Breath (28 page)

“Come on,” he said uneasily. “I’ll tell Deb that you want to paint part of the wall.”

As he got Suzie set up with a roller, she asked, “Hear anything from Carnegie Mellon yet?”

He shrugged. “You know how it goes. I’m doing the hurry-up-and-wait thing.”

“Thought you applied early admission.”

He had. He’d actually received the acceptance letter, but he hadn’t said anything about it to anyone—not his parents, not his friends. Not yet. “I’m sure I’ll hear soon.”

“Well, some places have sent them out already,” Suzie said. “Stanford, for instance. Riley got an acceptance letter today.”

“Riley told you that?”

“Sure,” Suzie said, casting him an odd look as she dipped her roller into paint. “We’ve only been friends since third grade. Riley sort of tells me everything. Why?”

“No reason,” he said, feeling like the world was out of focus. Something was off, something wasn’t right, no matter how he tried to convince himself that everything was fine.

“You going to Marcie’s thing on Saturday?”

“Yeah,” he said, thinking if Riley got a letter today, then maybe there was one waiting for him already. “We’re going to the party.”

Suzie said, “We? We who?”

“You know,” he said, hearing the words coming from his mouth. “Us. You. Me. Izzy. Ted.”

She looked at him like he had drool pooling at the corner of his mouth. “Presumptuous much?” Then she grinned. “Well, you’re right. Of course we’re going.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said, thinking that he had time, didn’t he? There had to be time.

But then there was another
beep,
and he was already moving on. He stepped away from the Art Squad and turned a corner . . .

. . . to find himself in his room, a letter in his hand.

He read the letter, and then read it again, and again until the words blurred and were no more than smears of ink.

He wanted to crumple the paper into a ball, crush it until it was hard and unyielding and then hurl it at his closed bedroom door, see if it would leave a mark. But all he could do was let the letter slip from his numb fingers.

He watched it make its way to the carpet in a fluttering, lazy circle, somersaulting twice before it landed.

He sat down hard on his bed and stared at the piece of paper littering his floor. It was just a thin piece of paper, with one paragraph’s worth of words. And that paper, with those words printed onto it, was enough to change the future.

He couldn’t pretend anymore—nothing was fine, nothing would ever be fine again.

Nothing. He was nothing.

Something in his chest tightened, and his eyes stung. He felt himself falling, even though he was still sitting on his bed with his feet planted on the floor—he was falling into someplace dark where he couldn’t breathe . . .

A small, still voice:
Breathe, Xander.

Xander breathed.

And then, a shining thought, almost blinding in its intensity.

Riley.

Yes, he could tell Riley everything. Tomorrow, at Marcie’s party, he’d tell Riley what he’d done. And Riley would help him figure out what to do.

Tomorrow was the day.

(open your eyes, Zan)

From somewhere outside his room, a
beep.
It resonated, reverberated, and Xander leaped up from his bed and charged over to his bedroom door as if the sound were his salvation. He opened the door . . .

. . . and sauntered into Marcie’s house. Everyone had shown up for the party. No surprise there; Marcie’s shindigs were famous for being parent-free and alcohol-heavy. As Izzy had said on the way, Marcie’s parents were either incredibly cool or incredibly oblivious. And Ted voted for incredibly cool. Suzie, who didn’t drink, abstained from voting.

The party blared around them, with music blasting from hidden speakers and people resorting to screams to be heard. As a result, the volume was just under migraine-inducing. Xander barely noticed; he was too busy doing a circuit of the house, seeing who was where. He needed to find Riley, tell Riley what he’d done, have Riley tell him, in turn, what he should do. Riley would make everything fine again.

But before that could happen, Xander needed liquid courage.

A pit stop into the kitchen for the first beer of the night, and then Izzy and Ted peeled off to join other groups. Xander stayed with Suzie until she found a handful of others who dominated the high end of the GPA spectrum. Suzie happily joined in their passionate debate about their local U.S. senators. Xander waited until she was firmly entrenched in the conversation, and then he slipped away.

He had to find Riley.

There was Deb and fellow art geeks, which gave way to the thespian crowd, where Ted was working on getting smashed.

Izzy was elbow to elbow with the varsity soccer girls and guys.

Xander saw them all, hanging with their friends, schmoozing easily. They were fine without him.

Everything was fine without him.

He finally spotted Riley, who was with the others from the track and field team. Xander let out a relieved breath. Before he headed over there, he needed to replenish his empty beer. Besides, he could get one for Riley, too, and casually offer the fresh drink as he joined their group. Riley would take the beer and grin at him—oh, that infectious grin—and then the two of them could slip away, maybe to that small room just down the hallway, and they could talk.

Maybe even more than talk.

Yes.
Yes.
Everything was going to be fine.

Xander went into the kitchen, tossed the old bottle, and grabbed two more, but when he walked back to where the track team was gathered, Riley was nowhere to be seen.

Everything was fine.

Everything.

Sipping from both bottles, Xander wandered his way to the small room, some sort of home office, and closed the door behind him. He needed a little me time. He went through the beers in the quiet of the small room, slowly working his way toward a decent buzz. When he was done, he’d talk to Riley, and Riley would tell him what to do, and then the two of them would start their happily ever after. He deserved one, didn’t he? After all he’d done? The risk he’d taken?

Of course he did.

Everything was going to be fine.

He was nudging the last bit of backwash from one of the bottles when someone opened the door to the small room, slurred something about trying to find a bathroom. Xander pointed her in the right direction and went to find Riley. No more waiting. It was time.

After one more beer.

He threaded his way back to the kitchen. The house was packed sardine-tight with partiers, everyone hovering around the booze like they were ready to body slam anyone who dared to take the last one. Xander managed to snag a can of the cheap stuff—the only kind left—and then went to find Riley. But there were so many people, all pressing against him, that it was impossible to find anyone he knew. It was impossible to think.

Clutching his beer, he retreated to the small room again. He closed the door and leaned heavily against it. His heart was pounding, and now he was sweating like he was running a marathon. He popped his beer and chugged it, desperate to find some sort of calm. He let out a deep belch, followed by a shaky breath.

Everything was going to be fine.

He pushed away from the door and walked around the room, attempting to gather his thoughts. But there was a buzz in his brain and a beep on the horizon, and he was running out of time. He knew it in his gut: He was running out of time.

(today’s the day the world ends)

Something slammed against the door.

Xander whirled, startled, and saw two people stagger into the room, close enough to get drunk off each other’s breath.

Eating each other’s faces.

Xander’s vision tunneled to a pinpoint and the world gave way to a sea of red as he watched Ted and Riley kiss sloppily, their hands groping and slick.

The empty beer can slipped from Xander’s fingers. It hit the wood floor and bounced once, then rolled lazily along the floorboards until it came to a stop by Riley’s feet.

“Zan!” Ted blurted. “There you are!”

Riley swayed and grinned, saying nothing.

Xander stared at the one he loved, at that empty drunken grin, at the mouth that he dreamed of kissing, and all he could think was
No
and
no
and
no.

Riley’s grin melted into a frown. “Teddy, your boy there looks sick.”

Teddy.

Teddy.

“Bastard,” Xander growled.

Ted held out a hand. “Come on, Zan. Don’t be like that.”

Xander barreled past them and out of the small room. He couldn’t see, couldn’t think. He stumbled his way through the house until he came to the back deck. Blundering outside, he took heaving gasps of air, but it still felt like he couldn’t breathe. People gave him space, or maybe he pushed them out of the way. He didn’t know; it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered.

Someone was calling him, shouting his name, but he didn’t want to hear it.

“Zan!” Ted’s voice, penetrating like a spike through his brain. “Xander, come on! Don’t be like this!”

Xander staggered around to glare at his best friend, who dared to smile his smug trademarked smile, as if this was all some kind of joke. And it was—Xander had been played the fool. The joke was definitely on him. He jabbed a finger at Ted’s chest.

“You
ass!
” he snarled. “You know, you
know
how I feel about Riley! You’ve known forever!”

“I know,” Ted agreed.

Xander shouted,
“How could you do that to me?”

“Do what to you, Zan?” Ted, no longer smiling, looked tired and angry and out of patience. “Stand on the sidelines and wait and wait for you to man up and make your move? How long was I supposed to wait, Zan? You’ve been mooning over Riley for freaking years.
Years.
And I was good, Xander. I waited for you to finally do something about it. I supported you, man! I wanted you to do it! But you just couldn’t. You didn’t. And then tonight, when Riley kissed me . . .”

“Kissed
you,
” Xander spat.

“Yeah, kissed
me.
” Ted sighed, exasperated. “Even six months ago, I would’ve told Riley no. Hell,
two
months ago. But Zan, school’s out soon. Real soon. We’ve got summer, and then college. Riley’s got Stanford. You’ve got Carnegie Mellon. Come on. It hasn’t happened yet, so when was it gonna happen?”

“
I gave up Carnegie Mellon for Riley!
I gave it all up! I threw it out to go to Stanford, just to be with Riley!”

A muscle spasmed along Ted’s jaw. “I . . . I didn’t know.”

Xander pulled his hair until his scalp screamed. “Because I was
waiting!
Waiting for that damned acceptance letter to finally come! Waiting and waiting, Ted. You thought you were waiting for me? You wanna know how long you were supposed to wait? All I needed was that one letter, that one yes, and then I was gonna tell everyone. I was gonna tell Riley.”

“Zan,” someone said. Suzie. From behind him. But Xander didn’t turn around, didn’t want to face her, face anyone.

“But then I got my letter,
Teddy.
I got it yesterday. And you wanna know what it said?” Xander laughed bitterly. “They don’t want me. Stanford said no. I gave it all up just to be with Riley, and now that’s not happening, and you’re in the back room making out with the one I’ve been in love with for years!”

“That’s not his fault,” a cold voice said.

Xander knew that voice.

Xander dreamed about that voice.

He turned and stared helplessly at the Amazingly Perfect Riley Jones. Riley stood there, hands fisted, eyes narrowed, that beautiful mouth pulled into a frown.

“I kissed him,” Riley said. “And he kissed me back. I never asked you to give anything up for me. You’re friends with Suzie-Q and Teddy, but me? You’re no one to me.”

The words punched Xander in the gut, punched him until he thought he was going to puke. “I gave up everything for you.”

“Who asked you to?”

Xander couldn’t breathe.

“What, you want me to say, Aw, how sweet? How romantic? You kidding me?” Riley’s head shook slowly, back and forth, long black braids rustling. “You want to worship me from afar, knock yourself out. But don’t you go blaming me for you throwing everything away. Man, I don’t even know you.”

(today’s the day the world ends)

He had to get out.

Xander pushed his way past everyone, pushed through people until he was out of the house and staggering toward his car. There was a storm in his head and he felt like he was going to drown. A press of a button and the car unlocked; a yank on the handle and the door opened. He slid into the driver’s seat. Getting the key in the ignition took three tries, but hey, the third time was most definitely the charm.

The car roared to life.

Lights on, and then he gunned out of his spot, winging three parked cars and not giving a damn about it. His cell phone was buzzing at him, or maybe beeping, but he didn’t care.

He didn’t care.

Nothing mattered anymore.

It started raining or maybe he was crying, and that didn’t matter, either.

Xander careened down the tree-lined road, and he realized he had nowhere to go.

He couldn’t go home, where his parents were furious with him for bailing on Carnegie Mellon.

He couldn’t go back to the party, where his heart had been ripped out and trampled.

He couldn’t go to his friends. He barked out a laugh. Friends? What friends? Friends like Ted, who betrayed him? Or Suzie? Izzy? Please. They were all with Ted, with Ted and Riley, the Amazingly Perfect Riley Jones.

Riley had taken his love and spat it in his face.

He had no friends.

He had no future.

He had nothing.

He was nothing.

Nothing mattered.

Up ahead, the road gently curved. Beyond the curve was a large tree, big enough to fit a person inside the trunk. It was majestic, a thing of power and beauty, old and wise and able to weather any storm. The headlights hit the tree, streaking the chocolate brown of the trunk, setting it aglow with raw umber, with bronze, with copper.