Hold My Breath

by Ginger Scott

  Everyone’s exited the water, and I pull myself up to stand near my parents, my mom still glowing over my time, my father continuing to work out whose side he wants to be on. Will showed weakness just now, and the number-cruncher who is getting pressure to drag Will down should be tittering like a happy, evil fool. He’s not, though. He’s caught in-between, and I can’t take watching him wade in limbo any longer.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I ask, my voice hushed, but angry. My dad’s eyes snap to mine, and my mom’s smile falls fast, her brow lowered as she glances between us.

  “Not here, Maddy,” my father says, nodding over my shoulder. I turn to see Will still floating, pushing himself to the other side of the pool. It wouldn’t matter if he could hear or not, though.

  “He knows what you think of him,” I grit. “Of his odds and the benefit it brings to the table. He’s not stupid, Dad. But he’s sure as hell hurt.”

  My mom’s head falls to one side and she glares at my father.

  “Are you undermining that boy, Curtis?” she spits out.

  “No!” My father raises one hand, trying to stop our train of conversation.

  “The fact that even now—after the interview, where Will was obviously protecting me from speculation and rumors—you still can’t see how much more you have to gain with him on your side rather than just being good enough to hold open the door, Dad…” I start, stopping when my mom’s hand slaps hard against my father’s chest.

  “He’s like a son to us, Curtis. You love Will!” she says, no longer guarding her volume.

  I turn to see Will now holding himself at the pool’s edge, his arms stretched out and his eyes on us and our conversation. I turn back to face my father.

  “He deserves this, Dad. Probably more than any of us,” I say. My father’s jaw works, his cheeks moving as he grits his teeth. “He deserves it more than me. Definitely more than you. He deserves it more than Evan ever did, Dad.”

  My father’s eyes flutter closed at the mention of Evan’s name. It isn’t something he’s put on. My dad had dreams of coaching both of these boys to their highest levels. But Will is so much more worthy.

  “He can’t do this without you. I can push him. But nobody can bring out what he needs to win like you can,” I say.

  My father doesn’t respond, but the tightness in his face eases, until he’s left with nothing but sad, sloping eyes and cheeks that weigh down his mouth.

  “Is this about saving the club?” my mom finally says. “This…dump?”

  A laugh escapes my mom’s chest as she turns with one palm up, showcasing the eight-lane pool, cracking deck, and fence covered with awnings held down by twisty-ties.

  “It’s all we have, Susan,” my dad shakes his head, his eyes lost on the ground a few feet away.

  My mom laughs once more.

  “No, Curtis,” she says, leaning toward me and pressing a kiss to my cheek. “No, it’s not even close to all we have. And when it comes to priorities, it doesn’t even make the list.”

  My mom walks around the edge of the pool, stopping at Will on the other end, bending down, and pressing a kiss to his head. She looks up to catch our stare one last time, and nods—a warning to my father. I look back at him to find his face unchanged, but the sadness reflected in his eyes stronger. His chest lifts slowly as he blinks, his gaze moving from the door my mom just closed to the man waiting for his help in the water. He’s quiet for several seconds, and I let his mind work out whatever fog I see passing behind his eyes, until he finally throws the clipboard to the ground between our feet and moves past me.

  “Fuck it,” he says, kicking his shoes from his feet and tugging his shirt over his head. He’s wearing workout shorts, and he turns to me handing me the contents of his pocket before turning back and diving into the pool. He swims toward Will, who glances from me to this strange version of my father swimming toward him. All I can do is move back a few steps to the bleacher seats, gathering my father’s things with me so I can watch.

  For two hours, my father bends Will’s body in the pool, analyzing every single position, from the place where his hand enters the water, to where the beads leave his toe from every kick. He never asks him to swim fast. He’s resting him—forcing him to think beyond brute force and power. He’s building strategy and fine-tuning the machine.

  He’s leaving limbo behind and swimming in the light.

  And neither of them are going to lose. I feel it in my gut.

  The noon sun blazing down on them, my father finally forces Will from the pool. I meet them both by the main deck near the door.

  “I can just leave your things inside, by the kitchen, if you want to run upstairs and shower off. You might still have some spare clothes up there,” I say.

  My dad takes his things from my hands and balls them up in his dry shirt.

  “Maddy, if I do have clothes up there, I can guarantee you they don’t fit anymore,” he chuckles. I smile with him.

  My father’s body isn’t what it was when I was a kid. Time has made his belly thicker and his shoulders less prominent. But the swimmer is still there. I saw him in the pool today.

  “I love watching you work,” I say.

  My father sorts through his things in his shirt, finding his keys and glancing up at me. His mouth draws into a tight smile as he shakes his head.

  “I missed it,” he says.

  “Missed what?” I ask.

  “Believing in something,” he answers fast.

  I stare into his eyes, and they’re clouded with uncertainty, but for the first time in weeks they look happy.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do about the club,” he says, taking a sharp breath through his nose and drawing his shoulders up high. I feel Will step inside behind me, and my father’s gaze leaves mine briefly. “Every day. That. We do exactly that after every workout. If you feel like putting in more, you call me—I’ll come. I don’t want those arms hitting the water a single time without my eyes on them. You’re going to be damned near perfect, but the only way I can be sure of that is if I know what’s behind every stroke.”

  “Yes, sir,” Will says, stepping close and holding his palm out for my dad to take. My dad grips it, watching how they shake, and stopping their movement with his other hand on Will’s. He lifts his chin and the two men look at one another as reflections of past and present.

  My dad pats Will’s arm twice with his palm before letting go of their grip completely and making his way to the door. He pauses just before pulling it open, turning with his eyes down before flitting them up to meet mine, one side of his bottom lip caught in his teeth, a poor attempt at masking a look of amusement.

  “You two better get used to racing like that, too. Now that I know that point three is out there, Maddy…I’m gonna want more,” he says, chuckling as he spins and lets the door close behind him.

  “Have I mentioned how much it sucks to be Coach’s daughter?” I say, my eyes squinted and my stare still on the place where my father was. I feel Will lean into me and kiss the top of my head.

  “Just about every day since the moment I met you,” he says, his hand sliding down my arm and gripping the tips of my fingers, urging me to follow him up the stairs. “Let me shower and buy you lunch. Since you don’t have a cent to your name and all.”

  I blink a few times then look up at him as he walks up the stairs backward. I start to giggle, a little hysterically, and Will’s brow pulls in as he draws me close to walk alongside him.

  “I wasn’t kidding about any of that, just so you know. I really am broke now,” I say, my eyes still wide, the reality of my life at twenty-two, not a cent to my name, truly hitting me.

  Will stops at his room door, tipping my chin up with his finger until our eyes meet.

  “I’m paying you back for the ticket, Maddy. I insist,” he says.

  I open my mouth to protest, but close it quickly, twisting my head slightly to the side while I wince.

  “I am going to le
t you,” I laugh out nervously.

  Will’s mouth pinches in, trying to keep his smile at bay, but it breaks through. His lips curve up and he leans in, pressing them against mine, and I don’t know what kind of kiss I love more—ones like this, where I can feel him smile against me, or the kind where he’s lost in me, whiskers rubbing me raw.

  I trail behind Will as he pushes the door open, and the smile on both of our faces comes slamming to a halt. Tanya is sitting on the sofa, Duncan holding her hand in both of his. I already know why she’s here, and I know in just a few minutes, Will is going to, too. The time Tanya thought she had left has shrunk considerably, and Will is going to have to carry weight through the water once again.

  Will

  “Where’s Dylan?”

  There is so much wrong with the scene that I walked into the moment Maddy and I stepped through that door. Dylan being missing is only a fraction of it, but I know that part has an answer. I think I’m going to need to tackle the easy things first with this one.

  “His therapist is at the house. She offered to stay. I trust her,” Tanya says.

  I nod, blinking away from her red eyes. My hand instinctively covers my face, my fingertips scratching lightly along my saturated skin. I smell of chlorine, and my skin is pruned. My legs twitch from exhaustion, but I’m too afraid to move forward and sit on the sofa next to her. I know what she’s going to say, and I just feel like if I can stand here on the cusp of my world falling apart for a little while that maybe it will pass by me, and for once, I won’t have to deal with the hurt that comes with bad news.

  “I’m sick, Will,” she says. It’s the same way she said it last time—a year ago, before I drove my car into a tree. I wasn’t the man I am today then, though—I wasn’t equipped for it, as if I could ever be equipped for the uncertainty that something like this comes with.

  I feel the familiar sting hit my eyes, and I push my forearm against them both, keeping the tears where they lie—on the edge of falling.

  “It came back,” I say.

  “They aren’t sure it ever really left,” she says.

  Maddy steps in close to me, and I don’t hesitate to grip her hand in mine. It isn’t fair to her, but for the next few hours at the very least, I’m going to need to lean on her. What she learns, though, might mean I lose her for good.

  “I’ll quit. We’ll start chemo again. I’m here this time, so I won’t have to fly in. You won’t have to rely on your mother…I know you can’t count on her, and she’s far away…”

  She looks up slowly, her eyes leveling me. She’s looked so tired, more than she should—how could I not have noticed.

  “It’s past that,” she says.

  My hand covers my face again instinctually, and I let my tears smear against my palm while I let my face contort underneath, my teeth gritting while my body twitches with the need to sob.

  “It happened again,” Tanya says, and I look up, trying to understand what she’s saying, but when I do, I realize she isn’t looking at me, she’s looking at Maddy. “Last night, I threw up blood.”

  Maddy’s eyes close.

  “You knew?” My heartbeat begins to pick up, and my fingers work loose of their grip with Maddy.

  “I got sick in front of her, Will. It’s only been a day, and I begged her not to tell you. I wanted you to race first,” Tanya says.

  My hands twitch at my sides as I walk backward until my body slams into the closed door. My eyes flit from every pair in the room, and I feel like I’ve been in the dark.

  “We were going to tell you, Will. Tanya was going to tell you as soon as trials were done,” Maddy says, glancing from me to her, her mouth moving long after the words have left it, as if she’s trying to find more words to give me, even though there aren’t any.

  “Don’t take this out on her, Will. This was me,” Tanya says.

  I press my back harder into the door.

  “I’m just afraid that I can’t take care of Dylan now. I thought I’d have months, but I’m stumbling. I haven’t been able to stay on my feet for more than a few minutes at a time since you left my house. I think the trip took all I had left. I’m weak, and tired, and…” Her body shakes as a cry escapes her chest. She sucks her top lip in and closes her eyes as my uncle moves closer, putting his arm around her body.

  “We’re your family, Tanya. We’ll help,” he says, swinging his vision to me.

  My eyes are wide and my mind is racing with all of the wonderful things that were so nearly in my grasp. I’m going to have to give them up. I can’t be both a father and the man I was only minutes ago. I suppose I should be thankful that I ever got to be that man at all, however fleeting that time was.

  “Of course,” I say, void of emotion. I stare at my uncle’s hand on Tanya’s, the picture blurring the longer I stare until I blink it into focus and look Duncan in the eyes.

  “And you’ll still compete,” Tanya says.

  I laugh lightly because I’m not sure whose lie is worse—Tanya for asking what she knows I won’t do, or me for the answer I’m about to give.

  “I’ll still compete,” I say. There isn’t a single person in this room who believes me.

  Maddy

  I was never around for those moments in Will’s life—the ones that sent him down spirals. I have nothing to compare this moment, too, but my instincts are screaming at me to fight his demons for him. He barely processed the news before excusing himself into the back room to change, then walking back past each of us and out the door, keys in his hand.

  “What happened to waiting until after the trials?” I ask, moving to sit on the coffee table in front of both Duncan and Tanya.

  “I fell just trying to get Dylan to his chair this morning. It took me two hours to get us both up and out the door, just so I could make it to my doctor appointment where he could tell me that the chemo isn’t working this time,” she says.

  My heart stops beating, sinking in my chest, and a wave of nausea leaves my neck sweaty and my face pale.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, my mouth overcome with the sour taste of guilt and helplessness. I need to keep in perspective what she’s going through. “I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s okay. You’re looking after Will, and I’m glad,” she says.

  The three of us sit quietly for several seconds, my mind running through the small list of places Will could be—my parents’ house, the lake, a bar somewhere off the sixty-five.

  “You know he’s quitting, right? That right there—what we all saw—that was Will quitting,” I say.

  “Then don’t let him,” Duncan cuts in quickly.

  I jerk my attention to him, but he doesn’t back down, looking me right in the eyes, his mouth a hard line and his shoulders square with mine while his hands still hold on to Tanya. His lip eventually raises on one side, and I exhale.

  “You’ve always been able to get that boy to do just about anything,” he says, his words trailing off with a soft laugh. “You know he didn’t even want to swim in the first place?”

  I tilt my head to the side and scrunch my mouth. Duncan laughs out hard, his belly shaking as he throws his head back.

  “He was fixin’ to quit, mostly just to piss my brother, his dad, off. Robert wanted swimming to be this great bond between his two boys, but he pushed them to compete against each other constantly—Will hated it. He was going to give it one last hoorah, come check out this new Swim Club his dad had heard about and see if maybe there would be something there that would make swimming fun again. Turns out…there was.”

  His eyes settle on me, wrinkling at the corners with the soft curve of his mouth. My heart is beating so hard I can hear it echo inside my body; I can feel it pulse at my fingertips and toes.

  “Go on…go get him. Go make sure he doesn’t regret anything, and get him to give swimming one last shot. You and I both know he was born to do it. I’ll get Tanya home, pack my things up and stay there for a little while…until we can decide what needs to ha
ppen next.”

  My breath is coming hard and fast even though I haven’t moved in several minutes. My nerves are kicking me, begging me to go find him, but my mind still isn’t sure that I can say the right words to make Will believe that choosing himself—for just a little while—isn’t selfish.

  I stand anyway, taking my keys in one hand and my wallet and phone in the other. I’m not sure where to find him, though there’s a voice in my head whispering that Will is where he always goes—where I would go.

  “I don’t know what to say. If I find him, I’m just not sure how to begin.” My head falls against the door, my eyes looking down at my hand on the knob.

  “You say please, Maddy. That’s all it’s going to take,” he says. “That’s all it ever does.”

  I leave without turning around again, knowing that my reflexes will want to stay and help Tanya, too, if I look at her again. Duncan’s right. I’m the only one who can get through to Will, and Tanya was right to tell him. Will has so much to swim for, and I’m going to make sure every member of his family is there to watch every moment when he does.

  I leave Tanya with Duncan and rush to my car. My tires kick up gravel, spinning freely as I leave the lot, the back end of my car fishtailing as I swerve onto the thankfully empty road. I don’t bother to go home and ditch my swimsuit. If my gut is right, I’ll need it.

  I pass a few cars as I speed along the country highway, turning hard when I almost miss the turnoff for Peterson Lake. Will’s car comes into view quickly, so I pull up next to it, jump out and pick up a handful of rocks without hesitation.

  “I should have known it was all too good to be true,” he says, not bothering to look over his shoulder. He knew I’d come.

  I toss one of my rocks, and it skips six times. I smile and stop walking, marveling at something I’ve never been able to do before.