I Breathe You

by Lori L. Clark

  He laughs, “I know. But my hearing isn’t what it should be, after all those rock concerts I went to as a teenager. I can read better than I can hear sometimes.”

  I grin, remembering some of the stories he’s told me about the concerts he’s been to. I’m extremely envious of the many times he got to hold his lighter up high for an encore of one famous rock band or another. I scribble out another question and show it to him. Are we there yet?

  He takes a deep breath and puffs out his cheeks as he exhales slowly, “You know I’ve been staying at your parent’s house instead of commuting between the lakes and the hospital, right? Well, I left my laptop power cord there this morning.” He pauses and glances sideways at me before adding softly, “I thought maybe you might still have some things there you’d like to bring with you.”

  I clench my teeth and shake my head slowly in an exaggerated side to side motion like a small child ready to throw a temper tantrum. No. There is nothing there for me, is what I write. What I think is, I’d rather burn that fucking monstrosity of a house to the foundation than ever step foot inside again.

  Do you ever wonder why it is the things you wish you could forget are the things that stick with you like gum to the bottom of a shoe on a hot day, but the things you want to remember are gone faster than you can say I will remember this always?

  I grew up the privileged only child of not one, but two, wealthy business owners. Mother with her wedding photography business and father with his auto dealerships entitled us to live in a neighborhood with other wealthy families. Our house was a three-story, brick home, complete with a circular drive and cherub fountain out front. My personal space consisted of the entire third floor and I had much more freedom to come and go than most of my classmates.

  I never took advantage of my lack of supervision. Not too much anyway. My attention was usually focused on one of two things, three, tops. I was one of the few kids my age that actually enjoyed school for the academics and not all the extracurricular activities associated with being an attractive, doe-eyed brunette from a family with a lot of money.

  I loved to learn and it paid off in straight A’s. My other passion was music. I loved to sing, I was pretty talented at playing anything with a keyboard, and the lyrics I wrote were intensely meaningful.

  Somewhere between the love of learning and the love of music, I met the three boys who became my band mates in Fate’s Crazy. I wasn’t really planning on it happening, but one of those boys swept me off my feet. He was a crazy good-looking, nerdy band geek, like me. One day, I suddenly realized that when I hadn’t been looking, Nerdy Band Geek had morphed into Dalton, Hot Rocker Guy.

  Even though I struggle to remember some things, I have had no problem figuring out that Dalton Morgan had been the air that I breathed and the love of my life. I probably would have signed up for a one-way trip to Mars, if it meant being with him. It was that love which led, in a roundabout way to my being disinherited by my parents.

  Staring out the windshield of T’s Lexus at the house where I grew up should make me feel something other than the bitterness filling my mouth. My eyes dart to the four-car garage and I wonder if my car is still inside or if my father sold it as soon as I quit college and he confiscated it.

  T runs a hand through his sparse hair and tries to smile, “Do you want to come inside?”

  I shoot a nasty glare in his direction and unfasten my seatbelt. I’m torn. Part of me doesn’t want to step one foot inside, but another part is dying to check it out. The curious side wins and I get out of the car on unsteady legs. Are all my things still on the third floor just as I left them or did they discard all of my belongings as easily as they discarded me?

  T stands beside me and takes a deep draw from his cigarette, “You okay?” I nod. He takes my hand and leads me to the front door. I pull away and head for the garage instead. He doesn’t follow. He knows what I’m looking for. “It’s still here, Rhane. Your mother wouldn’t let him sell it. She always expected you’d come to your senses one day and come crawling back for forgiveness. Her words. Not mine.”

  I spin on my heels and stare at T bug-eyed. I wonder what other fantasies my mother subscribes to that are just as unlikely to happen.

  Chapter 6

  I walk to the garage door farthest from the house and from memory my fingers automatically punch in the security code: zero-four-one-seven, my birthday. The panel flashes three times, indicating the code’s a match and the door seamlessly glides open. I turn to grin at T and give him two thumbs up.

  He snuffs his cigarette out against one of the large stone planters bracketing the front sidewalk and strides over to me. “Told you it was still here,” he says. His voice holds the tiny edge of arrogance of someone dying to say “I told you so.” I trail my fingers along the olive-colored custom car cover, slowly making my way to the front. “The key isn’t in the ignition though,” he adds.

  I shrug my shoulders, for a couple of reasons. One, I have no use for a car I’ll never drive, and two, I know where there’s a spare key. With T’s help, we carefully peel back the canvas to reveal the black beauty beneath. The car had been my high school graduation gift, a brand new BMW M3 convertible from my father’s dealership. I used to love the way the wind whipped through my long ebony hair as I flew down the highway with the top down and the radio up. At the time, I felt invincible. I had my whole life ahead of me, and felt I would live forever.

  I drop my corner of the cover and walk away, fighting the urge to pick up something heavy and slam it through the front windshield of the innocent car. My hands instinctively reach up to the side of my head where the long silky strands have been replaced by short, choppy, uneven locks that have only recently begun to grow back.

  T straightens the car cover back in place and walks out of the garage. I retype the four-digit code and the door slides down. He lights up another cigarette and tells me, “Come on. Let’s go in.” My feet stay glued to where I stand and he stares back at me.

  My eyes meet his and I make a cutting motion with my right hand to imitate scissors through what remains of my long hair. Hair once so long it hung below my waist. The long thick braid which used to hang down the center of my back was as much a trademark as my own signature.

  Now I just look like a freak with half a head of dark mahogany-colored strands, and half a head of…something else entirely. T uses his key to open the carved solid oak front door of the house and disappears inside.

  My parents have been out of town since last month, off to who-knows-where for who-knows-how-long. If they came to visit while I was in the hospital, I’m not aware of it. Something tells me that coming to see the daughter they disinherited wasn’t high on their list of things to do or people to see over the summer.

  I stomp into the museum-like home and make a beeline for the kitchen while T heads down the dimly lit hallway toward the guest bedroom to retrieve his power cord. I hastily rummage through the junk drawer until I find a pair of scissors. I slip into the half bath off the kitchen, locking the door behind me.

  The scissors are so dull that I almost have to use a sawing motion as I hurriedly work through small chunks of hair at a time. I yank and chop at the remaining long strands and it feels like I’m trying to force a lawn mower with dull blades through time-thickened weeds. Months of pent-up tears of anger and frustration burn unshed at the back of my eyes as I snip away the final pieces of the person I once was.

  “Rhane?” T calls from the other side of the door.

  As soon as I’ve finished my impromptu makeover, I leave the pile of hair in the middle of the baby blue tiled floor and swing the door open for T to inspect the new me. I spin slowly in a circle, swiping away tears from my cheeks with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. His jaw drops and he shakes his head at me, “Baby girl? What the fuck did you do to your hair?”

  My eyes round and I mouth the word duh, as though it needs explanation. I replace the kitchen shears and brush past my uncle. The fuck-with-me-at-your-own
-risk mood I’m in has either caused temporary insanity or irrational bravery — I’m not sure which.

  There’s a set of back stairs just off the kitchen that leads up to my room. I wrap my fingers around the oak handrail and trudge up to the third floor. I have to go slowly and I stop a couple of times just to catch my breath, which pisses me off even more. I used to fly up and down these steps without giving it a second thought, barely raising my heart rate. Now, I feel like a hundred-year-old woman as I climb step by agonizing step. I plant my hands on my thighs and bend at the waist to try to steady my breathing.

  T is right behind me. “You okay, baby girl?” he asks quietly. I straighten and nod at him before beginning my ascent of the last flight of stairs. I hear him heave an exasperated sigh as he falls in step behind me.

  Once at the top, I place my hand on the cold metal doorknob to my room. I hesitate briefly before opening it. I wrestle with the absolute determination to barge in where I no longer belong and the irrational fear of what awaits me on the other side. I rest my forehead against the cool wood of the door.

  As though sensing my hesitation, T tells me, “It’s okay, Rhane. Nothing’s going to hurt you inside that room. Wasn’t this once your safe place?” He was right. T knew me better than I knew myself. I’ve always been closer to him than my own parents. He’s my mom’s only sibling, and twelve years separate the two of them. Growing up, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents, and T was always around. He was around more than my own parents.

  This room had been my sanctuary, the place I spent eighteen years of my life. I stare down at my feet and silently count to ten before twisting the knob and pushing inside. I gulp in a quick breath as I take in my surroundings. I don’t know what I expected, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t it. Nothing’s changed. It’s as though time stood still from the second I walked out of here, off to begin my new life as a college student at Mizzou.

  I cross the room and open the walk-in closet door. A sad smile lifts at the corners of my mouth. I turn, silently pleading with T. I wave my hand inside at all of the pairs of shoes and the clothes hanging in perfect, color-coordinated rows. I step inside and wrap my arms around as many of the things as I can and pull them down. Though I had taken a huge portion of my wardrobe with me when I moved to Columbia, I had also left behind just as much.

  “Never separate a woman from that which she loves,” T chuckles, “Such as her damn wardrobe. Especially the shoes.”

  I smirk up at him and push an armload of apparel in his direction. He takes the clothes and backs out of the closet to deposit them in a heap on top of my queen-sized bed. He rubs at the stubble on his chin while he contemplates what to do next.

  “Garbage bags,” I whisper with a devious smile.

  His eyes narrow at me and he shakes his head. “Fine. I’ll go smoke a cigarette and grab you some garbage bags. Keep in mind, there is a weight limit on the Lexus.” I ignore his half-hearted protests and get right to work making two piles on the bed, one to keep and one to donate. It doesn’t matter that most of the clothes are no longer in style, they are mine and leaving them behind is not an option. I’m sure someone; somewhere will get some use out of them.

  By the time he gets back with the box of garbage bags, I’ve got the clothes organized the way I want them. I write donate on a piece of paper and hand it to T. I point to one of the piles, indicating for him to start bagging. He plants his hands on his narrow hips and smirks, “Are you sure you’re not keeping more than you’re giving away?”

  I roll my eyes at him and shoo him toward the job at hand while I grab an empty bag and start the same process with the “keep” pile.

  Sometime later, T finishes tying the last overstuffed garbage bag, and I drag it over to join the others at the top of the stairs. I push my bangs out of my face and try to figure out the best way to get the bags to the bottom. T walks past me and gives one of the bags a hearty shove, and I watch with trepidation as it thuds down the steps before coming to a stop on the next landing. Surprisingly the bag remains intact. I narrow my eyes and playfully punch T in the shoulder.

  “Why are you hitting me?” he says as he holds his hands in the air. “It worked didn’t it?”

  I can’t argue with logic like that.

  Chapter 7

  T pops the hatch on the Lexus and folds down the back seats to make room for all of the garbage bags filled with clothes and shoes. I notice a large, taped-up cardboard box sitting inside with my name scrawled in magic marker across the top. I narrow my eyes and wait for T to look at me. When he doesn’t, I step between his string bean body and the SUV. I fold my arms in front of my chest and narrow my eyes at him.

  He steps back and fumbles with his cigarettes and lighter. I drum my fingers on my arms, impatiently waiting for him to explain the box. “When I stopped by your old apartment to pick up the journals a while back, the twins said they’d get the rest of your stuff boxed up,” he nods at the dilapidated carton. “That’s supposed to be everything.”

  I blow out a noisy breath. “Everything my ass,” I hiss. Granted, I didn’t have much, but I know there had to be more than just this one box.

  Sensing my agitation, T runs his hands through his thinning salt and pepper hair. “Did you want me to ask them about it?” he asks. I shoot him an ugly glower. “I’d take you there, but…”

  My eyes bore into T as I wait for him to finish the sentence. When he doesn’t, I push away from the back bumper of the car and give him a forget about it wave of my hand. It’s not worth it, I decide. I hoist one garbage bag into the back compartment of the Lexus while my free hand gropes for another. My brow furrows in determination. Anger stokes my energy.

  “Rhane, look, I know you don’t remember what happened the night of the accident,” he offers quietly. He puts his hand on my arm, temporarily halting my bag loading frenzy. I refuse to meet his eyes. “But the twins are blaming you. They’re really quite bitter about everything and have made it clear they have nothing to say to you.”

  My mouth pops open in disbelief. “My fault?” How the hell could the accident have been my fault? Don’t they realize Dalton was the one driving the car, not me?

  “They’re just grasping at straws, of course.” T blows out a cloud of smoke and fans it away from me like a swarm of angry gnats. “Pissed off and looking for someone to blame, that’s what they are. Dalton’s gone so they can’t blame him, and since you’re the only other person who knows firsthand what really happened that night, they’re naturally trying to pin the blame on you.”

  I shrug and turn my back on him to continue loading the clothes into the car. I don’t want to talk about this anymore but I guess since he can’t read my mind, he continues, “Rhane, the police have closed the investigation. Dalton’s car crossed the center line into oncoming traffic. End of story. Case closed.”

  If only it were that easy.

  Once T’s car is loaded and we’re buckled in, I grab a marker and the whiteboard and scribble take me home. T nods and pulls out of the driveway.

  When my Grandmother Heilmann died a few years ago, she willed everything to me. She had two children, my mother, Leah, and my Uncle Thomas. I am the only grandchild. The bequests in her will were straightforward. She reasoned that neither my mother nor my uncle needed the money. She knew my mother would never leave the city and T would be like a fat kid in a donut shop, greedily trying to figure out the best way to divide the land to turn the biggest profit.

  Grandma was a feisty woman who didn’t let anyone get anything over on her. She also had a slightly quirky sense of humor. Take for instance, the sign she had on her front door that read, “The Bullfrog Shits Here.” I know. I never understood it either.

  T buys and sells real estate around the lakes region and is constantly making some deal on a fixer-upper or foreclosure, always ready to turn a quick profit for an often generous amount. He has several contractors at his beck and call for whenever he needs something done. As a team, they make the pro
perties more inviting and in some cases, inhabitable, and T pays them quite well.

  Being the savvy businessman that he is, T had been hounding me prior to the accident about selling the rundown house and the land surrounding it. He said the structures on the land weren’t worth much, but the seventy-five acres were. For reasons unknown, I just never got around to signing the papers to get the whole process started. I guess the universe knew before I did that I would need the old place some day.

  The doctors have done their best to explain how I might never be able to completely fill in all of the holes in my memory. They also suggested that things could come flooding back to me just as suddenly as they disappeared when I least expected it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know everything. Sometimes, after all, ignorance truly is bliss.

  Right now, I’m not too thrilled about the idea of being trapped beneath a seatbelt in a tin can, albeit an expensive tin can, for the next four hours. To make matters worse, it’s started to rain. People in Missouri aren’t the best drivers when the roads are in perfect condition. Add rain to the equation and you’d be better off avoiding travel completely or at least delaying your arrival time significantly.

  There’s a slow, dull throb beginning at the back of my head and I fumble with my bag for the prescription painkillers. I don’t like taking them any more than I have to. The last thing I need, on top of all my other complications, would be to get hooked on painkillers. But experience tells me that if I don’t take one right now, before the dull throb becomes a jackhammer inside my skull, I’ll be curled in the fetal position, begging for someone to put me out of my misery.