Hold My Breath

by Ginger Scott

  Evan always spent his time playing with the neighbor kids, or making cookies and shopping with our Aunt Maggie. All I wanted to do was help my uncle, though. He had a special stool he’d made just for me, a little higher than normal, and it allowed me to lay on my hands with my head low to the table so my eyes could watch him maneuver tiny gears into place, setting them in motion with the smallest sparks.

  “You remember what I used to tell you?” he says, jarring me from my trance. I’m no longer the young boy who could barely reach the table, but I am the man whose legs are too long to fit at the same small desk as my only remaining relative, and I still love to watch him work.

  “You said if only the heart could be fixed like this,” I say. “I always thought it was weird,” I chuckle. “When I was a kid it made me think that you were Frankenstein. I used to tell Evan you kept bodies in the basement.”

  My uncle shakes with silent laughter.

  “You always were a little shit,” he says.

  My eyes focus on the end of his tweezers, the tiny clip held open by his steady hands as he slowly lowers it to the table, dropping the pin in place just as he frees the gears from their hold with his other hand. The task seems impossible, and success seems futile, yet I hold my breath to listen with him as the tiny machine begins to work.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  “Best goddamned sound in the world,” my uncle says, his muscles relaxing as he pulls his glasses from his face and switches off the headlamp he’d been wearing on his head.

  I shift my eyes from the watch to my uncle.

  “Can I?” I ask, wanting to see it up close.

  “Yep. Just don’t turn it over. If those suckers fall out, you’re going to have a crime scene to clean up,” he laughs.

  “Got it,” I breathe out a laugh. Careful, I take the watch into my hands, pulling it close, my eyes transfixed on how every tiny piece plays a part.

  “You still sticking with that plan of yours?” he asks.

  “Not sure what you mean,” I say, my attention on the tiny grooves where one wheel meets the other, the shine of the metal, new parts helping old.

  “That one where you think you don’t deserve anything, and where that girl I hear swimming out there doesn’t deserve the truth?”

  I look up fast, and my uncle grabs my hands, closing my palm and easing it toward him.

  “Don’t drop my masterpiece just because you can’t handle my frankness,” he says, prying my fingers open slowly and taking the watch back into his own palm.

  “Sorry,” I say in a quick breath. I blink a few times, still a little stunned from his statement and unsure how to respond. I pinch my brow and move my eyes to his. “I don’t think she deserves the hurt. This has nothing to do with lies and truths. What does it matter now that Evan’s gone? The least I can give her is a happy memory.”

  “You really think that’s what’s best for her, do ya?” he says, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his neck.

  I think about all of the possibilities, her finding out, me telling her, Evan getting the chance to tell her. No matter how I play it out, Maddy thinking she was Evan’s one and only is always the best…for her.

  “Yeah…I do,” I say.

  I watch my uncle work for a few more minutes, but the urge wins over, and soon I’m tugging my shirt over my head as I stand and tossing it on top of my pile of clothes on my way to the bathroom. My favorite suit is dry, so I slip it on, grab a towel from the stack Maddy’s mom left for me and head back through the door before I have a chance to change my mind.

  “Suddenly have the urge to swim, do you?” my uncle chuckles.

  I glare at him as I pass, and it only makes him laugh harder.

  I don’t realize Maddy isn’t alone until I hear the pool door click closed behind me. Her friend Holly is sitting in one of the lounge chairs, a book propped up on her thigh with one hand, the other knuckle deep in a bag of Doritos. She looks up at the sound of the door, staring at me for a few seconds before her lips give way to a lopsided smirk.

  “Hey, Maddy,” she says, pulling a chip from the bag. She points it at me, then glances to her friend who has just stopped on the opposite wall to catch her breath. “You’ve got company.”

  There’s a long exchange between the two of them, and I’m starting to feel like I was the subject of some high-school-style bet.

  “I can come out later to get my work in. I didn’t know you were here,” I lie. I hover at the edge of the deck by the chairs, not really wanting to leave, when I feel her friend kick me with her toe, against my leg.

  “You’re welcome out here, Will. I’m the one she wants to leave,” her friend says, shooting Maddy a glare.

  “It’s because you keep calling me a pussy!” Maddy shouts.

  My lip tugs up, and I laugh quietly, looking down at my feet before moving my eyes to Holly. She shrugs.

  “She’s right. I do,” she says, looking back to her friend and cupping her mouth to make her voice come out even louder…as if that’s possible. “Because you’re acting like one!”

  I can’t hear Maddy sigh, but I can tell by her shoulders and the way they rise and fall while she holds on to the pool’s edge that she is.

  “You know she doesn’t like it when people underestimate her,” I say to her friend, laying my towel on a nearby table and kicking off my slide shoes.

  “Just trying to bring out her best,” Holly says, holding her half-eaten bag of chips out for me. I shake my head no and rub my sore abs.

  “Trying to bring out my best,” I laugh.

  Her mouth curls as she shrugs, and her eyes narrow, her expression shifting to flirtatious. “Yeah, well…it’s working for ya,” she says, eyebrows waggling.

  I thought I was too old to blush, but Maddy’s friend may just be the female equivalent of the stereotypical construction worker, and I feel pretty damn objectified.

  “All righty,” I say, eyes wide as I stretch my goggles in my hands and turn my attention to the pool. Maddy’s soon approaching my side of the pool and is about to touch the wall, so I step quicker, kneeling by the edge to force her to look at me on her touch. She slows when she notices me, her eyes masked by her tinted goggles, hair tucked under her cap. My brother used to say that all swimmers look the same when you gear us up, but Maddy doesn’t look like anyone else at all—even masked and ready to compete. Her cheekbones are always a little higher, her lips a little pinker, and I’d recognize her form even under the deepest waters. She’s perfection.

  “I thought maybe we could sprint together. I know it’s always easier for me when there’s someone in the lane next to me,” I say. I could not possibly be more transparent, and I hear her friend breathe out a laugh behind me. The more seconds that tick by without Maddy’s response, the more see-through I become.

  And by sprints being easy, I mean I just want to be near you because I literally cannot get your taste out of my mouth.

  I start to stand, but before I make up an excuse to leave, Maddy gives me a slight nod.

  “Cool,” I nod back.

  She swims a few slow laps while I stretch and warm up, and when I twist to the side, I notice her friend Holly is now chewing on her pen cap, her legs folded in the chair while she stares at me. I wonder if Maddy told her about yesterday?

  I do my best to ignore her, but every time I glance her direction, I’m met with her eyes, and a wry grin that she flashes, like I’ve been caught.

  “You, Evan and Maddy…you guys were close?” she finally says after locking eyes a dozen more times.

  “We were,” I answer quickly, turning the opposite way and stretching an arm that is already limber and loose just to avoid looking at her more.

  “Was it always Evan and Maddy, or did you and her…ya know…like, date or anything?”

  My head cocks and my mouth hangs open, my stomach tightening as I think of the best way to deflect this, when Maddy steps in before I have to.

  “Will is two years olde
r than me, Holly. It would have been weird,” she says.

  Weird. I nod to agree with her, but as I get in the pool, I stay under water for a few extra seconds just to mouth the word to myself. Weird. I guess she didn’t say gross, so weird is better, but I never really thought of the idea of a me and her as weird. Two years when I was a senior and she was a sophomore would have been difficult, yeah, but…no…a me and her has always been far from weird.

  When I resurface, I hear the middle of her friend’s response.

  “I was fifteen and he was five years older than me, and I didn’t find it weird at all,” Holly says.

  I twist to look at Maddy, and she just opens her eyes wide and shakes her head at me, urging me not to dig deeper.

  “Holly was a little…advanced…in high school,” Maddy says.

  “Fuck high school. I was advanced in junior high,” her friend says, her book snapping closed as she stands. “I really should head home to study, Maddy. Maybe Will can take you home? You know…when you two are done with whatever…this is?”

  Holly waves her hand above us, her lips pinched like she’s holding in a laugh. I see what she’s doing, and as much as I appreciate that she’s trying to force Maddy and me together…alone, I’m getting a vibe from my other side that alone time isn’t exactly wanted. Unsure how to answer, I turn to Maddy for a sign, some expression that gives me a clue, but Holly—my unrequested wing-woman—doesn’t give me time.

  “Great, okay, well…call me later, Mads. Will, as always, been a pleasure. Keep avoiding carbs and making those abs look super sexy, would ya?”

  I can only laugh to myself when her friend leaves us alone, and I let my face fall forward so I’m looking at the water.

  “I’m pretty sure that falls under sexual harassment,” I chuckle.

  “You have no idea how much worse that could have been,” Maddy says. I meet her eyes, and she widens them. “We used to do this thing after big tests. We’d each take turns picking how we’d celebrate. I’d make us splurge and go out to some fancy dinner, or maybe go dancing.”

  I raise an eyebrow, kinda guessing where this is going.

  “Strip clubs,” she says, and my chest shakes once with my laugh. “Every. Single. Time. She has a stack of ones on hand, like, always. Seriously, the next time you see her, I’ll show you her wallet. Ones. Filled with ones.”

  “Wow,” I mouth, stretching forward while my fingers grip the edge of the wall. “You…went to these clubs with her?”

  Maddy’s head falls to the side and her eyes scowl.

  “I’m a big girl, Will. I can go to a strip club if I want to,” she says.

  “No, yeah. I get that. And I’m fine with them. Young men need a way to earn their way through college, you know?” I say, doing my best to keep a straight face before Maddy splashes water at me. I splash back a few times, but when it causes her to put more distance between us, I stop.

  She looks down into the water, folding her arms along the ropes and lifting her legs up until her toes break through the surface. I smile at them. Even her fucking toes are cute. The quiet grows a little uncomfortable, and I’m hit with the need to make some kind of move.

  “I didn’t really come down here to swim,” I say, lifting my head just enough to peer at her.

  She kicks her toes, making tiny splashes in the water.

  “I know,” she says out of one side of her mouth. Long seconds pass, and I watch as she chews at her lip. In my mind, I swim the few yards between us, back her into the wall, and tug her hair free from its cap while I taste her lips again. Holly kept calling Maddy a pussy, but she has no idea.

  “I shouldn’t have let it happen…”

  “I’m sorry for yesterday…”

  We both talk over each other, freezing mid-sentence, our eyes locking just before our lips curve and our smiles reflect one another’s.

  “Sorry, you first,” I say.

  She shrugs.

  “Kinda sounds like we were both saying the same thing,” she says, the right side of her mouth curled into a wry smile. My head falls to the same side as her smile, and I study her, hoping that at any minute she’ll change her mind, say something that’s just a little better than wishing yesterday never happened. She doesn’t, though, so I nod, accepting this place we’ve met at in the middle. I don’t like it, and I won’t be able to live with it. But for five more weeks, I can bare it.

  “So you wanna sprint?” I ask, dipping my goggles into the water and sliding them on. Business it is, then.

  “Probably should. I can’t be anything but the first girl to the wall again. Makes it kinda hard for your dad to push for you to make the US team when you lose to a girl who literally just got her braces off,” she says.

  “She’s not that young,” I laugh.

  “No, I’m actually being serious. She told me at the Mills. ‘Let me take out my retainer before we do the next round of shots,’ she said, to which I responded, ‘You have a retainer?’ And then she smiled, all bright-white teeth, tapping her fingertips on the front ones. ‘Just got the braces off a month ago.’”

  Maddy’s lips purse and she blinks slowly while I laugh.

  “Maybe she had to wear them for a really long time,” I laugh, lifting myself up to sit on the pool’s edge. Maddy does the same, then turns to her side, sliding her goggles up enough that I see her eyes.

  “Either way, she’s still a lot younger than me, Will,” she says, letting out a heavy sigh. Her eyes hold onto mine; I see the subtle difference in her expression with each passing second. Her mouth falls flatter, her eyes become sullen. She breathes in deep again, letting it escape in one heavy blow. “And losing to her scared the shit out of me.”

  I look down to the place where my hands meet the concrete, then to my feet still in the water. I let my legs circle once, and I think about how impossible it is that I’m even here, that I’m even breathing. Maddy’s my motivator, even though she has no clue. Maybe, just maybe, I can find the old Will deep down inside me somewhere. Maybe I can find the guy who used to motivate her to win—even if it was just by pissing her off.

  “Seems like this would be a good time for me to make a bet with you, then,” I say, standing to my feet. I laugh to myself, still not entirely sure about what I’m about to propose. It will buy me more time with Maddy, though, and torture or not, I still want those moments with her outside of competition. I’ve had enough to remember what her friendship feels like now. No going back.

  “Your bets have never been anything but trouble for me, Will Hollister,” she says, looking up, keeping her eyes trained on me while she pulls her legs in and stands.

  “We’re not eleven, Maddy. I’m not going to dare you to drink vinegar or write LOSER on your forehead in marker. I’m thinking we need a more mature type of motivator,” I say.

  “Like?” She looks at me with one eye closed more than the other, her hand on her hip.

  I smirk, and mentally thank my wing-woman Holly for giving me such a great idea.

  “I give you a full body-length lead, and if I still win, then Friday, you have to take me to the strip club,” I say, trying not to smile too broadly while her eyes narrow under her consideration.

  “And if I win?” she asks.

  “Then you get to pick the place we go on Friday to celebrate. And I have to pay the bill—no matter what,” I say.

  Her eyes flash at my suggestion, and her lip twitches upward on the right.

  “Do we have a bet?” I extend my hand, daring to step forward a few paces. My pulse kicks up with a mix of adrenaline and desire. This was very clearly another bad idea—but the moment Maddy lifts her hand at her side and meets me halfway, I forget about my moral compass and readjust my definition of what’s good and what’s right.

  “Two body lengths,” she says when our eyes meet.

  I squeeze her palm, loving the fact that she squeezes back with equal force.

  “Fine, two,” I say, and she nods.

  “I’ll set the s
ensors,” she says, leaving me to shake the nerves from my limbs behind her back while she moves to the control box and flips on the timers.

  She comes back to stand next to me; we both put on our best game faces. My lips hurt trying not to laugh, but I hold my eyes on hers and do my best to sneer while we both swing our arms then slide our goggles into place. I wait while Maddy readies herself up on her blocks, and I step up next to her on mine, bending down, and holding the front, relaxing my back and testing the sway of my legs as they move back and forth.

  “You call it,” Maddy says, her head turning to me while she reaches up with one hand and points her finger at my face. “And you better not cheat. If I find out, I’ll do something really shitty to your shampoo bottles when you’re not home. And you know Duncan would help me.”

  I pull in my brow and laugh out a breath.

  “This sounds like something you and my uncle may have worked out in advance,” I say.

  “That’s for me to know, and you to worry about. Now call the damn race, Will,” she says, turning forward again, her hands both steady on the block. “And don’t swim like a pussy.”

  “No, ma’am,” I chuckle.

  I crouch again, swallowing down my nerves. I’m not worried about winning or losing. I’m worried about making shit messy.

  “On your marks,” I say, my eyes falling closed, my heartbeat ratcheting up quickly.

  “Get set,” I say, holding my breath for a full second. My last chance to turn back is right now.

  “Go!” I shout, giving over to fate. Whatever will be will be, and whether this is a good idea or bad is something I have to see through to find out. But at the very least, Maddy is going to swim fast, and she’s going to find her spark. I’m going to give it to her, right…now. My fingers hit the water, and I dig in hard, making up ground. I feel the wake of her kick, the trail of her best.

  Maddy is swimming fast, and she’s never going to lose to Amber again. I’m making sure of it, because, good idea or bad, in about six more seconds, she’s going to lose to me.