Reason to Breathe

Within a few minutes of strangling my fingers, the gapes in the fleshy tissue only trickled instead of gushed. I wrapped them with bandages as tightly as I could to allow the slices to clot. I clenched my teeth, shaking my head in disbelief at her cunningness. I pressed my lips together, flexing my jaw. The anger she provoked was not as easy to push away anymore. I was overtaken by the fury, and it lingered long after it should have been tucked deep inside.

Sara and Evan both eyed my wrapped fingers throughout the day on Monday, but it wasn’t lunch that Sara said something.

“Are you going to tell us, or what?”

I rolled my eyes at her insistence. “Cut my fingers washing a knife,” I responded flatly.

Sara shook her head and folded her arms across her chest. “All four of them?”

“The truth,” Evan demanded, not allowing me to get away with the weak explanation. I didn’t like the accusing way they were both staring at me. This wasn’t their problem. They didn’t need to make me feel like I’d done something wrong.

“Listen, I’m not going to tell you what happened. If you don’t like my explanation, then you can fill in the blanks as you see fit. I’m not going to tell you anything more. You know where I live, and you know who I live with. I don’t need to relive it again by telling you.” Aggravated beyond what I could contain, I pushed myself away from the table and walked, or slightly limped, out of the cafeteria.

Neither Sara nor Evan said anything to me during Journalism class. They allowed me to fester in my own space for the fifty minutes of class. But as soon as it was over, they bombarded me again.

“You can’t be mad at us,” Evan implored. I kept my back to them while sitting at the computer.

“Emma, you have a tendency to downplay your injuries,” Sara added. “You have to understand that we’re going to be concerned.”

“I can handle it,” I snapped, spinning around in my chair to face them.

“Didn’t you tell me something similar that afternoon on the track, right before you ended up in the hospital?” Sara’s raised voice cracked as she finished the sentence. I remained silent and stared at the floor.

Evan scooted a chair in front of me and gently held my uninjured hand in both of his.

“We know you can handle more than you should,” he stated soothingly, “but this is making us… nervous. I really think we should…” I shot my eyes at him, becoming panic-stricken when I realized how he intended to finish that sentence. He didn’t finish his thought. The silence said enough.

“You don’t understand,” I whispered, dropping my gaze. “I can’t leave their house. Not yet. I don’t want to risk ruining Jack and Leyla’s lives. I could also lose everything I’ve worked so hard for. Besides, I have nowhere to go.”

“You...” they both began.

“Nowhere that I could stay without it causing more problems or exposing my secret,” I corrected. “Do you really think they’d let me leave quietly, or live in the same town, wondering what I was telling your parents? I would have to leave Weslyn, and then people would start asking questions. I have no choice.”

They understood. I could see it in their broken expressions. I shared with them the thoughts I’d already processed a hundred times before in my head. They finally got a glimpse of the true threat in exposing my situation. We would all lose. I hoped I convinced them that the risk of staying was worth it.

“I promise you,” I vowed, looking between Evan and Sara, “I will know when I can’t do it anymore, and then we can go anywhere you like.” I finished my sentence looking at Evan. Sara’s eyes flinched in confusion, but she didn’t ask for an explanation - she understood enough.

“Besides, I only have four hundred and eighty days left.” I smiled, trying to lighten the mood. It didn’t work.

The next two weeks passed without incident. It helped that we spent the Easter holiday with Janet, and then I spent most of the week of vacation with Sara. George and Carol took the kids to the theme parks in Florida, leaving me behind, of course. Little did they know, Sara and I escaped to Florida as well to visit her grandmother for four days on the Gulf Coast while Evan was in France snowboarding with a friend from San Francisco.

“I think that would be a great gift for his birthday,” Sara confirmed while we lounged on the soft white sand, the warm breeze blowing through our hair.

“You don’t think it’s too…” I scrunched my face, trying to find the right word.

“No, it’s perfect.”

“I think Ms. Mier will let me do parts of it in class as an assignment too. You know I’m having dinner with his parents on Sunday, right?”

“No, you didn’t tell me that,” Sara exclaimed, sitting up to face me.

“Do you remember his mom asking me to dinner back in the fall?”

“Yeah,” she recalled eagerly.

“Well, she’s insisting it be this Sunday. I can’t believe I didn’t tell you this,” I pondered. “Oh, and the worst part is that she invited Carol and George as well.”

“She did not,” Sara gaped.

“Well, I actually had to ask them since I can’t give my phone number to anyone besides you.”

“So they know about Evan now?” Sara concluded, still unable to close her dropped jaw.

“They were going to find out eventually,” I returned with a slight shrug. “You should have seen Carol’s face when she found out I was dating someone. I think her irises turned red. It was pretty creepy.”

“Are they going?” Sara asked in horror.

“Of course not,” I responded as if stating the obvious. “But George was okay with me going, despite Carol.”

“Em, this is going to be so bad, isn’t it?” I watched as Sara’s posture sank with the realization that, after all we’d done to conceal Evan from Carol, she’d found out about him. I accepted this inevitability the moment we kissed in the Art room. I had prepared for it until my stomach turned inside out - hoping that I was ready. Sara, obviously, was not.

“What could she possibly do that she hasn’t already done?” I offered Sara, trying to put her at ease - without success.

“You’re going back home after the track meet on Saturday, right?”

“Yes,” I answered suspiciously.

“You have to text me within an hour of being home to let me know you’re okay,” she demanded.

“Sara, stop.”

She silenced me with a stern stare. I knew I had to give in to her demands or risk being ignored for the remaining two days in Florida.

“Fine,” I promised with an exasperated sigh, “I’ll text you.”

Neither of us mentioned it again for the rest of the week. As Saturday approached, Sara became more anxious. Her nervous energy distracted me from being nervous myself. I focused on seeing Evan at the meet, and that was enough to keep from thinking of Carol.

35. Sabotaged

“Don’t forget to text me,” Sara insisted for the twentieth time when she dropped me off after the track meet that Saturday. I waved in confirmation with a roll of my eyes and walked up the driveway.

I prepared myself for whatever waited for me inside as I ascended the steps to the deck. The dining room hummed with little voices. Carol’s voice carried through the kitchen, talking to George, in a calmer than usual tone.

“Emma!” I was greeted joyfully by Leyla who attacked my legs before I could bend down to embrace her.

“Put your things in your room,” Carol instructed passively. “We’re about to sit down and eat.”

The pleasantness in her voice caused me to pause. I glanced around, having a hard time believing that she was actually talking to me. I obeyed warily.

“How was your time with Sara?” she asked, glancing toward me when I sat in my usual seat where a plate of spaghetti with meatballs was already served at my setting.

“Fine,” I replied cautiously, still uncomfortable with the attention.

“That’s great,” she smiled. The expression looked odd on her face, having never truly seen her smile at me before.

I waited for something catastrophic to happen. But nothing did. Carol redirected the conversation back to George. They discussed a trip to the hardware store the next day to pick out flowers and shrubs for the front yard.

~~~~~

There were so many alarms going off in my head the second I walked through the door the previous night, but there was no way I could have known, or ever suspected her of being so cruel. Even when it became obvious that this was her doing, it was still difficult to understand what really happened.

“Well, I guess you won’t be in any condition to go to your boyfriend’s tonight, will you?” Carol jeered, poking her head in the bathroom the next morning. She closed the door behind her, leaving me in my misery.

A cold sweat broke out across my forehead and down my back, right before my stomach convulsed. My body quivered at the exertion that kept me up throughout the night. I collapsed on the floor, pleading for death, or at least sleep. How could I possibly have anything left in my stomach after being in here for an entire night?

“You should call them to let them know you won’t be able to make it,” Carol bellowed through the door. I glared in contempt at the closed door, wishing she’d fall off a cliff.

I pushed myself up to sit against the bathtub, covering my face with my shaking hands. I lifted myself from the floor and groaned when every muscle in my body screamed in agony. My stomach turned again, and I leaned over the toilet. Nothing happened, so I slowly straightened to walk to the phone in the kitchen.

The effort to move was unbearable. My head was unsteady on my shoulders as I dragged my body through the kitchen, cradling my stomach. When I reached the phone, I realized I didn’t have Evan’s number memorized. I groaned at the thought of having to get it from my room. Then I noticed a piece of paper on the counter that had “Mathews” scribbled in her writing. The phone number was written beneath it. How did she have their number?

I pressed the numbers on the keypad, anticipating the voice on the other end. The anxiety agitated my stomach; I clutched it with my free arm as it began to roll. The phone rang several times before it was picked up.

“Hello?” Evan answered on the other end.

“Evan,” I said in a voice I barely recognized.

“Emma?” Evan confirmed, concern resounding in his voice. “Are you okay?”

“I am so sick,” I rasped. “I have a stomach bug or something. I’m so sorry I won’t be able to come to dinner tonight.”

“Do you need me to come get you?” he offered in alarm, skeptical of my explanation.

“No, really,” I pleaded. “I just need to go to bed.” My stomach gurgled in warning, and I knew I couldn’t stay on the phone.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning?” he confirmed softly.

“Mmm,” I groaned in affirmation before hanging up the phone and rushing back to the bathroom.