Hold My Breath

by Ginger Scott

  “Wooo whoo!” he yells, his voice echoing around us.

  I gasp and tread water, my arms and legs working hard to find warmth for my chest.

  “That was so much better than I remember!” he says.

  “Ye…yeah…so so so so so….”

  My teeth chatter.

  Will chuckles, swimming back to me, reaching his arm out for me to take. I grab hold and let him pull me in, my only focus on catching my breath until suddenly I can breathe, and my attention becomes fixed on the feel of his hand on the place where my suit is cut low along my back. His warmth on my skin. His legs kicking with mine, to hold me up. His head resting against mine. His breath…ragged. My eyes falling to his mouth, my lips quivering, his parting. His tongue resting between his teeth. Shivers.

  “We should go,” I say. My hand finds the center of his chest and pushes.

  Will doesn’t fight, quickly letting go of his grip on me. I kick and swing my arms a few times until I see the shoreline come into view through the murky water. Righting myself, I walk up the rest of the way, pushing my hair back from my face, twisting it and wringing it out. Debris from the ground sticks to my feet and legs, so I pick some of the larger leaves away before bending down and grabbing my T-shirt. I slide it over my head, and it sticks to my wet suit underneath.

  I don’t turn to watch Will walk up the shore, but I hear the crunch of the leaves under his feet as he steps closer, and from my periphery, I see him lift his own shirt in his hands. I pick up my shorts and feel in the pockets, panic hitting me unexpectedly when I don’t feel the photo inside. My eyes begin to dart around, and I turn in circles until Will’s hand wraps around my arm, causing me to look up at him.

  “Here,” he says, his eyes on the photo of a much younger me and him. I look down and take it from his hand.

  “Thanks,” I say. “It must have fallen out.”

  He breathes in slowly.

  “Must have,” he says, his voice quiet, but the swallow that follows is loud.

  I stand frozen while he moves to a large stone, sitting and pulling on his shoes. I choke on everything eating me up inside, coughing as I step into my shorts, keeping the photo in my hands to protect it from getting wet.

  “You ready?” Will asks, his eyes moving away from me the moment I look at him.

  I nod, even though he can’t see me. He doesn’t wait to hear my words and begins to walk up the slope to his car.

  This walk isn’t as hurried. There’s nothing to win at the end of this journey. If anything, I would be running away.

  We both climb in quickly and buckle our belts. Before Will shifts the car in reverse, he turns the radio on, stopping at a classic-rock station. The Eagles tell us to take it easy, Bruce begs for glory days, and by the time John tells us a little ditty about Jack and Diane I start to laugh uncontrollably. Will turns his head just enough, curious.

  “Even the classics want to make me crazy,” I say, not really to anyone at all. Will turns back to the road. He doesn’t respond, and after a few minutes, I quit smiling about it. Nothing about it is funny anyhow.

  We ride the rest of the way without talking, and my hand reaches for the handle, ready to rush toward the safety of my own car, the second Will’s tires grip the gravel of the club house driveway. When he pushes the car into park, though, neither of us move. Will’s hands run along the steering wheel, and he leans forward, folding his palms on top of one another, resting his chin on them, his eyes staring at the building where we first met.

  So many years ago.

  I leave my hand on the door latch, but my eyes center on Will. My mouth itches to frown, the taste inside acidic. Nothing is fair, and I hate this confused feeling. I don’t understand why I have it. My pendulum swings from missing him, to feeling relief that he’s here, that he’s home, to wanting to hit him in the chest so hard that it empties the air from him. I want him to hurt, just like I hurt. And I’m terrible for wanting it, but that’s our thing…we’re honest with each other, aren’t we?

  “Why did you leave Indiana?”

  My voice breaks the silence, but nothing follows. I breathe. My chest in and out. My pulse quickens.

  “You transferred to Michigan with one year left. You never came back here. You were…gone.”

  Will’s body rises with a long slow breath, and his head rolls to the side, his cheek flat against the back of his hands, his blue eyes opening on mine.

  Crystal. Honest.

  “I couldn’t be here…because you were here,” he says.

  I swallow hard, sucking in my lip to keep it from trembling. It’s both what I wanted to hear and what I dreaded. His words make me afraid and angry. Through it all, he never looks away. I force myself to stare right back through him. I read him. He couldn’t possibly have been more sincere with what he just said, and it breaks me.

  “Why did you…come…back?”

  My breath grows heavy through those last two words. My chest hurts, and fear starts to snake its way around my body. Will’s eyes remain fixed on mine. Seconds pass before he finally blinks. His head shakes the tiniest bit, and I know it’s coming.

  It’s going to hurt. There’s a slant to his eyes. A souring. Regret.

  “Because you were here,” he says.

  The same honesty laid bare before me, my heart drops to the depths of my chest, and my head grows light. My mouth begins to water with sickness, and within seconds, my forehead rushes with heat.

  “No,” I say, breaking our stare and pushing hard on the door handle, rushing from the small space I was trapped in—with him—to my own car nearby.

  “Maddy, wait!” he yells. I hear the sound of his door slam closed and his feet pound along the ground, so I walk faster.

  “Let me go, Will,” I say, fumbling with my keys, clicking the unlock button just as I reach for the door. I open and slip inside, trying to close Will off.

  “Maddy, stop. Just…please, Maddy,” he says, grabbing the car door just as I try to shut it.

  “Let go, Will. I shouldn’t have come here. You and me, we need to focus. This…digging up the past, and all of these memories, it’s…none of this is good for either of us, Will. Just let me go, and let’s go back to being friendly in the pool. I’ll root for you, Will. But that’s it. I can’t…”

  I stop when he kneels down just outside my door, his hands taking mine, grappling and pulling them toward him. My eyes sting with tears, and I lose my grip on everything. I give over.

  I’m weak, and I don’t care.

  “I can’t do that, Maddy,” he says, his hand lifting my chin, his thumb swiping away a tear. He leans forward, sitting on his knees in the gravel, until his head falls to my lap in the driver’s seat and his arms circle around me. My hands shake as they hover above his head, his hat on the floor of my car, near my feet. I’m locked, fingers rigid, afraid to let myself touch him.

  “You’re the only thing that doesn’t make me want to drown,” Will says, and my hands fall softly into his hair. My lungs fill at the touch. “I think I came here knowing that you were my only shot at peace.”

  My fingers thread through the wet strands, and Will twists his head in my lap, his rough jawline scratching my leg, his lips opening enough to catch on my skin, pausing until he pulls them closed in a kiss. His head rolls more, and his mouth brushes against my thigh again. I feel the chills all the way up to the back of my neck.

  “Maddy,” he breathes my name against my skin.

  My hands fall deeper into his hair, my hold stronger. Will’s hands move around me more, one sliding under my legs, bringing them toward him, outside the car, while his other hand holds the center of my back as he crawls closer to me, his body rising between my legs. His mouth kisses along the fringe of my denim shorts, then up to the waist band, until his teeth grip the bottom of my T-shirt and his hands slide to my hips, his thumbs hooking underneath the fabric and lifting my shirt up and over my body, tossing it to the passenger seat behind me.

  Will rests hi
s knee between my thighs, and I arch back over the center console while he moves over me, his mouth now pressing a kiss into my swimsuit-covered ribs, then the center of my chest. My fingers glide into his hair more, then down his chest as he rises above me, his forehead falling against mine as his eyes close. He shakes his head and parts his lips, almost as if he wants to say more, but before he can stop himself, before I can resist, his mouth covers mine completely, and the weight of his body falls into mine, every curve of my body scorching with the heat from the hardness of his.

  Will’s lips caress, and he pulls my bottom lip between his teeth, applying sweet pressure that bends me against him and makes me want more. My hands circle to his back, and Will leans into me, pressing his hard erection between my legs while his right hand drags up my body, his thumb grazing along my breast and nipple on its way to the taut, wet strap digging into my right shoulder. Will’s fingers wrap around it, and I press into him, wanting him to keep going, the only way I can give him a sign because I’m too much of a coward to use my words. I don’t want to hear myself say I want Will Hollister. I don’t want to know what that means, what it says about me and the kind of girl I am. But I don’t want him to stop touching me, either.

  Will begins to drag my strap over my shoulder, and our eyes meet just as fate steps in to stop us from something irreversible. Something we’d both probably regret, even though his eyes right now are telling me otherwise.

  I bite my lip, and Will lays his head flat against my chest, and we remain motionless—soundless—until we hear my father’s car door slam closed—our bodies hidden by Will’s car parked between us. My dad’s steps slow, and I take a sharp breath through my nose, the sound of my heartbeat deafening in my ears. Neither of us breathes again until we hear the main door for the club open and close.

  We lay still for another full minute. Will is the first to move, his arms lifting his body, his head falling heavy against me, like a magnet pulling—not wanting to let go.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

  My hands slide away from his hair, and he backs out from my car, from me.

  I let him go.

  Chapter Seven

  Maddy

  “See, now this is precisely why I didn’t ask you to write my paper. Look at me—spent the night out, still got up at a decent hour and bam…wrote that fucker in a single day,” Holly says. She turns the shopping cart down the next aisle and sweeps six bags of chips from the edge of the shelf into our cart.

  “I cannot fathom how you are a healthcare professional,” I say, putting two of the bags back.

  “What? They’re baked?” she says, reaching for them behind my back and putting them back into the cart.

  “Baked flavored,” I correct.

  Holly left her phone at my parents’ house, something we discovered when I sent her half a dozen texts after the lake with Will, only to have my mom carry my friend’s phone up to my room and hand it to me. Luckily, I didn’t say anything incriminating in text, because now that I’m an adult, my mom has no qualms about blatantly sticking her nose in my business.

  I also seem to have lost the desire—or perhaps the courage—to share what happened with Holly. Talking about it, even with her, makes it a thing. And I have to see Will for five more weeks of training, and things make getting my work done in the pool hard. Things also make sleeping hard. And…well…functioning gets hard, too.

  “You know, the fact that it was so easy for you to bounce back from, what was it, seven shots of tequila? That sorta points to a bigger problem…perhaps,” I say, sucking my bottom lip in and holding my breath, waiting for her reaction.

  “First of all, it was eight. And second of all, it means I have a very high tolerance, like a super power. And it also means that you’re a pussy,” she says, the grocery clerk at the line we just entered shooting his head up the second that word leaves her lips. Holly just winks at him, her lips puckering a hint, which makes the old man reach up to loosen his collar.

  “That’s, like, the second time you’ve called me a pussy in a week,” I say, my cheeks a little hot from the stares my friend has earned us. I’m feeling it, too, old man, though for different reasons.

  “You know, the fact that it’s so easy for me to call you a pussy sorta points to a bigger problem, perhaps.” My friend shoots me a sideways glance as she delivers her dig, then takes one of the chip bags off the conveyer belt and hands it to our now-mortified grocery man. “Scan these real quick, pops. I’m starving.”

  “You are too much. I see why I’m your only friend,” I say, rolling my eyes and tapping my credit card against the pay machine.

  Holly laughs with a full mouth.

  “Yet you keep coming back, babe,” she says.

  “I know, I know…which probably points to a bigger problem, yeah, yeah,” I say, squeezing the bridge of my nose and closing my eyes tight.

  We finish buying my week’s-worth of protein bars and super fruits, and my friend’s sack of junk food, then climb back into her Jeep to head to the Swim Club for a few hours of workouts. Needling one another is just our way, and I can tell Holly misses my company just as much as I do hers. She could have just turned around and headed back to the apartment we used to share near campus, but instead, she asked if I needed any help. What she meant was company, but Holly and I don’t like using words like that—words that denote love and attachment. Even for our friendship, and even though we both feel it.

  I don’t use those words because I’m afraid anyone I say them to will be marked for a tragic death. Holly doesn’t because she was raised in the foster system and doesn’t believe real love exists. Together, we’re a pretty cynical duo. This is also why neither of us has a lot of friends. But we do have each other.

  Holly pulls into the Swim Club lot, and I know she’s parked next to Will’s car on purpose. Just seeing it brings a rush of heat over me, one that starts at my thighs and slides up my body until it leaves my lips with a tingling sensation. I can still feel him—feel our mistake.

  “You two seemed to be getting along really well the other night,” she says.

  I shrug, avoiding her eye contact and lifting my two grocery bags from her back seat, trying not to engage. I think I’ve gotten away with it, too, and then bam!

  “So, has he always been in love with you? Or is that a new thing?”

  Her question knocks the air from my lungs, and my steps stutter as I round the back of her Jeep. I know my eyes are wide. I know my lips are tight. I can feel it.

  “Right, so…new thing then, huh?” she adds, smirking.

  I pinch my brow and suck in a short burst of a laugh, acting, then keep walking to the main lobby.

  Preposterous. Impossible. Ridiculous. Ludicrous. I’m saying that and a dozen other similar words with the expression I give her. Meanwhile, though, I can’t say that I haven’t asked myself the same question. Yesterday’s kiss was not something that happens because of a place or circumstances. I may suck at romance, but I know when a kiss is more than physical attraction and hormones, and Will’s touch was almost forbidden—a scent of longing traced on my body everywhere he’d been.

  I wanted it.

  I walk straight through the lobby to the small kitchen and shove my two bags into the little space left in the fridge around my dad’s cases of water and energy drinks. I hear my friend crunching behind me, and I turn to see she’s brought her bag of chips in with her along with a neuroscience book.

  “You sure you can get your studying done out here?” I ask, leading her to the back door, and eventually the deck. Funny how I missed her, but now I kinda wish she’d go home, and take her blunt honesty with her.

  “Yeah, I can study anywhere. Besides, I’m sorta hoping Will’s gonna show up, and then I can get a real case study out of this thing,” she says, popping a whole chip in her mouth and wrapping her lips around it slowly, grinning at me as she chews.

  I stare at her while I slide out of my shorts, shaking my head and not understan
ding.

  “Ya know, cuz you’re probably going to have a nervous breakdown and all, from him being so in love with you,” she says, laughing out bits of chip through the last few words.

  I bend down and scoop up a handful of water and fling it at her, causing her to flee to a chair.

  “I’m pretty sure you’re going to fail your neuroscience labs,” I say, turning my back on her and moving to my favorite lane to stretch and splash water on my legs and arms.

  “I know that’s not how neuroscience works, Maddy,” she says, her tone full of sarcasm. “I was just making a clever play on words. You don’t need to be such a pussy.”

  “Stop calling me pussy!” I shout, this time kicking water at her, the sprinkles pelting the spine of her book as she shields herself with it.

  “Quit being one,” she says, sticking her tongue out at me then shoveling more chips into her mouth, crumbs literally falling everywhere.

  “You’re like Cookie Monster,” I say.

  “Yeah, well Will Hollister’s in love with you,” she says.

  I jerk my head to face her, glowering, which only makes her laugh harder, spilling more crumbs on her chest. The only way to escape her barrage is to dive under water, so I go in cold, and my muscles pay for it for several strokes. Eventually, my body warms up and my movement becomes steady. No matter how fast I swim, though, I can’t seem to outpace my friend’s words. They invade my head, probably because a part of me was starting to let the same thoughts unravel.

  Is Will Hollister in love with me? Has he always been? And, more importantly, why do I hope so?

  Will

  When I was little, maybe five or six, I would spend hours over the summer watching my Uncle Duncan work in his shop. Mom and Dad always shipped us up to Michigan for two weeks near the end of July. Two boys, two years apart, our brawls could get taxing when we were home all summer. They had a break when I was in school, even when Evan was still too young, but summers dragged. My mom would begin to use the time-out chairs more and more often, and pretty soon, we’d find ourselves on the train headed up to Grosse Pointe.