A Breath Too Late

by Rocky Callen

  “I love you, Ellie,” you whispered. “I love you and not like a best friend loves their best friend, but … more, more than that.” You took a deep breath in, knowing you couldn’t turn back even if you were afraid of my response and so you charged forward, seemingly emboldened by my silence. “I love the way you smile when you look at blank pages, I love the way you raise your hand in class even when you aren’t quite sure of the answer, I love the excitement in your voice when you talk about Columbia, I love the world you built for us when we were kids, I love the way you look at my drawings and see me there, truly see me. I love the way you look at me. I love the way you say my name as if you could fit all the good things of summer into it. I love who you are—inside and outside. I love you, Ellie Walker.”

  I didn’t say anything back to you. You were bursting with nervous energy and I wanted to kiss every inch of you, but I couldn’t. Not yet. I soaked in all of you. I did love you, August. I do love you. I knew that for so long, but I’d been too afraid to say it.

  You reached out to grab my hand. “Ellie, please … say something.”

  I looked at you. The boy who made me forget my house, my secrets, my oceans of unshed tears. The boy who gave me strength to battle my own shadows in the dark.

  I was still floating with clouds when I looked at you. “I have a story to tell you.” I stood up and brushed off my jeans. “But you’ll have to wait till tomorrow.” I planted a kiss on your cheek and I ran.

  I ran with a smile on my face.

  47

  August,

  We were in Ms. Hooper’s class. You were fidgeting by your desk trying to lock eyes with me, but I ignored you. I didn’t want to lose my nerve. I walked up to Ms. Hooper and her smile turned on me with its dazzling ferocity. It almost startled me, but I just blinked and whispered, “I’d like to read my story. To the class.”

  Her smile stretched across her face. “That’s wonderful, Ellie! Would you like to read it tomorrow? Fridays are usually when we share—”

  “No, can I read it today? Right now?” I bit my lip.

  She cocked her head and saw something in my expression that led her to nod. “Go ahead, Ellie. You can start out class.”

  She stood up and everyone quieted in their seats and she told the class that I was going to read a story. There were a few snickers, a few chair creaks, but I just took my backpack off my shoulder and pulled out the assignment I had written. The story that I had turned in to Ms. Hooper that had an A-plus across its top. The story I had submitted for my Columbia application.

  Ms. Hooper sat. The other students were quiet. I dropped my backpack to the floor and then I built up my backbone, vertebra by vertebra. I always felt like I was cracking open and splintering apart, but in front of everyone, I felt like I was being stitched back together, into place. Like the joints and seams of me finally figured out how to make room for each other so I could stand a little straighter, hands shaking and bones creaking, but my voice strong.

  With everyone listening, the sound of me took up all the spaces that felt infinite and inconsequential: the space between me and the stars, the space between my toes, the space between the broken doorjamb and the door, the space between Ms. Hooper’s sparkling eyes and my two hands, the space between me and you.

  You watched me, but I didn’t meet your gaze. I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t be brave enough to read the words written on my page.

  “There once was a boy made of color and brushstrokes, and one day he met a shadow wobbling on shaky legs beside him and he decided to paint her beautiful…”

  And then I told our story. Without our names. Without this town. I told a story of swords and sorrow and secrets. I told of a shadow who learned to breathe and a boy who learned to paint the world bright and new.

  The only three words I didn’t say were I love you. But every word had those three crammed between them. I love you was swinging from every syllable and hanging off every letter. I love you was whispered in every single line.

  And when I finally finished and looked up to see you, your eyes were open and your lips were smiling and I knew that you had heard every single one of them.

  48

  Father,

  I walked home and I felt like I was riding wishing flowers as I skipped over cracks in the cement. Every cell sizzled with effervescent giddiness. I was quite sure that I could become intoxicated on this feeling.

  But any high only lasts for so long.

  The feeling was doused by your anger when I got home.

  You found my college application that day. I had spent months filling it out. I had printed it so I could scribble in the margins and write notes on the forms in the middle of the night. Making sure they were all just right.

  You didn’t read them. You just took out your lighter and burned every page.

  You locked Momma out of my room and beat me with your belt until it broke the skin.

  I cried, but I didn’t break.

  And even as the slaps of the belt hit and I bit down on my lip till it bled and Momma cried from behind the door, I wanted to smile at you.

  I had already read my story aloud. It was in the world. Infinite. Immortalized. August had heard it.

  And that paper application you burned? It had just been for practice for when I had to fill it out online.

  I had clicked send on it the day before at school.

  You were already too late and you didn’t even know it.

  Later that night, my back was too sore from the beating to lie on it. I was exhausted, so I fell asleep sprawled out on my mattress. I still wanted to smile, but sleep claimed me.

  I couldn’t be sure, but in between dreams, I thought my eyes opened to see Momma at the foot of my bed with her head in her hands.

  49

  Momma,

  I saw you in the kitchen the next morning.

  “How can you stay with him?” I said. “Can’t you see what he is?”

  You were quiet at first, but then said, “Of course I can.”

  “Then why—”

  “Because … Because…” Your voice was tired and uncertain.

  “Because what!” I practically shouted over the counter, and your hands paused on the frying pan.

  You looked up at me. “Because sometimes you don’t have a choice.”

  I stared at you. There was always a choice.

  You hunched your shoulders. “He doesn’t try to be the way he is. He just doesn’t know how to hold anything he can’t control, anything that is too real.”

  He never saw the me that was real.

  Although that wasn’t entirely true. He did see me. The me that was like the old you.

  The me who wanted to be free.

  You kept us in this box, these bars disguised as walls.

  Once we ruled from a throne on a mountaintop. Once you were a queen.

  That was so, so long ago.

  I leaned away from the counter and turned toward the door. “You are making excuses for him, Momma. We should’ve just left years ago.”

  “We will. Ellie, I—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Momma.”

  I’d listened to enough lies in my head.

  I wasn’t going to listen to yours.

  50

  August,

  I didn’t go to school on Friday. I was all bruises and butterflies. The black and blue peeked out above what my oversize T-shirts could hide and my stomach fluttered with emotions. I wanted to see you. Even if the thought of seeing you made me feel anxious.

  I spent my afternoon and evening with pictures of Columbia spread out across my floor. Father hadn’t found them. I dared to look at them even when he was in the house. My fingers grazed over the classical architecture, the columns, and the beautiful red brick. There were so many photos that the printer at school had run out of color ink and the last few photos were a mishmash of black, white, and color.

  It didn’t matter. Sitting in the middle of all the photos, I felt there.
I was one of the blurs with a backpack stepping into Dodge Hall. I was someone who belonged amid pillars, and stone, and green patches of grass where I could sit and think beside a bronze casting of Rodin’s Le Penseur. I didn’t hear the loud TV down the hall, or feel the soreness of my ribs, or think about the fact that I was sitting in a house with cracked and peeling walls where I locked my room at night.

  I was there.

  Not here.

  And I was happy.

  I picked up each photo like they were pieces of gold and tucked them away. I would take photos of my own soon. Very soon.

  I fell asleep smiling.

  * * *

  Hours later I heard a tat-tat-tat! The tapping on my window woke me up and I shot up, bolt straight. I jerked my gaze to my door and heaved in a breath. Still locked. I looked at my window. Had it been the wind? The tree? I never realized how close the nearby branch came curling toward my window.

  Tat-tat-tat! Rocks. Little rocks were being tossed at my window. I narrowed my eyes before throwing off my blankets and running to the window. I stared out of it and held my breath, and there you were.

  Your smile was wide as you perched on that branch. With a handful of rocks, you looked like you were twelve years old. I opened my window and stuck my head out, whispering, “What the hell do you think you are doing?”

  “You can’t read a story like that and then not show up for school the next day. You practically torpedoed out of class yesterday and then you avoided me the rest of the day.”

  “I wasn’t trying to avoid you.” I absolutely had been trying to avoid you.

  “I was on the verge of literal heart failure.”

  “Doubtful.” I leaned against my window frame. “Besides … patience is a virtue.”

  “I’m not very virtuous.”

  I smiled. “I noticed.” I swallowed and then looked back into my room. “You should go.”

  “Come out with me.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Please. I need to show you something.”

  “August, I can’t leave my house.”

  “Oh, c’mon. Live a little.” You reached out your hand and pointed to the lattice. “We don’t have to stay out long.”

  I leaned out the window. It did look sturdy, it did seem easy, it did sound like an adventure that felt like the first of many.

  I shifted my gaze back to you and grinned but when I did, your smile was gone, your eyes were wide, and you stared at me. I blinked, confused.

  Then I saw your eyes taking in the whole of me. In my tank top. With all of the bruises blooming over my skin.

  I stepped back into my room’s shadows. I felt naked, ugly. I felt like all the balloons that had my heart soaring were popping at once. You saw me. The real me. The parts of me that are broken. “August, leave.” I grabbed the top of the window and started to pull it shut, to shut you out—

  —and you reached out and stopped the window from closing. “Ellie.”

  “Just go.”

  “What happened?”

  “August…” The sadness hit me like a tidal wave. The ferocity of it gripped me by the throat. “Just go,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Ellie Walker. Please don’t shut me out. Please. Tell me what happened.”

  And even as I felt like I was clawing for breath and dragging myself out of the torrent of whispers and despair, I realized I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you everything.

  “Ellie, please.” Your voice broke.

  “We aren’t twelve anymore. We can’t go around playing make-believe or slaying imaginary monsters. There are real monsters in this world. And”—I pointed to the branch—“you are going to break that branch!” I was so close to the cool night air and to you. My eyes were on the sky, my feet were on the warped hardwood floor.

  “I once heard a story about how a boy of paint and a girl of ink could slay any monster together. The real monsters.” Your eyes looked glassy in the moonlight. “The ones you never tell me about.”

  Together. I inhaled the night air. I leaned over to grab a long-sleeve shirt so that the bruises would be hidden. I was going to tell you everything, I didn’t want to force you to see everything.

  “Don’t hide them, Ellie,” you whispered. “Don’t hide them from me anymore.”

  I clutched the long sleeve in my fist. Hide. Hide. Hide. That’s all I wanted to do, but your voice was feather-soft and it tickled that part of me that wanted to be seen.

  “Okay.”

  I dropped the long-sleeve shirt to the ground, and while it didn’t make a sound, I felt like it crashed like smashing glass.

  I pulled my leg over the windowsill and found purchase in the small holes of the lattice. I heard you climb your way back down the tree. I felt the wood between my fingers and felt every steady step on the way down. As I looked up, the distance between me and my window growing, I wondered how I never saw my window as an escape route before.

  My feet touched the grass and it was cool and dewy. I closed my eyes, fingertips still clinging to the lattice as if letting go would break me.

  Your hands went to my shoulders and I felt the warmth of you step closer. You leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Let go, Ellie. You can let go.”

  And I did. Weaving your fingers through mine, we ran.

  It was our special place in the woods. I knew that. It had lived on and grown without us, becoming more wild and beautiful as I was locked away and rotting. What I hadn’t expected were the candles. Battery-operated candles were everywhere, making our little childhood space look magical once again.

  Did you know that I wouldn’t be able to see the magic without them? I looked at you, and you sheepishly looked back. “I wanted you to see it like I see it.”

  Your hand was rough and callused, but you hadn’t let go yet. I pulled free so that I could step into our land of dragons and castles, our little world of victories and magic. I turned in a circle. The electric candles flickered like real flame and I smiled. “Electric candles?” I asked.

  “What? You think I was going to risk burning down our childhood home with real flame all for the sake of a romantic setting?”

  “So, is this supposed to be romantic?” I felt strange asking. It felt too intimate.

  “It…” You looked around and shrugged as color flooded your cheeks. “It’s … for you. For us. I—I don’t want to say anything more about it because I think … you might run away from me. Again.” Your eyes shone in the darkness and flickering orange. “Like always.”

  “I wish this was real,” I said, motioning around.

  “It was. It was all real.” You stepped forward, careful to not trod on the plastic lights, and reached for my hands. My heart thudded in my chest and I hesitated looking up at you. You cupped my cheek.

  “What we had here was real. You shut me out. You didn’t let me in.” You let go of my hands and I let your fingertips trail up my arms to rest on my shoulders lightly where the bruises bloomed in rotting colors. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why couldn’t you let me save you?” You were so very close. “Why couldn’t you let me be your knight in shining armor for once, just for once?”

  I could feel the tears coming, feel the sob building like a volcano, and I didn’t want to cry.

  “Because you aren’t my knight in shining armor. You’re my boy of painted dreams,” I whisper. “I was too afraid to ask you to paint me as someone new, someone different. I was too afraid to ask you to paint all of my pain away. I was too afraid to ask you to paint me unbroken.” And then I told you everything. It felt a little bit like loss, and a lot like freedom.

  You looked at every bruise. You saw me and your eyes were sad. “Ellie, you might be hurting, but you were never broken.”

  I wasn’t going to sob, going to bawl. Not there. Not with you. Not after keeping it all in for so long. I couldn’t break now. I pulled away and stepped to leave, but your hand snaked out and grabbed me and yanked me against your chest. You were so warm, soli
d.

  “Let me go!” I said, wriggling to get free, desperate to flee before the tears came.

  “No,” you said. “No.” You held me so close and so tight that I felt as if you were the stone walls, the tall fortress where Momma and I were once queens and warriors, and I didn’t need to keep my own walls up anymore, because I simply couldn’t. I collapsed against your chest, burying my face in your shirt, and the cries spilled out—loud, wet, and aching. I couldn’t stop.

  You held me while I let the tears inside flood out and you kissed the very places that I had spent a lifetime keeping secret.

  With each hiccupping breath, you just held me tighter and whispered, “I am here. I will always be here.”

  I don’t know how long I cried in your arms. I don’t know when you pulled me into your lap, sitting on the ground. I don’t know the precise moment when you started to kiss me.

  But you did. It was a soft, light brush of lips on my shoulder where my skin was ugly and ruined and yet you kissed me there anyway. My breathing was quieter, my cries gone. I was spent and tired and could feel a dull headache at my temples.

  You kissed my shoulder and then looked at me.

  Is this okay? your eyes asked—no expectation, no pressure.

  My eyes must have said yes, because you kissed my shoulder again. Then brushed your lips up my neck, until your forehead was resting on mine and our breaths danced together in the dark. Your hand, your long artist’s fingers, grazed the skin at my waist. Your breath hitched as you kissed me. “Ellie, I love you…”

  “I love you too.”

  I felt you, the wanting in you, pressed up against me. Your head was cradled between my shoulder and neck, your lips brushing my skin there. My pulse was a riot and my skin was on fire and I wanted to implode.

  Self-conscious about what you knew I could feel against my thigh, you angled your hips away from me, creating distance, but I didn’t want distance. I didn’t feel dirty, or used up, or like something was being taken from me. Every touch and kiss felt like something was being given back to me, between gasping breaths and arched backs, I felt like I could just be there, in your arms, loving you and you loving me and the stars and trees as our witnesses. I wanted them to witness it all.