Breathe With Me (The Breathe Series Book 3) (49 page)

The trip goes fast and all I can think about the whole time is where I made my first mistake.
Was it the arrowheads? The stupid ass gag gift? How did we end up here? Why and how do I get back to where we were, if we were ever even there in the first place?
She will never get over that part of her life and I don’t know how to move forward if she can’t. There’s no way to make her; there’s no way to help her and as much as it hurts her, it hurts us and it pains me to see her like that. She was so wrong when she said I don’t care. I care to the depths of my soul; I care.

Once I get to the fence, expecting it to be locked tight and free of visitors, I look up and see a work truck in the parking lot and the light on in the small trailer.
Shit! That’s all I need is someone that wants to talk tonight.
I move fast continuing in on my initial plan to just stay the night at work, not that I’ll sleep at all.

As soon as I fling the door open, my eyes land on someone I did not expect. Turning his head just as quick as I opened the door, his expression shifts damn near to the same one I’m probably sporting at this moment. He looks about as unhappy to see me, as I do to see him.

“Well here I came late at night, hoping I’d have time to myself and put in a little overtime uninterrupted,” Tristan’s annoyance comes across loud and clear

I glance around to the wall beside his desk where one crutch rests. Heaps of papers are strung all over his desk, which took up residency once Grandpa gave him the job. I look to Judd’s desk chair, sitting empty and calling my name only a couple feet away.

“Well I was thinking about the same thing. I guess great minds think alike. You know you don’t have to keep taking on so much. Most of the jobs aren’t even scheduled for this year.”

Walking over to the chair, I grip it in my hand and pull it out before plopping down. My ass hits the firm, uncomfortable cushion and a truck load of regret is pushed from my lungs on a heavy sigh; everything that happened tonight suddenly bites down on my heart.

“I like to keep busy.” Tristan keeps his eyes down on his work, shuffling two papers back and forth. Glancing over with his brows etched with curiosity, he studies me for a second before speaking. “Well that looks familiar. You get dumped?”

I chuckle, knowing this expression should be very familiar to him considering he was there the day it took place or the first time it happened at least.

“Ahhh, don’t act like you know so much about it. Who’s ever dumped your ass?”

Tristan face never changes, keeping a somewhat bland unemotional expression and a vacantness in his eyes that is usually lit with the desire to pester and aggravate everyone around him.

“I don’t usually give anyone the chance to dump me. Rough day?”

I raise my brows. “Do you really want to know about this? Is it share time?” I say it sarcastically, but honestly, I could probably go off like a woman right now, minus the emotional outburst of tears. Although, the walk here, I did get a bit misty eyed just thinking over the fact that she may blow me off for another couple years.
This sucks.

He blows out a breath, staring forward past the dim lit desk lamp to the jobsite map tacked to the wall with a million different small colored ball-tipped pins stabbed into it in various spots.

“What the hell, try me. It’s better than sitting here and sulking about my own life.” He turns his head, remaining tucked beneath the desk.

I look down at the base of the chair, hesitating on laying any of my garbage on him, when he’s dealing with much more, I’m sure.

“Yeah, don’t go there,” he snaps.

Swinging my sights back up to him, a pit forms in my stomach.
He must get that shit all the time; dumbasses staring. I did the first day he came onto the jobsite.

“Ok,” I snap out of it, going right into rambling mode. “I’m not good at girly-ass heart-to-hearts, so you’ll have to bear with me. Let’s see…” Rolling my eyes up to my lids as if I’m searching my brain for the words, I come up empty.
I am not a talker when it comes to this crap.
“Plans for a mind-blowing exciting evening turned to the shittiest night ever with an extra scoop of shit and a cherry on top to round it off.” I bob my head in victory of a well explained evening. “Yep, that about covers it.”

Tristan leans back in his chair, raising his arms to fold behind his head into a relaxed position.

“You don’t say. So you did get dumped.” He glances over from the corner of his eyes. “…and I suppose she stormed off and left your ass and you had to huff and puff it all the way here.”

I jostle in my seat on a laugh. “Correcto,” I say, bobbing my head again with my lips pressed together and my eyebrows raised in surprise of his quick assessment.
Right on the damn money.
“Good job, Freud…and here I always took you for an arrogant asshole that never knew the difference between a heart and a hemorrhoid. I just figured you considered them both a pain in your ass.”

He spits out a laugh-type sigh, looking back towards the map. “Yeah, well today’s a joke anyway. I never took you for the type to ring in overrated holidays like today. Please tell me you didn’t go buy your gal roses and a box of chocolates.” He glances over and I look at him sheepishly, holding back an all-knowing smirk. Swinging his eyes back to the wall, he shoves another sarcastic breathy laugh from his nose. “Figures. Well I guess that didn’t help, huh? Should’ve saved your money.”

I twirl a quarter of the way around in my seat, keeping my heels pressed to the same area of the floor as I anxiously finger a pencil, picking it up and dropping it down and repeating.

“Nahhh…” I start, then stop what I’m doing and snap my attention back to him. “Today’s your birthday, isn’t it? Judd mentioned it this morning when we went to get Piper and Alyssa’s flowers.”

Even from the corner of his eyes I can see I-don’t-give-a-damn fester up in his expression as he rolls them and bounces up subtly on a sarcastic laugh, before turning to look at me.

“Piper, huh? So you guys are still a thing? I thought you two were history years ago. So what happened this time?” His tone turns serious.

Holy shit! Finally, someone that knows.
“We were…” I stumble, tripping over my thoughts and veering from the obvious topic of what happened to her even though he knows. I’m keeping my damn mouth shut this time, regardless. “I thought some things could be forgotten, but she chose to dredge them up and punish me for them again.”

“Ahhh, well, I don’t know the whole story, but that has to be a tough one.” For the first time in years, he sounds sympathetic to a situation.

“Well Abby seemed to help it along this time.”

His sarcastic, down-played chuckle from before moves to an all-out laugh as he jolts forward, lowering his arms. “Well hell, she just seems to have brightened everyone’s day, didn’t she?!” I frown in confusion, but he goes on, “She looked giddy as hell carrying around that ridiculously huge bouquet of flowers today. Hmmm, maybe I got her in a pissy mood,” he goes on practically talking to himself, then suddenly snaps out of it, turning back to me. “Probably better off.”

A lot of good talking to Tristan is going to do.
“Well, I’d like to fix it, but with her…” I sigh, “It’ll be pretty impossible.”

Tristan’s brows dip and he cocks his head back incredulously. “That’s pretty harsh, given what it seems she’s gone through.”

I blink my eyes in a bit of surprise, because it’s not every day, or any day for that matter, that this discussion is breached, not even with her. It’s somewhat encouraging, yet still a cause for caution; I’d like to limit myself to one screw up every couple years.

“No, it’s not that. I mean, yeah, that’s the reason she does what she does, but she just hangs onto it…she lives there…in the past and lets it dictate every major part of her life. Then when faced with it, she runs, takes off, hides from the damn issue instead of realizing…” I gulp, fuming the more I say, because dammit, I wish she’d find a way through this. If I could knock that wall down, I’d tear through it and make sure there wasn’t a fiber of fear left in her. “…that it happened. Yes, it is horrible, it sucks major ass, it’s even downright traumatizing obviously, but if she lets it beat her, if she just lets it hold her back her whole life then…” I stop, not sure where I’m going with this, but a bolt of livid frustration is thundering through me. She couldn’t even hear me out. “I think she’s so scared of facing what happened that she thinks of reasons to run. She’s not even mad at me, she just needs an excuse to not face it head on. She’s running,” my voice grows quieter as I go on, picturing her at my doorstep the night it happened.
She’s still running; she ran out of that cabin that night and she never stopped running from it.

“Damn…” Tristan murmurs, also sounding deep in thought. “Yeah, but sometimes that’s all a person knows to do. Sometimes, that’s all they’ve got to save them, because if they stop…” His face twists into a painful understanding and for a moment I wonder;
Is he thinking of his own life: his mom, his wreck, his own unrelenting traumas.
“It might bury them alive,” he pauses, looking me dead in the eyes and shocking the hell out of me that he can be serious and make some damn sense. “Listen, I think everyone has a trigger. Something that can free them from their personal demons.” He shrugs, continuing on, “Some find it, some don’t. Maybe you’re hers, but…maybe you’re not…” Pursing his lips, he goes back to a straight bland expression as if he’s not talking about himself;
maybe he’s not.
“I guess all you can do is wait and see if she comes back? Or just say screw it and move on.” He shrugs, sounding more like the same antagonizing Tristan I know. “But the pain in the ass you spoke of…I wouldn’t worry about whatever she said to tip this off.”

Kicking my head back, I suddenly do not follow. I referred to a hemorrhoid being a pain in the ass, but I don’t remember it saying anything. My face goes slack as I stare at him in question.

“Abby…I’m talking about Abby.”

Ahhh, pain in his ass. Got it. I always thought there was something going on there.

“Yeah, I’m sure she’s a pain in a lot of people’s when she gets going.” I go over all that went on tonight as I pause. “Ahh, I guess Abby’s a lot like me. She just doesn’t know when to shut up,” I say, refusing to elaborate anymore on the night.

“I’m sure I could shut her up,” Tristan’s confident tone which has been lost since the wreck, comes through loud and clear as he turns to get back to work.

I chuckle, “Well I’ll let you use whatever preferred method on her, I’m good. I’m learning on my own that I need to keep my mouth shut.”

Tristan and I both quietly laugh to ourselves, neither of us sounding real genuine or invested in a happy mood or night of talking. Jumping up, I head for the small blue sofa in the break room for a restless evening of no sleep. My head goes over where I should be right now and I slam on the breaks, in full on ‘kick myself in the ass’ mode for the stupid careless slips I’ve made.
Damn my mouth!

AFTER A FEW DAYS OF
deep thought and time alone, I came to the one-time-halting conclusion that is, I have to read the letter. I already had this talk with myself, convincing my heart that it could bear whatever he had to say and ensuring my mind that it would help me move on, but in the end I still put it off.

Not any more!

Flinging my legs off of the bed, I sit up with my hands digging into the mattress on each side of my hips to hold me steady; to give me strength to do it. I stare ahead, my vision set hard on the top drawer of my dresser where I had hidden it as soon as I had returned from the lake. My body trembles, and my eyes bear down to such an extreme that they should be able to penetrate the solid wood piece of furniture.
I can do this.
I spring forward, off the bed and to my feet, bolting across the surface of the carpeted floor as if I’m on ice skates. My hand falls to the brass knob and I pause, a deep breath moving over my tongue and down my throat to fill my lungs and give me courage.

Pulling it open, I automatically set my eyes on a sliver of notebook paper at the bottom of the drawer beneath a pair of red and white polka-dotted pajama pants. I move quickly, not wanting to lose my nerve. After slamming the drawer shut, I walk back to the bed and slowly ease down, because standing up seems too hard right now. After a deep breath, I begin to read.