Ten Tiny Breaths (5 page)

My tongue slides over my top teeth.
“Fine.”

Livie’s face brightens. “That’s a yes?”

I shrug, acting nonchalant. Inside, panic is
rising.
Livie’s getting too attached to these people
.
Attachments are bad. Attachments lead to hurt. I make a face. “As
long as she’s not making bologna.”

She giggles and I know it’s more than my lame
joke. She knows I’m trying, and that makes her happy.

I change the subject. “How’s your new school,
by the way?” I’d worked the afternoon shift all week so we haven’t
talked once, besides a few kitchen counter notes.

“Oh … right.” Livie’s face pales like she’s
seen a ghost. She reaches for her backpack, with a glance back to
see Mia busy playing her own card game at the table. “I checked my
email account at school,” she explains as she hands me a piece of
paper.

My back stiffens. I knew this was coming.

Dearest Olivia,

I assume that sister of yours has convinced
you to run off. I can’t possibly understand why but I hope you are
safe. Please send me a message to let me know where you are. I will
come get you and bring you home, where your parents want you to be.
That will make them happy.

I am not upset with you. You are a sheep led
astray by a wolf.

Please let me bring you home. Your uncle and
I miss you terribly.

Love,

Aunt Darla

Heat erupts like a volcano inside as my blood
boils. Not about the wolf comment. I don’t care about that. She’s
called me worse. What I do care about is her using our parents as a
guilt trip, knowing full well it’d hurt Livie. “You didn’t respond,
did you?”

Livie shakes her head solemnly.

“Good,” I push through clenched teeth,
crumpling the note into a tight ball. “Delete your account. Get a
new one. Don’t ever respond to her. Not once, Livie.”

“Okay, Kacey.”

“I mean it!” I hear Mia’s tiny gasp and I
quickly temper my tone. “We don’t need them in our lives.”

There’s a long pause. “She’s not a bad
person. She means well.” Livie’s voice turns soft. “You didn’t
exactly make things easy for her.”

I push down the lump of guilt forming at the
back of my throat, rivaling to take over my anger. “I know that,
Livie. I do, really. But Aunt Darla’s way of ‘meaning well’ doesn’t
work for us.” My hands move to rub my forehead. I’m no idiot. For
the first year after the accident, I put all my effort, focus, and
thought into fixing my body so I could move again. Once released,
my focus moved on to shoving the memories of my former life into a
bottomless well. There were impossible days though—holidays,
birthday, and the like—and I quickly learned that alcohol and
drugs, while capable of destroying lives, also had magical powers;
the power to dull pain. More and more I relied on those weapons
against the constant and overwhelming rush of water swelling over
my head, threatening to drown me.

That and sex. Meaningless, mindless “take
what I want” sex with strangers who I didn’t care about, and who
didn’t care about me. No expectations, at least not on my part.
Guys from parties, guys from school. If it was awkward for them
after, I didn’t care. I never let them get close enough to me to
find out. It was the perfect coping mechanism.

Aunt Darla knew what was going on. She didn’t
know how to handle it. At first she tried connecting me with her
priest so he could confront and rid me of the demons within. This
all had to be the work of demons, after all, according to her. But
when the demons proved resilient to her church’s powers, I think
she decided ignorance was best. “It’s just a phase,” I’d hear her
whisper to Livie with a comforting pat. A disgusting,
self-deprecating phase that she wanted no part of. From that point
on, she put all of her focus on her non-broken niece.

I was fine with that.

Until I woke up to Livie smacking my back to
keep me from choking on my own vomit, tears streaming down her
cheeks, sobbing hysterically, saying over and over again, “Promise
you won’t leave me!” her words a knife stabbing through my
heart.

I stopped everything that night. The
drinking. The drugs. The random sex. The sex, period. I haven’t so
much as looked at a guy since. I’m not sure why. I guess it’s all
linked together in my mind. Luckily, I found a new release with
kick boxing soon after. Livie’s never completely approved or
supported me in this newest addiction but she happily takes it over
the other stuff.

I slam the fridge door, not wanting to think
about Aunt Darla or the depths of my self-destructive past anymore.
“What time’s breakfast?”

“Brunch!” Mia corrects me with a loud sigh of
exasperation.

***

The delicious smells of bacon and coffee
sparks hunger pangs as we follow Mia into her place. I mentally pat
myself on the back for making the right choice. If nothing else,
I’ll have loads of energy for the gym today.

My attention drifts over Storm’s apartment
with a degree of awe. It’s a mirror of ours except it’s
nice
. She’s filled the living room with a dove gray
sectional, sparkly throw cushions, and little glass tables with
pretty crystal lamps. A flat screen television sits on a stylish
teak armoire. The hideous green carpet peeks out beneath a cream
shag rug. Her walls are a light gray and splashed with candid black
and white photos of Mia. Where our apartment looks like a cheap
rental, Storm’s looks like a trendy girlish boutique.

I have to admit, as I sit at the table and
quietly listen to Storm, Livie, and Mia banter back and forth, I’m
starting to like Storm whether I want to or not. Though one would
never know by looking at her, what with those distracting
inflatables on her chest, Storm’s street smart and she acts a lot
older than her twenty-three years. It takes no time to see that.
She’s laid back and she cracks a witty joke here and there in that
soft, but husky voice of hers. She fumbles with her hair a lot, and
laughs easily, and I see nothing but sincerity and interest in her
eyes. For someone so beautiful, she doesn’t come across as vain or
self-absorbed. Mostly she listens though. And watches. Those shrewd
orbs take everything in. I catch her studying the tattoo on my
thigh, narrowing slightly as I’m sure she zeroes in on the hideous
scar beneath. It’s the one major scar that’s not caused by surgery
on my body but from a jagged chunk of flying glass.

She doesn’t ask about it, though, and that
makes me like her even more.

“Oh, man!” Storm exclaims through a yawn,
eyes red and lined with dark purple bags. Leaning on her elbows,
she rubs her face fiercely. “I can’t wait until Mia learns how to
sleep in. At least during the week I can sneak in a mid-morning nap
while she’s at school.”

“Oh, I was going to ask you. Do you mind if I
take Mia to the park down the street?” Livie offers as if she’s
been thinking about it and genuinely forgot. I instantly see what
she’s doing. That’s so Livie. “I won’t let her out of my sight. Not
for a sec, I promise. I’ve got my CPR certification, my junior
lifeguard designation, a thousand hours at a private day care.”
Livie starts rhyming off her impressive resume. “I even have a
printed copy of my resume in our apartment if you want to have a
copy. And references!”
Of course you do, Livie.
“We’ll be
back in, say, four hours, if that’s okay with you?”

“Yeah, Mommy! Say yes!” Mia bounces up and
down on the couch, waving her arms frantically. “Say yes! Yes! Yes!
Mommy, say yes!”

“Okay, okay. Calm down.” Storm laughs,
patting the air. “Of course you can, Livie. You spend so much time
with her as it is, I’m not worried about your credentials. I should
be paying you, though!”

“No. Absolutely not.” Livie brushes her words
away, earning my sharp glare.
Is she nuts? Does she enjoy eating
bologna? Must we move on to Spam?

Livie helps Mia with her shoes. “Bye, Mommy!”
Mia shouts on her way out. Livie avoids making eye contact with me.
It’s like she has a line to my brain and can read my scathing
thoughts.

As soon as the door closes, Storm’s forehead
drops to the table. “I thought I was going to die today. Oh, Kacey.
I swear, your sister’s like an angel fluttering around with little
satin wings and a magical wand. I’ve never met someone like her.
Mia’s already so in love with her.”

The layer of ice over my heart melts. I
decide maybe I can “try” to be friends with Storm Matthews, giant
fake breasts and all.

***

“See you later, Livie,” I grumble, grabbing
my things for Starbucks, a scowl twisting my face.

“Kace …” There’s a long pause. Livie’s gulp
fills the silence in the apartment and I know something’s bothering
her.

“Ugh, Livie!” I roll my head back. “Spit it
out. I don’t want to be late for my stellar job.”

“I think I should have stayed in Grand
Rapids.”

That freezes my feet. Anger sparks inside me
at the thought of my little sister left back there. Not with me.
“Stop saying stupid shit like that, Livie.” I tap her nose, making
her flinch. “Right now. Of course you shouldn’t have stayed in
Grand Rapids.”

“How are we going to survive though?”

“With ten hours of prostitution for each of
us. Maximum.”

“Kacey!”

I sigh, turning serious. “We’ll figure it
out.”

“I can get a job.”

“You need to concentrate on school, Livie.
But …” I waggle my finger at her. “If Storm offers you money again,
take it.”

She’s already shaking her head. “No. I’m not
taking money to hang out with Mia. She’s fun.”

“You’re supposed to be having fun with people
your own age, Livie. Like boys.”

She sets her jaw stubbornly. “When they’re
not idiots, I’ll do that. Until then, five years olds make more
sense.”

I stifle a laugh. That’s part of Livie’s
problem. She’s too smart. Genius smart. She’s never related to kids
her own age. I think she was born with the maturity of a
twenty-five year old. Losing my parents only exacerbated that
problem. She’s grown up too fast.

“What about you? It’s never too late for the
Princeton dream,” she says quietly.

An unattractive snort escapes me. “That dream
died years ago for me, Livie, and you know that. You’ll go, on that
full scholarship you’re going to earn. I’ll apply somewhere local
as soon as I have the money.”
And somehow forge my transcript to
make up two years of appalling grades.

Her brow creases in that worried Livie way.
“Local
,
Kacey? Dad would hate that.” She’s right, he would.
Our dad went to Princeton. His dad when to Princeton. In his view,
I may as well enroll in a school with golden arches for a crest and
take “Flipping Burgers 1-0-1” if I’m not going to Princeton. But
Mom and Dad are gone and Uncle Raymond blew our entire inheritance
on a black jack table.

I remember the night I found out about that
like it was yesterday. It was my nineteenth birthday and I asked
Aunt Darla and Uncle Raymond for our money so we could move out. I
wanted to become Livie’s legal guardian. I knew something was up
when Aunt Darla couldn’t meet my eyes. Uncle Raymond stumbled over
his words before blurting out that there was nothing left.

After smashing almost every dish on the
kitchen counter and jamming my foot into Uncle Raymond’s jugular so
hard his face turned purple, I dialed the cops, ready to charge
them with theft. Livie grabbed the phone from me and hung up before
the call went through. We wouldn’t win. I’d likely be the one
arrested. As smart as Mom and Dad were, they didn’t plan on dying.
All the money left after the debts were paid went to Uncle Raymond
and Aunt Darla to “care” for us. Secretly, I’m kind of glad Uncle
Raymond did all that he did. It gave me another legitimate excuse
to take my sister and leave that part of our lives behind for
good.

I pat Livie’s back, trying to appease her
guilt. “Dad would be happy that we’re safe. End of story.”

***

The next day I’m in the laundromat, when
Storm skips down the steps, smiling but sallow-eyed. Livie took Mia
to the park again and I’m giving serious consideration to smacking
her upside the head for refusing to take money.

“Tanner must have his panties in a bunch over
this.” Storm slides her foot across the sticky green stain left by
my detergent. I duck my head, silently reminding myself to come
back and scrub the floor. The thought of Tanner in any kind of
underwear makes bile rise in my throat.

I quietly continue my sorting until I notice
Storm’s standing there idly, watching me. It’s obvious she wants to
talk to me, but she probably doesn’t know where to start.

“How long have you lived here?” I finally
ask.

I think my voice startles her because she
jumps and begins tossing in Mia’s little t-shirts and tiny pairs of
undies. “Oh, three years, I think? It’s a pretty safe building, but
I still wouldn’t come down here at night.”

Her words bring me back to thoughts of Trent
and the unwanted feelings he elicited so effortlessly. We’ve been
here weeks and I haven’t run into him since. If I dig deep inside,
if I care to pay attention to what I’m trying to bury, I catch a
glimpse of disappointment over that fact. But I quickly crush it
with a hammer and throw it into the well with all other unwanted
feelings.

“What are the other people like in the
building?”

She shrugs. “A lot of people move in and out.
Rent’s cheap so we get a lot of college kids. They’ve all been
nice, especially to Mia. Mrs. Potterage on the third floor helps
babysit after school and when I work. Oh,” she waggles a finger.
“Avoid 2B like the plague. That’s Pervie Pete.”

My head tilts back with a groan. “Fantastic.
No building is complete without a resident perv.”

“Oh, and a new guy moved in next to you.
1D.”