Barely Breathing

“Oh,” I responded, embarrassed by the paranoid thoughts that had raced through my head the entire class. This wasn’t the first time he’d opted for a photography project. My shoulders eased up. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

I opened my locker and started stuffing my books in my backpack.

“We’re sharing the court today for practice,” Evan told me, watching me gather my things. “So we should be able to leave together to go back to your house.”

“Sounds great,” I replied. He gave me a quick kiss and disappeared down the stairs to the locker room.

I lifted my eyes from my Physics book when his thumb ran across my scar. Evan gently grasped my ankle in his hand as we sat facing each other on the couch, attempting to study before dinner. He absently smoothed the marred skin while remaining focused on his History book. A strange tingling spreading up my ankle with each stroke.

He lifted his head and found me watching his hand, but he didn’t remove it.

“Sorry we weren’t able to talk,” I said, resting the open book on my stomach.

“We still can.” He paused, and I watched nervously as he gathered his thoughts, searching for the right words. “When I heard―”

“Do you like broccoli?” my mother yelled from the kitchen, the sound of water filling a pan in the background.

Evan pressed his lips into a smile. “Yes,” he hollered in return.

I raised my eyebrows when he looked at me. “So... you were saying?”

He flipped his eyes toward the kitchen where my mother was moving her hips to the classic rock station coming from the small radio in the window. “It can wait."

"Are you sure?" I tried to read his expression, afraid that waiting was only going to continue to torture him―and me.

"Yes, it can," he assured me, leaning over and kissing me. I put my hands around his neck, not wanting him to move away. He pressed in closer.

"Umm..." my mother cleared her throat. Evan pulled back, and my cheeks caught fire instantly. My mother's face was as red as mine felt. She darted her eyes to the floor and announced, "Dinner's ready."

Just then, the smoke detector went off in the kitchen. I waved my hand and coughed as we entered. My mother attempted to force the window above the sink open, while I grabbed a towel and fanned the screeching alarm. This had practically become routine for us. The alarm had gone off almost every time I’d attempted to cook.

“Stupid oven,” she grunted, pushing the wooden window up a half inch at a time. “It must have fifty years of burnt food in there.”

“Do you need help?” Evan offered, moving toward her.

“No, I’ve got it,” she grunted, pushing it up a bit more. She hopped down from the sink and smiled. “You can sit.” The detector silenced and I sighed in annoyance.

I sat down at the small table in the spindly chair facing the wall. The legs shifted slightly as my weight settled on it. Evan sat to my right in the sturdiest of the three chairs.

My mother placed bowls of broccoli and mashed sweet potatoes in front of us, then proceeded to fork a chicken breast onto each of our plates.

“What do you want to drink?” I asked Evan, pushing my chair back, the legs slanting with the movement.

“Water’s fine, thank you,” Evan responded, fanning the smoke in front of him in amusement, while my mother and I acted like it was part of the dining experience. Well... it usually was.

As I poured us two glasses of water from the gallon in the refrigerator, my mother settled on the chair across from Evan with a large glass of red wine. I found the bottle on the counter, already two thirds depleted, and eyed her nervously. She still seemed to be okay, although she was busying herself inserting utensils in the bowls.

“Help yourself,” she encouraged, placing a few stocks of broccoli on her plate.

I sat back down as Evan scooped a spoonful of sweet potatoes

“How’s basketball?” my mother asked, ignoring her food to take a sip from her glass. Then she continued in a rush, “I love basketball. It took forever for me to convince Emily to play since she was so obsessed with soccer because of her father. But she's actually pretty good at it. I never played, but I love watching it. Soccer seems so all over the place, and I can never keep up with where the ball is and why they're blowing the whistle."

She stopped, noticing we were staring at her. I had no idea she was nervous until this moment.

"Sorry," she grimaced.

"It's okay," Evan consoled with a smile, giving me quick a glance out of the corner of his eye. I pressed my lips together in apology. He reached for my hand under the table and squeezed it. "Basketball’s great."

"Did you make the playoffs?” I could tell she was trying to concentrate on one sentence at a time, taking a sip after the question. Her cheeks glowed red.

“Barely,” Evan admitted, setting his fork down to answer her. “We have an away game Thursday, and if we survive that, we’ll play at Weslyn on Saturday night.”

“I have to see you play,” my mother returned excitedly. “If you make it ‘til Saturday, I’m there.”

“Great,” Evan replied politely, flashing me another glance as I remained still―trying not to show how disturbed I was to have my mother attend my boyfriend’s basketball game.

“Emma’s playing Friday,” Evan revealed.

“That’s if we win Wednesday,” I rebutted.

“You will. Your team’s favored for the championship.”

“That would be so amazing," my mother burst out. "We'd definitely have to have a party." My eyes widened at the thought, making Evan laugh.

"What?" my mother asked, not understanding the impact of her suggestion.

"Emma and parties don't coexist well," Evan explained with a smirk.

"Come on, Emma," my mother begged. "It would be so much fun."

"Yeah, no" I shook my head adamantly.

"Well, I'm having a party for my birthday in a few weeks," she shared. "You'll be here for that, right?" She looked at both of us eagerly.

"Of course," I answered, not sure what I was agreeing to.

“Evan, did Emily ever tell you about the time she fell out of a tree?” She laughed lightly as I rose with my plate in my hand. My mother pushed her plate away, having barely touched it.

Evan began to stand. “I've got it. You can sit,” I urged, taking his plate. He looked to me for assurance. I smiled with a nod and took the plates to the sink.

“No, I haven’t heard that one,” he answered, lowering back in the chair.

I listened intently while I loaded the dishwasher, not sure if I even knew the story she was about to tell.

“Emily was always running around, climbing trees and covered in dirt. That’s why we got her involved in sports, so she wouldn’t kill herself jumping off rocks.”

Evan chuckled at the image. I rinsed the dishes absentmindedly, trying to remember.

“We lived in the woods, surrounded by trees, bugs and whatever other creatures slithered out there―it was pretty awful.” I turned to catch her shudder. "Sorry, I'm not a bug person."

Evan laughed.

“Anyway, one time, she climbed too far up this tree, and the branch broke out from under her. She fell, banging into branches the whole way. I heard her crying and found her hanging about twenty feet up. She’d managed to grab the last branch before she would’ve hit the ground.”

I leaned back against the sink, absorbing a story that I couldn’t connect with. Although there was something about it that opened a hole in the bottom of my stomach.

“Derek had to use a ladder to get her down,” she laughed, like the sight of me dangling from the tree, needing to be rescued by my father, was humorous. “She didn’t break anything but was covered with bruises from head to toe. And, she never climbed a tree again.”

Then she directed her attention toward me. “Are you still afraid of heights?”

I stared at her, recognizing the gap in the bottom of my stomach was triggered by fear. I swallowed and returned, “I don’t love them.”

“I didn’t know you had a problem with heights,” Evan noted, examining my pale face. “You did okay when we went rappelling last year.”

“I was pretty convinced I was going to fall to my death,” I admitted. “I wasn’t about to tell you that. Besides, I didn't really have to look down, just for the next step. But we never did it again, right?”

“No, we didn’t,” Evan considered. “I had no idea.”

I could only shrug, since I hadn’t known why I was afraid of heights until I was blindsided by the memory. I couldn’t recall a single second of it―but the emotions were there. The fear and desperation. I knew her story was true.

My mother continued with childhood stories. I should've been embarrassed, but it didn't feel like she was talking about me. It became apparent that I didn't have a single recollection of my childhood, and it was unsettling. That time completely escaped me, leaving me in the present without a past.

When the cleaning up was done, so was my mother’s bottle of wine―producing a giggly mess.

“Want to go for a walk?” I asked Evan. He stood from the table, smiling at another unrecollectable moment about some haircut I’d insisted on when I was eight that made people think I was a boy.

“Sure,” Evan responded. “Thank you for dinner.”

“My pleasure,” she grinned fondly.

After wrapping a scarf around my neck and pulling on my gloves, Evan and I escaped into the cool crisp air of the lingering winter. It hadn’t snowed in a while, but what was left wasn’t going anywhere fast.

I stared silently at the ground with my hands in my pockets.

“That bothered you,” he concluded, drawing my attention. “It wasn’t that bad from where I was sitting.”

I shrugged. "No, it was fine." And it was partly true. I wasn’t really bothered by my mother's nervous chattering, even after a bottle of wine. Evan waited, but I didn't continue.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re thinking?”

I breathed in deeply, sifting through what I wanted to say. “I don’t remember our house the way she does.” I paused in thought before continuing. “I remember loving it, but I don’t remember anything about it at the same time. All I can picture is lots of sun and trees. I felt safe there, so it couldn’t have been as horrible as she’s making it out to be.”

I directed us toward the park, and we followed a worn path to the playground. I sat on the chilled seat of a swing. The black plastic hugged my hips. “I didn’t realize how blank that time was for me until she was talking about it.”

“You were young,” Evan offered.

“Not that young,” I countered. “You’d think I’d remember something as traumatic as falling out of a tree.”

Evan sat next to me, watching as I rocked the swing gently with my feet on the ground. I stared at the flattened snow, still troubled. I'd locked everything up, blocking out the good with the bad, leaving myself with not much of anything to hold on to.