The Art of Not Breathing

by Sarah Alexander

  I feel a wave of determination as I think about how good I will feel when I’m down there, how soft the sand at the bottom will be. I don’t think about how the depth might mess with my mind. I don’t think about the cold and dark.

  That night, I dream of rocks and seaweed and Eddie, and I wake up at midnight gasping for air. I’m coming for you, Eddie. I’ll be there soon.

  15

  The next day, I go to the pool alone and practice. I duck dive to the bottom and then dolphin kick back to the surface, and I do this over and over again, using all my power to resurface in one kick until my fingers go wrinkly. My legs feel strong now, thanks to Danny and his incessant squat routine that I’ve been doing every day. I will thank him one day.

  When the pool closes, I’m alone in the changing room and take advantage of the huge mirrors. I look at my naked self and notice that my body looks different. I still have large hips. But my stomach is flatter and tighter and my breasts are slightly smaller. They are still not as round and as perfect as Lara’s, but they look nicer, less wobbly, and my hair is so long now that it rests on top of them, just above my nipples. I stare at myself for a long time, seeing what I look like from all angles, what I look like when I hold my breath. When I raise my arms above my head as though I were ascending from the bottom of the ocean, my body sideways to the mirror, I almost look like Scotland’s deepest girl. I’m still in this position when Ailsa Fitzgerald and Lara burst out of one of the dressing rooms, giggling. So Ailsa wasn’t up north for long. They wear matching gold bikinis to show off their slim figures and tiny waists. They must have been in the other pool, or in the Jacuzzi. I wrap my towel around me and turn my back to them, but it’s too late.

  “Urgh, she’s so disgusting,” Ailsa whispers to Lara. I cling to the towel with one hand, ready to fight them off if they come near me. Ailsa parades around me, circling like a hyena. Lara watches, her lips tight. When she catches me looking at her, she hangs her head and pushes water into the drain with her foot.

  “Are you anorexic like your brother?” Ailsa asks. She runs a bony finger down my cheek. “Have you been starving yourself in a desperate attempt to be pretty? Hmm. Not quite skinny enough yet. Still got flabby thighs. It’s a shame about your brother, though. He used to be quite fit. I saw for myself, you know. And now he’s an ugly mess of skin and bone.”

  I pretend I’m not hurt by her comments and hold my head high.

  “That’s odd,” I say. “I wonder why you still follow him around.”

  “Hey, you said nothing happened between you and Dillon,” Lara says to Ailsa, her tone bitter.

  “Relax, dopey. I’m just winding her up,” Ailsa replies. But from the look on both their faces, I’m not sure that she is just winding me up. I’m disappointed in Dillon. But he’s still my brother, and he doesn’t deserve this. These girls are not worth my time and effort. Especially Lara right now. What a bitch. I can’t believe I wasted my blue mascara on her. I start to gather my clothes, but it’s difficult with one hand.

  “As if I’d touch him with a barge pole. He’s pathetic,” Ailsa continues. “They both are. Lara, I can’t believe you hung out with either of them. They’re so crazy, they should both be locked up.”

  Ailsa swings for my face but misses and grabs my towel instead. She could let go, and we could all go home, but in a split second everything changes. She yanks the towel out of my hand. It falls to the floor and she kicks it away. I am naked, exposed, and livid. I go for her. I push her against the lockers and she slips to the floor, taking me with her.

  “Lara, grab the towel,” she yells as I reach for it.

  Lara, like a little lap dog, hops over me and snatches the towel, then runs to a dressing room with it. She stands in the doorway, chewing her hair, watching.

  “Do you need a towel?” Ailsa teases. “You should cover up. You look like someone’s roast dinner. All lumpy and fatty.” She gets to her knees and looks me up and down. I try to cover myself with my hands.

  I will someone to come in and help me, but the changing room is quiet. I look toward the door. I could make a run for it. I’d be naked and everyone would see me, but at least I’d be safe.

  Ailsa sees me planning my exit, and then she pounces. She pins my arms above my head and straddles me. Her long blond hair hangs in my face and tickles my nose. I grab it with my teeth and tug, but she pulls away. I spit the stray hairs from my mouth.

  “Lara, help me!” Ailsa cries. “She’s such a lump, it’ll take two of us.”

  Lara doesn’t move.

  “Lara, what’s wrong with you? Grab her arms. Now.”

  “Let’s just go,” Lara whispers.

  “If you don’t help me, I’ll tell everyone about your laxative habit.”

  Lara moves then. I see her stick legs running across the wet floor, and then she sits on my arms. Ailsa grabs my breasts. She pinches them really hard, both of them at the same time. Lara gasps, and Ailsa laughs with glee as I cry out.

  “Get off me,” I cry. “Help!”

  I manage to lift my head up enough to bite Ailsa’s arm.

  “You little bitch.” She gobs into my hair and then shoves her knee between my legs so hard, it sends shooting pains right up to my neck.

  “What have I ever done to you?” I gasp.

  “You were born. You’ve been in my way ever since I met you, making my life difficult.”

  “You made life difficult for yourself,” I say.

  Finally, Lara shifts her weight and I break free. My head connects with Ailsa’s nose, and she flies back and slides over a drain. The metal catches her gold bikini and I hear it snag. When I stand up, I look down to see blood streaming from her face. While Lara fusses over her, I pull my trousers and T-shirt on over my damp skin and thrust my underwear into my bag.

  “You little slut,” Ailsa calls. “I’ll get you suspended for this.”

  “See if I care.”

  I look at Lara one last time and give her a chance to explain. She looks torn, her eyes dancing back and forth between the blood and my wet T-shirt. Eventually, she moves closer to Ailsa.

  “Funny how there’s always a fight when you’re about,” I say. “And isn’t it annoying how you’re always the one left mopping up the blood.”

  “Elsie, wait,” Lara calls. “It wasn’t me who told everyone about Dillon. Everyone’s been saying how sick he is. He needs help.”

  “I thought we were friends,” I say to her, even though I knew the truth all along. She was using me to try to get Dillon back.

  “We are,” Lara says to the floor.

  “Were friends,” Ailsa says. “Tell her, Lar. You don’t want anything to do with her, do you?”

  Lara glances down at Ailsa and bites her lip.

  “You’ll just have to make do with your weird bully boyfriend,” Lara finally says. But when I look into her eyes, I see that she is crying.

  Ailsa heaves herself off the floor, still holding her bleeding nose.

  “As if that ugly bitch could ever have a boyfriend,” she mutters.

  “At least I can get a boyfriend without following someone around.”

  But that’s not really true. I went to look for Tay in the boathouse night after night, and he still left me. And even though he left me, I still went off with him after he punched Dillon. The memory of me leaving Dillon in the road bleeding makes me feel sick. But the thought of Tay leaving me again makes me feel worse.

  Without my underwear on I feel exposed. My breasts are stinging, but I don’t dare touch them. I don’t look in the mirror again. I don’t need to see how ugly I’ve become when I can feel it seeping out of me every day.

  Later, Lara calls the house phone. I sit on the step by the back door so the reception on the phone goes fuzzy. She wants to know how Dillon is. She says she’s sorry.

  “Ailsa made me say those things.”

  She still wants to be friends, but only in private. She says she loves Dillon and she wants to help him.

 
; “Sorry, the line’s gone a bit bad.” I yell, as though I’m trying hard to make out her words. “I’ll have to call you back.”

  I listen to the fuzz for a while, and then I make out the odd squeak of a cross-wire conversation. I end the call and pluck up the courage to dial another number. My father answers his mobile immediately, but I stay silent. “Dillon, is that you?” he whispers down the line. “Is it Elsie? What’s she been up to? Hello? Look, now’s not a good time, pal. I’ll call you back tomorrow, eh?”

  16

  The baby otter is not moving. Its paws lie on the dry rocks, and its fur has dried in clumps. There are flies hovering around its head. I’m at Rosemarkie beach with Frankie because Tay has to help out at the Black Fin, and I can’t bear to sit in the house all day with Dillon, especially now I know he’s been talking to Dad.

  Frankie reaches out with his foot and nudges it gently. The otter’s body indents where his foot makes contact and then springs back again.

  “It’s still warm,” Frankie says. “Not much we can do.” He pushes his glasses up his nose and squints at me. “Come on.”

  I’m on a slant and feel my shoes slipping down the rock I’m on.

  “What will happen to it?” I ask.

  “Not a l’otter,” says Frankie, sniffing.

  “Frankie!” I cry.

  He looks at me, confused. “Well, what do you want to do? Take it home?”

  The storm clouds are rolling over the water toward us. Frankie looks in his bucket and starts counting his collection. A wave of deep sadness passes over me as I look at the small animal lying helplessly half in and half out of the water. I wonder where its mother is, and then I see a small splash a few meters out in the smooth, clear water.

  “We have to do something,” I say. “We can’t just leave it here.”

  “We could roll it back in,” Frankie suggests.

  I suggest that we bury it, but Frankie says he doesn’t want to touch it and then points out that the only place to bury it would be in one of the rock pools.

  “How can you be into science and not want to touch a dead animal?”

  “I’m more of a numbers scientist than a biologist,” he says.

  I don’t bring up that he plays with dead crabs and other shellfish all the time.

  “Do you think it drowned?” I ask.

  “Unlikely,” Frankie says. “It’s not even in the water.”

  I think that it is possible, but I can’t reason with Frankie today.

  In the end we walk back to town and tell the police, who phone the wildlife center, who say that they’ll send someone down to collect it.

  “Collect it?” I ask.

  “So it can be incinerated,” the policeman says.

  Outside the police station, Frankie puts his arm around me, which is really awkward because I’m a head taller than him. I get a waft of his weird smell, and then his lips are suddenly on mine, and as I pull away, his teeth catch my lip.

  “What are you doing?” I yell, moving my hand to my lip to see if I’m bleeding.

  Frankie steps back. The crabs rotate in his bucket.

  “I thought you liked me,” he says sulkily. “I thought maybe you asked Lara not to come because you wanted to be alone with me.”

  “Why would you think that?” I cry. Instead of trying to make him feel better about it, I just keep yelling at him.

  “Lara is not my friend anymore, and neither are you, so leave me alone.”

  “But I love you,” he says.

  I want to cry. I don’t want him to love me.

  He trundles off with his bucket. I should go after him, but all I can think about is the dead baby otter. It feels as though everything around me is decaying.

  17

  the next day I wake in the early hours, thanks to a dream that the dead baby otter was in my bed. After double checking it’s not there, I watch the sun roll up at four thirty from the living room window. Its glare coats the underside of the clouds in a magnificent orange. When Mum has gone to work to run the emergency clinic at the surgery, Dillon appears next to me with his duvet wrapped around his shoulders.

  “Let’s have a duvet day and watch DVDs,” he suggests.

  “But it’s really sunny,” I say. “I want to be outside.”

  I want to be with Tay on his day off.

  “Just watch one with me,” Dillon pleads. He is already on his stomach on the floor, pushing a DVD into the player. I agree because I want him on my side and because I miss him. I feel bad that I’ve neglected him. We sit on the sofa together, and Dillon arranges the duvet over us, but I kick it off because it’s so warm. When I touch Dillon’s arm, it is icy cold and makes me shiver. I sit with my hands holding my breasts, trying to make the pain go away. Luckily Dillon doesn’t notice I’m in pain. How could I tell him what happened? I make a promise to myself that I won’t be involved in any more fights.

  Halfway through Die Hard 2, Dillon falls asleep and I turn the TV off. He stirs when I move.

  “Stay a bit longer,” he murmurs. “Don’t leave.”

  I leave him on the sofa and go to the kitchen. The fridge and the cupboards are almost empty. I boil the kettle and slice up the last lemon.

  “Please, just drink it,” I plead when I’ve woken him up again. “It’ll do you good.”

  He stares at the cup and asks what it is.

  “Hot water with lemon. Lemon is good for your digestion.”

  I read this in one of Mum’s health magazines.

  He sits up and takes the cup. I sit with him while he drinks it. It takes ages for him to bring the cup to his mouth each time.

  “You don’t have to feel guilty, because I’m making you drink it,” I say, quoting a piece of advice on a forum for anorexics. It doesn’t make sense to me, but Dillon takes a sip.

  When he’s finished the drink, he starts to cry and I’m shocked. I try to imagine feeling so guilty about having a few drops of lemon juice that it would make me cry, and then before I know it, I’m choked up too and fighting the tears.

  “You’re killing yourself, Dil,” I say, my voice wavering.

  “I don’t want to feel like this anymore.” His voice is thick with phlegm. “What do I do?”

  “I don’t know,” I whisper. “But I’ll help you.”

  I cry properly then, relieved that he wants my help but not sure how to give it, and still angry that he’s been hiding something from me all these years. I hug his fragile body.

  “I’ll bring some of those nutritional shakes home later. The ones that some kids at school have instead of lunch.”

  Dillon continues to cry. “Are you sure you can’t stay?” he splutters as I get up to go. “You’re not going in the water, are you?”

  “I just have to meet a friend.”

  “Don’t go in the water. Just stay here.”

  Part of me wants to. I want to play hangman and watch movies and pretend that we’re a normal family. But Tay is waiting for me and so is Eddie, and so is my four-minute goal.

  “Rest up. I won’t be long. Maybe we can watch another film together later?”

  He nods, but I know he thinks I’m deserting him. Just hang on a few more days, Dilbil, I think to myself as I leave him. I’m sure that getting to the bottom of the drop-off is going to give me all the answers: to remember what happened, to get closure. It just has to. And then I’ll be able to focus on Dillon.

  Inside the boathouse after our dive, I feel elated. Three minutes, forty-five seconds—my longest dive. And now I’m confident I can do this. Tay passes me a towel, and I stand and watch him for a moment as he peels his wetsuit down to his waist and rubs his hair. He seems happy, relaxed. I hope it’s because of me. I think of Dillon and get a sudden pang of guilt for leaving him. I pray that he’s eaten something.

  “I should go back and see if Dillon is okay,” I say to Tay as I dry my hair, trying not to look at his bare chest. And then he comes over to where I’m standing and kisses me on the lips. It goes on fo
rever, and he holds me tighter and tighter as I lean closer. And then his fingers are on the zip at the back of my wetsuit.

  “Wait,” I say. We are both breathless.

  “What’s wrong?” he whispers. “Please don’t make me stop. I can’t bear to let go of you.”

  “I need to get home,” I say again. “I can’t leave Dillon any longer.” It’s a strain to say it because I don’t want to go. The boathouse is my home, not McKellen Drive with my crazy family.

  “He’ll be okay for a bit,” Tay says. He gently brushes my neck, making me shiver. I really shouldn’t leave Dillon too long.

  “Trust me—he’ll be okay.”

  It’s five o’clock. I’ve already been gone for hours. Perhaps if I make sure I’m back by six, it’ll be okay. And Mum should be home by now anyway.

  “Okay, I’ll stay just a bit longer.”

  He kisses me again and it’s like being underwater. Clear but distorted at the same time. Everything is bigger underwater. I trail my fingers down his spine and he murmurs.

  “Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, are you sure you like me?” I lean back so I can see his face. It’s not that I don’t trust him. It’s just that I want to be certain.

  “Can’t you tell?” He nods downward, but I can’t bring myself to look at his crotch.

  “I . . . you’re not going to leave again, are you?”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He moves his hand back to my zip. I feel fuzzy all over, and a bit faint.

  A thought. I’m pretty sure that Tay will agree to anything right now, so it’s my chance to get what I want. “Will you come with me? Tomorrow, will you come with me to say goodbye to Eddie?” I say it quickly before I change my mind. I press my face into his clavicle. I hear him breathe in deeply through his nose.

  “Please come with me,” I say again. “I need you there.”

  “Okay, I’ll come with you,” he murmurs into my ear, and then kisses my neck. “Why does it have to be tomorrow?”

  “Because . . . Because I’m ready.” It’s the only answer I have, even if I’m not a hundred percent sure it’s the truth.