Reason to Breathe (10 page)

“I don’t care about the sweater,” she
replied. “What are you guys doing out there? You must be freezing.”
Evan joined us under the deck.

“Getting some fresh air,” Evan answered with
a smile. He was rubbing his arms, registering the cold.

“You’re a bad influence on her,” Sara scowled
at Evan, which turned into a smile. She wasn’t good at being mad -
probably as bad at it as I was at delivering my forced smiles.

“Ready to go?” she asked me.

“Where’s Jason?” I asked, not sure if I
should be concerned.

“He rode home with one of the football
players,” she explained with a twinkle in her eye. I knew I was
going to get a good story in the car.

“Let’s walk around the house,” I suggested.
“I’d rather not go back inside.”

We ran to Sara’s car, trying to avoid being
in the rain as much as we could. When we got in, Sara started the
engine and turned on the heat full blast. Evan leaned against my
door, remaining in the rain while waiting for me to roll down the
window.

He bent down to peer in through the opening.
The water ran down his artistically structured face, dripping off
the tip of his nose over his shivering blue lips. My breath escaped
me as I took in his steel blue eyes.

“Can I call you tomorrow?”

“You can’t actually,” I grimaced. He looked
confused. “It’s complicated. I don’t exactly have phone
privileges.” I hated to say it out loud, but I didn’t want him to
think I was rejecting him.

The questioning look didn’t quite leave his
eyes, but he tried to respond understandingly, “Okay, then I’ll see
you Monday.”

“Yeah, Monday.”

He lingered a second too long, and I couldn’t
breathe again.

“Good night,” I finally exhaled. “Get out of
the rain before you freeze to death.” He stood up and casually
raised his hand to wave as I rolled up the window. He ran back into
the house.

“No way! Was he going to kiss you?” Sara
shrieked, breaking my lingering stare. “Emma, I swear if I wasn’t
in the car, he would have kissed you.”

“No, he wouldn’t have,” I dismissed her. My
heart collapsed at the thought of Evan leaning in just a little
closer. I shook it off.

“You need to share details,” she demanded as
we pulled onto the road.

“You first,” I insisted.

Sara didn’t hesitate. The entire ride home,
she gushed about her time with Jason.

It was dark inside her house when we walked
in.

“I think we beat my parents home.”

“What time is it?” I asked, having no idea
how much time had passed since we left the house earlier in the
evening.

“Eleven thirty.”

It was earlier than I thought. That meant I
was only at the party for a little over an hour. It seemed so much
longer. But now that I looked back at it, I didn’t really do much.
Evan and I didn’t have a real conversation the whole time we were
there. I was too busy trying to avoid being grappled by drunken
idiots.

I got ready for bed and scrubbed at the
remaining make-up that the rain hadn’t already washed away. If I
were caught wearing makeup, I would probably need it to hide what
Carol would do to me if she saw any traces of it.

Last year, Sara had given me a few samples of
lipsticks she didn’t want. I tried them on, but ended up wiping the
colors off with a tissue. When I returned from practice that
evening, Carol confronted me with the tissues removed from the
bathroom trash with accusations that I was trying to sneak around
wearing make-up behind her back after she had already told me it
wasn’t allowed. She called me a whore and other derogatory names as
she squeezed my cheeks together so tightly in her hand that my
teeth ground into the soft tissue until they bled.

So I’d rather have raw skin from scrubbing
off the evidence than to face a second round over the make-up
issue.

As we lay in the dark, Sara insisted, “You
have to tell me what happened with you and Evan tonight.”

II had hoped that Sara would be so lost in
her night with Jason that she'd forget all about me, and we could
avoid this conversation. No such luck.

I stared into the darkness above me, not
certain where to begin.

“I talked to him,” I confessed. I was quiet
for a moment.

“Please don’t make me drag this out of
you.”

“I found out he’s from San Francisco and that
he may move back if he doesn’t like it here.” I added, “I can only
hope.”

“What do you mean?” She sounded confused. “It
looked like you guys really connected from where I was sitting -
you know, his almost kissing you.” My cheeks warmed at the mention
of the close proximity of his face to mine when we said good
night.

“Sara, I can’t do this,” my voice grew
stronger. “I barely talked to him. He spent most of the night
rescuing me from drunken hormonal gorillas. It was pretty
pathetic.

“I don’t want to like him. I don’t want there
to be anymore moments where he may kiss me. I need to stay away
from him.”

“I am so confused,” Sara confessed. “I
thought we had a plan. And who was hitting on you? Now I feel bad
that
I
wasn’t there.”

“Don’t,” I said with an edge to my voice.
“That’s just it. I don’t want to be protected or looked after. I
should be so much stronger than to need you or Evan Mathews to
stand up for me. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to look at
him on Monday.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Sara said quietly.
I heard the hurt in her voice. “I know you don’t want me protecting
you, you’ve made that clear way before tonight. But I feel bad
because I knew how hard tonight was going to be for you, and from
the sounds of it, it was pretty horrible. I should’ve been there as
your friend, that’s all.”

“But it shouldn’t be horrible, Sara. It was
just a stupid party, and I freaked. I could barely function.” I
sighed in frustration. I was glad it was dark so she couldn’t see
the tears welling in my eyes. I clenched my jaw and swallowed the
lump in my throat. I took a calming breath to be rid of the
dizzying emotion, while wiping my cheeks dry. Safe again, I turned
away from Sara.

“I’m sorry, Sara,” I said softly. “It’s been
a long day, and I’m being ridiculous. We have to get up early so I
can get home to do my chores. Let’s just get some sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered.

I was afraid that sleep wouldn’t come easily,
but with all that my psyche had fought throughout the day, I was
exhausted.

7.
Repercussions

It took me a few blinks to remember where I
was when I woke up in the queen bed, with the sunlight beaming
behind the shaded skylights. I rolled over to find Sara in the bed
across from me, still asleep with the down comforter pulled up
around her. She groaned as the alarm beeped to wake us so that I
could get home in time to do my weekend chores.

She grumbled, flopping her hand down on the
snooze button. She revealed her blue eyes reluctantly, peering over
at me with her head still on her pillow. “Hey.”

“Sorry you have to get up so early,” I
offered, with my head propped up by my elbow.

“I know how it is,” she replied with
stretched arms above her head. “Em, I’m really sorry I bailed on
you last night.”

I shrugged, not wanting to think about it.
“It’s not like I’ll be going to another party any time soon.”

“True. So, Evan, huh? This is really
happening, isn’t it?” Sara ran her fingers through her long hair as
she sat up in the bed, propping a pillow behind her.

“Not really,” I contradicted. “I mean, I’m
talking to him, or was. Who knows what he’ll think of me after last
night.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s still interested.
Please don’t give up on him. I don’t know all that happened last
night, but I still think he’s good for you. Give him a chance. Try
to be friends, or at least use him as an emotional punching bag. He
seems to be able to handle the backlashes that you can’t unleash on
anyone else.” She said it like being reprimanded by me was a
privilege. She studied my face with a soft smile to make sure I
understood.

I returned a half smile, trying to digest her
words.

Knowing I wasn’t going to say anything, she
flipped back the covers and swung her feet to the floor. “Well
let’s get you back to hell before the devil realizes you’re not
home.” It would have been funny, except that it was too close to
the truth for me to laugh.

When I walked in the back door, the house was
strangely quiet. With George’s truck missing from the driveway, I
guessed he and the kids were getting the Saturday morning donuts
and coffee. That meant she was here, somewhere - my stomach
dropped. I focused on getting to my room without having to see
her.

Just outside my door, I was abruptly stopped
in my tracks with a sharp pain shrieking through my head. I winced
as her claw dug deeper into the fistful of my hair, tugging my head
back so that my neck snapped awkwardly, forced to face the ceiling.
She hissed in my ear, “Did you think I wouldn’t find out that you
went out last night? What did you do, screw the entire football
team?”

With an unexpected amount of force, she
thrust my head forward without giving me a second to resist. The
front of my skull collided with the doorframe. A thunderous bolt
shot through my head as the hall blurred around me. Black dots
filled my eyes as I attempted to focus. Before I could find center,
her vise grip tore the hair from my scalp and drove my head into
the hard wood again. The corner of the frame connected with the
left side of my forehead. The stinging burn above my eye gave way
to a flow of warmth that ran down my cheek.

“I regret every second you’re in my house,”
Carol growled with contempt. “You’re a worthless pathetic tramp,
and if it wasn’t for your uncle, I would have shut the door in your
face when your drunken mother abandoned you. It says a lot when
she
can’t even stand you.” I slid down the wall, collapsing
on the floor with my bags by my side. Something landed on my knees.
I made out my navy blue soccer jersey from Thursday’s game crumpled
on my lap.

“Clean yourself up before they see you, and
get rid of the stench in the basement. You’d better be done with
your chores and out of my sight by the time I get back from grocery
shopping,” she threatened before disappearing.

I heard the truck pull into the driveway and
the doors closing, followed by the excited voices nearing the back
door. I didn’t want them to see me either, so I clumsily tossed my
bags through the open door of my room and pushed myself to my feet.
I stumbled into the bathroom with the support of the wall, as I
heard Leyla announce, “Mom, we have donuts!”

I pressed the shirt against the left side of
my head, trying to stop the bleeding as the cut pulsed under my
hand. My head pounded as I tried to regain control of my balance.
The sensation that I was about to lose consciousness seized me. I
gripped the sink, fighting to focus, as I took deep even breaths. A
minute passed before I was able to stand up straight. The dizziness
subsided but the claw of pain dug into my head.

I slowly let up pressure. The side of my face
was covered with blood that ran down my neck, seeping into the
collar of my turtleneck. I couldn’t quite tell where the opening
was. I took a few tissues and exchanged them with the shirt so I
could run the shirt under cold water.

I wiped the drying blood from my face with
the damp jersey and revealed the small incision above my left
eyebrow. It wasn’t very big, but it didn’t want to stop bleeding. I
applied more pressure with the shirt as I searched in the medicine
cabinet for bandages. I pulled out two butterfly bandages and
applied them to the gash, pulling the sides together so it could
heal - hopefully leaving a minimal scar.

In the center of my forehead, along my hair
line, was a large lump that was already turning purple. I couldn’t
bring myself to touch it – the unwavering pain was making my eyes
water. I knew I needed to put ice on it but couldn’t figure out how
to do that without being seen.

I leaned against the wall across from the
mirror and closed my eyes. I couldn’t hold back the tears that
rolled down my cheeks. I struggled to maintain a steady breath so I
wouldn’t cave in to the full out cry that the lump in my throat
yearned for. The images of what happened flashed through my head. I
didn’t hear her come up behind me. She was obviously waiting for
me.

As much I tried to be invisible, she was
inescapable and her wrath was crushing. I wanted nothing more than
to destroy her as I stared into the mirror at my seeping eyes,
aglow with fury.

I looked down at the bloody jersey in my
hand. Her blitz attack had nothing to do with the football game, or
my dirty laundry; it had everything to do with me. I knew all I had
to do was make one phone call, or walk into the school
psychologist’s office and utter one sentence, and this would all be
over.

That’s when I heard the squeal of laughter in
the kitchen from Leyla, accompanied by a chuckle from Jack as she
said something to make them laugh. It would be over for them too,
but in a way that would damage them forever. I couldn’t ruin their
lives. Carol and George truly loved them, and I wouldn’t take them
from their parents. I swallowed hard, determined to compose myself,
but the tears refused to stop.

I opened the cabinets under the sink and
pulled out the cleaning supplies; with my lips quivering and hands
shaking, I scrubbed the tub, swallowing against the sobs. The built
up pressure from keeping the cries contained infuriated the pain in
my head. My whole body ached.

I was back to my numb, emotionless state by
the time I finished cleaning the sink. I blankly stared at the
water running down the drain, rinsing away the chemicals and blood.
My raging thoughts were quiet.