Hold My Breath

by Ginger Scott

  I slide down my mattress, my dress sticking to the quilt tossed over it, and when my knees find the floor, I manage to slide the dress up and over my head. I crawl on my hands and knees to the closet, and I pull down the cotton shirtdress, sliding it over my body, but leaving the bottom pooled around my waist because I’m too miserable to stand just yet.

  My back finds the comfort of a few stacked boxes, so I decide to spend the next thirty minutes waking up right here, just like this. I consider crawling back to the bed and forgetting about heading to the club when my door pops open. My mom carries a stack of fresh towels and my latest round of laundry, folded into perfectly neat squares. I smile at it, or at least, I think my face is smiling. I’m not entirely sure because I can’t be certain that I feel my lips right now. I bring my hand to my mouth and rub it, relieved when I feel my touch.

  “You’re a mess,” my mom says after setting my basket of laundry on the mattress. She picks up last night’s dress and a few other items I’ve left on the floor, then rolls them into a ball and tucks them under her arm as if she’s going to drive them to the end zone. She’s pissed. I can tell by the way her hand is on her hip.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I moan. I let my head roll to one side along the soft cardboard behind me.

  “Like what? Like my daughter is throwing away the most important thing in her life?”

  I blink a few times before lifting my head to meet her waiting stare. She is not blinking.

  “I’m not throwing anything away. I just wanted to blow off some stress last night, maybe show the new girl a good time,” I say, pulling my knees in. Step one to standing.

  “You also showed her what it feels like to throw up in a stranger’s toilet,” my mom says, lips pursed and weight shifting, jutting out her other hip.

  She’s really pissed.

  I scrunch my face.

  “Amber got sick?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Your friend Holly took care of her. She drove her back this morning to get her car. Told me to tell you she’d give you a call later tonight,” my mom says, moving to the doorway.

  “Where…was Will here? He…he drove us,” I say.

  My mom stops at the door, her back to me.

  “I didn’t see him. Your dad said he walked home last night, though. Your father heard you all come in and offered to drive him, but Will refused,” she says. She tilts her head to the side, glancing at me over her shoulder just enough that our eyes meet one more time.

  I was wrong. She isn’t pissed. She’s disappointed. Whole different emotion. Whole lot more guilt.

  I wallow in my self-made misery for another thirty minutes, eventually tying my hair up and getting changed into my swim suit, sliding on my cut-off shorts and favorite flip-flops.

  My mom is at the table, reading through what looks like a set of planning documents.

  “I’m heading to swim,” I say.

  I pause at the other end of the table. She looks up at me, pushing her black-rimmed glasses down her nose, and nods. We both glance at the top of each other’s heads, our brown hair twisted into knots. I smirk as she chuckles.

  “You’re more like me than you care to admit,” she says.

  My lips pinch in as I fight against my smile, eventually giving in and grinning.

  “I hope so,” I say, walking around the table and kissing my mom’s cheek when she gives it to me. “Try not to piss off too many lobbyists today.”

  She groans and turns her attention back to the pile of documents, and I run my hand along the table’s edge as I head to the door. My father and I pass one another, and he stops on the stoops as I rush past him, his arms folded across his chest and his keys dangling from his thumb.

  “Don’t worry. I’m going to swim. Always getting faster,” I say, waving over my shoulder without turning around.

  My dad’s not as forgiving as my mom, and if he was here when we came home, he probably has a good visual on how off my game I was. As long as I don’t let any of that carry over in the pool, he’ll get over it. I just need to avoid talking about it until he sees me swim again.

  I get to my car and don’t look his direction until I can see him in my rearview mirror. He’s still standing in the same spot, one hand on the side of his face. We haven’t been coach and athlete in a while. When I went to Valpo, my dad let them take over the reins completely. He said it was good for me, and he was right. But now we’re both in this position where we need to navigate back to those old roles, only we’ve both changed a lot since the last time we were in them. My father has to think about more than just me. I have to think about myself. We’re both still trying to figure out what’s in the middle.

  I flip through a few radio stations, settling on the local news on my way to the club. Every song makes me think of something, but local sports and traffic seems to empty my head, and that feeling is welcomed. Will’s car is in the same place it was last night, and Amber’s car is gone. I pull up to park next to Will, but I wait with the air running, my eyes glazing over as I stare at the weeds and brush along the gravel drive.

  One thing became abundantly clear last night—Will’s company makes me feel just a little bit better. It’s also the reason I feel worse, but the scales seem to balance somehow when he’s around. I missed him. I missed us.

  Taking in a deep breath, I force myself to step from my car, unlock the clubhouse doors, and climb the steps to the office area. I’m quiet as I pass Will’s door. The office one is wide open. My heart jumps when I see Duncan at the desk, but not enough to cause me to gasp or scream. I knock softly on the doorframe to get his attention, and he looks up, dropping his eyepiece into his palm when he sees me.

  “Maddy, hello,” he says, smiling and rolling out the chair so he can step closer to me. He reaches for my hand with his free one, and when he grasps it, he squeezes nice and hard. “What a nice surprise. I hope you don’t need the office. The light in there wasn’t bright enough, and I’m so close to getting this damn pocket watch to work again.”

  “No, no. I came for Will, actually,” I say, shaking my head lightly at the sound of my admission.

  Duncan’s expression softens and his head falls to the side with his smile.

  “It’s nice to see you two reconnecting,” he says.

  A heaviness hits my chest with his word choice, but I shake it away with a quick breath.

  “Yeah…he was always a good friend,” I say.

  Our eyes lock for a few seconds, and I squirm a little, feeling as though he’s studying me…reading me.

  “He’s awake. Watching some movie or something. Go on in,” he says eventually, his eyes still narrowed enough that I feel exposed, like he knows more than I do about me.

  “All right,” I smile, my cheeks suddenly red.

  I turn my attention back and forth from Duncan to Will’s door, the old man watching me all the way. I’m half expecting Will to pop out and scare me and them both to have a good laugh over it.

  I knock lightly.

  “Go on in. Really. He’ll just think you’re me knocking,” Duncan says, waving his hand forward. Pushy old man!

  I nod, twisting the knob and pushing the door open slowly. Will’s leg is slung over the couch, and I can see his messy hair tussled in all directions, peeking out from the top of the armrest.

  “You hungry for some lunch?” His voice sounds groggy, and I think maybe he’s been napping.

  “Duncan said I could just come in,” I say.

  Will sits up quickly, his head popping up and looking over the back of the sofa. He’s watching some old car-chase movie, muscle cars squealing around tight corners on the TV screen.

  “Hey,” he croaks.

  I hunch my shoulders, a warm feeling crawling up my neck the longer he stares at me.

  “I wanted to see if maybe…you wanted to swim?” I ask.

  He continues to stare at me before shaking his head and running his hand through his wild hair. He twists on the sofa, his hand searching for th
e remote and finally pointing it to the TV to turn it off as he stands.

  “Swim…uh…yeah. Sure, I could get some work in. Just…” he babbles, spinning in place and pacing, as if he’s trying to somehow make this space he’s in look better. As if he needs to impress me with the spare room my family’s put him up in.

  “I wasn’t thinking laps, really. More…” I pause, pulling the photo of me and him on the rope swing from my back pocket and holding it out for him to take. When he grabs it, I move my hand to my forehead, instantly embarrassed that I’m suggesting it.

  “Wow,” he says, leaning into the back of the sofa and pulling the photo closer in both of his hands.

  “We don’t have to, if you don’t want to. I just thought...I don’t know. I haven’t been there in a while, and my mom says they might tear that swing and tree down, and…”

  “I’d love to go,” he says.

  I look up into his waiting eyes, his expression serious.

  “Yeah?” I ask.

  Will’s eyes linger on me before falling back to the image of a better time—a simpler time. He nods.

  “Yeah,” he says.

  He looks back up and hands me the photo.

  “Give me a minute to change. I’ll drive,” he says.

  “I’ll meet you outside,” I say, leaving before he encourages me to wait here. This room is too small to be in with him right now. I need to learn how to survive the wide-open spaces in his presence first.

  I wait for Will by his car. He finally steps through the front door, locking it behind him. He’s wearing light-blue swim trunks and a white T-shirt, nothing like the skin-tight suit he trains in every day. Somehow, I notice more of him like this, though. He runs his hand through his hair, pushing his gray State hat on before he unlocks his car and we both get in.

  “It smells new in here,” I say, noticing how spotless everything is.

  “I think they spray that smell in every rental. It’s not bad for the price, but I miss my Bronco,” he says.

  I smile as I buckle up and Will pulls us out onto the roadway.

  “You still have the Bronco,” I say, fondly.

  He turns to me, his mouth rising on one side.

  “Fucker barely runs, but I’ll never sell it,” he chuckles. I laugh with him.

  Will bought that truck with the money he earned mowing lawns in Knox one summer. He had these big dreams of rebuilding the engine, fixing it up. By the time he graduated high school, he had only managed to buy the thing two new tires. His parents refused to let him drive it to State, calling it a deathtrap. It sat in their garage for years. Will must have kept it when the house sold, after…after they died.

  “I’m glad you kept it,” I say.

  I look to him, watching his profile as he chews at the inside of his cheek, his eyes focused on the road and his nostrils flaring with his breath. Eventually he nods.

  “Me, too,” he says.

  Will turns onto the country road that leads to the lake. It’s about fifteen minutes from this point, and I spend the first few listening to the rumble of the tires on the beat-up roadway, cattle grates buzzing the rubber every couple miles.

  “What made you pick nursing?” Will asks, breaking the comfortable background noise. I shift and sit up tall in my seat.

  “I’m good at taking care of people…I think,” I say, closing one eye and looking at him. He laughs and meets my gaze.

  “I’ll agree with that statement, Maddy. Yes…you are in fact good at taking care of people,” he says.

  “Thanks,” I say, bringing my hands into my lap, twisting them. “I don’t know, I guess it’s the only thing that I felt was a good fit for my skills. I don’t want to run the Swim Club. I watched my dad struggle with the books for too many years, always just barely eking by. And my mom’s into this whole local government thing, which…gah…sounds so awful to me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he says. I pinch my brow and face him, twisting in my seat as he glances to me a few times. “I mean, yeah…the politics part is pretty gross, but your mom seems to genuinely want to improve things and enact change. It’s kinda noble, really.”

  “So is beating your head against a wall,” I laugh out.

  Will’s forehead furrows and his mouth hangs open before he laughs hard.

  “Beating your head against a wall is never noble,” he says. “That’s just stupid.”

  I shrug.

  “Seems a lot like local politics to me,” I say.

  Will laughs again, smiling at the winding roadway disappearing into the thick cluster of trees ahead.

  “Yeah, well, it’s better than delivering newspapers in Michigan in the thick of winter,” he says.

  My tongue pushes into the corner of my mouth and I bite it as I watch him and wait for him to elaborate. He eventually glances my way and shrugs.

  “I needed a job with benefits, and there aren’t a lot of people hiring a marketing guy—a few credit hours shy of a bachelors—with an extreme DUI record that made most of the papers in the Midwest, thanks to the footnote about a potential recreational drug problem.

  I know my eyes widen, but I try to keep my reaction in check. Will still turns away, though. I wait for him to say more, and when he doesn’t, I ask.

  “Was it true?”

  His mouth falls into a tight, straight line, and his eyes scan the roadway, moving from mirror to mirror before pausing to look at me at a four-way stop, our last turn before the lake. Will sighs and slides his hands to the center of the steering wheel, leaning back into his seat and letting his head roll to the right, peering at me.

  “Some of it,” he says.

  I wince, and he reaches over and brushes his arm against mine.

  “I said some,” he repeats. I hold his gaze and take a deep breath. “My drinking got dangerous. And I tried some things, maybe ended up hanging out with some people I shouldn’t have. I’m not the first wannabe athlete to be caught smoking pot, though. And the other things…I tried, but only once or twice. Nothing felt as good as Jack Daniels.”

  “Until the tree,” I say.

  He nods and lifts his eyebrows high before swinging his body forward again to turn the car toward Peterson Lake.

  “You are an athlete, Will,” I say, just as the water begins to come into view. His forehead wrinkles and he glances toward me. “You said wannabe, but I just wanted to make sure you knew that you were different. You actually are.”

  He chuckles bashfully, slowing the car as we clear the thick trees.

  “Thanks, Maddy. But I’m nothing, yet,” he says.

  We both exit the car and walk toward the water’s edge, thick layers of leaves caked along the shoreline. The rope is tied around the tree’s trunk, and my eyes follow the length up high to the thick branch several feet above the surface. The sight of it makes me smile, and when I turn around to share this moment with Will, I find him making the same face.

  “It’s exactly the same,” he says, kicking his shoes from his feet.

  I smirk, and kick mine away too, pulling my arms through my shirt and tossing it to the ground quickly, catching Will’s attention.

  His head cocks in suspicion as I unbutton my shorts and slide them down my legs, stepping out of them cautiously, gaining a few feet on him before he gets what I’m doing and tosses his shirt to the ground.

  “Last one there…” I shout through laughter, running barefoot along the water’s edge, up the dirt hill, Will close behind me.

  “You are not going to be the first to swing from that tree, Woodsen. You don’t even do it right!” he teases.

  “Sounds like loser talk to me,” I shout back, darting through trees and clawing at roots to pull myself up the small bluff holding the trunk of the swing’s tree.

  My footing slips, and soon Will passes me, laughing over his shoulder and winking as his toes fling mud all around me.

  “Oww!” I shout, sitting down and turning to lift my foot in my hand.

  “Maddy, what’s wro
ng? Are you okay?”

  Will climbs down a few paces to lean on the hill next to me, and as soon as he’s resting his weight on his knee, I push against his shoulder and lift myself up, sprinting by him again.

  “Ha ha, sucker!” I yell, pumping my arms and legs hard the rest of the way to the rope. I tug the end and begin unwrapping, but am not fast enough to beat Will completely. His hands cover mine as we both manically battle to take control over this piece of our childhood.

  “I got here first!” I giggle, pushing one of his hands away only to have to fend off the other.

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m the superior swinger,” he says.

  I lean my head back and laugh hard.

  “You’re a swinger, Will Hollister? I had no idea,” I say.

  He purses his lips, and my chest shudders with my amusement.

  Our arms tangle, and we both try to hug the rope, my feet struggling against his to steady the small peg of wood at the bottom. Eventually, we’re both locked into one another, and I let out a heavy sigh. There’s no way I’m going to be able to cut him loose, and there’s no way he’s going to give up and let me have the first swing. We never let the other one win at anything, not even the shit that didn’t matter.

  “Fine, we go together,” I say.

  Will’s eyes hit mine.

  “Fine!” he shouts, pulling my body in close to his and pushing away from the ridge of the hill before I have a chance to truly prepare myself for any of it.

  “You son of a…”

  My words fade into a scream as we sail above the water in a huge half circle. I scrunch my eyes closed and hold my breath as Will tugs my hands free of the rope, our legs kicking together while his arms hold onto my body tightly as we fall toward the water, the cold hitting us in a rush, knocking the wind from our lungs—muffled screams quickly silenced under the water.

  We fall deep into the blue, bubbles fizzing along our arms and legs as we break free and kick our way back to the surface. I cough when I taste air, and Will howls, flinging his arms back into a backstroke, kicking his legs hard and splashing water into the sky.