Stolen Breaths (21 page)

“Oh hey, Lily,” he said when he saw me. “How’s it going?”

“Fine. Listen, have you seen Cooper, Joe or Hayden?”

“Yeah, I think I saw them walk to the back. Check Joe’s office.”

I made my way through the noisy crowd until I reached the back hallway. Joe’s office was at the end and I saw light seeping through the cracked door. When I inched my way closer I heard voices. Muffled at first, but then becoming decipherable.

“Don’t give me any shit. She saw you!”

Peeking through the door, I saw Cooper standing tall over the man who I recognized as the man who, with mere words, brought back the trauma I had buried deep.

“Warren, I’m not gonna ask you again. You will talk to me one way or another.”

Warren?

Joe and Hayden stood alongside Cooper, all three looking particularly intimidating. Cooper had his arms folded in front of his chest with his legs slightly apart. Joe looked like he was ready to bang Warren’s head on the table if he didn’t start talking. Hayden was leaning against the wall with one foot propped flat against it, the other foot flat against the floor and both hands shoved into his front pockets.

The man took stock of the three men standing over him before bringing his hands up to his face. “It wasn’t me,” he said. “It was my twin brother.” He brought his hands back down and set them flat on the table. “My brother had rage issues. I tried getting him help. IED, is what they called it. Intermittent Explosive Disorder. He was given medication to help control his rages, but he would refuse to take it most of the time.” Warren brought his hands back up to his face and traced along his jaw line. “He’s been kicked out of every place he’s ever lived. I didn’t know where he was or how he was living. He showed back up a few months ago after being gone for several years. He told me that he hurt someone really bad – a girl. He told me where and when and I remembered hearing about that and reading it in the paper when it happened. I had hoped that because he was telling me everything it was because he wanted to turn himself in – confess to his crime, but I was wrong. When I told him he needed to turn himself in, he flew into another rage. I didn’t know how to help him. I never did. How do you help someone who refuses the help?”

“How long have you known? Why haven’t
you
gone to the police, Warren? What, you’re just gonna let him wander around out there so he can hurt someone else? He would have
killed
Lily if I hadn’t been there! I can’t believe you can sit there so calmly like he can’t hurt anyone else!”

“He can’t.” It was barely audible but that’s what I thought I heard Warren say. Warren’s head started to sag and his shoulders were moving up and down.
Is he crying?

“Can’t? What do you mean he can’t? What are you talking about?!” I could sense Cooper’s frustration, but Hayden and Joe were still taking a back seat to this interrogation, only stepping in when necessary, which apparently hadn’t happened yet.

When Warren didn’t answer, Cooper pushed his chair back, grabbed him by the shirt collar, and yanked him up, feet dangling. Cooper’s face was inches from his.

“You better start talking or I’m going to have some issues of my own.” Cooper wasn’t yelling or even ranting. He was calm. Scary calm. And yet the intimidation meter was fully pegged. He set him back down onto the chair haphazardly and stepped back, re-folded his arms across his chest and waited.

Warren attempted to straighten himself back out but took one look at Cooper and decided against it.

“My brother is dead. He can’t hurt anyone else. He died the night he came back and told me what he had done. He took off in his car and I never saw him again. An officer showed up at my door and told me there had been an accident. He said my brother was speeding and hit another car head on. Both cars were split in half, both drivers killed on impact.” He looked up at Cooper, then Joe, and then to Hayden with tear soaked eyes. “The last thing my brother did on this earth was kill someone. But I know that he can’t ever hurt anyone else again.”

“When did this happen?” Cooper asked.

“Four months ago.” He kept his head down. “I know what you’re thinking,” nodding his head in confirmation. “He killed her father when he slammed into his car.”

“No…” I gasped, struggling for air. All four men turned to see me standing in the doorway. Cooper rushed toward me and then like before, everything went black.

Sadness
.

It was all around me. It was all I could feel. It consumed me. It was in the air I breathed. It sank me to the deepest pit of hell, swept me off my feet and knocked me to the ground. It was unforgiving, unapologetic. Cruel. Its torturous peril enveloped me and seeped into every pore of my skin. It surrounded me and wrapped me in knots so I couldn’t escape its grip. It owned me.

Sadness
.

There should be another word for what I felt. Maybe there was, but I didn’t have the wherewithal to conjure the care to even attempt to find one. I was empty and if the world were to open up and swallow me I would welcome it. But I was stuck with
sadness
until then.

My lungs tried to take in air but the air was saturated with heartache and all I could breathe in was pain. It entered my body and cut me from the inside out, leaving my body a heaving pile of aching bones. It left me nothing but sorrow, grasping and clinging to my new reality. A reality I didn’t want.

A reality of stolen breaths.

I shook my head in an attempt to rebel against the sadness. I stood up and rushed for the door. I needed to get the hell out of there and I needed to get the hell out of there
now
. Cooper rose with me and held on to me like he was afraid I would faint again. I wasn’t going to faint, but I was going to stop breathing if I didn’t leave this room in the next five seconds.

“Baby, wait.”

I clutched my purse and spun around to face Cooper, making sure I didn’t make eye contact with
Warren
.

“Cooper, I have to go. You have to get me out of here. I need to not be here. I
can’t
be here.” My voice was shaking and my body started trembling uncontrollably.

Cooper immediately took charge and got me out of that room. He guided me down the hall, through the bar, and put me in his car, even securing my seatbelt before closing my door and sliding into the driver’s seat. All the while my mind was playing a movie in my head and someone had pushed the fast-forward button. Images of Daddy and me beginning at my earliest memories and playing straight through to the present. Birthdays, Father-Daughter dances, holidays, late night talks, ice cream runs. Then, like a punch to the gut, those images were replaced with the memories of telephone calls, funeral homes, caskets, gravesides, and
sadness
.

I pulled my knees up to my chest, placed my hands over my ears, and began to rock, keeping my eyes squeezed closed, doing everything I could to shut it out – shut it all out.

Stop it. Stop it. Stop it
.

I could feel the anger bubbling up inside of me. I wanted to punch something. Hit something. Scream at something. I rocked faster and I could feel myself clenching my hair in my fists as I tried to tamp down the madness raging inside of my head.

It’s not working
.
It’s not working
.

“Stop the car, Cooper.”

“Baby, we’re almost—”

“Stop the car, Cooper!”

“Lily, listen to me…”

I unclicked my seatbelt and pulled the handle on the door, pushing it open about the time Cooper swerved and skidded onto the side of the road, blowing gravel and dirt up in the air. He threw the car in park and I jumped out and start running down the road, ignoring his pleas to stop. I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going. I just knew that I needed air. I needed to breathe.

I needed to scream.

I could feel Cooper coming up behind me long before I ever saw him. Sensing that he’d try to get me to stop my freak-out moment, I ran faster, speeding up, still feeling caged and unable to breathe. His footsteps were hurried, his breathing heavy.

“Don’t stop me, Cooper. Just leave me alone!”

“I’m not trying to stop you. Scream, Lily! Let it out! Here, hit me.”

“What?! I don’t want to hit you!”

“Damn it, Lily, hit me! I want you to. Take it out on me! I know you need to hit something. I’d rather you hit me! Hit me damn it!”

“NO!”

“You don’t deserve any of this, Lily! You’re the best person I’ve ever known. I want so much to take all of this away from you. I want for you to never know what a broken heart feels like. I want so much to be able to erase everything bad that’s ever happened to you! I can’t. I can’t do anything to remove the past. But I know what you need right now – in this moment. That son of bitch killed your father! Get angry about it!”

“I
am
angry!”

“Good! Show me how angry you are!”

“What do you want me to do, huh?
God,
I want to…” I clenched my fists together tightly and bent over to grab a handful of dirt and rocks. I threw it in the air. “WHAT IS IT YOU WANT ME TO DO?”

“I WANT YOU TO FUCKING SCREAM!”

“I’m afraid!”

“Of what?”

“I’m afraid of myself! I want to…” I stopped myself from saying it out loud.

“Just say it. Say it, Lily!”

“I want to kill the son of a bitch! I want to bring him back to life so
I
can kill him!” Then the flood gates opened. I screamed. I screamed until it felt like I’d swallowed razor blades. I screamed until I could feel the veins in my head bulging around my temples. I screamed until I realized that I had clenched my fists so tight that my fingernails had dug deeply enough into my skin to draw blood. “I’m so ANGRRRYYYYY!” I shouted it so loud that it made my head hurt. “I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM!
I HATE HIM
!”

Cooper’s arms wrapped around me, but I wasn’t done yet.

“No, Cooper!” I wiggled and squirmed to break free. I wanted to keep walking down that road and I wanted to be left alone. He let go and then tried to hold me again. This time I pushed him off! “NO!”

“Hit me,” he said calmly, stepping toward me again.

I said nothing that time, turning away from him to walk away again. He grabbed me by my shoulder and spun me around. All at once I lunged into Cooper. I shoved him and beat my fists on his chest.
“I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM!”
I scream and I scream and I scream. Bloodcurdling, deep to the bone screams.

Deep, ugly cries escaped and I slid down Cooper’s body, unable to hold myself up any longer. “I hate him, Cooper. I h-h-hate him –s-s-so much.” Before I could touch the ground Cooper had me locked in his arms. I wailed in agony, afraid that I’d be forever stuck in this ocean of sadness and burning hate. He sat us down in the dirt and held me while I sobbed. He rocked me in his arms on the side of the road for what seemed like hours. I don’t know how long I cried or how long I shook and trembled but we didn’t move until every shudder and tremble faded to a quiet vibration of cried out exhaustion.

He stood us up and he carried me back to his car, gently setting me down in the passenger’s seat and securing the seatbelt for me. He entered his side and secured his own seatbelt, and for a minute, he didn’t move or say anything. He was looking straight ahead, staring at nothing in particular.

I touched his arm. “I’m so sorry, Cooper.” My voice was small and weak.

He slowly turned and looked at me. “What? No, Lily. Don’t be sorry. Don’t ever be sorry. You’ve done nothing to be sorry for. You hear me? Nothing.”

“I didn’t want you to hear the thoughts in my head, Cooper. I didn’t want you to know I felt this way. Am I a monster? For having these thoughts and these feelings? I don’t even know who I am anymore.” I looked out my window, not knowing if I could look Cooper in the eye.

He brushed his fingers across my cheek. “I know who you are, Lil. You’re my angel. You don’t have a mean bone in your body. You’re hurting and you have every right to feel what you feel. Your father was taken from you by the very man who nearly took you from him. From me. I hate him too, Lil. We share that. We do. And I’m glad. I want to share everything with you.” He turned my face toward his. “I want you to look at me when I tell you this. Look me right in the eyes, baby, and hear what I’m saying… I would rather walk through hell with you every day than spend one day in heaven without you. I love you, Lily. If you need to yell and scream then yell and scream. And when you’re done I’ll hold you in my arms and make sure you never forget that you are the reason I was put on this earth. It was an ugly twisted road, but this – you and me – we were always meant to find each other. And I was always meant to love you.”

Two Weeks Later

“How are you feeling, Lily?” Dr. Connelly asked. “No more nightmares?”

“I’m feeling okay.” And I was. Better than okay actually. A smile ghosted across my face when I remembered the little handwritten note Cooper left for me after breakfast:

Have a good rest of the morning Precious. I’ll meet you at Dr. Connelly’s office this afternoon.

-C

P.S. I love you more than the tide loves the moon.

“And no. No more nightmares,” I said, realizing my smile still tickled the corner of my lips.

“You’ve come a long way since our first visit. A lot has happened. I’m happy with your progress. Are you still writing in the journal I gave you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Did you bring it with you?”

“I did.”

“Remember I asked you to write a letter to your father. Would you mind reading me what you wrote?”

I pulled out my journal and opened it to the last entry. “Okay.”

Dear Daddy,

My therapist thought it would be good for me to write you a letter. Maybe she’s right, because I have so much I want to say to you. So, I’m supposed to write about my feelings and as I think of what to say to you first I must admit that I’ve been mad at you. I didn’t even realize it until now. But I have been. You left me alone and I wasn’t ready for you to go. I thought we would have more time together. You haven’t fulfilled all of your daddy obligations to me yet. You were supposed to be here with me so you could walk me down the aisle when I get married. Who’s going to do that now? And who’s going to play the part of grandfather to my children? You always told me how you were going to enjoy spoiling them. Who’s going to spoil them now? We talked about this, remember? We didn’t have a plan B. You weren’t supposed to leave yet. This wasn’t supposed to happen.