Breathe Me In (17 page)

What I didn’t expect was that the next day she would disappear.

Chloe was lying on the couch when I came in. Ethan was at his bartending job and I was grateful she was alone. I needed to talk and for the first time in my life I felt like I had someone I could actually confide in.

“Hey,” I said as I came in, kicking off my shoes and peeling off Asher’s new winter coat. “How was your night?”

She gave me a thumb’s up.

Feeling glum, I plopped down on the couch next to her. When had I become such a brat? Life was good. I had a roof over my head. A sister. A job that would do for now. And a guy who cared about me, I was pretty sure. Yet I was battling with myself every day and I didn’t get it.

“Kane’s family was nice,” I told her. “But wow, I feel like such an orphan with them, you know what I mean? They’re this fully functioning family unit and I’m like hey, I was dumped by my parents twice and lived on the streets for my entire teen years. I don’t feel like I can relate or fit in with them.”

Chloe nodded. She started texting on her phone.

I get that. But just because we didn’t grow up that way doesn’t mean we can’t have friendships or relationships with people who did. Otherwise we’ll always stay victims. Orphans.

She had a point. “It’s just so embarrassing.”

Chloe smacked my knee and made a face at me.

Never be embarrassed to be you.

Her words hit me hard. Holy shit. She was right. When had I ever been embarrassed to be me? If anything, I’d always done the opposite. I’d lived my life feeling like hell, if no one else was going to love me, at least I loved me.

Yet it still hurt me to have Kane say something like “I’m not going to marry you and ask you to be a housewife.” Because whatever his intention, I read it, felt it, as I wasn’t good enough. It was unreasonable to ask him to commit to me. I knew that. But it didn’t make me want to demand it any less. Which was really stupid, because I didn’t want to be a housewife.

“What do you want to do in the future?” I asked Chloe. “Like beyond graduating college and being with Ethan? Do you have dreams, things you’ve never admitted to anyone?”

I want to write a novel.

“Really? That’s cool. I bet you’d write a kickass novel.” She would, because all her thoughts were mostly kept internal. I bet she’d start writing and all sorts of amazing shit would come out.

Chloe pointed to me and made a question mark in the air.

“Me? I don’t know. I’ve never been able to think beyond that day or the next.”

She held up her hand like it was a microphone and pretended to sing.

“Yeah, well, the singing was just a thing to do to express my rage.” I wasn’t a great singer and I didn’t have any ambitions of being famous or anything like that. “I have no idea who I am or what I want to be.” That didn’t sound right though and I backtracked. “I mean, I know who I am, but I don’t know where I’m going.”

But did I really know who I was? Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I defined me by the things that had been done to me, not the essence of Anya. I knew certain truths about me- I was loyal, and hard-working, and truly believed in right and wrong. I liked tattoos and piercings and flowers in the park in the summer. I loved Mexican food and the smell of burnt toast and a hot shower. The future? Maybe I had thought about it once upon a time, when I was young and stupid and naïve. Maybe it was finally time to think about the future again, to plan beyond tomorrow. To even plan beyond just getting a studio apartment for me and Asher so Chloe and Ethan could have some privacy back.

You don’t have to everything today. Maybe just one thing. (

“I want to stay in Maine,” I said. “I don’t want to go back to New York. I’m tired of struggling there. The person who said if they can make it there they can make it anywhere probably got thrown out of their overpriced rental the next day when the rich people all moved into Manhattan.” There were things I loved about New York, but the rent was not one of them. I realized too being in Maine, that the fresh air and the plentiful parks and the slower pace of life, was better for Asher. Hell, it was better for me. I was tired. I didn’t want life to be so damn frantic anymore.

That’s good. I’m glad you want to stay.

“Me, too.” Kane or no Kane, I wanted to be near my sister and start a life that was mine, not the remnants of a life I’d never really chosen for myself. “And I promise to find an apartment as soon as possible. If I go closer to campus and get a studio I think I can swing it.”

But if you want to move forward, you have to deal with the past.

Before I could settle down into an apartment in Maine, or an honest relationship with Kane, I had to face Diego.

I remember the exact moment we realized my father had left. It was a Tuesday. The seventh of March. Six o’clock. My mother came into the house from the garage, a gust of cold air following her, blowing her hair up on end as the door vacuum shut with a loud slam. My sister was in her arms and squirming to get down. Kurt shoved past her to run towards the kitchen, having just been picked up from hockey practice. I was playing video games in the family room and allegedly watching the three other girls. Mostly I was ignoring them and mostly they were being good, brushing each other’s hair. I was twelve and I was annoyed that Dad wasn’t home from work yet because I was hungry and it hadn’t occurred to me to maybe feed myself. Dad didn’t cook, but at least if he was there to open a can of Chunky Stew for me I wouldn’t get bitched at by my mother when she got home.

“Where’s your father?” Mom asked, setting down Kami and pulling her coat off. She looked like she’d been swallowed by her turtleneck sweater, her swollen belly jutting out.

I had just reached the age where my mother being pregnant was a little embarrassing. Like it announced to the world my parents had no restraint and were “doing it” all the time. “I don’t know,” I said with a shrug.

“He didn’t call?”

“No.” Her voice made me pause my game and turn to look at her. “He’s probably still at work.” The concern on her face made me concerned and when my sisters started squawking I lashed out and told them to shut up, that mom was talking.

She didn’t even yell at me for yelling at them. She went to their bedroom, probably to call him, but when she came back out, she was holding a note in her hand and she was crying. “He left us,” she said faintly.

“What?” I asked, even though I heard what she said. It just didn’t make any sense to me.

“Dad’s left. He’s not coming back.”

Then her face crumpled and her shoulders crumpled.

And my life crumpled and everything changed forever.

When Anya disappeared on me it was a Tuesday. Fucking Tuesdays. I was tempted to boycott. I was at work, walking through the station with my buddy Ryan when I got a text from Chloe.

Have you seen Anya?

No. Not since I dropped her off Sunday night. Is she at work?

No. They called and said she never showed. She left here at noon to walk to work and never got there.

Everything in me went still and I actually stopped walking. That didn’t sound good. Not good at all. Had she been abducted? Hit by a passing car?

“Everything okay?” Ryan asked me, expression curious. He was a big guy and he hoisted his pants up in a gesture that normally I made fun of. Now all I could think was how small Anya was and how helpless she would be if anyone tried to harm her.

“My girlfriend didn’t show up at work and her sister can’t find her.” I swiped to call Anya and put the phone to my ear. It rang and rang and she didn’t pick up. “Shit.”

“Dude, I didn’t know you have a girlfriend.”

“It’s new.” So new that I had only actually learned a few weeks earlier what her last name was. “I need to go drive the route she walks to work.”

“I’ll come with you. I’ll go tell dispatch.”

“Thanks.” There was a pit in my gut and I texted Chloe.

Where is Asher?

With me.

I’m going to drive her route to the pizza place.

She had actually texted me that morning and everything had seemed fine. It had made me smile because it was so unlike Anya. It was a kiss emoji. When I’d sent her one back, she’d followed it up with a tongue sticking out, which had made me laugh.

I was fast walking to my patrol car, looking for Ryan so I could get going when I got another text from Chloe.

Ethan just talked to her. She’s on the bus, going to New York.

“What?” I actually spoke out loud. Why in the hell would she do that? I was relieved that she was okay, but confused as to why she would just take off without telling anyone. And what was she planning to do in New York?

What do you mean?

She left. She said she has something to take care of.

Then I knew.

That crazy stubborn-ass idiot. She was going to pay that drug dealer off, losing her job and pissing off me and her sister and risking her very life in the process.

If the dealer didn’t pop her, I was going to kill her myself.

I’ve spent my whole life avoiding a repeat of that look my adopted father gave me when I was hiding in the closet- the look that said he was done with me. I push people away. I leave. I say mean things to hurt. All so I won’t be hurt first. The more someone mattered the more urgent the need was to be the one who ended the relationship first, be it friendship or romance or otherwise.

I did partially leave Kane for that reason. I was fully able to admit that to myself. But I also left Kane so that I could give myself, him, me,
us
, some kind of future. And I didn’t tell him I was leaving because I knew he wouldn’t let me leave. Not without him. Not to go to New York.

Was it stupid? Probably. But stupid had never stopped me before and as I sat on the hard bus seat, ignoring the man snoring next to me, I watched the trees of Maine go by the window, and I hoped like hell that Kane would forgive me when it all shook out. But even if he didn’t, at least I would know that I had done the right thing. Most likely he wouldn’t forgive me and maybe I knew that. Then again, was it really that big of a deal?

Yes. It was. And life wasn’t a 90s Julia Roberts movie, as much as we’d all like it to be.

Once I was far enough that it would be difficult for Kane to catch up with me I texted him.

Hi, I’m going to NYC. Be back by Fri. Don’t worry about me. Xo

I could do a hug and a kiss, right? Even though it felt totally unnatural. Like what normal people did when they texted.

Answer your FUCKING PHONE.

Oh, yeah. He was slightly angry. My phone rang in my hand and I cleared my throat. My heart started to pound unnaturally rapidly. After taking a few short breaths trying to gain composure, I answered the phone. “Hello?”

“What do you think you’re doing? Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Are you trying to ruin our relationship before it’s even really a committed relationship?”

Um, I wasn’t the one who wouldn’t commit, but whatever. I was not going to do my usual thing of lashing out. This was about working out my past, who I was, who I wanted to be. It had nothing and everything to do with him. “No. I’m going to see my old neighbor, Rose.” I bit my lip. “And take care of a few loose ends.”

“If by loose ends you mean paying a dealer five hundred dollars I swear to God, Anya, my head is going to explode.”

“Well. It’s not what you think.”

“You don’t owe him anything. It wasn’t your drugs. If you pay him money you risk getting caught. Or beat up. Or shot. He’s not going to follow you to Maine for a lousy five hundred bucks. He probably makes a grand a day.”

It wasn’t about the drugs. It was about Asher. But if I told him that, he would really lose his shit on me. My plan was to go to Rose, who was keeping the engagement ring Ethan had given me to hock and cash it in. It would be enough to pay off Diego and get myself back to Maine. If I didn’t pay Diego back, I was always going to live in fear that he would somehow find me or show up and kidnap Asher. I didn’t want him to know about Chloe or Kane or where I was. I didn’t even want to give him the impression I’d left the City.

I knew realistically, he probably didn’t care. That he’d given me up for dead, would cut his losses. Not a huge deal. But if there was any chance, whatsoever, that he could take Asher from me, I wanted to eliminate it. I couldn’t stand the thought that however remote the possibility, Asher could be stolen from me. I couldn’t relax until the money was paid back. I just couldn’t.

“I’ve got a handle on it, I promise.”

“You can’t promise that! That’s ludicrous.” He was breathing hard, like he was running.

“He’s not going to risk killing me or something. I’m not worth his going to jail for.” I was aware of the guy next to me. He was still sleeping, but I turned toward the window and lowered my voice, just in case.

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of your stupidity.”

Okay, that was enough. I’d been patient and polite. “I’ll be back on Friday, Kane. I’ll call you every day. Twice a day. I promise.”

He made a sound like a Wookie in a garbage compactor. “Turn around now.”

“I’m on a bus.”

“Get off it and turn around.”

“No. I’m fine.”

“I’m coming after you.”

“That’s stupid. You don’t need to do that.”

“I want to. I need to see that you’re safe. Let me help you, Anya.”

My irritation with him faded. “I need to do this myself. There are things that I need to fix.”

“What things?”

“It’s not just about the drugs. I promised this guy I’d give him Asher so he could sell him on the baby black market. But I never planned to do that, obviously. I was just desperate for the cash to cremate Sam.”

Silence. It dragged out so long I thought the connection had dropped. “Hello?” I said.

Kane’s voice was so steely, shivers ran up my spine. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.” My heart was thumping hard but I didn’t stammer and apologize. “I had my back against the wall. I did what I had to do.”

“So you thought your only solution was to lie to a known dealer with black market connections and hope he’d never expect you to pay up?”