - she understood enough.

“Besides, I only have four hundred and eighty
days left.” I smiled, trying to lighten the mood. It didn’t
work.

The next two weeks passed without incident.
It helped that we spent the Easter holiday with Janet, and then I
spent most of the week of vacation with Sara. George and Carol took
the kids to the theme parks in Florida, leaving me behind, of
course. Little did they know, Sara and I escaped to Florida as well
to visit her grandmother for four days on the Gulf Coast while Evan
was in France snowboarding with a friend from San Francisco.

“I think that would be a great gift for his
birthday,” Sara confirmed while we lounged on the soft white sand,
the warm breeze blowing through our hair.

“You don’t think it’s too…” I scrunched my
face, trying to find the right word.

“No, it’s perfect.”

“I think Ms. Mier will let me do parts of it
in class as an assignment too. You know I’m having dinner with his
parents on Sunday, right?”

“No, you didn’t tell me that,” Sara
exclaimed, sitting up to face me.

“Do you remember his mom asking me to dinner
back in the fall?”

“Yeah,” she recalled eagerly.

“Well, she’s insisting it be this Sunday. I
can’t believe I didn’t tell you this,” I pondered. “Oh, and the
worst part is that she invited Carol and George as well.”

“She did not,” Sara gaped.

“Well, I actually had to ask them since I
can’t give my phone number to anyone besides you.”

“So they know about Evan now?” Sara
concluded, still unable to close her dropped jaw.

“They were going to find out eventually,” I
returned with a slight shrug. “You should have seen Carol’s face
when she found out I was dating someone. I think her irises turned
red. It was pretty creepy.”

“Are they going?” Sara asked in horror.

“Of course not,” I responded as if stating
the obvious. “But George was okay with
me
going, despite
Carol.”

“Em, this is going to be so bad, isn’t it?” I
watched as Sara’s posture sank with the realization that, after all
we’d done to conceal Evan from Carol, she’d found out about him. I
accepted this inevitability the moment we kissed in the Art room. I
had prepared for it until my stomach turned inside out - hoping
that I was ready. Sara, obviously, was not.

“What could she possibly do that she hasn’t
already done?” I offered Sara, trying to put her at ease - without
success.

“You’re going back home after the track meet
on Saturday, right?”

“Yes,” I answered suspiciously.

“You have to text me within an hour of being
home to let me know you’re okay,” she demanded.

“Sara, stop.”

She silenced me with a stern stare. I knew I
had to give in to her demands or risk being ignored for the
remaining two days in Florida.

“Fine,” I promised with an exasperated sigh,
“I’ll text you.”

Neither of us mentioned it again for the rest
of the week. As Saturday approached, Sara became more anxious. Her
nervous energy distracted me from being nervous myself. I focused
on seeing Evan at the meet, and that was enough to keep from
thinking of Carol.

35.
Sabotaged

“Don’t forget to text me,” Sara insisted for the twentieth time
when she dropped me off after the track meet that Saturday. I waved
in confirmation with a roll of my eyes and walked up the
driveway.

I prepared myself for whatever waited for me
inside as I ascended the steps to the deck. The dining room hummed
with little voices. Carol’s voice carried through the kitchen,
talking to George, in a calmer than usual tone.

“Emma!” I was greeted joyfully by Leyla who
attacked my legs before I could bend down to embrace her.

“Put your things in your room,” Carol
instructed passively. “We’re about to sit down and eat.”

The pleasantness in her voice caused me to
pause. I glanced around, having a hard time believing that she was
actually talking to me. I obeyed warily.

“How was your time with Sara?” she asked,
glancing toward me when I sat in my usual seat where a plate of
spaghetti with meatballs was already served at my setting.

“Fine,” I replied cautiously, still
uncomfortable with the attention.

“That’s great,” she smiled. The expression
looked odd on her face, having never truly seen her smile at me
before.

I waited for something catastrophic to
happen. But nothing did. Carol redirected the conversation back to
George. They discussed a trip to the hardware store the next day to
pick out flowers and shrubs for the front yard.

~~~~~

There were so many alarms going off in my
head the second I walked through the door the previous night, but
there was no way I could have known, or ever suspected her of being
so cruel. Even when it became obvious that this was her doing, it
was still difficult to understand what really happened.

“Well, I guess you won’t be in any condition
to go to your
boyfriend’s
tonight, will you?” Carol jeered,
poking her head in the bathroom the next morning. She closed the
door behind her, leaving me in my misery.

A cold sweat broke out across my forehead and
down my back, right before my stomach convulsed. My body quivered
at the exertion that kept me up throughout the night. I collapsed
on the floor, pleading for death, or at least sleep. How could I
possibly have anything left in my stomach after being in here for
an entire night?

“You should call them to let them know you
won’t be able to make it,” Carol bellowed through the door. I
glared in contempt at the closed door, wishing she’d fall off a
cliff.

I pushed myself up to sit against the
bathtub, covering my face with my shaking hands. I lifted myself
from the floor and groaned when every muscle in my body screamed in
agony. My stomach turned again, and I leaned over the toilet.
Nothing happened, so I slowly straightened to walk to the phone in
the kitchen.

The effort to move was unbearable. My head
was unsteady on my shoulders as I dragged my body through the
kitchen, cradling my stomach. When I reached the phone, I realized
I didn’t have Evan’s number memorized. I groaned at the thought of
having to get it from my room. Then I noticed a piece of paper on
the counter that had “Mathews” scribbled in her writing. The phone
number was written beneath it. How did she have their number?

I pressed the numbers on the keypad,
anticipating the voice on the other end. The anxiety agitated my
stomach; I clutched it with my free arm as it began to roll. The
phone rang several times before it was picked up.

“Hello?” Evan answered on the other end.

“Evan,” I said in a voice I barely
recognized.

“Emma?” Evan confirmed, concern resounding in
his voice. “Are you okay?”

“I am so sick,” I rasped. “I have a stomach
bug or something. I’m so sorry I won’t be able to come to dinner
tonight.”

“Do you need me to come get you?” he offered
in alarm, skeptical of my explanation.

“No, really,” I pleaded. “I just need to go
to bed.” My stomach gurgled in warning, and I knew I couldn’t stay
on the phone.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning?” he confirmed
softly.

“Mmm,” I groaned in affirmation before
hanging up the phone and rushing back to the bathroom.

There was nothing left in me, but my body was
determined to purge any trace of whatever it was that had invaded
it. The convulsions left me weak and trembling. By the time night
came around, I was finally able to make it to my bed, where I
curled up under the covers and wished I wouldn’t wake up again if
this was how I was going to feel. But I woke up anyway.

I somehow managed to prepare for school the
next morning. I knew that I wasn’t allowed to stay home alone, and
the repercussions of having Carol or George miss a day of work were
more than I could fathom. I showered and wrapped my wet hair in a
low knot above my neck. I sipped a glass of water, hoping it would
relieve the trembling, before making my way out the door.

I practically collapsed in Evan’s car,
wanting so much to be under my covers again. I pulled my knees into
me and buried my face in my arms. He didn’t say anything for a full
minute after we pulled away from my house. But a minute was all it
took for my stomach to register that I’d attempted to put something
in it.