A Breath Too Late

by Rocky Callen

  The next day, I shuffled in a daze to my locker. I almost didn’t notice when the folded sheet fell out. It tumbled onto the floor and landed on top of my shoe. I leaned over to pick it up, eyes narrowed, and unfolded it. Glossy paper. A dream nestled in my hands. On the lower right corner were familiar scratchy letters. “Deadline for admission is in three months. Remember, we can go Anywhere.”

  You didn’t sign it. But I knew it was you. Your penmanship never got much better after fourth grade, which was especially surprising because you drew and painted like someone destined for art galleries. I looked around the halls and couldn’t find you, but I searched hastily in my locker for Scotch tape. I held my breath, practically frantic. When I found it, I bit my lip and tore off a piece. Like before, the flyer fit perfectly on the inside of my locker door. Yes, it fit perfectly. My fingers traced over the letters again and I smiled.

  I printed off the pages again in the school library.

  I hid them in my closet.

  37

  Momma,

  You were working later and later. Father had gotten a job down at the wood mill and his hours were longer too. There were still nights you came home later than him. I didn’t know why you’d risk that since that just made Father’s beatings worse. He was angry that you were working so much. I ignored your little noises of pain or the shower running to cover your tears late at night.

  Not because I didn’t care, but because you had made your choices and I refused to make the same ones. I blocked out the world with words. Writing essays for Ms. Hooper. Writing and rewriting and throwing away stories for Columbia. I kept writing about broken things, secrets, sad things, but something felt wrong with the way the lines fit together. They weren’t the stories I wanted to write.

  I wrote in the dark while you shook in the shower.

  I tiptoed around my house and took the belt beatings whenever Father had too much whiskey and too many excuses for violence, but my bruises would go away.

  The ink from my pen would remain.

  I wrote even as I put a pillow over my ears so I couldn’t hear you cry.

  I smooshed myself into the lines and lived there so I could pretend that Sunset Street didn’t exist at all.

  38

  August,

  “I told them!” You were running toward me as I sat in a patch of green grass behind the school. Everyone had left and I had been enjoying the heat and the quiet. I raised my hand to block the sun from view and saw you, wild-eyed and grinning. How is there enough space in the world for those big eyes and smile? I couldn’t help but smile back even if I had no idea what you were talking about.

  Then it clicked. You had told them that you were planning on going to art school.

  You were on full blast, like an explosion of color and light, a giddy and breathless expression of joy.

  I stand up. “No. Way.”

  “Yes. Way.” You matched my staccato rhythm.

  I raised my hand to awkwardly high-five you and you ignored it, leaned in, and wrapped me up in your arms. I sharply inhaled, a little uncertain. But you were warm and buzzing with an energy that barely fit inside the northern hemisphere, let alone your body. It was the biggest hug in the world, and it was mine. I smiled against your soft cotton T-shirt, breathing in the smell of detergent and oil paint.

  I didn’t realize that we were standing there holding each other with no space between us, until I heard your breath hitch.

  My hands were wrapped around your neck, your hands were wrapped around my waist. We were two bodies that were neatly pressed together. When did they get tangled up in each other? Who pulled or yanked our hug into something new and electrifying?

  I wondered that as I felt your face lower and your nose lightly brush mine, and I felt your breath hot on my face. You swallowed. Licked your lips. Your breath unsteady.

  And then I felt you.

  I felt you.

  I blinked, trying to focus.

  You were hard under your jeans.

  I blinked again, confused. You want me. Like that?

  My body was one million pinpricks of delight, of desire, of blinding exhilaration that made my stomach do flip-flops on its own invisible trampoline. I needed a bungee cord to keep myself tethered to the Earth because I just wanted to float away.

  My body was taut—alert—and deep in my belly I felt an ache that twisted but still felt good. Like I was being hollowed out and was swallowing sun-soaked honey all at once. We weren’t moving, just feeling the slope and planes of our bodies and the way they were close, too close, but not close enough.

  I heard you swallow again and your hands ever so slowly tightened around me. I was a sunflower in your cupped hands and you wanted to kiss my petals without hurting them. I felt that, that hesitation and desire. It rolled off you in waves and crashed over me and I wanted to drink it all in. I curled my fingers into your hair and let my nose graze your neck, and your Adam’s apple bobbed under the touch.

  “Ellie—I…” You suddenly seemed embarrassed by the hardness under your pants and I wondered if I should be too. You stepped back to create space between our legs, but then dipped down so your face was a whisper away from mine. Your lips brushed my cheek and I closed my eyes. You were breath and eyelashes and hands and I leaned into you, hungry. Hungry for things I didn’t know or understand, but starving all the same.

  “You are holding your breath,” you said.

  I realized I was. I was holding in all the oxygen, all the air to not disturb the moment, to not ruin it.

  “I don’t want to blow you away,” I said, and I felt your lips curve up into a smile on my neck.

  “I am staying right here, Ellie. Always.”

  And I believed you. Your lips drifted from the curve of my neck, to the edge of my jawline, and then your lips brushed mine with the softest of kisses. A kiss for petals and bruised knees and holy best friendships turned into something new.

  We both exhaled. We both leaned back. We both felt the ache, pull, desire, and fragile bright thing between us.

  I blinked, because I wanted to hold it.

  But I didn’t think I could.

  I stepped back. I felt like I was falling. Not in a falling-head-over-heels-into-soft-clouds kind of way, but in the nightmare-the-ground-is-about-to-hit-me kind of way. I swallowed. I blinked again. I tried so desperately to shove aside the doubt and reluctance because I wanted to step back into the circle of your arms, but I couldn’t.

  “Ellie…”

  “I—I have to go.” I didn’t want to go, I wanted to stay, but I was afraid that one more touch could ruin everything. One more touch might be a lie.

  I turned away from you. The disconnect and the space between us felt like the Grand Canyon had cracked the world in half and we were stumbling apart, and I wanted to cry.

  “Ellie, I’m sorry, please don’t…”

  I didn’t wait to hear what you had to say.

  “Ellie…” Your voice was louder, more urgent.

  I was already running.

  You didn’t chase me.

  39

  Momma,

  My inked-up shoes pounded the pavement. My mind was a riot of feeling. My body was tearing me in different directions. I wanted to stay near August, I wanted to get closer, but then doubt had solidified into such a real and immovable thing in my chest, and as I ran I remembered what you once told me.

  That when you first met Father, it felt like the sky had cracked open and spilled stars around you. That in the beginning, there was nowhere safer than his arms. That a long, long time ago, you were in love with him.

  And then you had to cry in showers and whimper in beds and hide bruises under foundation and too much eye shadow.

  I didn’t think August would ever hurt me.

  But once, you had thought Father would never hurt you either.

  Just like how when I saw him on our porch that first time, I didn’t know he would bite.

  I was scared to give my heart away.
<
br />   It had already been broken.

  I knew how it felt to be stuck in a cage and I was afraid that the circle of August’s warm arms could somehow become gnarled iron bars that would trap me in.

  I knew because that was your life and you had dragged me into the cage with you and I didn’t want to just run into another one.

  40

  Momma,

  You woke me up with a hand stroking my hair. I blinked at you with swollen eyes. I was too tired to get up.

  “Are you having a nightmare? You were tossing in your sleep. What’s wrong, my dove?”

  I was still teetering on dreams. “I don’t want to live in a cage.”

  You stroked my hair again, teasing out the tangles. “You don’t belong in a cage.”

  “But what if…” It was dark and I was partly asleep and so I was brave. “Are all men like Father?”

  You paused your stroking and inhaled. “No, Ellie. Not all men are like your father, but you still have to be careful with your heart.” The way you said it, it sounded like you meant Don’t be reckless like I was with mine.

  Then you gently put your fingers under my chin. “But that doesn’t mean you should close it.”

  41

  Sky,

  I was crashing through your clouds without a parachute, plummeting and screaming and the air was sucking up all of the sound. I was flailing my arms, trying to grab onto sunbeams and your cornflower blue, but I was falling, falling, falling and as the ground reached for me, I closed my eyes …

  And woke up.

  42

  Dreams,

  You were cruel and felt so real and sometimes when I woke up, I still felt like I was falling.

  43

  August,

  You didn’t try to force me to talk to you or push me for an explanation, but after Jameson’s class when the bell rang, you were out of your seat like a lightning bolt. In front of me was a folded note. I unfolded it. It wasn’t a note at all. It was a drawing.

  It was of our barn bridge. We were kids. We were sitting in the open-air windows, our legs dangling over the edge. My eyes were on the river below, a full-blown smile on my face. I looked happy, alive. I wanted to be that Ellie. The Ellie who breathed in brushstrokes and not the Ellie who felt like she would disappear drop by drop into the floor. Then I looked at the drawn version of you sitting beside me. Your eyes weren’t on the river.

  They were on me.

  44

  Depression,

  I was so tired of the stories of heartache and loss that you kept whispering in my ear. In class, I scratched my nails into the wood desk chairs just to make sure that I was still sitting on them, just to make sure that I wouldn’t fall.

  You kept trying to lock me in. But I was slowly finding the key. When I was distracted by college essays and saucer eyes, you got quiet. I was tired of the tender lullabies of goodbye that you whispered in my ear. They sounded so sweet. They also sound like lies.

  And I was tired of the sinking feeling that kept the world so far away.

  I was tired of being alone when I knew the world could be just a little brighter.

  With him.

  So whenever you crept in, I decided to punch back.

  To fight.

  You didn’t belong here anymore.

  And that’s when I realized what was missing from my story. I pulled out my notebook and I wrote about pain, but I also wrote about hope.

  45

  August,

  I wrote about us.

  46

  August,

  “Hi,” you said.

  “Hi,” I said back.

  We were both looking at our feet. My shoes with the words sprawling over the white fabric, your shoes clean. It had been a week since we had actually looked at each other. I could feel the hum of energy between us, the pull and anxiety. We were on the sidewalk, but we might as well have been in a broom closet. The air around us felt tight, expectant, uncertain.

  “I’m sor—”

  “I’m sorry, August.” I was still looking at your shoes. “I—I overreacted. It wasn’t a big deal and I just, I got … nervous.”

  You were quiet for a moment. “I would never do anything, never try to do anything to hurt you.” You stepped closer, shoes closer. I felt your hand lift my chin. You swallowed, and I saw your Adam’s apple bob. “Ellie Walker, do you forgive me?”

  There was part of me that wanted to say there is nothing to forgive, that I liked to feel you wanting me, that even as I pushed you away, I wanted more of you. Instead I said, “August Matthews, you are forgiven.”

  You exhaled, and your shoulders slumped in relief. The air around us loosened its grip.

  “I mean, what would I have done without the presence of the great August Matthews in my life?”

  A smirk. “Suffer. Greatly. Obviously.”

  “Quite true. It is such a bore to not be incessantly bothered. The silence was maddening.”

  “Since you are practically Silence’s mistress, I will have to call bullshit on that.”

  “Not true. I have words and worlds bouncing around up here.” I point to my temple.

  “Yes, but I wish you would use your lips more.” You looked at my lips then, one second, two seconds, three seconds.

  I wanted to say something, but I was so focused on your eyes looking at my lips that I forgot how to string words together.

  Then you shook your head once as if to clear it and stepped back. “Want to go to our bridge?”

  I liked how you said “our” bridge. I liked how it had been years since we had been there together, but it was still ours.

  “Yes, I do.”

  * * *

  The bridge was the same as before. Just older and more used. You walked toward the spot where you’d carved our names in the wood.

  I blinked and ran my finger over the letters. “I can’t believe it’s still so clear.”

  “It might have had some help.” You pulled out the Swiss Army knife from your pocket and twirled it around.

  “You’ve been re-carving it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why?”

  You shifted from one foot to the other. “I—I didn’t want to let you go.”

  I was blinking fast. I felt awkward and excited and afraid and everything in between.

  I stared at your big, huge gray eyes. Those eyes that looked at me and made me feel like I was slipping into them. I stared at you, the boy who raced me down streets and who kissed me on bridges and who drew me pictures that made me feel awake and alive. I wanted to tell you all of this, but instead I blurted out, “Your eyes don’t fit in your face right.”

  You blinked. “My eyes?”

  “Yes, they are too big and when you look at me like that I feel like I might trip into them.”

  “I don’t know whether to be flattered or offended.” You cocked your head.

  “Be offended. Seethe with resentment. Yes, I think that would be most appropriate.”

  Maybe then I would stop climbing into your eyes, and floating in the gray of them without a lifeboat. I was teetering off balance as I realized that you had the goofiest and most beautiful grin on your face.

  “What?” I said, shaking my head clear.

  Your eyes and smile seemed to eclipse the whole of your face. You touched my nose. “Maybe I want you to trip into my eyes. I think it would only be fair since I am already lost in your freckles.”

  My hand flew up to my nose. “My freckles?”

  “Do you remember when we were in Ms. Bailey’s fourth grade class and we were learning about the stars?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Yes.”

  You shifted. “I remember looking over at you. I purposely sat behind you and to the side because I wanted to look at you anytime without you filleting me with your gaze. I really loved all my body parts and wanted to keep them.”

  I smirked and elbowed your ribs. I remembered feeling slighted when you had changed seats. I’d felt like you wanted spa
ce. All along, you’d just wanted me to be unaware of your growing attention. I might have blushed.

  You smiled and swallowed. “We were learning about stars and how patterns of them had names and when we were playing after school one day, I started to look at your freckles and I wanted to name them like the stars in the sky because I felt like … they were beautiful and so far, far out of my reach.”

  We were quiet. My heart was a bright yellow balloon and was floating somewhere above our heads. You looked away. Like you knew I would get up and leave and you didn’t want to see me do it.

  “Well, did you ever name”—I made an awkward gesture toward my face—“these constellations?”

  I held my breath, certain I would pass out on the buckled-wood bridge floor.

  Finally, you looked up at me. “Every single one.”

  I exhaled. “Liar.” I hoped you weren’t lying.

  The tiniest quirk of your lips. I wanted to shiver as you leaned in closer.

  Your fingers grazed the top of my nose and my cheeks, connecting the dots, voice soft as you started reciting names, “Paris and Helena. Tristan and Isolde. Lancelot and Guinevere. Romeo and Juliet…”

  “All those names are lovers from literature.”

  You took a shaky breath and then pulled your hand away, blushing. “That’s because every one of them was meant to be kissed.”

  I held my breath. “Tragic lovers,” I said. “Those are all tragic love stories…”

  “Maybe that’s because I didn’t think that I would get the happy ending I wanted.”

  My heart wasn’t a single bright balloon. No. It was all the balloons in the world, and it was floating up, up, up into the sky.