Hold Me Like a Breath

by Tiffany Schmidt

  I bought him sea monkeys for his birthday that year. We named them all after different types of soda: Pepsi, Sprite, Dr Pepper, 7UP, Sunkist. Dr Pepper was obviously the smart one. Sunkist and 7UP were the rejects, since neither of us liked those flavors. We totally pretended we could tell them apart.

  Carter always said that the first thing he was doing after college, once he had his own place, was getting the biggest, sheddingest dog in the world …

  I put down my pencil and looked around the apartment. Would he have moved here full time in three years when he graduated? Would he have gotten a dog? Should I, since he couldn’t? Questions like these drained all the energy from my limbs, drained all the color from the room.

  I hugged a pillow for a long time before getting up to brush my teeth.

  There was a text waiting on my cell when I climbed into bed:

  Call me if you get lonely. Or if you need someone to come build you a dragon trap.

  I smiled weakly, briefly—but it was enough to stop the tears. I tapped out a quick Thank you, then fell into a mostly nightmare-free sleep.

  “What do you want to do today?”

  I liked that I could roll over and call Char before I got out of bed. Liked that I could ask this and assume his answer included me. At home I had fit into the cracks and gaps in other people’s lives. If I have time, maybe later, I guess you can help me. Or there were those last few weeks when Garrett was my companion—by Family order, not choice. He’d chafed miserably under the arrangement, bored by my life and by my company. But Char made space for me. I made space for him. It was effortless; it felt both natural and necessary.

  I tried not to think about how he’d have to end his “walkabout” and go back home. I tried not to think about the dangers and uncertainty of my own life. Or even the dangers of him—that he’d tickled me yesterday afternoon and I had V-shaped bruises up the sides of my ribs in addition to my car-backfiring injuries.

  I blocked out all thoughts of my counts and pretended I wasn’t feeling more sluggish, that an increasing percentage of my skin wasn’t painted in shades from lavender to aubergine. I should have said something to Bob last night. I would call him later and set up a CBC and infusion.

  I rolled the other direction, so my bruises weren’t pressed into the mattress and so I could see the plastic toothbrush holder on the dresser—it was filled with roses Char had bought from a street vendor who’d set up on the corner across from my apartment. The vendor had winked at me when Char asked for all his roses, one dark caterpillar of an eyebrow arching up with his grin. I’d giggled.

  I arranged them while talking to Bob last night. They were also in mugs on the kitchen counter and in Carter’s pint glasses on the coffee table. Despite the smell of flowers in the air and Char’s breath through the phone at my ear, I knew this wasn’t permanent. But I wanted to savor every second.

  “Good morning,” he answered. “What do you want to do?”

  “Let’s go to the Natural History Museum—last Tuesday it was pretty empty.” I could practically hear Father screaming about risks and schedules.

  “I’ve never been,” said Char, and Father’s voice was crowded out by the excitement of showing it to him.

  “It opens at ten, so where do you want to meet?” I’d never seen the hotel where he was staying. I hadn’t invited him into my apartment. Those were boundaries we weren’t crossing. Not yet. And possibly not ever. It was harder and harder not to touch him. Not just holding hands or occasional brushes against his arm, or leaning my leg against his as we sat in the back of a cab or on a park bench.

  “I’ll come get you,” he said.

  I wanted more and I think he did too. And it was such a temptation.

  I sat up in bed, lifted my shirt, and looked at the plum-colored Vs like bird tracks up my ribs, across the darker purple line from his arm during the nonshooting. It had gotten worse overnight, deepening into an angry midnight color with five distinct fingers. I pulled up my hair and turned toward the mirror, assessing the thumbprint bruise on the back of my neck from when he’d squeezed my shoulder in reassurance yesterday. Kicking off my blankets, I glanced down at the indigo stripe on my ankle from when he’d returned my game of footsie with a little too much pressure. And was that petechiae on my other foot? I stuck it back under the blanket so I didn’t have to see. I didn’t want to waste any of our time being sick, but I didn’t have a choice; my counts were definitely dropping. I would have to call Bob today.

  “Maeve?” he was asking in the phone. “Is that okay? When will you be ready?”

  “No.” I shouldn’t have him here. It was too easy for that to slip into come on up. Too tempting. “I’ll meet you there. Out front in an hour?”

  It wasn’t him I didn’t trust, it was me. It was my idiot-pathetic body and the way it warred with my please-touch-me mind.

  I knew I’d made the right decision when I saw him waiting on the museum stairs, his eyes looking up from the map he must have gone inside to snag.

  All I wanted to do was run up those steps and bury myself in his arms. Let him swing me around like a couple in a romantic comedy. Fit my face against his shoulder and then tip my lips up to—

  “Hello!” The anticipation on his face mirrored my own shivery Christmas-morning feeling.

  He was going to hold out his arms. Was going to move in for an embrace. So I offered him my hands instead, let him grip them and squeeze.

  It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough—but those would be insignificant bruises, just new smears of color joining the others on the back of my hands—and the sensation … it was reflected in the dewy quality of my voice when I said, “Hi.”

  “Hello,” he repeated, squeezing my hands for one more beat before letting go. “Let’s head inside.”

  I took him in through the Asian Mammals exhibit. It was where I always started, staring at the elephants, amazed that anything could be that big and strong.

  Standing in front of them made me feel incredibly small and vulnerable, but also resilient and brave. I didn’t have strength on my side. Or size. Or tusks, claws, or teeth like the animals in the cases on either side. But I’d made it. I’d survived.

  Char came to stand behind me. Putting his hands lightly on my shoulders and resting his chin on my hair. This wouldn’t mark, these light touches. And leaning back against his chest, I felt the safest I had in ages.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Whether he meant the elephant or the sensation, the answer was true.

  We wandered through the animals, never straying too far from each other. It was as if there were a string tethering us together, and it was getting shorter and shorter.

  “Asian Peoples?” Char asked, pointing at the sign that led to the next exhibit. His voice went dry as he added, “My father will be so proud that I’m learning about my ancestors.”

  Though probably not if he’d seen the way Char’s eyes glossed around and over the dioramas and displays, and how our conversation veered farther and farther from the content on the informational signs.

  “Do you ever feel like if people cared a little more or tried a little harder, they would see the real you?” Char asked as he stepped around a sculpture on a pedestal in the middle of the exhibit hall. I don’t think we were even in Asian Peoples anymore; it’s possible we’d gone through multiple continents and cultures. I didn’t even glance at the sculpture. He didn’t either. His eye contact was a magnetic thing, the pull to look at him so strong. I was scared that if I glanced away—if I even blinked—our polarities would reverse, and we’d never get this moment back.

  We stepped through a doorway and up a ramp. He continued, “Like, if they tried, they could see through all the posturing and pretending and reputation and who you’re supposed to be and see the true you underneath? The person you are and who you want to be?”

  I nodded. These were thoughts I’d had, things I’d felt every day, every hour, every second of my life at the
estate. I was more than my illness, more than my last name. I wanted more than doctors’ limits and the spectator role my family assigned me. I’d just never been able to put these needs into words or had someone who would listen.

  I didn’t notice the display in front of me. Char’s eyes hadn’t left mine, but he somehow knew. And crossed to step between me and the model tree, preventing my collision with its buttressed trunk—it looked tropical, draped with vines, spotted with mushrooms and moss.

  I stopped walking, just inches short of making that collision with his chest instead.

  He stepped closer, erased those inches.

  “You see me,” said Char.

  Then he kissed me.

  It started as a whisper of a caress. Fingers light on my hair, lips light on my lips.

  Tingles, but I wanted lightning. And I could practically taste it, just a breath away. A dangerous breath away.

  But Char didn’t know the danger, didn’t know I was breakable, untouchable.

  His fingers slipped to my neck, to my back, pulled me toward him. Past the tree and into an alcove. A dark room with flickering light. Touching. Touching. Skin on skin in a way that I could feel. In a way that meant something. That meant he wanted me closer, needed to hold me. I needed to be held. Needed to know how it felt to have fingertips press with desire, not skirt away with restraint. Needed them to be his fingertips.

  His mouth demanded, and mine was more than willing to comply.

  Lightning.

  And then a cough. A throat clearing. An indignant “Excuse me! I was trying to watch this.”

  Blinking and breaking apart, but only at the lips, I felt Char’s chin trace the top of my head as he also swiveled around to take in our surroundings.

  It was a small theater. A burgundy room with a wall-mounted screen. A male voice narrating images of jungle green. There were two rows of benches, but just a single occupant. The woman who had been coughing, clearing her throat, and glaring up at us. “This is not a nightclub. Go canoodle somewhere else.”

  The word “canoodle” made me giggle. Or maybe it was just everything that made me giggle. The post-kiss high. The texture of Char’s shirt against my cheek. That he tasted like sugar and smelled like clean air and open spaces, like the city hadn’t managed to touch him. The shape of his shoulders and the ways his arms felt around my back. That the reality of this moment was greater than all the times I’d imagined it.

  Char apologized to the woman, and I giggled. Kept giggling even after we’d backed out of the room and reoriented ourselves: South American Peoples. Distracted by Char, I’d managed to ignore half the peoples of the world.

  And for the rest of the afternoon I ignored so much more. Dinosaurs, the giant whale, meteors. I think we went through all these exhibits, but all I was aware of was his hand curled around mine. The way my lips still tingled. And the heat of his voice in my ear as he whispered commentary that rarely had anything to do with the display cases in front of us.

  Chapter 30

  “Have you ever taken a guided tour?” Char asked when we crossed the street into the muggy haze of late afternoon and Central Park. “I think I’d like to. It would have been a waste today”—he paused just long enough to kiss me quickly—“today I was paying more attention to you than to the museum. But sometime, would you want to?”

  One touch of his mouth left me too breathless to speak, so I nodded.

  “I bet the biodiversity exhibit is fascinating. Have you ever thought about the incredible number of species we’ve already hunted or polluted out of existence?”

  “Um, not really.”

  “From a medical standpoint, I’ve always wondered if the earth was once stocked with all the things we’d need to combat every disease—like a jungle plant that could cure cancers. A seaweed that could be used on skin grafts. My mom’s really into gardening and herbal medicine. The healing properties of plants are amazing—do you know all the research that’s going on with diabetes and plant-based medicines?”

  I shook my head, my eyes going wider with respect and with curiosity. Not necessarily about medical uses for undiscovered seaweed, but about Char and his intelligence, his passion. I wanted to hear his theories. I wanted to know what he would study if he were allowed to be premed, and what life was like on his ranch; his mother’s gardens and his father’s expectations. I wanted to know the shape of each of his fingers and exactly how they felt on my skin. I wanted to learn the limits of my skin’s tolerance, and I wanted to test those limits thoroughly.

  “I think we’ll have a cure for diabetes in your lifetime, Maeve. I just worry we’re so busy cutting down and polluting the planet that we’ll destroy these species before we ever find all their potential …” He trailed off and blushed. “Anyway, that’s enough of that. I’m so busy boring you with my nonsense I didn’t even notice the sky turning dark.”

  “I like listening to you. I don’t think it’s nonsense at all.” There’d been an undercurrent to the way he’d said the word; I could tell it wasn’t the first time it had been used to describe his thoughts. I waited until his face relaxed into relief, then tipped my head back to look up at the sky. It was ominous. The color of a fresh bruise with clouds crowding on top of one another and adding darker and darker layers.

  We’d been strolling toward my place, but we traded a meander for a brisk walk. Char reached for my hand to pull me around a nanny trying to pack up a baby and I held on tight.

  The first drops of rain hit us when we were still four blocks away. I felt them, but was paying far more attention to my thoughts than the weather. I should invite him in. I should let him wait out the storm with me.

  That was polite.

  But he was eighteen, on his walkabout or whatever. Going to college in the fall.

  I was seventeen and felt like a child. I spent most nights longing for my parents and wishing I’d packed my teddy bear.

  If he were in my apartment—with no parents or interruptions—anything could happen. I mean, I could let anything happen. Or choose it—that was probably the most appropriate word.

  But—I needed to tell him. If not everything, I needed to show him the birds’-tracks tickling bruises, the blotches from today’s brushes against elbows and exhibit cases. Explain the dark lines on the backs of my hands, one of which he was currently lifting to his lips. “This looks much worse than it did yesterday. How hard did you hit the wall? I’m sorry.”

  I just smiled and shrugged, but I’d have to tell him to be careful with me and explain why. It wasn’t safe not to and it wasn’t fair to either of us.

  And maybe if he took that news well, I’d tell him more. Learn the answers to whether or not he’d have liked me if he’d met me as I was before: a dishwater blonde in pastel clothing trapped inside a gilded cage. And was I worth the risk once he found out who I was, who my parents were, and how that all factored into my very uncertain future?

  While I’d been consumed by internal debate, he’d been handing bills to a street vendor with thick eyebrows and a dark coat turned up at the collar. Char opened an umbrella, holding it more above my head than his own.

  It was hot, sticky, standing so close, crowded by my thoughts and the humidity that the rain didn’t seem to be breaking.

  “I can’t go back.” His voice was so quiet I wanted to shush the pattering of raindrops on the vinyl above our heads. “I thought I could do this—go home, go get the degree my father picked, live the life he’s chosen for me. I appreciate the advantages he’s given me and the sacrifices he’s made, but …” His confessions sounded as if they were being ripped out one by one. His eyes were dull with pain.

  I didn’t dare say anything. Just curled my fingers over his on the umbrella handle and prayed he’d continue.

  “He’s never even considered the future I want—or how ill-suited I am to follow in his footsteps. Most people would be proud to have a son who wants to be a doctor. But it’s not his plan for me, so he rejects it. My whole life he’s been
telling me everything I am is wrong because I’m not like him.”

  “I’m sorry.” I wanted to say something more profound, prove I was listening, that I understood and meant so much more sympathy than seven letters could convey.

  “I can’t go back. And you. You’re seventeen and on your own. You’re figuring out how to live with your medical limitations.”

  I stopped walking. Pulled my hand away from him. Felt the chill of raindrops down my collar as he continued forward before realizing I wasn’t following and turned around with a confused look on his face.

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

  “This summer. You’re here alone—so soon after being diagnosed with diabetes. If you can be brave like that … and I swore I’d take chances. I did with you—I never would’ve had the guts to go up to a girl like you—imagine if I hadn’t? No! I need to find the courage to tell my dad what I want. Which is to stay here. I’ll go to Columbia instead of Georgetown. I’ll be a doctor. It’s just that my father …, he—”

  “Want to come in?” I asked. We were outside the building. I’d let myself get all the way to the door without having my keys in hand, a piece of dangerous laziness that would’ve earned lectures from any Ward. Even Garrett would call that unforgivable.

  But it didn’t matter. What mattered were the conversations we’d have once we climbed a few flights of stairs and shut out the world. When I listened to the rest of his plans and asked more about what had brought him to New York—what was the second lost opportunity that inspired his take-chances vow? What could I do to help?

  When I told him who I was. When I told him what that meant. And that if he was staying in New York—and wanted to stay a part of my life—what that could mean for him and his safety.

  He nodded.

  I reached for the door handle, but it swung out to meet my hand. Followed by a pixie haircut on a tall, thin girl.

  “There you are!”

  I didn’t know my neighbors. They were anonymous people with heads and eyes kept down when we passed each other in halls and stairs. They treated my greetings and attempts at conversation like they were alien and dangerous, responded in exhales and monotones.