A Hard Place to Breathe

by Barbara C. Doyle

  Yeah, there was something seriously wrong with me.

  “Half-brothers.”

  “Huh?”

  “Same douche dad.”

  Oh, wow. I knew he said his father was an ass, but I guess I didn’t realize how much that was true. All the times he mentioned his dad, I wanted to punch him. Same whenever I actually encountered him.

  I met Ezra’s father.

  Maybe it was the head injury, but I started laughing. Like, hardcore, tears-coming-out-of-my-eyes laughing. I was a crazy person. Certifiable.

  Ezra looked at me in confusion, but he didn’t bother speaking up.

  “I know your dad,” I mused, wiping tears off my face. “You weren’t lying. He is such a fucking asshole.”

  He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, he certainly is. But can we talk? Like really talk? As soon as I heard your last name I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe, just maybe, it was a coincidence. Maybe there were two different Ashley Morgens. Then you said your sister’s name was Bryn, and that cemented it. I freaked out, Ashley. I was wrong to do that.”

  He was wrong? That was all he had to say.

  “You knew I knew him,” I said slowly, thinking back to the conversation in his truck.

  He didn’t say anything.

  I slid my hand down my face. “Ezra, why didn’t you say you were related to him? You had the chance to. I mean he did some terrible things, and as soon as you knew I knew him don’t you think it should have been brought up?”

  “You trashed his family, Ashley,” he reminded me dryly, his eyes blank and distant. “You might as well have said I was scumbag like the rest of them.”

  “I never said—”

  “You said his whole family was scum.”

  “I know what I said,” I snarled back. “But I was talking about him and his dad, and you can’t tell me that you don’t agree with me.”

  “You said—”

  “What about what you said? No, what about what you didn’t say. When I said that, you could have defended the people in the family that weren’t like him and your dad. You could have stuck up for yourself, admitted that you were related. Or how about after we made love? Huh?”

  My whole face heated up.

  “What did you say?” he asked quietly.

  I just said we made love. Not that we slept together. Not that we had sex. Not that we fucked. All of those things were rushed and sloppy. All of those things were simply physical. There was nothing emotional about them.

  But making love was different. You had to feel something towards a person to put that much emotion into what you did. It may not have been true love, it may not ever be that, but it was something powerful.

  And now? My heart was cracked.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to experience that feeling ever again.

  “It doesn’t matter what I said,” I told him, getting off the bed. “Because I don’t know what to do, Ezra. You could have told me after what we did. But you didn’t. You kicked me out like I was some trashy whore that you wanted to try out. Well congratulations, you got me. So just go.”

  He got paler. “Ashley—”

  “Just go!” I demanded, pointing toward the door.

  Nate came in when he heard me yelling. “Is everything okay in here?”

  It was sweet he was checking on me. He didn’t have to, but he knew that Blair and I were friends. Sisters, even. And he wanted to protect her friends like he’d protect her.

  Well, maybe not the same way. If there was a gun fight he’d probably use me as a shield to protect her. But still, he cared.

  “Ezra was just leaving,” I told him quietly.

  Nate looked at Ezra, who was staring at me like he was going to argue.

  “Come on, man,” Nate said, gesturing toward the door. He looked at Ezra sympathetically, which kind of ticked me off, but that was how Nate was. Ever since I drunk dialed Ezra when he and Blair were over it was like they had a budding bromance going.

  I guess I was to blame for that.

  Ezra gave me one last look before he followed Nate out, who patted him on the back as he opened the front door for him.

  I even heard him say, “Give her time to cool off,” like that was going to make a difference.

  How much time was I going to need? Right now, it seemed like an eternity. I wasn’t being dramatic when I said I didn’t know what to do. If people thought I was lost before, they were in for a hell of a surprise.

  Now I knew I was just a shell, because every emotion I was starting to have was drained from me. Every feeling that I was embracing, every thought I had toward my future—not that there were many—were all gone.

  Blair and Nate came back to my bedroom door.

  “Is this the part where you double team me on the Dr. Phil crap?” I asked, sitting back on the edge of my bed and resting my face in my palms. I sighed loudly and then looked back up at them.

  Blair gave me a sad smile. “No, this is the part where we give you time to cool off. Unless you want to tell us exactly what happened.”

  I wasn’t stupid. Tara filled them in already. I could tell based on how their eyes looked over me like I was fragile and about to break.

  “Okay,” she admitted, smiling a little. “So maybe we know. But what we don’t know is how you’re really doing, because I can’t imagine it’s good.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not. I was starting to feel something, B.”

  Nate looked uncomfortable. “This sounds like girl talk. I can wait out there.”

  “Is it still out there?”

  Blair smiled proudly. “Nate said that if he didn’t leave he was calling the police, and he knew how much he was sure the police would love to see him again.”

  I gave Nate an appreciative smile.

  “Can I just say one thing?” he asked, stuffing one of his hands in his pockets and leaning against the doorjamb.

  “If I say no you probably will anyway.”

  He chuckled. “Probably.”

  Blair leaned her head against Nate’s arm.

  “I’m not saying that this situation isn’t pretty fucked up,” he started, giving me a loose shrug. “I just don’t think that you should shut Ezra out of your life for it. He wasn’t the one who killed your sister. He shouldn’t be penalized for who his family is, believe me, I’d know.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant. I only know Blair mentioned him having daddy issues, but he never really talked about them.

  “My dad was a total dick,” he told me. “He drank a lot, hit a lot, and acted like he didn’t care. He wasn’t always that way, but he might as well have been. For a long time I thought I was going to be the same way, but Blair told me that I wasn’t like him. I wasn’t my father. And sure, I drink now and again, and I did so a lot more before Blair officially came into my life. Did I ever get angry while drunk? Sure. Did I ever hit? Never. Didn’t stop me from thinking that one day I would turn into him, just like he turned into something different.”

  Blair wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed him in a small hug. She dropped a small kiss on his chest, her eyes beaming up at him like she was seeing her whole world.

  God help me, it was adorable.

  “We can’t choose who are family are. We may be able to weed the ones we don’t want involved out somehow, but they’re always going to be there one way or another. I’m sure if Ezra could, he would make sure Jayce and their dad were never part of his life, but they are. That doesn’t make him the same as them. That doesn’t make him guilty of anything except not being able to tell you the truth.”

  I deadpanned. “Which was the worst part.”

  “It was a shitty thing to do on his part,” Nate agreed, lifting an arm and draping it across Blair’s shoulders. “But you both said that you didn’t know each other’s names until…after things progressed. Yeah, he could have handled things differently. But he’s a guy, and we’re fucking morons.”

  Blair snorted. “Can I get
an amen?”

  Nate rolled his eyes. “Oh, hush. What I’m trying to say is give yourself some time to cool off and then talk to him. It’s up to you whether you want to give him a second chance or not, but he wouldn’t be so freaked out over everything if he didn’t care.”

  Blair nodded next to him.

  Huh.

  Who thought Nate Evans was the voice of reason?

  I probably wasn’t going to listen to that voice.

  “He’s got a point, Ash,” Blair said softly.

  I grinned. “You have to agree. You’re sleeping with him.”

  Her cheeks burned red and Nate laughed.

  “Well biased or not,” she said, clearing her throat. “I think he’s got a point. You know that Nate and I were hot and cold for a while. There were things that I wish could have just worked without any complication, but the best things in life don’t come easily. You may think that’s cheesy, but it’s also true. Tara said she’s never seen you so smitten with a guy, and quite frankly, I’ve never seen you look at a guy like you do at Ezra. There’s something between you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Right now the only thing between us is a lot of anger.”

  “That’ll go away.”

  I stared at her in disbelief. “What makes you so sure of that? Not even I know.”

  She shrugged. “I just know what love looks like, and I see it all over your face. And his too. That’s not a coincidence.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I’m not saying go jump in his arms and confess your feelings to him,” she said, giving me a little shrug. “But eventually you’re going to realize that shutting him out isn’t going to work, because you need him in your life. He’s doing something to you, Ash. Something good. Something you really need.”

  No, but he was.

  “I don’t need anybody.”

  “That’s what the old Ash would say.”

  “I never changed.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” she countered. “We all know that you have, and we’re happy. Not because we didn’t like who you were, but because you seemed so happy when he was around. Even when he wasn’t, it was obvious he was on your mind.”

  “You barely know him. I barely know him. That’s kind of how we got into this mess, remember?”

  “So get to know him!”

  “I can’t! Not now. Not after…”

  Blair stepped forward. “Give it time, A.”

  “Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” Nate added.

  I looked at him. “Like shutting him out?”

  “Like never forgiving him.”

  14

  Midterms came and went, and I’d be lying if I thought I passed them. I spent a majority of my time buried in my textbooks, trying to ignore everybody around me. But my focus was completely off, so how much information I actually absorbed was at a minimal.

  I didn’t spend time in the library, because Tara would be there. And I only spent time in the apartment to sleep or when I knew certain people wouldn’t be around. I was civil, but I had a hard time letting things go pertaining to the past. To Bryn.

  Maybe it was stupid, since weeks had passed. Tara and I talked. Simple conversations that were dodgy as hell most of the time. The main reason I didn’t want to go back there was because of Ezra. I noticed how he would stand by the front doors, or outside his apartment waiting for me, but I wasn’t interested in talking. I wasn’t ready, and I needed him to understand that.

  Suddenly, the place I liked to escape to was the hardest place to breathe.

  Every weekend I would go home for that reason, because the place that I found the toughest time being was the place where the people who hurt me weren’t at. It seemed like my past followed me to college, making my life a hell of a lot harder than it needed to be.

  College had been a good escape. A time to be somebody that wasn’t surrounded by tragedy. Instead, I could be surrounded by parties, booze and guys. A perfect combo to forget. A perfect combo to be somebody completely different than the sister of the girl who died.

  Small towns tended to be suffocating that way. When I came back for Bryn’s funeral, it was like everybody saw me as the girl who was thrown into the life of an only child all the sudden. I wasn’t Ashley Morgen anymore. I was Bryn’s older sister. I was the girl who lost her baby sister.

  I was nobody.

  And leaving Cherry Valley and going back to college was suddenly the easiest thing I had ever done after that, because everybody in the small town saw me as a shadow of the tragedy that took place. Being swallowed by Bryn’s memory wasn’t something that I had planned to do, but if it meant her living on then it was something I embraced.

  I didn’t think anybody would miss the old me, since they were all so set on remembering only the piece of town news that made my life hell.

  Yeah, leaving here was the best thing that happened to my mind, but nothing else. My heart was still broken from the accident, from the rumors, from the things people said about that night. My emotions were haywire from how empty I felt, and how horrible it was to accept that my baby sister was dead. I wasn’t supposed to outlive her. That wasn’t how it worked.

  And remembering her saying that nothing was going to happen to her that night was the hardest. If I had known, I would have kept her home one way or another. I wouldn’t have watched her leave the house. I wouldn’t have gone back to college like it was just some new fight with my annoying little sister.

  It had been the night that I walked away.

  “Are you okay?” Mom asked, putting a cup of hot chocolate in front of me.

  She told me I looked tired since the day I got back for spring break. As soon as midterms were over, I left campus. Most people I knew were going to Florida, or anywhere but their parents’ house. I couldn’t afford to party it up in Daytona like most of them, but more importantly I didn’t want to.

  “Peachy,” I said, leaning my head on my hand that was resting on the counter. I was tired. I didn’t sleep well in my old room knowing that Bryn’s was right next to mine, completely untouched since she passed. It was like her shrine. Nobody dared to mess anything up, like one day she would just come back.

  We all knew the truth though, and one of us could move past it.

  “You’re not sleeping, are you?” she asked, sitting down across from me. She had coffee in the pug mug I gave her for Christmas.

  I shook my head no. “It’s weird,” I admitted.

  She nodded in understanding. “Sometimes your father will get up in the middle of the night and go to her room. He won’t go in it, but he’ll stare at the doorway, taking it all in. Messy floor and all.”

  Bryn never liked cleaning her room. Half the time she had clothes thrown everywhere like her closet had exploded. Her dresser was covered in makeup, and her mirror was draped with all different kind of necklaces. She loved anything fashion; anything she could design her body with.

  “Have you?” I asked, sipping my cocoa. “Gone in her room, I mean.”

  She smiled sadly. “No. I’ve thought about it, but it never seemed right. One day I’d like to go in and clean it up a bit. Maybe even donate her clothes to Goodwill or something.”

  I liked that idea.

  “Maybe we should,” I told her.

  She seemed surprised. “Really?”

  I nodded. “I’ve been back here for three days, and it’s like I never left. It’s too similar. Being at college makes me feel like I can live a separate life from all this. You know, from her being gone. Nobody knew her at college. Nobody knew me, or anything that happened. It was nice not to be somebody people pitied.”

  Mom put her hand on mine. “Being somebody else can be nice for a while, but it gets tiring. When we pretend to be somebody we’re not, we’re just doing more damage to ourselves.”

  I looked away from her.

  “I love you no matter what, Ashley,” she told me. “I think what you were trying to do was hold onto her, and I understand. B
ut that is so…difficult. Bryn was a very unique, strong-headed girl. Frankly, she was a lot to handle. Sometimes too much. But you? You were our level headed baby. The one we knew would go places if you set her mind to it, and you had so many plans for your future. You wanted to be a teacher and a journalist.”

  I just shrugged.

  Mom sighed. “Being Bryn isn’t who you’re meant to be, baby girl. You were always meant to strive. I’m not saying she wouldn’t have too, but you were on two completely different paths. When you distanced yourself from here, it wasn’t like we didn’t understand. We understood perfectly, Ashley. But when we noticed the way you were dressing, the makeup you were suddenly wearing, the way you styled your hair. It was like looking at a picture of your sister. And I’m not going to lie, sweetie. It was hard. It was so, so hard. Because it felt like we didn’t just lose one daughter, it felt like we lost two. Bryn, and the girl that you used to be.”

  Tears threatened to spill from my eyes.

  In trying to preserve whatever memory Bryn had, I was making things ten times harder for my parents. I was a horrible daughter.

  I hiccupped. “I didn’t know.”

  She patted my hand. “You were trying to do what you thought was best. You were trying to make sure she got a happy ending. But what about you? You deserve to be happy too, Ashley. You deserve the whole damn world and everything it has to offer.”

  I couldn’t stop the dam from breaking then.

  Because I spent every single day with Bryn in the back of my mind. It was like she was telling me how to act and what to say. It was like her voice was constantly there, guiding me to be the person I was, just like she always tried to do when she was still alive.

  I suggest you soak up the college life while you can, Ash. I’m sure those years will fly by before you know it.

  Her version of soaking up college was partying at all of the best frats, surrounded by all of the best men.

  I’m going to live in the moment. Kiss guys that are cute. Sleep with them if they’re hot. Who cares? We only live once.

  She only lived once. I only lived once. But we had become the same person for years. She hated how much I studied, how much I lived for planning my life. I had wanted to be a teacher, but I also really wanted to be a journalist. And Bryn? She laughed at those jobs. She hated the idea of sitting behind a desk, or be stuck in a classroom all day, so she made fun of me. She ripped my dreams apart any chance she could like I was choosing to live life the wrong way.