Breathe

by C. L. Matthews

  “He smelled like an ashtray. Stale. Piss-poor. A grungy, disgusting and vile man. The harsh scent infiltrated my nose as his grubby hand wrapped around me, forcing me to the brick building on the east side of the alley. The meek scream that left me did no good because his palm covered it easily.” She cringes, her body scrunching in displeasure. “His fist connected with my face as I struggled, and I remember thinking, I wish I was bigger, taller... a man because he was too strong. Even as a homeless man, he was stronger than me.” Her cries sear my soul to the bone, digging into me more than the knife I took to the gut in college.

  “He raped me in the dark confines of that street. Ruining my childhood and taking my innocence along with it.” Her voice croaks at the admission. She bends over and heaves, and I feel the nausea overwhelming me too, unable to imagine what it must have felt like for her.

  “A month later, I woke up sick. Vomiting, heaving, shaking as blood leaked from me. It took everything in me to go to the hospital because leaving the flat was near impossible. I didn’t feel safe, didn’t know up from down, left from right, life felt unlivable.”

  No. Please don’t say it.

  “I was pregnant.” Fuck. Fuck! FUCK. “I’d been losing the child. A child he forced into me. As cruel and sick as that man was and what he did, I thought it was fated in all sense. How fucking tragic, right?” I don’t answer because I can’t. I just let her talk it out. “The doctor informed me I had chlamydia. So, on top of the rape and pregnancy, I had an STD.” She combs her fingers through her hair, pulling harshly, making my skin chill. “The disease caused my fallopian tubes to be blocked, decreasing blood flow to the baby. It killed it. He killed it.” She lets out a shaky breath, tragedy hardening her features. “It made me unable to have babies by permanently damaging my tubes.”

  Standing here speechless, I wait for the words to form as she tells me the most horrific story known to man. How do I help? Fix this? Ease her guilt? Do any-fucking-thing? How?

  “Joey—”

  “I’m going to take a shower,” she interrupts me, her face red, blotchy, and barren of any emotion. She walks past me, not even offering a glance, keeping her distance. Why am I such a piece of shit? I let her walk away.

  Because I’m a coward.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Past

  Joey

  God. Why did I admit all of that? Seeing the pity on his face made me squirm more than the recount. Not my dad, Gray, or even Wes knew about Paris and what that man did to me in the alley. No one knew the status of my health or that he ruined my body for the future. They couldn’t possibly know the extent of my pain, losing a child I didn’t even know I was carrying. Everything hurt. Admitting it, getting it off my chest, it didn’t ease the reality; it only made someone else aware of what I had to live with.

  Lying in that hospital bed alone.

  Crying as they listed all the traumas.

  Bleeding for days after losing my baby.

  It killed me. Most of all, it made me hateful.

  When I found Gray three weeks later, it wasn’t merely coincidence. It was fate.

  “You can come home in a month or so, Josey. I don’t think right now is the time.” Of course, Dad would think me a burden. How could he know a man raped me in the streets almost two months ago, stole my purse and money, gave and took from me, and now I’m living off what’s in the flat. My stomach churns thinking of the cigarette smell and odious perfidy that man exuded.

  “Please, Daddy, I can’t stay here,” I meekly beg, praying he tells me it’s okay. This hurts. I want to die. My body wants to give up.

  “Josephine Ellis Moore, is paradise not enough for you? I’m spending all this money for you to take a holiday while Marsha gets settled in—”

  “It’s not that... I miss you, is all,” I lay it on thick. Not untrue, though. I missed Dad—just wish he loved me as he once did.

  “Baby girl, only a few more months.”

  “Daddy,” I cry, finally letting the ache from my soul burden him for a moment as it does me daily.

  “What is—”

  “Clay!” Marsha yells, stealing his attention. He sounds muffled on the other end, like he’s covered the phone so I wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation. “I’ve gotta go Josey-pie. Talk soon.”

  He hangs up before I can respond.

  Tears leave my eyes, dripping, dripping, dripping, until nothing’s left. I pull out my leather-bound journal, the last thing I can remember Mom ever giving me. I’ve always had a wild streak and wanted exploration, to be free... She gave me this journal for my travels. She believed I’d explore the world one day.

  I wonder if this is what she imagined.

  My body hides within itself as I replay that fateful night over again. If not for being in my bra, my phone would have been taken too. Did Dad not notice the lack of charges on the cards? Or did the vile man use them?

  How could he not feel my pain? Was my voice too soft, too unbroken, too insincere? If not for Dad being the mayor of Hollow Ridge, I’d have told someone. Maybe. Possibly. Probably not. The shame that constantly stabs me isn’t alleviating anytime soon. I get off the tile floor, heading to the master bathroom of the flat. Dad didn’t spare any expense. It’s stocked full of groceries, even now, over two months after my arrival. It has two bedrooms—one made into an office for my studies. The kitchen grand and beautiful, expertly decorated for my chef skills. Everything super detailed and elegant.

  As I run the bath, I pray for answers. I’m not a religious person. How can I be after what that man forced into me and then stole soon after? If the world was created by a man full of wisdom, hope, and faith, why did I carry none?

  The water level begins to rise, and I go for the cupboard. Searching. For what, I don’t know. Pills? Anything to erase the imagery invading all my senses. Inside, there’s nothing. Not a single depressant. I can’t even buy alcohol, not that I’d want to leave my place anyway.

  I grab the scissors from my drawer, knowing this is my only means of escape.

  Bleed.

  Cut.

  Relief.

  The scars are hideous. They dance across my skin, pretending to care, but the pink and white raised skin does nothing for the memories plaguing my mind. Maybe this time, if I dig a little deeper, the memories will bleed out of me.

  I go to the clawfoot tub, not even undressing as I sink in. The water is scalding, not cool, not even hot—it’s fucking feels acidic as it burns my flesh. The steam comes off in flurries of heat, the clouds whirring around as my lungs breathe for me. After minutes of pain, it all ends, and though my flesh is pink, my need for more hasn’t abated.

  Feel.

  That’s what I want.

  Pain.

  That’s what I need.

  Nothing.

  That’s what I get.

  Gripping the metal shears in my palms, I rotate them, creating a peaceful routine. Back and forth. Flip. Flip. Flip again. When pain grips me from the scalding heat, I change my mind. There’s something I need to do.

  My skin is pink as I get out the tub, thinking of what changed. Maybe it’s the coffee shop where it happened. Maybe that’s where it all will end. Go away. Fix me. Stripping myself of the soaked clothes, an ache flushes my skin. The abraded feeling of my long shirt, jeans, and socks, reminds me of why this all needs to be over. If hurting myself is the only sustenance life can offer, then what’s the point in living?

  After drying myself, I leave the flat. My feet touch each cobblestone as I venture as far from home as I’ve done in weeks. The sky is gray and dreary like me, matching my soul, my heart, what’s left of me. There’s no rain; the air isn’t even chilled. It’s almost stagnant, without motion, seamless and still.

  I make my trek to the shop, but it doesn’t take long. No, it’s not far, and that’s the worst part. If I’d only managed a few hundred more paces, I’d have been safe that morning. Only a thousand at most, yet that very thousand cost me everything.


  Spotting the little place that used to alleviate my sweet tooth before fate soured it, tears spring. They don’t fall, though. There’s not enough life there. No energy exists behind my eyelids right now. There’s a crosswalk nearby, a ton of little shops, and even a park, too. Yet none of these things saved me. I’d lost. I’d lost. I’d lost.

  A teenage girl walks toward the light and crosses to the opposite street. She’s ten feet or so away from me. She’s so absorbed in a book cradled in her palms, she must not realize where she is. If she keeps her path, she’ll surely get hit. Her pace doesn’t slow as she’s headed straight for the crossing. I rush her, not wanting her to feel pain like me, even if her pain is different. It’s pain. And pain knows pain knows pain.

  I tug on the straps of the little backpack wrapped around her arms, hauling her against me right as a car honks at her, speeding through the light. She’s so goddamn lucky. What if I wasn’t a good person? What if the man who hurt me came back for her? She’s small. Dainty, even. She could have died. My eyes finally release tears. Not for me, no. For her. This innocent girl. A passerby. Someone who matters.

  My eyes shed tears remembering the moment she peered into my eyes, her soulful gray—nearly melted solder—eyes, ones that gave me hope. They reminded me that I’m a fighter. We spent a ton of time together that day, just talking. She told me she’d been studying abroad, I soaked up the info. She sounded American—like me—and she saved my life. One little moment suspended in time gave me a reason to persevere. It threw fate the middle finger. It mooned its ass to the fucker who stole from me. It killed my doubt, filling me with hatred, making me brim with newfound purpose.

  The child aspect, though... no matter how it changed me for the better, it didn’t erase the knowledge that no babies on this earth could biologically be mine. Ever. And seeing Toby, watching that hope die, it reminded me all over again of that hopelessness I felt before meeting Gray. He wanted something so mundane and beautiful, something with poetry and prose, something I could never give. He deserves more than that. He deserves a family with kids, a wife who can give them to him, a woman who can offer more than brokenness.

  Whether he sees it or not, I can see his barely abated memories. The ones he has nightmares about. The one with a woman named Sparkle. The ones that keep him from falling for me like I’ve inevitably fallen for him.

  His boyish charm—annoying as hell at first—caught me off guard in the end, making me spiral into a coma for Tobias Hayes. It warmed me, defrosting the icy exterior, weaving hot new trickles of sweetness around me like a blanket.

  I’m falling for him even more.

  For real.

  And he’s offering me so much in return—everything but his heart.

  That kiss we shared before all my past troubles came about seared me like the two-thousand-dollar steaks at Le Grand Oui. Something so soul-burning about the bereft way he allowed me to own it, take it, and not force it from me. It filled me with delicious spurs of hope. Something I haven’t felt since before Paris. It’s more than a crush, more than what I felt for Wes, but less than love. An almost love. An almost hope. An almost future.

  I shower, warring with what to do next. My heart tells me to go to our bed and let him hold me. My soul says to bask under the stars and let them guide the way. Yet my body, the most present part of me, begs me to have him eradicate that man from my mind. Replace the moments stolen with ones given and asked for. It wants the patience Toby will give. When we were together at the beginning, it started with our bodies, so why not restart the same?

  This time without hatred.

  This time with every string attached.

  My choice.

  His choice.

  Our bodies coming as one.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Past

  Toby

  My feet haven’t moved.

  They’re still planted on the carpeted ground of the living room.

  The water ran for a half hour, and I listened in silence, beating myself up for pushing. It doesn’t help that all I can do is feel horrible that she got her choices taken away from her. Isn’t that exactly what I did? Take advantage of her in the sense of us both being wasted, having a fucking drive-thru wedding, and then not knowing for weeks?

  Guilt wraps around me like barbed wire, slicing me up on the inside while simultaneously marring my heart. It’s times like these, when I’m at my rawest, that Lo forces her way in.

  “I’m sorry, Sparkle. I didn’t mean it.” If she can’t hear the sincerity intended, I’ll hate myself.

  “You can be sorry all you want, Tobe, but sorry doesn’t mean a damn thing if some change isn’t in your future,” she scolds me, her eyes narrowing to slits. We eat popcorn, watching Dirty Dancing for the fifty-billionth time this month, while she waits for Jase to pay her some attention.

  He’s only been in college a year, and he has already abandoned their relationship.

  Sports.

  Parties.

  Excuses.

  She acts like it doesn’t bother her, but then she sees the pictures of him uploaded by Ellie and Francis. Like tonight. I showed her a new one Ellie uploaded. Jase had his arm wrapped around her waist, her eyes were glassy and so were his. They’d been drinking. Frankie invited Ellie to the party, but Jase didn’t mention it to Lo. I’d pointed out that maybe she needs to break it off. Wait until his partying streak ends, but she took it badly.

  What did you think would happen? I close my eyes, pull her closer to my chest, and kiss her temple. “I’m learning, Sparkle. If it happens again, it doesn’t mean I’m not sorry. It just means I’m trying.”

  She nods and ignores me for the rest of the movie.

  I think of Joey—her eyes glimmering with hurt, her face sunken with horror, and her lips tight and stiff with the inability to speak. Her hurting feels different than Lo’s hurt. It feels like my heart’s being excavated from my torso and used for a tool to beat at the wall senselessly.

  When did that moment change? Probably when the woman I’d loved for as long as I can remember became a memory abandoned to time. Loving Lo was a choice, something I decided time after time after time. I held onto it, kidnapping the feeling, praying it’d be returned. With Joey, it’s not a choice. The moment I woke up next to her, her attitude after—the sarcastic asshole personality that rivaled my own—forced me to feel. It touched a part of my soul that closed off years ago.

  Both her persistence and stand-offish behavior weaseled its way into me, consuming me somehow, borrowing my heart—not telling me it was for keeps.

  Her pain has become mine. Her happiness, mine. Her lust, mine. Her love... that’s mine, too.

  As I stew in my own hatred, I realize we’re pretty screwed on the hotel front. Mi Casa will be without a cook again. Joey has done an amazing job as the chef, but I don’t want to stick around Hollow Ridge, not if I don’t have to. I want us to fall into whatever this is, in our own time, away from here. Hawthorn, maybe. Anywhere but this tainted town with people I’ve been lucky not to run into.

  I head into my office, turn on the computer, and write up an email for Raul. Joey isn’t going to be happy that this choice will be made without her, but she can have a job anywhere. I’ll take her to wherever her heart desires, help her in every way to give us a chance.

  After clicking send, I go over my calendar, noticing the memos from Raul about Su Casa and how well Lo has taken over. He’s probably shitting bricks at how wrong he was about her management skills. They don’t call her the Prodigy of the West for no reason. At first, I worried she wouldn’t take the job, wouldn’t risk being this close to me even if we never communicated directly. It never crossed my mind she’d fail. She only proved me right.

  Several knocks rapping on the door make my eyes shoot up. Not expecting to see her so soon after her shower, I’m happily shocked by her small smile. She’s wearing a silky robe, one she hardly wears, but I love seeing it on her. It’s this pink color with daffodils all ove
r—her favorite flower.

  Her arms are held tightly over her chest in a vest of protection. She bites the inside of her cheek, making the subtlest dimple pop inward. It takes everything in me to stay seated and not brush the stray auburn hairs from her face. When she’s like this, soaked from bathing or a pool, her hair is even more tantalizing. It’s darker, but still has that red glint when the light hits it. She’s breathtaking in every sense of the word.

  “Hey,” I offer gently. The whisper of my words has her cheeks flushing. Whether embarrassment or charm, it’s a beautiful tint to her soft peach complexion. She bites her lip, nerves coming off her in waves, but I don’t know why.

  She’s everything most women aren’t. Vivacious. Absolute. Bold. Her finger goes to her teeth, sinking in lightly. “I’m going to call it a night.” The shyness in her tone has me smiling. I can’t help it; it’s young and free. Warranted.

  “Why, Mrs. Hayes... are you asking me to join you?” I tease, loving the way she takes a huge inhale, her chest rising as a flush creeps up her chest and throat, making me want to touch her and see how low it goes. She hides her face as I stare openly at her, showing how much I really do find her beautiful.

  “Y-Yes,” she stutters a bit, then she straightens her spine, almost like she hates seeming fragile. She’s not. She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met. And that’s saying a lot. “If you’re ready for bed, that is.” The way she changes her voice to sound less forward has me rising from my desk and stalking toward her. The way she backs up a step just to stop and hold her ground has heat gathering in my chest and groin.

  “T-Toby,” she stumbles over her words again. My dick twitches at it. The way she’s so small in comparison to me. Like a tiny doll that I’ll keep forever if she’ll let me. Her hands slide up my arms, caressing, telling me without saying a word, but I want to hear it.

  “Yes?” I prod gently, wanting her to be open about what she wants. I crave it. Need it. Savor it.