Breathe, Annie, Breathe (5 page)

“You got a hotel room last night!” Kelsey replies.

Savannah’s cheeks turn pink. “And you didn’t?”

“No, because she’s still in a guy drought, remember?” Vanessa says.

“Can I get y’all something to drink?” I interrupt, not wanting to hear about this
guy
drought
, whatever that means. “Want an appetizer? It’s on me.” Anything to get out of this conversation.

“You’re the sweetest,” Vanessa says, and they order Diet Cokes and the calorific cheese fries. I rocket to the vestibule, enter the order in the computer, and start filling glasses with ice. When I drop off their drinks and get their entrée order, they’re talking about graduation and the senior class cruise that’s the same night.

“We’re going shopping for graduation dresses this afternoon,” Vanessa says to me. “You should come with us.”

“Vanessa!” Kelsey hisses at her, but Vanessa waves her off.

“I have to work,” I say quietly, not really caring about graduation, which is a month away. Mom cries happy tears every time it comes up in conversation, like when I had to order my cap and gown, but to me it’s any other day.

“What time do you get off?” Vanessa asks, checking the time on her phone. “We can wait.”

I glance at Kelsey, who’s still ignoring me. “Three?”

“Cool,” Savannah says. “We’ll come back and meet you. Then we can drive over to the Galleria.”

Maybe it would be nice to have a new dress for graduation. But if I’m being truthful, I can’t afford a thing from the Galleria, and I’ll probably end up wearing the “perihinkle” dress Kyle loved. Mostly I agree to go because my heart pounded harder when I heard the girls laughing about how they took their prom limo to the drive-thru at McDonald’s. I bet that was fun. Shopping could be fun too, and distracting.

As promised, they pick me up at 3:00. Kelsey sits in the front seat and doesn’t even turn around to say hello when I slip into the backseat. Fine by me. The girls start chattering about what kinds of dresses they want, about how they went to the roller-skating rink in their fancy prom gear last night, about how excited they are for graduation, about college.

A Middle Tennessee State course catalog arrived in the mail the other day. I’m starting there in August, but I haven’t even ripped the plastic off the catalog yet. The college is only about half an hour from Franklin, which is good. It makes me happy I’ll be so close to my mom and brother. But that’s about all that makes me excited. I mean, I can’t bring myself to care about whether I’ll take math or politics. College just feels like the next step I’m supposed to take. I’ll go to classes, one day I’ll get a job doing something, and I will be able to support myself and not live in a trailer park. But the rest of my future feels hazy. Without
him
, why does any of it matter?

At the Galleria, we head straight to Nordstrom and pick out a bunch of outfits to try on. Kelsey carries a rainbow of dresses to the fitting room.

Savannah has been training to be a horse jockey for the past year, and even though she can eat like eight plates of cheese fries, she weighs nothing, doesn’t have much of a chest, and is super short. All the dresses hit below her knees. “Jesus! I look like an old lady!” She throws a dress over the fitting room door. Vanessa looks gorgeous in all of the dresses she tries on—the universe blessed her with supermodel genes. Kelsey and I have about the same body type: medium.

“God damn!” Savannah exclaims, and another dress goes flying. Vanessa bursts out laughing at her. I find myself chuckling too.

I strip off my Roadhouse polo shirt and jeans, which smell like onions. I pull a light blue dress off the hanger and try it on. It fits fine. When I turn to the side, I notice my waist is slimming down and my legs are trim. Running over twenty miles a week is bringing big changes to my body.

Vanessa eyes my dress. “That’s cute.”

I love her green silk dress with spaghetti straps. “Yours is great too.”

With a dress under each arm, Kelsey is texting a mile a minute. She speaks as she jabs buttons on her cell. “No, Colton, you can’t come dress shopping with me. You. Are. A. Boy.”

Still wearing the dresses we tried on, Vanessa and I wander barefoot back out onto the department store floor to browse the racks again.

She holds a silver sequined dress to her chest. “Listen, I wanted to talk to you. I saw in the school newspaper that you’re going to MTSU this fall. Right?”

“Right…”

“Are you living in the dorms?”

I was planning on it, considering that’s all my financial aid will cover. An apartment off campus seems too much a luxury. “Yeah.”

“So am I.”

“You aren’t getting an apartment?” A lot of kids do that, and Vanessa doesn’t hurt for money.

She gives the dress she’s holding a dirty look and pulls another from the rack. “My brother is making me stay on campus freshman year. And I’d rather not live with a complete stranger…”

I check the price on a pink halter dress I’d never wear. “Mm-hmm.”

“Kelsey and I are getting an on-campus place with her cousin. It’s a two-bedroom suite with a little kitchen and a bathroom. But we need a fourth person.”

I feel a silky blue skirt. “Uh-huh.”

“Would that be something you’d be interested in?” Vanessa asks.

“What?”

“Would you consider being my roommate?” she asks, chewing her lip. “Kelsey and her crazy cousin, Iggy, will be in the other bedroom.”

“I didn’t know Kelsey had a cousin Iggy.”

“It’s her stepdad’s niece. Apparently their parents are insisting on them being roommates.”

I stare across the store at Kelsey. She’s browsing through a rack of dresses, throwing confused glances my way. I doubt she likes hanging around me any more than I like being around her.

On the one hand, I don’t relish the idea of ending up sharing a dorm room with a crazy girl who sports a faux hawk and plays the accordion or something. I also like the idea of starting anew. But being with Kelsey doesn’t feel new. It feels like reawakening something I want to forget.

When I look up into Vanessa’s eyes, they are kind and waiting for an answer.

“That could be good,” I choke out.

“So you’ll think about it?” She sounds excited. Truth be told, the idea kind of excites me too. It also terrifies me.

“Don’t you think Kelsey will be pissed? I mean, would she go for this?”

Vanessa shrugs. “It’s my bedroom. I can choose to live with whoever I want.”

“When do we need to decide by?”

“July, I think,” she says.

“Let me talk to my mom and I’ll get back to you,” I say, making her smile.

Vanessa yanks a red mini dress off the rack. “This would be great for you for the senior cruise.”

I take the mini dress from her. It would look good with my strawberry blond hair. Last year, before Nick and Kimberly left for their senior cruise, Mom snapped a billion pictures of them. She made my brother pose by the birdfeeder, on the porch, by the oak tree. Kyle and I stood off to the side, snickering at Nick’s misfortune.

“We’ll be posing by the mailbox next year,” Kyle said, wrapping his arms around my waist, my back to his front. I settled against his chest, and he kissed the top of my head.

Here in the now, I sigh and hang the red dress back up.

•••

During lunch, I stop by the table where the student council is distributing graduation caps and gowns. The boys will wear black and the girls get red. With my hair, I’m glad it’s not mustard yellow.

I stuff the cap and gown into my backpack, which suddenly feels very heavy. I glance around at the other students, and it’s hard to believe that in less than a week, I may never see some of these kids again. We won’t come back together after spending our summer at the city pool and cruising around town. Jared Campbell is joining the army and going to basic. Brooke Taylor, the best violinist our school’s ever seen, will study music at Brevard in North Carolina.

Soon I’ll only see these people online.

I pass by the table where Kelsey, Vanessa, and Savannah are chatting with the guys. If I decide not to room with Vanessa, would I ever see her and Kelsey again? I mean, the school I’m going to has, like, 30,000 students. That’s a sea of people. We only have about 500 kids at Hundred Oaks. Savannah says something and everybody at the table bursts out laughing.

And I feel lonely.

I’ve often wondered if Kelsey and I hadn’t grown apart when she moved, would I have been a part of her group? Along with Vanessa and Savannah, she hangs out with Colton Bradford, the mayor’s son; Rory Whitfield, one of the cutest guys at our school; and Jack Goodwin, the heir to Franklin’s largest horse farm. With my trailer’s ratty orange carpets and the gross brown spot on our counter, how could I invite guys like that over to eat pizza and watch a movie? I know they must be down to earth, because Savannah works on Jack’s farm and they are dating, but still. The people Kelsey left me behind for make me feel inferior in all sorts of ways.

I used to eat lunch with Kyle, his best friend, Seth, and Seth’s girlfriend, Melanie, but I haven’t since Kyle died. In terms of dealing with what happened to my boyfriend, I’ve heard that Seth is doing about the same as I am: he doesn’t want to play video games with anybody else; he shoots hoops alone.

When I walk past their table, Seth looks up and nods. Even though he knows Kyle and I made up and agreed to start dating again right before he died, Seth isn’t rushing to invite me to sit down. Another day, same story.

At least it’s Wednesday, which means I have my personal workout with Matt tonight at the gym. I never imagined I’d be that girl who comes to love working out, who craves it like a cop wants a donut. But I can’t figure out if I like being active or if it’s that I love working toward something. Regardless, I haven’t even run the race yet and I’m already missing the structure this program brings.

I glance around the cafeteria again as I pop open my Diet Coke. Good luck posters from the juniors hang everywhere. High school is over. I take a sip of my drink. The more I think about it, what I love most about the running and exercising is the control. I have complete control over me, my body, my future. Which is something I haven’t felt since he died.

And I want to keep that feeling.

I find myself barreling across the cafeteria to Kelsey and Vanessa. Their group glances around at each other when I walk up to their table. Kelsey bends her head and whispers to Colton, ignoring me. When Jack Goodwin sees me, ever the gentleman, he immediately stands to offer me his chair.

“Thank you,” I tell him. He smiles as he steals a chair from another table.

I take a deep breath and lean over to Vanessa. “I’ve been thinking about college. If you haven’t found a roommate for your suite yet, and you still want me…I’m in.”

The radio said this is the first Hundred Oaks graduation to take place indoors in twelve years. Normally students graduate out on the football field, but this year it’s in the gym because the rain hasn’t let up in four days.

Last year, we had to write a thesis paper for junior English. To determine paper topics, students pulled prompts out of a hat. I chose “Can Coca Cola save the Third World?” which was awesome. Kyle, however, chose “Did the Great Flood actually happen?” I made fun of him, but he ended up loving the assignment. He learned that some Indian tribes believed Noah didn’t build an ark; they thought an evil god was eating peanuts in heaven. The god scraped the shells out the window, they fell to earth, and mankind survived the flood by floating in the shells.

Even rain makes me think of him.

In the cafeteria, teachers line us up in alphabetical order to take our seats. Mrs. Lane just made Zack Burns put on a new graduation cap. He wrote IT’S OVER! in silver paint on top of his, but apparently that’s against school rules. The minute Mrs. Lane turns her head, Zack makes jerking-off motions to his friends. Do boys ever grow up?

The teachers lead us into the gym like we’re back in kindergarten again and a rush of humidity hits me in the face. The gym feels like a sauna. I spot Mom and Nick on the third row of the bleachers. Nick is fanning himself with a program and she’s dabbing at her eyes with Kleenex. Regardless that we aren’t the same
team
we once were, this is a big moment for her: both of her kids made it through high school. She never graduated because she got pregnant with my brother. Seeing her tear up makes my eyes water, and I scrunch up my face to hold myself together. I don’t want to cry. If I start, I won’t stop.

I sit in my chair and pick up my program. The cover says
In
loving
memory
of
Kyle
Allen
Crocker.
People throughout the gym are using their programs as fans, just like my brother. I peer through the audience to see if Mr. and Mrs. Crocker showed up. No sign of them. I doubt they’ll be here. If they come, the floodgates in my eyes will crumble.

I run my fingers over Kyle’s name, and a single tear falls from my eye, spotting the paper. I can’t cry. I can’t. Haven’t cried in months.
Breathe
in
through
the
nose, out through the mouth
. I bite into my lower lip hard. So hard I break skin. Taste bitter blood.
Think
of
happy
times. Think, think.

If he were here, I bet he would’ve found a silver marker and wrote something on his hat in the middle of the ceremony, just to piss off Mrs. Lane. He would’ve launched a beach ball into the crowd like Nick and Evan did at their graduation.
Think
more, Annie.

This gym has a lot of memories. I first met Kyle here when I smashed him in the head with a volleyball. Thinking about it now makes me laugh, and since I’m struggling not to cry, it comes out as a snort.

“You okay?” Leslie Warren asks. I’m with other people whose last names begin with W. We had French together.

“Just thinking about how much has happened in this gym in the last four years.”

She grins. “Remember during the first football pep rally this year, how the senior guys played tug-of-war against the guy teachers?”

“That was hilarious,” I reply with a laugh. The senior boys had been strutting around for days boasting how they were gonna kick some teacher ass, but then they got owned by the teachers. The guys toppled to the floor like bowling pins.

Our ceremony begins with lots of raucous cheering and clapping, and a rumor goes around that crazy Zack Burns is completely naked under his robe. That makes me laugh
and
cringe.

The evening grows more somber during the speeches. During his valedictory address, Mark MacCullum says, “Kyle Crocker was friends with everybody. He always wandered around the cafeteria, talking people up and eating food right off their trays. He also was a pen thief.”

Murmured laughter brushes through the crowd. It doesn’t really matter what Mark’s saying, because everyone is remembering their own Kyle stories. I glance down the aisle to where Kyle’s best friend, Seth, is crying.

Even the people who didn’t know him are silently weeping. Maybe not for him specifically, but for what Kyle lost: the chance to have experiences, good and bad and crazy and life changing. They feel sorry his mother and father lost their son. And maybe they start thinking of losing their own parents or children or brothers and sisters and how that feels like darkness, a hole that can never be filled. And if they’ve never lost somebody, what will it feel like when they do? When you finally watch your loved one being lowered into the ground, away from you forever. Before October, I couldn’t have fathomed it.

I felt immortal.

Guilt builds up under my skin, because Kyle’s the one who lost out on not being here at graduation. Never getting married or having kids. Never buying a house out on Normandy Lake, where he could live on a sailboat on weekends, doing nothing but swimming and snuggling up with me under sunsets. He’s the one I should feel sorry for. But I feel bad for me too. Because I can’t enjoy my future knowing he’s missing out.

•••

Later that night, I curl up in bed with my phone. I should be getting to sleep considering I have a ten-mile run/walk tomorrow. Matt told me I could skip the run and make it up with him on Sunday since I graduated today. But I told him it was no big deal. It’s not like I’m going on the senior cruise.

The entire class is out on the General Jackson Riverboat on the Cumberland tonight. I went back and forth on whether to buy a ticket, and ultimately I didn’t. In twenty years, will I look back on this night and wish I’d gone? There’s nothing on that boat for me. Sure, I could pose for pictures with Vanessa and Savannah, but then they’d go dance with their boyfriends and I’d be left alone. Kelsey would ignore me…and guys would ask me to dance, and they wouldn’t be Kyle. The entire time I’d be thinking:
I’m here, and he’s not.

My mind flashes to junior prom when Kyle and I left an hour early, before Mom would get off work at the Quick Pick. We rushed back to my place and made love, then wrapped ourselves up in my bed sheets. We sat Indian style and talked about the road trip to Myrtle Beach we would take that summer. And I kept thinking,
He
is
all
I
could
ever
want. He’s the guy for me. He’s my fate.

But when Kyle laid it out for me and asked me to marry him, I—we screwed everything up. Why couldn’t he have waited until after graduation to ask? Or after I graduated college?

If
he’d just respected my wishes about college, he’d still be here.

I pull Instagram up on my phone and watch pictures from the cruise pop up. Cute, colorful dresses and dark suits fill my screen: a selfie of Vanessa Green and Rory Whitfield leaning against the boat’s railing; a photo of Savannah Barrow and Jack Goodwin kissing in the middle of the dance floor.

I wipe away the tears threatening to roll down my cheeks. Feel a sudden urge to go grab some beers and drink my loneliness away. I’d do anything to make my mind go blank. I stuff my phone under my pillow. Grab the photo of me and Kyle from my bedside table and turn it face down.

Twenty years, my ass. I’m already wishing I’d gone on the cruise.

•••

The next morning, I see him stretching next to the 0 mile marker.

Jeremiah.

He pulls his arm back behind his head and stretches his triceps, causing his T-shirt to ride up, revealing strong stomach muscles. Stubble covers his cheeks and jaw, and his light brown hair is a disaster. When he sees me, a grin breaks across his face, and after last night’s loneliness, I’m glad to see it. Really glad.

I adjust my CamelBak as I approach him. “How many miles you doing today?”

“It’s a big one,” he says. “We’re shooting for twenty. And Charlie, the guy I’m pacing, wants to finish in less than two and a half hours.”

“Good luck,” I say. “I bet I couldn’t even ride a bike twenty miles in that amount of time. I could drive it though.”

We laugh together and smile. I don’t look away from his pretty blue eyes.

“What?” he says, his mouth quirking up.

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

And then my finger reaches without my permission and gently traces the long, white scar on his arm. Then I move to the mysterious circle tattoos on his forearm.

“What are these?”

“Crop circles. I saw the design and just went for it. You like them?”

Very
much.
“Yeah,” I say with a thick voice. He watches me touch his skin, and I see his Adam’s apple shift. He stops watching my finger and his light blue eyes move to my lips, then chest, then legs. And a queasy feeling rushes through me, sort of a mixture of excitement and feeling like I’m standing on a plank, fixing to tumble into crashing waves.

I stop touching his arm and look away.

“Well,” he says, clearing his throat. “Have a good run today.” He meets up with a buff-looking guy, takes off on the trail, and disappears within seconds.

Matt gives our team instructions. We’re to run/walk ten miles, which means we run as much as we can and take walking breaks when we need to.

“None of you have the endurance yet to run a full ten miles,” Matt says to the group. “But I want you to get used to the long distances, so we’re going to walk a lot today. Don’t push yourself into running too much, okay?”

I’ve never gone that far before. What happens if I get stranded five miles out on the trail? Will Matt have to cart me back somehow? How embarrassing would that be?

Matt makes us warm up by doing this ridiculous move called “Ali jumps” where we jump around and pretend we’re boxing like Muhammad Ali, and then I jog out onto the trail, my sneakers smacking the dirt. Then it’s just me and ten miles.

What was I thinking, touching Jeremiah’s arm like that? He must think I’m a complete Creepy McCreeperson. On the other hand, he did patch up my blister and give me a Little Mermaid Band-Aid when we were complete strangers.

But isn’t that what we still are? Strangers? Sure, he gave me a ride to my car, and I know a few tidbits about him, like he’s twenty and only his grandparents call him by his full name, but I still don’t know anything real. Is he in college? I never see him with friends, but I did see his Delta Tau Kappa frat T-shirt. Is he a party animal or just addicted to running and working out? Why is Matt giving him a chance? A chance for what?

I take a sip of water and focus on my feet. Point my toes forward. Swing my arms like scissors. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. Pray for the running to make me forget I skipped my senior cruise. I manage to run six miles, but then have to slow to a shuffle walk. I’m proud I made it this far.

Right about then, Jeremiah and his client flash by. I can’t believe they’re already on their way back in on a twenty-mile run! Damn, he’s fast.

I figure that’s the last I’ll see of him today, but at mile marker 2, I see his wicked smile approaching, his long hair bouncing all over the place. Again that urge to dig my fingers in it. When he rejoins me, he slows to a pace matching mine. He finished a twenty-mile run, then came back out to run with me? He must be certifiable.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, wheezing.

He takes a long sip from his water bottle, looking at me sideways. “I was thinking about you.”

I suck in a gasp, scramble for air. I was already panting in the humid morning, but now I can’t breathe at all.

His breathing slows to steady, because maintaining my pace is nothing for goddamned
Superman
, and when we reach the wooden footbridge that marks mile 1.5, Jeremiah gently takes my elbow and leads me off the path and way down to the stream. Wait, I shouldn’t leave the trail without Matt’s permission—and I haven’t finished my run yet. But the break sure is nice. Floppy willow tree branches cocoon us, offering much needed shade. Pink, yellow, purple, and blue flowers explode everywhere, like in a psychedelic dream—or
Willy
Wonka
.

“It’s hotter than blue blazes outside,” he says.

I wipe sweat off my forehead. “That water is tempting.”

“Let’s jump in.” He grabs me and starts to pull me toward the water—and I pound on his chest and giggle like a seventh grader.

“Jere—no! If I get wet, I’ll have to run back in soggy clothes and I’ll get chafed—”

“Wouldn’t want that.”

“I’d finally get to take your brother up on his kind offer of Vaseline.”

“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that.”

My hands switch from pounding on his chest to tentatively exploring it. He’s strong. I miss resting my head on a solid chest. I move my fingertips in tiny circles. His eyes flash. He takes my hands, weaving his fingers in mine. Leans forward. Steals a kiss.

He pulls back and searches my face—for what I don’t know, and once the shock wears off, I find myself up on tiptoes reaching to return the kiss.

My arms and legs turn against me. My knees sink and he has to grab me to hold me up. His tongue teases mine. I clutch the hair at the nape of his neck. Cup his cheeks with my hands, enjoying the way his stubble scratches my skin.

Our hands are everywhere. He pushes the CamelBak off my shoulders and unclips his water fanny pack thing, letting both drop to the ground. At first I try to push him away because my underarms are sweaty—hell, everywhere is sweaty, but he won’t let me go and then I don’t care. I don’t care about anything but his hand on my jaw and the other kneading my hip. His lips trail over my ear and neck, then hungrily find mine again. He tugs my bottom lip between his teeth and bites until I moan.

God, these kisses are hot, his mouth hard, then soft, then wanting. We lie down on the grass—it’s still slick with morning dew, and still kissing me, he presses his body to mine, rocking his hips in a rhythm until I’m seeing spots. It’s been so long. So long since I’ve felt this good, with a guy’s heavy comforting weight above me and my body on fire. I let out a sob.