Reason to Breathe

I lay on the floor of my room, panting in relief. After a moment of listening for a stir upstairs, I moved to close the window. I removed the duffle bag from my bed and set it gently on the floor of my closet. I hung my coat on the back of the chair at the desk and slipped my shoes off. I crawled onto the bed, sinking into the mattress with an exhausted sigh and a smile, easily drifting to sleep.

~~~~~

“Let’s go,” Carol declared loudly.

I shot up in my bed, dazed and disoriented.

“Did you sleep in your clothes?” she observed.

It took a moment to fight through the lingering sleep to realize that she was standing at the end of my bed with the door open behind her. I lifted the comforter to examine my attire.

“Oh, uh,” I stumbled. “I must have fallen asleep reading.”

She eyed me suspiciously and glanced around my room. I held my breath, fearing she saw through my lie.

“Well, you missed out on your shower,” she announced. “We’re leaving in ten minutes. You’d better be ready.” She walked out of my room, closing the door behind her. I sat in my bed for half a minute, releasing the pressure in my lungs. Then I recalled my night with Evan, and the smile resurfaced on my face.

32. The Question

“That’s a pretty nasty burn,” Coach Straw observed when she saw me on the stairs leading to the locker room. I pressed my arm to my side to conceal the deep red streak that still had blisters along it.

“I guess,” I mumbled, not looking up at her, wishing I had long sleeves to pull down over it.

Coach Straw paused to look at me. Her scrutinizing glare made my stomach turn anxiously. She slowly nodded her head with a “Hmph.”

“I’ll see you outside,” she declared dismissively, passing me on the stairs.

I hesitated, considering her stoic response.

“Are you coming?” Sara questioned, sauntering past me.

“Yeah,” I said, snapping back from my paranoid thoughts.

“I cannot tell you how relieved I was to get your text yesterday,” Sara announced on our way to the track.

“I told you not to worry.”

“Yeah,” she teased, “and you saying it makes it that easy too.”

I laughed, recalling the years I must have aged in the two minutes it took to escape my room. I shared the late night’s adventures with Sara while we jogged our warm up laps around the track.

“Wow,” she responded slowly. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s had sex. But were you?”

“Sort of,” I admitted. “It shouldn’t matter. It’s not like he has a list or anything. But it’s still strange to think of him with someone else.”

“You don’t think he feels the same way thinking about you and Drew? And he has to see Drew every day.”

“I know,” I replied, overtaken by a swarm of guilt. “But I was never going to go that far with Drew.”

“Do you think you will with Evan?” she asked, grinning in anticipation to my answer.

My face flushed just thinking about it.

“You’ve thought about it, haven’t you?” Sara accused when I didn’t respond.

I shrugged and pressed my lips together, fighting to conceal my embarrassed smile.

“We haven’t been together that long,” I replied when I found my voice again.

“But you’ve known each other just about all year,” she argued. “And just because you didn’t admit it, you were stupid for each other from almost day one. So even though you’ve been dating for a couple of weeks, you’ve been each other’s person for a lot longer.”

I didn’t respond. We jogged in silence until the coach blew the whistle to have us gather around for further training instructions. I was distracted for the remainder of practice. Sara’s question followed me to bed that night, causing me to lie awake in the dark, contemplating the answer.

~~~~~

“Hi,” Evan greeted me the next morning when I slid into his car.

“Hi,” I said quietly, my cheeks effortlessly turning a shade of red. I looked out the window when he drove away, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

“Bad morning again?” he asked in response to my silence.

“Mm mm,” I declined, trying to clear my head of the pressing question.

“Okay,” Evan replied, baffled. “Did I miss something then?”

“No,” I said quickly, trying to bite my lip to keep from smiling.

I forced myself to look at him so he could see that I wasn’t upset. My cheeks felt like they were about to burst from grinning. I redirected my gaze back out the side window as the heat crept up my neck.

“I am missing something,” Evan concluded, examining my comical expression with narrowed eyes.

I let out an uneasy laugh, begging my brain to think of something else, anything else.

“But you’re not going to tell me what,” he added. “Does Sara have something to do with this?”

I laughed again. “Sort of. Don’t worry, I’ll get over it.”

But I couldn’t. As much as I wanted to be relaxed and not think about what fate had in store, I found myself staring at him in class, wondering. I was convinced that it wasn’t happening soon - but would it… could it… with him? I couldn’t deny how I responded to him when we were near each other. I felt his presence in the room even when he wasn’t next to me.

Evan didn’t kiss me openly in school or hold me in a way that obviously indicated that we were a couple. Our affection was subtle. It didn’t mean my heart wouldn’t flutter when he brushed against me or that I didn’t shiver from the warm tingling along my spine when he whispered in my ear so close that his breath tickled my neck. He didn’t need to touch me. His attention alone, recognizing my existence, sent a flurry of sparks through my body.

By the time we could steal a moment alone, my body was pulsing with an electric charge, built up from being exposed to him all day. I tried to contain my enthusiasm when I touched his lips or ran my hands along his back. But it was hard to fight the excitement and desire to be closer to him.

So when Sara sunk the impending question in my head, I suddenly found it difficult to breathe when he stood too close to me. I hesitated before touching him, fearing my eagerness would reveal the thoughts that were consuming me. The distraction lingered the entire week, regardless of how much I tried to push it away. But then I found it was easily forgotten when Carol walked into the room.

“Shut the refrigerator, you fucking moron” she snapped.

“Huh?” I glanced around the kitchen, realizing I had the refrigerator door open in my hand. I quickly grabbed the milk and closed the door.

Carol scrutinized my absentminded action while she leaned against the counter, drinking her coffee.

“Why is the screen open in your room?”

I swallowed hard, trying not to spill the milk as I poured it over my cereal, suddenly remembering that I never closed the screen after I snuck out.

“Um,” I said, clearing my throat. “I had a spider in my room, and opened the window to dump it outside. I must have forgotten to close the screen. Sorry.”

I scooped a spoonful of cereal into my mouth, avoiding her eyes. Besides saying, “You really are an idiot,” she didn’t inquire about it further.

“I have some boxes in the back of my car that you need to bring in the house before you leave this morning. You can put them in the dining room.”

“Okay,” I mumbled with my mouth full. I shoveled in more spoonfuls of cereal, needing to escape her presence before she could ask any more questions or read through my lies.

I rinsed my bowl and placed it in the dishwasher before heading out the back door to unload the boxes. When I opened the back of the Jeep, I found three large cardboard boxes. I had to use both arms to pick one up. The huge box blocked my view when I lifted it, but it wasn’t as heavy as I feared.

“Be careful with them,” Carol demanded supervising from the deck.

I tried to ignore her as I passed by her into the house. She just stood on the deck, watching me struggle with the awkwardly oversized box. By the third one, I thought she’d finally disappeared into the house. I should have been paying better attention.

I stepped up onto the second step with my right foot, but when I lifted my left to follow - it met the slightest resistance. With the giant package in my arms, it was enough to set me off balance. My right knee buckled beneath me and slammed into the corner of the next step with all of my weight behind it. I collapsed to my knees. The box landed firmly on the board above me, still clutched in my hands.

I clenched my teeth to keep from yelling out as the jagged fire shot through my leg.

“You fucking klutz,” Carol scolded from behind me. “I hope you didn’t break it or else you’ll be paying for it.”

She slipped past me and entered the house without looking back. I followed her with a seething glare, tightening my jaw to hold back my contemptuous thoughts.

I pushed the box onto the deck and tensed when I pulled myself up by the railing. My knee streaked with pain the moment I straightened it. I yelled out through my clenched teeth, instinctively shifting my weight onto my other leg. I hobbled up the steps, picking up the box to bring it into the house.

I tried to shake off the throbbing pain. I knew Evan was going to be here any minute, and I didn’t want him to see me limping. I grabbed my bags and hobbled out, leaving Carol upstairs getting the kids ready for the day. I was hoping the tenderness would ease up by the time we got to school.

I reached the end of the driveway to find Evan waiting. I made every effort to walk as normally as I could, but my knee wanted to crumble under my weight, and I wanted to scream out in frustration.

“What happened?” Evan questioned in alarm, stepping out of the car.

I shook my head with my lips pressed together, unable to hide my anger. “I’m fine,” I replied dismissively, sliding onto the passenger seat. He ducked back into the car and closed the door, staring at me with his brows drawn together.

“Em, really. What happened?” Evan demanded. I knew he was worried, but there was an agitation in his voice that made me uncomfortable.

“I fell on the stairs,” I explained. “I was carrying a box into the house and couldn’t see where I was going. I tripped and hit my knee on the step. I’ll be fine. I must’ve landed right on my knee cap, so it kills right now.”

“You tripped?” he confirmed suspiciously, finally driving away from the house.

“Yes. I tripped.”

I wasn’t lying. I didn’t say what or who caused me to trip. I wasn’t certain he bought my explanation, but I wasn’t about to volunteer that Carol probably tripped me. I pulled up my pant leg while sucking the air through my teeth to examine my knee. Evan peered over, trying to see for himself.

There was a red mark at the point of contact, but nothing else – not yet.

“See,” I presented my knee, “I just hit it funny. It’ll go away.”

But it didn’t. I had to grit my teeth to fight through the debilitating pain as the morning progressed. By the time I saw Evan again, I was unable to support my weight on my right side.