Before You Break: Between Breaths

by Christina Lee

  “I’d forgotten he’d said that to me,” Daniel said, his voice raw from crying. “Do you think he knew?”

  “That he was going to die?” I said, my voice light and pensive. “Some people believe that. But I’m not sure.”

  We fell into a comfortable kind of silence and I waited for him to tell me more.

  “His girlfriend sat in the front seat next to me while he was laid out in back. On our way home, she slid her fingers over and placed her hand in mine.” He paused, maybe to reminisce about that moment in time. “My palm was sweaty and my heart was all erratic and, man, I had it so bad for her.”

  I pictured this scene in my head, how it might have felt for your crush to respond to you, to like you back. Even though it might have been bad timing, it didn’t mean it wasn’t real.

  “You said that your best friend was passed out in the backseat. So she couldn’t have been putting on a show for him—not right then.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long moment, considering my words.

  “Unless she was just setting me up for later,” he said.

  He had built up these walls, not allowing any positive thoughts to seep inside. He would only accept that he was bad, that he was wrong, that he didn’t measure up.

  “It seems you so easily believe there’s no way she could’ve liked you for you,” I said. “Am I right?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Quinn

  I held in a gasp. Fuck, that was a loaded question.

  Here I was pouring my heart out to a perfect stranger and she asked me the one question I’d refused to ask myself. Never thought I was worthy enough to ask myself.

  How come this stranger got closer to the true me than anyone had in a long time?

  Except maybe for Ella. We were drawn to each other. It was natural. Hypnotic. Magic. And Ella had the same soothing tone as Gabby, like I could tell her anything. Except telling her everything would make her loathe me. And telling Gabby was what she was trained to do.

  “I . . . I don’t know. All this time, that’s what I’d told myself.” I thought about what Amber had said in the parking lot that night. About still wanting me. I thought she’d been messing with my head.

  “I guess I’ve always felt like I was only an obligation or a chore to people,” I said.

  “Is that why you put so little stake in yourself?” Her voice was soft, soothing.

  How in the hell had she guessed my deepest secrets?

  “Maybe.” She’d pretty much hit the nail on the head. I immediately thought of my parents and maybe even Sebastian. I never stood up to him; I just fucking worshipped him. He had everything I didn’t. He was everything I wasn’t.

  Maybe in the back of my mind I was glad he was dead.

  “I just think . . . I just know . . .” I was having so much trouble getting the words to line up on my lips because they were so shocking, so mind-boggling. Could I even voice them out loud? “Maybe I would have done anything to get with her that night. What if I . . . Did I . . . kill him on purpose?”

  I’m sorry, Sebastian. I didn’t mean that. My head was so messed up. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!

  I heard Gabby take a deep and meaningful breath. “Do you honestly believe that, Daniel?”

  “Fuck, I don’t know,” I whispered. “No, that’s not true, I do know. And the answer is . . . no. At least not consciously.”

  “Of course not, Daniel.” She said it so resolutely that even I might have believed her. “Besides, thinking it and doing it are two different things. Maybe you wanted him to disappear for a while, so you’d have a chance with this girl. But you didn’t want your friend dead.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  And then I was lost in my own thoughts for long moments. And she let me be lost.

  Until, finally, I repeated, “Yeah, okay.”

  “So how did your night end?” she asked. “Your best friend was in the backseat and the girl you were crushing on was holding your hand in the front seat.”

  “I got distracted. By her. And my own thoughts. I kept thinking he was going to wake up any minute and see that I was betraying him,” I said, sharing what I had never once uttered out loud. “I should have said no, let go of her hand. Told her to break up with him first.”

  I thought of me and Ella. How close we’d gotten with our flirting. I told myself I wasn’t going to cross that line again, and I wouldn’t have. Even in the basement, when I was desperate just to touch her.

  But then she broke up with her boyfriend, showed up in my room, and called my bluff. I was out of excuses. It was just me and Ella, free to act on our feelings. And I chumped out on her. Because still, somewhere deep inside, I didn’t believe that a girl could like me—really like me—for me. Just me. All of me.

  “What happened next?” Gabby broke me from my self-pity.

  “I don’t know exactly. To this day, the details are still shady. There was a truck in the next lane over, hauling ass. I must have veered over the line and we sideswiped each other. I lost control of the car—we were sent into a tailspin.”

  I shut my eyes and relived that moment. The brunt of the impact. The sound of crunched steel, shattered glass. Losing control of the wheel. Amber screaming.

  “My best friend flew out the side window. My air bag went off, and his girlfriend . . . she smashed her head against the dash, but her seat belt saved her.”

  “So it was an accident,” she said very quietly.

  I felt my anger building up but not to an all-consuming intensity this time. “I was being careless, not paying attention, and my best friend paid for it with his life.”

  I placed my head in my hands and rocked back and forth. “He died and I’m still alive.”

  “And that kind of devastation is the hardest to bear,” she said with such empathy in her voice. “I know.”

  She said it like she really did know. Like she’d been through it, lived it, carried it inside her.

  “What happened to the truck driver?”

  “He survived,” I said.

  I wouldn’t tell her that my parents had paid him off.

  I had shared so much with her tonight, so why was that once piece of information so hard?

  Because it was humiliating.

  The truck driver had said he was sketchy on the details as well—who had swerved into whose lane. But then my parents became involved, spoke to the police, to Sebastian’s family, to the driver, whom they paid off, to make it all go away in a neat and tidy package. Like it never happened.

  Except that one person was gone forever.

  And another was broken and lost, possibly for eternity.

  I should have yelled and screamed and told the police to put me in jail. Even Amber had blamed me. Asked me why I hadn’t seen the truck sooner as she cried over Sebastian’s body on the side of the road, a huge knot protruding her forehead.

  It was the worst sight I’d ever witnessed in my entire life. One I’d never forget. Like it had been singed into the backs of my eyelids. I’d felt so horribly responsible that I’d retched right there in the grass near a blanket of shattered glass.

  But a couple of nights later, my father came into my room, slapped me across the face, and told me to get ahold of myself. Said I would not ruin my life and his chances of running for office. Said the driver agreed to take the lesser plea and get the hell out of town. That Sebastian’s parents agreed it would all be for the best and wanted to put it behind them.

  They never blamed me and they never would. The driver had taken responsibility.

  Didn’t he realize that by paying people off, he was already blaming me? Me, his only child. It was the same as saying, You’re a fuckup. I don’t believe in you. I’m going to pay off someone to make sure it remains a secret—the real you remains a secret.

  The following day, Aunt Gabby came over while I continued to barricade myself in my room. I listened to their muffled argument through the door. She told her sister that I deserved more. And then Mom kicked her o
ut of the house.

  Their relationship had been strained ever since. Not that it hadn’t been before that. Aunt Gabby and Mom were different as night and day and sometimes I’d lie awake in bed and wish I’d been born into Aunt Gabby’s family instead.

  “What keeps you going, Daniel?” Gabby asked in a dreamy, faraway voice. “You haven’t ended your life, and I’m thankful for that. So what is it that makes living worth it?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.” I thought about how I was trying to make it up to Sebastian’s parents. My drive to do that had replaced my desire for my parents to see me succeed.

  “Sometimes . . . I mean, really, all this time, I’ve been trying to keep myself alive for his parents.”

  “For your best friend’s parents?” she asked, with an incredulous tone in her voice.

  “Yeah, I mean, so that I guess . . . so they’d have someone to check in with. So that I hadn’t abandoned them, too.”

  “Wow, Daniel that’s really . . . selfless.”

  “Selfless? I just . . . I’ve been filled with so much guilt, I figured it’s the least I could do,” I said. “But that doesn’t really answer your question. It certainly doesn’t make my life worth living. Not really. I don’t know what the fuck does anymore.”

  “I hope when you figure it out you’ll call back and let me know,” she said, like she wanted me to make a promise. And maybe in her mind, it was a promise to keep me alive. Even still, for the first time in a long time, it was one I was willing to keep.

  She gave me the names of a couple of therapists in the area. She asked me to at least set up an appointment with one of them. I wasn’t sure if I would, but I took the information anyway.

  “Oh, and Daniel?” she said. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For letting someone in. I feel privileged that you chose me.”

  It was as if the noose around my neck had been loosened. And I’d been allowed a few clean breaths. Maybe going home for spring break would be tolerable after all.

  Yeah right. I might need to have Gabby on speed dial.

  ***

  I flipped the light on in my parent’s garage and inhaled deeply. It was the smell I’d come to love most—besides a certain mysterious almond scent. It was like a mix of oil, metal, and paint—and, fuck, how I’d missed it.

  I stepped farther inside and allowed my fingers to grasp the sheet that covered and protected one of my greatest accomplishments. I gently hauled the cloth over her bumper and my breath caught in the back of my throat. She was a beauty and I’d helped restore her.

  And it had been too damn long since I’d laid eyes on her.

  I squatted down, picked up the can of paint near the rear wheel, and blew the thick layer of dust off the top. I’d had such big plans for her. Had I continued my renovation the last couple of years I’d be taking her for joy rides by now.

  But after the accident it just seemed wrong to refurbish the same kind of machine that was instrumental in my best friend’s death. And for me to find any kind of solace in it. All I could see was Bastian lying in the wreckage on the side of the road. The desire to rebuild anything, especially cars, had been zapped away. As if my livelihood, my spirit, had been vacuumed out of my soul.

  But standing here now, I couldn’t keep the foreign feeling welling up in my chest at bay. As if it couldn’t be contained any longer or it would consume me. Permeate my skin, latch on to my bones, and flow through my veins.

  I’d been too damn afraid all this time. Terrified it would taint Bastian’s memory. Make me a disgrace.

  Instead, it was slowly killing me. I was withering away to nothing. A hollow shell.

  As I rolled up my sleeves and reached for the screwdriver on the worktable, I allowed a singular emotion to take hold and it was so fucking potent that I felt tears burn the back of my throat.

  I didn’t bother to swallow them down. I just knew I had to do this. Take this first step.

  In order to survive.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ella

  The two days I’d been home, I’d been busy with an endless list of chores to help my mom ready our house for Saturday-night dinner. We always celebrated with relatives the day before Easter because my parents believed Sunday should be reserved for church and immediate family. The Easter Bunny didn’t figure into our traditions anymore, but there was plenty of food and sweets to keep us satiated.

  One of the reasons I’d decided to leave home to live with Avery was because our family was close. Too close. Like know-all-of-your-business close. And they’d always set high expectations for us. And that’s why I didn’t know how Christopher could have slipped past us undetected. We were very involved in each other’s lives.

  My father admitted that he sometimes suffered from bouts of depression. I wished he hadn’t been too proud to come clean earlier. Maybe Christopher wouldn’t have felt so alone. According to the journal I’d found after his death, he’d been depressed for a long time. He’d felt like he didn’t belong to our family. The only thing that had made him feel halfway sane was playing soccer. Because he’d found something he was good at.

  My parents had certainly changed since Christopher’s death. Especially my father. He was more quiet, introspective, and protective of us.

  One of the reasons I’d become a psychology major was because I’d wanted to understand why my brother had taken his own life. And in the process, I had helped heal my family. As much as a family could mend when one member was lost to you forever.

  That morning, I was helping my mother prepare dinner. We were having all the Polish fixings—sauerkraut and kielbasa, cabbage and noodles. Each year, Mom made pierogies from scratch by rolling out her own dough at the kitchen table. One of my jobs was to add flour whenever the consistency became too wet. And later, to indent the dough with the bottom of a drinking glass, so it could be formed into soft pillows of goodness.

  This was our routine and some days we performed our tasks in silence. Today, Mom wanted to know all about my classes. I hadn’t told her about Joel and me yet. I’d just said that he wouldn’t be coming for dinner because of other obligations. She hadn’t pressed me and neither had my father. Maybe they already knew. They could always read me pretty well.

  My twin brothers, James and Jason, were in the garage helping dad change the oil in my car. My father insisted on inspecting my vehicle each time I came into town. It was his way of making sure I was safe.

  “You bring Avery the leftovers,” Mom said. “And tell her I expect a visit from her and her new boyfriend soon.”

  “I will, Momma. She already told me she’d miss your cooking.”

  The past several years, Avery and her brother, Adam, had come for Easter dinner. But this year they were headed to celebrate with Bennett’s family for a couple of days. Adam would be attending TSU next year and Avery was relieved to have her brother closer so she could keep a better eye on him.

  Even though Avery’s mother was having a better year in the parenting department, she wasn’t up for any mom-of-the-year awards yet. She still shacked up with different guys, but at least she had curbed her alcohol and drug usage, according to Adam. She had even kept a decent-paying job.

  Two hours later, a couple hundred pierogies were pinched at the seams and ready to be boiled. They were filled with sauerkraut, ricotta, plum jam, and my favorite—potatoes and cheese.

  After we cleaned off the table and washed the dishes, we headed out the door to Aunt Karina and Uncle Roman’s restaurant. The diner was busy and Aunt Karina had called and asked me to pick up dessert along with a side dish she’d made, in case they were running late.

  Basia’s Diner sold freshly baked pies, and I was glad that Mom had decided not to make hers from scratch. Truth be told, I liked Aunt Karina’s pies the best, even though she and my mother used the same recipe—my late grandma Basia’s. She taught them everything they knew about cooking.

  The diner was located in the next town over on a
busy thruway, and, no surprise, the lot was full. It was always packed during the holidays as people passed through town to get to their destinations.

  I spotted a familiar car taking up two spots in the far corner of the lot. I don’t know my classic cars like my father did—or like that other person did. The one who I was trying extra hard not to think about.

  We were greeted by Aunt Karina as soon as we stepped through the door. She wore the same light-blue apron with purple embroidered flowers that she refused to retire no matter how many replacements we’d bought. It had once belonged to Grandma Basia.

  “Look at this beauty-queen niece of mine.” Aunt Karina pulled me in for a strong hug while my mother walked behind the counter to greet Uncle Roman.

  “Hi, Auntie.” Our parents were so close, she’d almost become a second mother to me. “Been craving your banana cream pie for weeks. I can’t wait to get my hands on a slice.”

  She kissed the top of my head. “I loaded it with extra whipped cream just for you.”

  She grabbed my cheeks and pinched lightly. “How are things?”

  I looked into her bright-blue eyes and saw myself in thirty years’ time. “Good, Auntie.”

  She peeked over my shoulder to make sure my mother wasn’t listening before whispering. “How about with that boy?”

  I shrugged. “It’s all right.”

  It was nearly impossible to lie to my aunt. She’d always had excellent radar for boy troubles. “You’ll tell me all about it tonight?”

  I nodded and looked around. “You guys have a crowd this afternoon.”

  My eyes scanned across the red and silver booths in the restaurant, landing on a lone diner in the very back. I nearly fumbled over my own feet trying to get a better look.

  Quinn wore a black baseball cap and a dingy white T-shirt with black smudges across the front—like he’d been working in the yard or maybe on his car. When he looked up, our eyes met and he jerked back, visibly shaken.

  Like this was last place he’d ever imagined seeing me. On spring break, at Basia’s Diner.

  Yeah, no kidding. The feeling was mutual.