Reason to Breathe (33 page)

“Oh, Emma,” Sara whispered in alarm behind
me.

“Hi Sara,” Carol bellowed with sickening
charm. “I was driving home from my mother’s and thought I’d pick up
Emily on the way. Thank you for letting her stay with you.” I felt
Sara squeeze my arm, her panic was obvious. I kept staring at the
woman with the wide smile, unable to breathe.

“Come on, Emily, don’t just stand there.” I
stumbled down the front stairs, afraid to look back at Sara, but
feeling the weight of the cell phone in my jacket pocket. I let the
car devour me as I shut the passenger door, staring straight ahead.
My body tightened and shrunk away from her, trapped in the confined
space.

Silence stung my ears, as I waited for her
words, her accusations and insults. But there was nothing. Then
again, she didn’t need words when my head collided against the side
window with a sudden thrust of her hand. My head rung with an
involuntary grunt of pain.

“You don’t breathe unless I tell you you can.
You seem to have forgotten whose house you’re living in. You’ve
pushed it too fucking far, and it’s over. Don’t go behind my back
again.”

We were pulling into the driveway before I
could let her words sink in.

When we entered the kitchen, Amanda, our
thirteen year old neighbor, said left the kids playing upstairs and
went home.

I continued down the hall and stopped,
staring at the door leading to my room. The door was closed, and it
was never closed when I wasn’t home – one of Carol’s irrational
rules. I approached slowly and cautiously pushed the door open,
letting out a defeated breath. I faltered through the doorway,
looking around in horrified dismay.

The closet door stood ajar, and the crawl
space in the back was a vacant hole. Remnants of what it once
protected were spewed at me feet.

“You think you’re so smart,” Carol accused.
My back tensed as every nerve hummed beneath my skin. I turned to
find her leaning against the door frame with her arms crossed, and
I instinctively took a couple steps back, my bag sliding from my
shoulder, dropping to the floor.

“I can see right through you, and you’re not
going to divide us.” I was perplexed, unable to make sense of her
accusations. “He will always choose me. I wanted to remind you of
that.”

“Carol,” I heard George yell anxiously from
the back door.

“I’m here,” Carol hollered back with a
distraught voice. She backed away from my door and caught George in
an embrace. I watched the drama unfold, unable to predict the
ending.

“George, I don’t know what got into her,”
Carol flailed, burying her head in his shoulder. George attempted
to peer around Carol to see into my room. “She burst in yelling
that she’s tired of being here, and how horrible we are to her.
Then she locked herself in her room. That’s when I called you. She
was scaring me and the kids.”

What?! What was she doing?

“I finally convinced her to open the door and
… well, you can see for yourself.” Carol released him from her
desperate grasp, allowing George to enter. His concern changed to
anger as he viewed the repercussions of
my rage
.

He looked from the destruction of my things
to my stunned face and back down again. I thought I caught him
wince when he saw the shattered glass and torn picture of him and
his brother crushed on the floor. I couldn’t move as I watched his
anger grow.

“What did you do?” he bellowed. “How could
you do this?” My mouth dropped, shocked by his reaction. How could
he think I did this? His face turned red as he scanned my torn
canvases, along with shreds of smiles and small chubby baby hands
and feet strewn everywhere.

George moved to me before I could react. He
grabbed my arms and started shaking me. He struggled with the words
between his clenched teeth, gripping my arms tighter. The tears
flowed down my cheeks as I tried to speak.

“I…,” I wept.

I was interrupted with a startling sting on
my cheek. The force knocked me to the floor. I grabbed the spot
where his hand had connected and looked down at the floor,
stunned.

“If you weren’t my brother’s daughter, I’d…”
he began. I tilted my head up toward him. His face was so red, it
was almost purple as he shook with fury. Behind the rage, I thought
I recognized sadness in his eyes. “You are not going anywhere for
the next week. No sports, no newspaper, nothing. I cannot believe
you did this!”

His sorrow broke through when he murmured,
“He was my brother.” Carol watched him leave in confusion, or
perhaps it was disappointment when his reaction wasn’t as severe as
she’d intended. As soon as he disappeared, she peered down at me
and grinned in contempt.

“This is not over,” she threatened. “Clean
this up, and get your chores done before I get home.”

She shut the door, leaving me with the
destruction of her hate. Everything I had that was mine - that was
truly mine - was in pieces around me. I picked up the images of my
parents and baby pictures of me and tried to find a way to fit them
together. I let the broken pieces fall through my fingers and
collapsed into a fit of tears. This pain was sharper than any slap
or blow. She had taken the evidence that there was a time when I
was happy and obliterated it, leaving only the memories.

I sat up when I heard a knock and looked to
the door, but the sound wasn’t right – it was more of a tapping. I
looked around and found that it was coming from the window. No,
please don’t
tell me
. I closed my eyes as the tap hit the
window again. I wiped my face and rushed to open the window before
the tapping repeated, and they heard it.

“You can’t be here,” I whispered
desperately.

“What happened? I wanted to make sure you’re
okay.”

“Evan, leave.” My voice was urgent as I
pleaded with him to go.

“Why is your face red? Did he hit you?”

“You can’t be here,” I stressed. “Please,
please just go.” Tears rolled down my cheeks as I frantically
looked from his face to the door, expecting it to open at any
minute.

He gazed past me, extended onto his toes, to
see into my room.

“What happened, Emma?” he gasped at the
devastating scene.

“You’re only going to make it worse.
Please
leave.” I tried to position my body between his eyes
and my room.

“I’m picking you up Monday so that you can
tell me what this is all about,” he insisted.

“Fine, just leave,” I begged.

Evan finally acknowledged the pleading in my
eyes and the urgency in my voice and backed away from the window.
He hesitated, but I closed the window and pulled down my shade
before he could say anything else.

I turned back to my broken world and knelt
amongst its remains. I heard Carol say she’d be back soon and knew
I didn’t have time to mourn. I found a backpack in which to place
the fragments of my pictures and letters from my mother, refusing
to throw them away. I tossed the broken frames and sliced canvasses
in a trash bag.

I mindlessly performed my list of chores. I
was secured in this desolate state when I retreated to my room. I
slid onto the floor with my back against my bed and stared at the
blank wall across from me. The ache in my chest was curtained
behind the numbness.

If I hadn’t been able to admit it before now,
I knew in this moment that I hated Carol. I clenched my jaw,
pushing away the destructive screams that raged in my head. My
nails dug into the palms of my hands, wanting so much to release
the emotion. Instead I gasped and collapsed into chest-heaving
sobs.

Her malevolence threatened to penetrate the
only sanctity I had left, and I moaned in pain at how close she had
come to crushing me. Was I really strong enough to not let her
break me? Six hundred and nine days suddenly felt like a life
sentence. Would I be able to recognize myself when I was finally
released?

I sat in the closet and dialed Sara’s
number.

“Em, are you okay?” Sara asked in a single
breath.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I whispered.

“You sound so sad. What did she do?”

“I can’t talk about it right now. But I
wanted you to hear from me like I promised.”

“Evan came over this morning.”

I didn’t say anything.

“He was really upset and wanted to know what
was happening, and if you were being hurt. He was basically
screaming at me to tell him. I didn’t, I swear, but he’s insisting
on picking you up on Monday. I wanted to warn you. I can be there
too, so you can go with me instead if you want.”

“No, it’s okay,” I mumbled. I knew I’d have
to face him eventually.

“Emma, whatever happened there this morning,
I am so sorry,” she said softly.

“I’ll see you Monday,” I whispered and hung
up the phone.

I didn’t leave my room except to sneak out to
use the bathroom. I heard the murmur of voices and the glee of the
kids in the dining room. Not too long after, singing carried
through the wall from the television followed by a quick rap on my
door.

“Your uncle and I would like to speak with
you.” I watched her leave as I sat at the desk, hovering over my
Chemistry book. I pushed the chair back and allowed my legs to
carry my shell to the kitchen.

George and Carol stood on one side of the
island, waiting for me. The remnants of grief remained in George’s
eyes while the smirk of victory reflected in Carol’s.

“Your uncle and I wanted you to know how
heartbroken you made us when you chose to act out and destroy your
things. We are sorry you don’t feel happy here since we’ve done
everything to provide you with whatever it is you’ve asked. You
play sports and are part of the school’s clubs. We think we’ve been
very accommodating.

“I thought we should ban you from all of your
privileges for the remainder of the year.” My eyes widened, and my
throat closed.

“But your uncle has decided to be generous
and allow you to be a part of the school activities, hoping it will
make you a better person. But you will not be doing anything at all
for the next week. You’ll have to find a way to explain this to
your coach and other teachers, and we better not hear that you’ve
blamed us in any way. This is your own doing, and you need to own
up to that.

“Since we aren’t able to trust you to be home
by yourself, you’ll go to the library after school. You can have
whoever it is who’s chauffeuring you around these days drop you off
at the house. You can ride your bike to and from the library. I
arranged this with the head librarian, Marcia Pendle, this
afternoon. She will sign you in and out every day. She has a desk
for you to use, so you’re in her sight the entire time. Don’t even
think about trying anything. If we hear that you weren’t there or
didn’t cooperate, you
will
lose basketball for the season.
Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I murmured.

“Your destruction has hurt your uncle a great
deal, and we think it’s best that during the next couple of weeks,
you allow him to find a way to forgive you. So you should stay out
of sight while you’re in the house. I’ll let you know when we’re
done with dinner, because you are not getting out of your
obligations. We’ll have a plate set aside for you to eat before you
do the dishes. But other than that, you will stay in your room.
Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Now, what do you have to say to your uncle?”
She pursed her lips to try to conceal her smirk. I tightened my
eyes in disgust before I could mask my loathing. “Well?”

I whispered, “I’m sorry you were hurt.”

I wasn’t lying, but I wasn’t apologizing for
something I didn’t do either. He only nodded in acceptance.

I was banned to my room for the remainder of
the weekend. As uneventful as it was, it was better than being
anywhere near Carol. It gave me time to think about what I was
going to say to my basketball coach and the other teachers. I
couldn’t come up with anything other than a vague explanation of
obligations at home that I hoped they wouldn’t question too
much.

I couldn’t think about Evan, and what I’d say
to him on Monday. Every time I thought of him, and what he’d seen
on Friday night, and then again on Saturday morning, I felt
miserable. He saw a glimpse of
my
world, and I didn’t like
how it reflected back in his eyes.

23.
Silence

I remained
silent in the passenger seat. I couldn’t even bring myself to look
at him.

Evan drove to the end of my street before he
asked, “How are you?”

“Humiliated,” I answered, looking out the
window.

The quiet settled in again for a few minutes
before he asked, “Are you mad at me for checking on you?”

“You shouldn’t have,” I answered
honestly.

“You’re not going to tell me what happened,
are you?”

“I can’t. You saw more than enough.”

He pulled into the same drugstore parking lot
as before, and parked the car.

“Evan, I really don’t want to talk about it,”
I insisted, finally looking at him.

“That’s what’s bothering me. Why can’t you
trust me?” His troubled eyes searched mine for an explanation.

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“That has
everything
to do with it,”
he said emphatically. “I thought we were past that.”

“I’m sorry you thought that,” I said
stoically. He pulled back as if my words burned him.

“So, you don’t trust me to know what’s going
on with you at home?” After hesitating for a moment, he added, “You
never planned to let me in did you?” His voice grew stronger as he
spoke, almost angry.

I couldn’t find the words to agree with him,
knowing it would only make him more upset.

“What was I thinking?” he asked himself in a
whisper. “I thought you were stronger than this.” His words bit,
and my heart flinched. “I can’t believe you let them treat you like
this.”