Reason to Breathe (11 page)

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” I heard
Carol announce, closing the door behind her. The kids were watching
TV in the living room. I couldn’t hear George.

I looked at myself in the mirror and
mindlessly wiped the remaining dried blood from around the bandages
before I opened the bathroom door. I stepped into the hall to
retrieve the broom and mop from the hall closet when George rounded
the corner. He stopped and his eyes widened. But his shocked
expression quickly dissolved.

“Bump your head?” he asked casually.

“That’s what I get for walking while
reading,” I droned, knowing he would convince himself of anything
except for the truth.

“You should put some ice on it,” he
recommended.

“Mmm,” I agreed and walked back into the
bathroom to complete my task.

After my chores were completed, I returned to
my room to find a bag of ice waiting for me on my desk.

I gently put the bag of ice on the lump and
watched Jack and Leyla chase after George in the backyard through
my window – sworn to silence in my hell.

I awoke in a panic around midnight. I stayed
pressed to my pillow, my eyes fervently searching the room. I was
breathing heavily; my shirt was damp with sweat. I tried to detach
myself from the nightmare that had awoken me. It was hard to push
away the urgency of the dream that had me pinned beneath the water,
drowning. I took in a deep breath, confirming that I was still
alive as the air passed easily through my lungs. They weren’t
burning for oxygen as they had been in my dream. I had a hard time
falling asleep after that. Sleep finally found me just before the
sun rose.

I was awoken by a hard knock on the door.
“Are you going to sleep all day?” the voice barked from the other
side.

“I’m up,” I mustered in a rasp, hoping she
wouldn’t come in. I looked at the digital clock next to my bed that
read
8:30
. I knew I had to take a shower before nine o’clock
or do without. I slowly sat up with the throbbing pain, a reminder
of my living nightmare. I needed to find a way to ice it again so
the lump would be gone by the time I went to school tomorrow. I
knew there was nothing I could do about the dark purple bruise.
Thankfully the area around the cut wasn’t bruised. Sara’s new
hairstyle was going to come in handy with covering up most of
it.

I gathered my clothes together and slipped
into the bathroom without being seen. Washing my hair was more
painful than I anticipated. I hadn’t realized how sore the back of
my head was from her iron grip of my hair. I felt blood scabbed
over where some of the hair had been forcefully removed. I was so
focused on the contusion that the back of my head didn’t register
until now. I gingerly used my fingertips to rub the shampoo into
the front of my hair, but it still felt like a form of torture. I
turned off the water before
the knock
and proceeded to dry
off and get dressed. After gently drying my hair with a towel, I
discovered that brushing my hair was worse than washing it. Tears
filled my eyes with each stroke of the brush. There was no way I
was going to be able to blow it dry. Reluctantly, I made the
decision not to wash my hair the next day despite how atrocious I
knew it would look after sleeping on it. I wasn’t willing to go
through the pain again.

“Does she know about this afternoon?” I heard
Carol ask George from the kitchen as I sat at my desk engrossed in
my Trigonometry homework.

“Yeah, I told her yesterday,” he replied.
“She’s going to the library and will be back for dinner.”

“And you believe she’s going to the library?”
she asked doubtingly.

“Why wouldn’t she?” he questioned.

I didn’t hear a response from Carol.

“I’ll be back around one,” she finally said.
Then the back door opened and closed.

“Want to go outside and play with Emma?”
George asked the kids.

“Yeah,” they screamed in unison.

“Emma,” George bellowed through the closed
door, “do you mind taking the kids outside?”

“Be right there.” I grabbed my fleece jacket
and was greeted warmly by jumping, cheering kids.

The rest of my day was actually fairly
pleasant. I kicked the soccer ball around in the postage stamp
backyard with Leyla and Jack. George and Carols’ house was modest,
puny compared to Sara’s. The section of town we lived in was
typical middle America, but compared to the Pleasantville of the
rest of Weslyn, it might as well have been the other side of the
tracks.

I rode my bike to the library while George
and Carol took the kids to the movies. I spent the remainder of the
afternoon hidden in the stacks completing my assignments or in the
computer room typing my English paper. I avoided human interaction
at all cost, fearful of the reaction I’d receive at the sight of
me. I finished with a few minutes to spare before I had to start
home, so I called Sara on the pay phone.

“Hi!” she exclaimed, a little too overzealous
for someone I had just seen the day before. “How are you calling
me?”

“I’m at the library, on the pay phone.”

“Oh! I’ll be right there.”

“No,” I blurted before she could hang up the
phone. “I’m leaving in a minute, but I wanted to prepare you for
when you pick me up tomorrow.”

“What happened?” Sara asked with concern,
almost panic.

“I’m okay,” I calmly assured her, trying to
downplay her reaction. “I
fell
and hit my head, so I have a
bandage and a little bruise. It’s really no big deal.”

“Emma! What did she do to you?!” Sara yelled
with a mix of fear and anger in her voice.

“Nothing, Sara,” I corrected. “I
fell
.”

“Sure you did,” she said quietly. “Are you
really okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I have to go, but I’ll see
you in the morning.”

“Okay,” Sara replied reluctantly, before I
hung up the phone.

8.
Bad Luck

I woke up
to the same routine as any other morning, until I looked in the
mirror – reminded that there was nothing
routine
about my
life. I took in my nightmare of a hairstyle and knew there was no
way I could get away with not washing and drying it. I was already
going to draw attention - I didn’t need to look like I’d slept on
the streets as well.

My head still throbbed but the golf ball had
significantly reduced to being almost flush with my forehead. I was
able to tolerate showering and brushing my hair, and my eyes only
watered slightly when I dried it. Maybe I would be able to survive
today after all.

Then I saw Sara’s dropped jaw when I slid
into the car. Sara didn’t say anything to me, and I couldn’t read
her expression with her oversized sunglasses covering most of her
face. She handed me a bottle of water and aspirin. Then again,
maybe today was going to be one of the longest days of my life.

“Thank you,” I said as I dumped a couple
pills in my hand and swallowed them down with several large gulps
of water. I tried to act natural, despite the tension.

She barely glanced at me. I flipped the visor
down to examine my cover-up in the mirror, trying to figure out
what was making her so withdrawn. My bangs were swept across my
forehead to conceal my bruise, and the bandages were barely
noticeable under the fan of hair.

“Okay,” I demanded. “Why aren’t you talking
or looking at me?”

“Emma,” she breathed in exasperation, “look
at you!”

“What?” I defended, glancing back up at the
mirror. “I think I did a pretty good job of covering it up.”

“That’s what I mean.” Her voice was shaky. It
sounded like she was going to cry. “You should never have to cover
anything up. I know you won’t tell me what happened, but I know you
didn’t
fall
. Will you at least tell me what it was
about?”

“What does it matter?” My voice was small,
not anticipating the strength of her reaction. I wasn’t expecting
her to act like nothing happened, but I didn’t want her to cry.

“It matters to me,” she choked. I watched her
blot her eyes with a tissue under her glasses.

“Sara, please don’t cry,” I pleaded. “I’m
okay, I swear.”

“How can you be okay with this? You aren’t
even angry.”

“I’ve had the weekend to get past it,” I
admitted. “Besides, I don’t want to be angry. I don’t want to let
her get to me. I’m not okay with this,” I said pointing to my head,
“but what other choice do I have? I’ll deal with it. So please
don’t cry. You’re making me feel horrible.”

“Sorry,” she murmured.

We pulled into the parking lot, and she slid
off her glasses, blotting her eyes while looking in the rearview
mirror.

“I’m okay,” she breathed, trying to produce a
smile.

“How bad does it look? Be honest.”

“You actually did a decent job hiding it,”
she admitted. “I’m having a hard time because I know the truth.”
And then again, she didn’t know the half of it.

“If anyone says anything, because I know they
will, tell them I slipped on the wet floor and hit my head on the
coffee table.” She rolled her eyes at my lie.

“What, do you have a better one?” I
countered.

“No,” she sighed. “Keep the aspirin. I know
you’ll need them.”

“Ready?” I asked tentatively. I didn’t like
seeing Sara upset, especially over me. The anger and sadness were
in complete contrast to her personality. It was uncomfortable to
witness.

She released a heavy breath and nodded.

I received a few questions about my injury
from some of my soccer teammates and other brave gossipers, but
most people just stared. I should’ve been used to the stares after
Friday’s disaster. I wished I invisible once again - or at least
ignorant of the gossip that was always happening around me.

I found my way to English class without
having to explain my
fall
to more than two or three more
people. I sat in my usual seat, pulling out my paper to pass
in.

“Does it still hurt?” Evan asked from the
chair next to mine. At that time, Brenda Pierce approached the seat
she’d been sitting in since the first day of class and scowled to
see it occupied. He smiled politely and shrugged.

“Well, there’s one person who’s not going to
like you,” I said wryly, trying to avoid the question.

“She’ll get over it,” Evan stated with little
interest. “So, do you still have a headache?”

I drew my eyebrows together and reluctantly
admitted, “I took some aspirin this morning. So, it’s better, as
long as I don’t turn my head too quickly.”

“That’s good,” he said casually. Everyone
else had asked what happened; no one bothered with how I was
feeling – until Evan.

“How was the rest of your weekend?” Evan
whispered.

“Okay,” I answered without looking over at
him.

Ms. Abbott began with the class discussion,
handing out our newest reading assignment after we passed in our
papers. She also handed us a short story which she allowed us to
begin reading in class after she’d given us our writing
assignment.

“Are we talking, or not?” Evan whispered when
Ms. Abbott stepped out of the room.

“We are,” I glanced at him, confused.
“Why?”

“I can never figure you out. I want to make
sure I’m on the same page today.”

“I’m not much of a talker,” I confessed,
turning back to our assigned reading.

“I know.” His answer drew my attention - he
had that amused grin spread across his lips.

I wasn’t in the mood to inquire about his
antagonizing grin and didn’t give him another glance for the
remainder of class. I wasn’t allowing myself to be dragged into the
mystery that was Evan Mathews, not today. I just wanted to get
through the day with as little attention paid to me as possible. I
wished it could have been that easy.

Evan escorted me to Ms. Mier’s Art class. He
didn’t try to talk to me. But he’d inspect me with a concerned flip
of his eyes every so often as I walked blankly through the halls,
not looking at him or anyone else. I had to sever my emotional cord
to escape the anger and shame that silently slithered through my
head, disconnecting myself from the stares and whispers that
followed me down the hall.

“Today you are going to take a walk around
the school property and snap pictures of scenes that inspire you
for the calendar entry next month,” Ms. Mier announced. “The final
pieces will be displayed along the wall of the main entrance where
the students and faculty can view them. A vote will decide the
twelve pieces to make the calendar. The artistic creation that has
the most votes will also be the cover of the calendar. Does anyone
have any questions?”

The class was silent. Ms. Mier asked a couple
of students to pass out the cameras from the storage cabinet.

“Are you submitting an entry?” I asked Evan,
who was standing behind me with his own camera in his hands. I
glanced back to catch him raise his eyebrows, surprised to hear my
voice.

“I’ll submit a photograph.”

“Please meet back in the class in forty
minutes to return the cameras,” Ms. Mier instructed.

The class emptied into the halls, heading
toward the stairs that led to the back of the school. I opted to
take the side stairs that let out at the football field and tennis
courts.

“Do you mind if I come with you?” Evan asked
from the top of the stairs. I looked up at him from the middle of
my descent and shrugged with indifference. Evan followed me in
silence.

When we exited, the cool air blew against my
face. The refreshing breeze sent a chill through me, waking me from
my stupor. I observed the brilliant colors of the foliage and
proceeded toward the football field.

“Did your parents say anything when you came
home soaked the other night?”