Hold My Breath (32 page)

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I
’m starting
to think Maddy’s aim may have been to incite fear in my bones, to make me feel the death threat of her father at my heels in the pool. The moment she made that public comment yesterday, I felt Curtis’s eyes on me in a way I never have. He hasn’t said it, but I know the threat is real—if I fuck this up for his daughter, I can kiss my balls goodbye.

There’s a part of me that knows Maddy wasn’t serious. If something happens, and I am on the bubble—the guy they choose, or don’t choose, for alternate—I don’t really believe that Maddy would turn her back on her dreams in protest. But then there’s that other part of me that knows that Maddy doesn’t lie—not to my face. She looked me in the eyes when she walked away from that microphone, conviction in the sway of her hips and smug confidence in her grin. She told me the rest was up to me.

I’ll give her this, I haven’t thought about Evan, or Dylan and Tanya, until right now, and only because I can see my nephew on the screen for the camera. They’re panning to my family.

My family.
Only two of them are related to me by blood, yet they all have this piece of me.

“You ready, son?” Curtis says, his hands fists that knead at my shoulders.

Son.

My head falls, my eyes look at my feet, water on the ground tracked in from the race before me. It all comes down to this—to eighteen seconds.

I tilt my head and look at him sideways as Curtis moves to stand next to me.

“Explode, right?”

He nods, reaching his fist forward to pound against mine.

“You got this,” he says, just like his daughter. I wait with the other sprinters. I won my heat, but my time wasn’t the best. I’m in lane two. But lanes aren’t going to make the difference for me today. I could be swimming in a separate pool from everyone all together, alone…in the dark, and it wouldn’t change what I need to do to get myself to the games.

I know I’m supposed to clear out my thoughts of anything but his words, but my head is full. It’s crowded in there—responsibilities running into memories—the past tangling with the present, guilt melting into pride, a dash of anger thrown on top for good measure. I doubt my mind will ever be quiet again, but I’ll learn to use it. I better learn fast.

I don’t hear them call us out, but I follow the guy in front of me. He’s lane three, and I can tell by the smug smile he gave me before he slipped his goggles on that he thinks that means he’s better.

It doesn’t mean shit.

I’ll beat him first.

We all line up behind our blocks, and I bend down to stretch out those last few nerves. It’s the same every time—a little trick my brother taught me that I will probably do until I’m too old to dive head first into the water any more. You visualize that monkey on your back, and you swing until he can’t hold on any longer. He always falls in the water.

I step up on my blocks, and I feel everything. I feel the air in this building—however slight it blows—against my face. I feel the grit beneath my feet, and the buzz in the air from everyone’s collective anticipation. I feel the steady rhythm of my heart, the pound gaining speed with each drum until I hear it hit the rate my arms need to move to. I breathe in long and deep—one last taste until I get to the other side, and then I let the noise in my head take over until it’s deafening and only one single thing rises to the top.

Maddy.

“Take your mark.”

I recognize the words. My body obeys, and I coil into position.

Maddy.

The beeping sounds. My heart threatens to break rhythm. One. More. Breath.

Maddy.

The reaction is automatic. It’s innate. I explode, and I don’t have to look to my right to know that lane number three’s shot at making the team is over. I don’t care about him anymore. I don’t care about lane four, or five. I care about eighteen. I care about that perfect line, the way my arm comes out, goes in, digs, pulls, grabs…and does it all again. I care about left. I care about right. I care about twenty. Twenty-five.

Boom-boom. Boom-boom.

The sound in my ears has become thunder. My legs punish the water. Bedlam lives behind me, peace straight ahead—I cut through it like a sacred sword—sharp and precise.

Thirty. Thirty-five.

The explosion is behind me, and I’ve long forgotten the feel of the air. All I feel now is the smooth silk of the water as it caresses my face. I disrupt it…break it—the calm gone with my arm, the perfect line, tight across, low down, fast through—above all else, fast.

Maddy.

Seconds slow, yet my breath feels endless. I don’t look left. I don’t look right. I know that the storm around me is thick and furious, and every single lane is occupied with someone who feels just as worthy as I do—no doubt, more. But they’re still not going to win. They can’t have today. Today is mine, and doubters can go to fucking hell, because I’m done serving my sentence. I’m done feeling like I owe the universe. I don’t owe anyone shit.

I swim for me and that beat that’s picking up pace. My arms follow it—chase that sound. I drive faster.

I race…for her.

Maddy.

My fingertips graze the wall, collapse against the slick surface and the wave I’ve carried behind me comes crashing into the back of my head. My mouth gasps, and my lungs fill with sweet air. I know before I turn. My heart feels it before I see it.

It doesn’t make it any less sweet.

Eighteen.

* * *

I
’ve always loved coming
out here before sunrise. There’s a peacefulness to the water—no ripples, no sound other than the chirping of crickets and the occasional toad. Man, nature, and the elements.

Maddy mentioned it before bed last night, those times when we were in high school and she and I would wake up at four or five, just to get our laps in before anyone else. She never invited Evan to those swims, and I always kept them a secret.

That—it’s just ours.

Always will be.

I’m not here to swim this morning, though. This just seems to be the only place I can think—where I can really find the guts to dare for impossible.

I get to the ground, sliding my shoes off behind me and rolling up my sweatpants, testing the water with my toes first. We put a new heater in at the Shore Club last week, but I still haven’t tried it. My mind can’t make sense of the snow my eyes see on the ground around us to get myself to dive into the water.

“Just a leg,” I whisper to myself, dropping my foot in slowly.

The water still bites, but the heater is definitely working. I follow with my other foot, grinning over the brim of my coffee cup, like a proud father, while I wiggle my toes in the water I now own a share of along with my uncle and the Woodsens.

The Shore Club couldn’t close. More than just what this place means to me, to Maddy and her family, to Evan’s story—the good parts—this place still has a lot of work to do. I have work to do here.

My future became incredibly clear on that Olympic podium, a silver medal around my neck, the weight of the world somehow lifted from my shoulders. I have so much to give this swimming world, and I’m just getting started.

I approached my uncle with the idea first, knowing that my savings wouldn’t be enough. I was prepared to have to convince him, or to have to find alternative investors, but I think maybe the idea of family has grown to mean something more to him, too. He and my aunt never had children, and she died young. Tragedy brought me close to him again, but that special bond that only comes from blood found its familiar place and imprinted itself on both of us. He was just looking for a way not to go back to Michigan.

Tanya died two months ago. People say that death is easier when you have time to prepare for it, but I think those people are full of shit. It felt just like I knew it would—like the devil had his way with my heart and then shoved it back in my chest, and I was expected to find a way to continue to live—to breathe and go on every day with the things on my plate now.

A year ago, I might have given up.

I might have driven my car off the edge of the world.

I didn’t have Maddy then.

I sip the steaming coffee before setting it next to me, leaning back on my palms, my feet circling in the water and my eyes watching the sky move from a deep royal-blue to violet. Morning—and the colors that go with it—makes me think of her.

Before Tanya’s passing, we worked out the paperwork to make sure I would become Dylan’s legal guardian. Maddy finished school, but instead of taking the job at the hospital, she applied to a special program at State to work with kids like Dylan. I saw something happen to her the first time she met him and he held her hand. My nephew has so many things to overcome, but love isn’t one of them. Love just pours from him, without words, and with limited gestures. It’s in his essence, and it makes me believe in things that I’ve damned and doubted since the day I lost my brother and parents.

It took some work to fix the Clubhouse, but using the lobby space along with the upstairs, we were able to make it livable for Dylan, me, and Duncan. I think my uncle often fancied the office space, with the “just-right light,” so it was just a matter of blowing out a few walls to make the studio apartment’s bathroom shared.

We added a wall downstairs, and though it’s tight, we have enough room for the three of us, more often four when Maddy stays the night, to gather for dinner at a table, and for Dylan to be able to easily maneuver his electric chair from his new bedroom to the kitchen and bathroom.

I’ve found the routine of things, and I’ve found comfort in it. But I still wait for the hour when I get to see her face—every day. Sometimes, it’s midnight after a long day studying, or putting in hours with the hospital’s special therapy programs. Other times it’s morning’s like this, when she puts on her suit and we make silly bets neither of us mind losing, and we race for nobody but ourselves.

She is my joy.

She always has been.

“Either the heater’s working, or you’re tricking me—seeing if I’ll dive in and catch a cold.” Her voice soothes my soul, a song starting behind me, then wrapping around me completely. I keep my eyes on the sky—her favorite color coming next—and I point up.

“Oh, you know how I love the orange,” she says, kicking her shoes off, rolling up her jeans and sitting down next to me.

She shivers a little when her feet plunk in, and she wraps her arm through mine, laying her head on my shoulder to look up at the sky with me.

“Coffee?” I ask, holding my cup out for her to take.

“Mmmmm, yes please,” she purrs.

I watch her sip, her eyes blinking to stay open from the fog of the drink, to stay on the quickly disappearing stars above.

“Thank you,” she says, smiling as the cup’s edge leaves her lips.

I take it from her and set it back down next to me, and I lean back a little more on my left palm, careful not to disturb the place she’s cradled on my right arm.

Maddy won two golds at the Olympics, but my story was the one on the front page. Sports can be sexist like that. The press also never seems to get tired of exploiting my story. I don’t know how many times people can read about the boy who survived, only to come in second, but I guess at least one more time.

Between the two of us, Maddy’s the real survivor. She’s the strong one. I protected the lie, but she’s the one who had to overcome it, to come to terms with what my brother had done. She never once put that hurt on Tanya or Dylan, but there have been times in the last few months that she’s gotten angry. She’ll find something that reminds her—a photo or old yearbooks—and it just opens up the vicious circle for her. Evan’s scars have made it hard for her believe that good love—
true love—
is real.

But I know it is. I’m looking at it right now, watching it look up at the stars.

I’ve been wandering the world half a man, and Maddy, she made me whole.

“Marry me,” I say.

Two simple words. They fly from my lips with little warning and little fanfare. I suppose it’s rude that I didn’t say them like a question, but I simply can’t. The only answer I can take from this woman is
yes
, and I won’t quit saying them like this until she concedes.

I’ve asked twice already, and both times she’s said
no
. So I won’t ask anymore. I’ll just speak it like the truth it is.

Her eyes blink slowly once, and I marvel at the way the orange above mixes with her brown to turn her eyes gold. She doesn’t flinch, and her breathing remains steady, as if she didn’t hear me at all. I’d think maybe she didn’t, but I know how loud I was. I left no doubt. It’s been weeks since I’ve asked, since she told me I wasn’t ready, but I know I am.

I wait with my eyes on her for nearly a minute, finally resolving to repeat this routine in two days, when I know her morning is free again. I don’t sigh. I’d hoped for her to accept, but I’m not discouraged. I’m empowered, because every time I ask, the words get easier to say. This time, they were nearly effortless.

I rest my weight back again, watching the peach-colored clouds shift to white, the sky around them growing more and more vivid in its blue. It’s going to be cold today, with more snow maybe tonight. I’ll need to shut the pool down completely for the next month, but I just wanted to test the heater. Classes will begin in the late spring, and then I’ll get to teach. My heart is steady, and my mind is calm. I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.

“Yes,” she says.

It takes me a second or two to realize I didn’t imagine her word. My mind halting on the to-do list I’d just begun, my head falling forward again, tipping to the side.

Her eyes blink again, and her lip tugs up on one corner. Fucking Elvis!

“Ye…yes?” I stammer, nowhere near as cool and calm as I had pretended I would be when I fantasized about how this morning would go.

Maddy nods, her smile growing.

“Yes, Will Hollister. I will marry you,” she says.

Her eyes dazzle, and my heart stops, just for a moment, almost as if it’s etching a memory of this moment on my insides, as if
right now
is anything I could ever forget.

I turn to face her, lifting her body into mine, her legs falling over my own, our bodies pressed close together while my hands graze up her arms to her cold cheeks, pink from the morning chill. I lean into her, stopping when my forehead rests against hers, holding my kiss until I can just be certain I’m not dreaming.

It’s my smirk that gives me away.

“You’re totally going to throw me into the pool, aren’t you?” she asks, and I nod against her, biting my lip, but unable to stop the devious laugh that puffs out from my chest as I squeeze her to me tightly and push off with my legs, dumping us both into the water.

She screams when her head breaks back through the surface, and in typical Maddy fashion, her arms swing wildly, pelting me with balmy waves that still sting in the cold Indiana air. I let her hate me for just a second, and then I grip her wrists and drag her kicking toward me, my hands smoothing down her soaked sweatshirt, pressing her into me for warmth.

“I can’t believe I signed up for this for life,” she says, her voice quivering and her lips vibrating from both laughter and the cold.

I cup her face in my hands and kiss her hard, holding her head against mine for a second or two more, finally helping her from the pool, and then chasing behind her for the locker-room showers.

Once the hot water penetrates our skin, I pull her naked body to mine again, and I kiss every spot I missed the first time. I never tell her that I can’t believe she signed up for this either. I don’t share the millions of times I doubted deserving what she’s given me already. I keep all of those voices away from my head and heart. I lock them out, and I promise myself never to let them back in. It’s taken me years to defeat them. I couldn’t do it on my own. I needed joy.

My joy.

Maddy.

Maddy…and eighteen seconds.

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