Try Not to Breathe

by Jennifer R. Hubbard

  Besides all that, even though fire might burn off fingerprints and destroy most of the sweater, I doubted it would get every last fiber. The spot where I burned it would become my new pink sweater: a place to avoid but obsess over.

  “I don’t think anything with fire is a great idea,” I said.

  “Well, there are plenty of ways to do it, if you really want to get rid of it.”

  “I do,” I said. And God knows I’d thought that a million times before, but the difference was that now I believed I might someday manage to do it.

  • • • • •

  All confessed out, I went quiet. Nicki lay on the ground again. When I dropped my hand, it accidentally landed in her hair. She didn’t object, so I didn’t move it. The crickets and cicadas made waves of sound, their chirping rising and falling and rising again, each new wave beginning before the previous one had fully subsided.

  “Do you think there’s any afterlife at all?” Nicki asked. Her fingers spread over the grass, the grass that covered the dead beneath us. “Heaven or reincarnation or anything like that?”

  “Sometimes I think there is, but I don’t know if that’s just because I want there to be.”

  “You told me you thought death would be like sleep.”

  I rubbed my scalp. “Yeah.”

  “And that’s what you wanted? Just—sleep, forever? Didn’t it bother you to think of the things you’d miss, the stuff you’d never get to do again?”

  “Yeah, I thought about that. Maybe that’s why I waited so long. But I also thought of the crap I’d never have to go through again.”

  “But still. Forever?”

  “Well, I’m still here, right?”

  She fell silent, and I thought I could hear the grass breathing, the dew beading on the tips of every blade.

  • • • • •

  “Can I tell you something?” Nicki said.

  “Sure.”

  “Come down here.”

  I lay beside her. She snuggled against me.

  “Swear you won’t tell anyone?”

  “Yes.”

  A sigh, right into my ear. She whispered, “The week before my dad died, he took me to Funworld.”

  “The amusement park?”

  “Yeah.”

  I waited.

  “He skipped out on his job to do it.” Her body was warm against my left side; the grass was cold under my back. The heat and chill met somewhere in the middle of me, like having a fever.

  “I had so much fun,” she said. “It was just the two of us. When the whole family went, Matt would only go on the roller coasters, and Kent always got sick after three rides, so this was the one time I got to go on all the rides and do everything I wanted.”

  Strands of her hair brushed my neck, tickling my skin. But I didn’t move.

  “He got in trouble, though. He’d cut out of work too many times. They fired him, and he took that really, really bad.” Her breath was heavy in my ear. “Everyone in my family knows he got fired and that’s one reason he probably killed himself. But they don’t know about that day at Funworld. He said Mom would get mad at him, and Matt and Kent would feel left out, so we didn’t tell anyone.”

  I listened, waiting for the big secret, for whatever she needed to whisper.

  “My family still doesn’t know.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “If I’d made him go to work instead—”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” Suddenly I understood what the big secret was—just this. What she’d already told me. She had pinned her father’s death on this one day at Funworld—as if there were only one thing it could be pinned on.

  “If he hadn’t taken me to Funworld, he wouldn’t have gotten fired.”

  “You don’t know that. Besides, you said he wasn’t fired because of that one day. He skipped work all the time.” I shifted so that I could put my arm around her.

  She shook her head with frustration that I didn’t understand, that I didn’t get her guilt and why she was the bad guy in this story. But the fact was, I understood exactly.

  • • • • •

  I stroked her arm the way she’d stroked mine, and she turned her face toward me. I knew that if I turned my head, I wouldn’t be able to keep my mouth off hers. And I didn’t fully understand it, because I couldn’t forget about Val, either, even if there was no chance of anything happening there.

  Nicki touched my cheek and turned my head toward hers—not that she had to push hard. Our mouths met and we almost seemed to stop breathing. I drew her on top of me so I could feel her whole body against mine, and this time I let my hands go everywhere—over her shirt, her skirt, then back over her sweaty, rumpled clothes, up to the tangle of her hair. Down again, inch by inch this time, never taking my mouth away from hers.

  We kept our clothes on. I was scared of what would happen if we didn’t, because right then I would have taken anything and I would have given her anything. Instead I tried to take in her whole body through my hands, through my tongue, her breath in my mouth, her hands on me.

  EIGHTEEN

  "Where have you been?” my mother asked the instant I walked in the door. Not only had I missed our daily check-in, but she and my father had been edgier, hovering over me a little more, since the skydiving talk. Jake’s return to Patterson hadn’t helped. “I kept trying your phone, and you never answered!”

  “Oh—I shut it off and forgot to turn it back on.” I realized now I was lucky she hadn’t sent out the police.

  “If you can’t keep it on, maybe you should stay home.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I need to be able to reach you. Where were you?”

  I kicked off my shoes. “With Nicki.”

  “The girl with the overbite? Again?” She followed me through the living room, into the kitchen.

  “Don’t say it like that’s the most obvious thing about her.”

  “I don’t like you running around with her unsupervised.”

  “Why?” I opened the refrigerator and stood there in my bare feet, taking stock. Diet yogurt, diet lemonade, diet soda. Urgh. I pulled out a plum and rubbed my thumb across the silver frost on its skin.

  “It’s too easy to get in trouble,” she said.

  “You mean pregnant? She’s not my girlfriend, Mom.” She wasn’t, was she? I didn’t know what the hell she was, after tonight. I’d never had a real girlfriend before, but surely there was a limit on the number of times you could make out with a friend before it became—

  Mom’s lips wrinkled. “Not just that. There’s drinking, drugs—”

  “We don’t drink or do drugs, either.” We just drive around in her brother’s truck visiting the psychics of the state, trying to talk to her father’s ghost.

  “What do you do?”

  “Hang out, talk. Nothing much.”

  I bit into the plum. We locked eyes, as if she were waiting for me to confess that Nicki and I built pipe bombs or had orgies in the woods. But I had nothing to say. I gnawed the fruit down to the woody pit and tossed it in the trash while pink crept up Mom’s face. I heard her words from yesterday all over again, her voice shredding in the diner. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I should’ve checked my phone.”

  She frowned and straightened the edge of the trash bag where it lapped over the outside of the can. “I talked to Jake’s mother. He’s doing as well as can be expected.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She sighed. “I’m not sure I know myself.”

  • • • • •

  I climbed up to my room and checked my messages. I had a couple from Val; I clicked on the first one.

  “Thanks for letting me know you went to Patterson. I’m glad you went, even though they wouldn’t let you see Jake. At least he’ll know you were there.

  “I can’t stand thinking about it. When I heard he slashed his wrists, it put pictures in my head that I can’t get rid of. I try to prepare myself for this stuff, but I never really can.
/>   “How are you doing with it?”

  When I hadn’t answered that message, because I’d been out with Nicki all day, she’d sent another.

  “Now I know it’s silly and I shouldn’t worry, but the truth is when something like this happens I worry anyway. You know how at Patterson we talked about copycats, and I’m sure you wouldn’t do anything like that really, but it’s not like you’ve never thought about it. I remember you and Jake going on about the best ways to kill yourselves, about nooses and guns and bridges and all that, when he first got to Patterson. And even though that was months ago, he’s back in the hospital now, and if you could send me a message to let me know you’re OK, I would appreciate it.

  “And if you’re not OK, I want to know that too. Even more!”

  She’d signed it, “Love, Val.”

  I could imagine what she’d thought when I hadn’t answered that message, either. I checked the time on it: 6:23. But it wasn’t just to ease her fears that I hit Reply. What was this about Jake slashing his wrists? And why hadn’t I known about that sooner?

  “Hey, Val. I’m here. I was away from my computer all day & had my phone off. Did you say Jake slashed his wrists? Because my mother didn’t tell me that.”

  Val must’ve been waiting, because her answer zipped right back to me.

  “She was probably afraid to tell you. Because of your history.”

  I loved that. My history.

  “But it’s true,” she wrote on. “He cut himself, but it didn’t work.”

  “Good. I mean, good that it didn’t work.”

  A pause. Then, from her: “Are you OK?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure? Because you can tell me if you aren’t. When I said I wanted to be your friend, I meant it. Friend isn’t even a strong enough word for what you are. I love you. I hope you know that.”

  In some ways, when she said things like that, it was harder to take than if she’d cut me off cold. Sometimes, almost getting what you want is worse than never coming close.

  We were still friends, though. And we had Jake to worry about. “Yeah, I’m OK. Are you?”

  “Yes. But I’m mad at J. And sorry for him. I want to smack him across the face and hug him at the same time.”

  I hadn’t felt any of that yet. It always took things forever to sink in for me. By the time I absorbed anything, the rest of the world had moved on, and I was stuck thinking about things that everyone else had left behind. I settled for typing: “I can see that.”

  “I wish he had talked to me. He did for a while, but he shut down near the end. Even though I was right here.”

  “Sometimes it’s too hard.”

  “Bullshit. Harder than killing yourself?”

  That was aimed at me, too, I knew. Jake’s and my death wishes had always bothered Val; she didn’t understand why we were that way. She’d always wanted to fix us. The meanest thing Jake had ever said to her, once when she’d pushed him too hard, was, “Stop worrying about me, and see if you can stop picking your nails and pulling out your eyelashes for three seconds!” And she’d shot back, “At least my stuff isn’t fatal!”

  “My mom said he was OK,” I wrote now. “Was she lying about that, too, or is he really OK? I mean physically. I know he’s not completely OK.”

  “Yeah, they just stitched him up, from what I understand.”

  We sent a few more messages back and forth, mostly about how we hoped Jake would make it, and then I disconnected. I paced a couple of circles around my room, wanting to go downstairs and confront my mother, to ask her what the hell she had meant by hiding this information from me.

  But I already knew what she meant by it—that she didn’t think I could handle it, that she was afraid it would give me ideas. And I didn’t want to start a talk with her that might lead to another tidal wave like the one she’d unleashed in the restaurant.

  • • • • •

  I stopped in front of my closet and twisted the knob. The bundle sat there on its shelf.

  I realized that I had told Nicki about it.

  I had told her the sickest things I’d ever done, and she hadn’t screamed and run away. Flames hadn’t come shooting out of my head. She’d even kissed me after knowing the truth.

  I’d hated this sweater for months, but now was the first time it seemed possible—actually possible, not just a fantasy—to get rid of it.

  NINETEEN

  The next day I got up early and ran. I thought about only one thing while I was on the trail: the sweater plan. I mapped it out, pictured the ending a hundred different ways. I told myself that the scenes where police led me off in handcuffs were ridiculous. Not even Amy Trillis would call the cops in a situation like this, would she?

  Unless maybe she wanted to ask for a restraining order?

  My feet smacked the dirt. Gobs of mud flew, speckling my calves and my shorts. The leaves around me smelled green, bursting, swollen with rain and chlorophyll. I tried to focus on the rhythm of my feet, but pictures of Amy flashed across my mind.

  I ran harder, sweating until I thought I might dissolve. Maybe I could melt away before I ever had to confront her. I could become a puddle on the path, soak into the ground, rise up through the tree roots.

  But at the end of the run, though I was heaving and soaked and coated with mud, I was still here.

  • • • • •

  In the shower, I willed my mind to go blank. I told myself I had prepared enough; there was nothing more to imagine. Or to “visualize,” as they said at Patterson. I adjusted the spray until hot needles pelted my skin, ducked my head under and scrubbed at my scalp. If I could’ve stopped time then, I would have.

  • • • • •

  I rode my bike into West Seaton, where Amy’s aunt owned a restaurant called the Gingerbread Café. Amy had worked there, and I thought she still might, or at least the people there would know her. I didn’t know her home address and didn’t want to hunt for it, because I didn’t need to feel more stalkerish than I already did.

  “Do you know Amy Trillis?” I asked the girl behind the counter of the café, a girl with an eyebrow ring that gave her a look of constant surprise.

  “Yeah, she’s here now,” the girl said. “Working in the back.”

  “What time does she get off?”

  “Two.”

  It was twelve thirty. The hour and a half stretched in front of me, but I reminded myself that I’d lived this long with the sweater. I could stand it a little longer.

  I went to the library and sat in a dark corner of the historical section with a magazine in my hands, reading words that never sank into my brain. The building smelled of paper and dust, comfortable smells.

  I tried not to picture the scene with Amy. I ran over my planned speech for the millionth time, but I tried not to imagine what she might say, and what I might say in return. I would just have to let it happen. If she laughed, if she screamed at me, if she shrank away, if she made fun of me—no, I had to stop thinking about it.

  This sweater had been weighing on me for months; I couldn’t believe that today was the day I would get rid of it. Unless I changed my mind. This didn’t have to be the day. I could go home right now and never talk to Amy—

  Enough.

  I was finished hiding the sweater, agonizing about someone finding it. I was finished with reliving the day I’d taken it and cringing every time. After all, Nicki knew the truth, and she hadn’t told me I should be locked up.

  Of course, it wasn’t her sweater I’d taken.

  To steer my mind off this crazy circular track, I pulled out my phone. First I had to answer a text from my mother and reassure her that I was still alive. Then I thought I could break the tension of waiting by texting something stupid to Jake—until I remembered where he was. Maybe I should send a message to Val? No. She didn’t have much in common with Amy otherwise, but they’d both rejected me, and I couldn’t reach out to Val right now.

  What about Nicki? Maybe. Except that I want
ed to wait and talk to her when this was all over. I wanted to be able to tell her I’d given back the sweater.

  The brown paper bag sat on the table in front of me. I couldn’t imagine how it would be not to have it anymore. It would be like an amputation, except that the sweater was more of a tumor than a limb.

  • • • • •

  I waited outside the Gingerbread Café at ten of two. I sat by the bike rack, trying to look natural, feeling as if my elbows and knees stuck out. People snuck looks at me, and I knew they thought I was planning to steal their bikes, but I gazed past them to show I had bigger, more important matters on my mind. I took deep breaths to calm myself down, inhaling the rubbery smell of bike tires.

  Twenty minutes later, Amy finally came out, checking her phone as she walked. She wore less makeup than she had last year, but she had the same dark curls I remembered. My eyes used to trace the curves of her face, shoulder, and body. But today I marched up to her without savoring the sight of her—legs quivering, wanting to run in the other direction.

  “Amy? Excuse me.”

  She turned her head toward me, no flash of recognition in her eyes. And yet, she didn’t seem surprised that I knew her name. Maybe girls like her were just used to everyone knowing who they were.

  “I’m Ryan Turner. I used to go to school with you,” I said. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

  “I guess.” She glanced at her phone and clicked something.

  “This won’t take long.”

  “Okay.”

  The Gingerbread had a couple of outdoor picnic tables and benches. The ones in the shade were filled, but I sat on the sunniest bench, where nobody was close enough to overhear us. Amy hovered, not sitting. “I have something that belongs to you.” I pulled the grocery bag out of my backpack, opened the top of it, and showed it to her. She peeked in.