Ten Tiny Breaths

by K. A. Tucker

  “There must be a full moon or something,” Tanner mutters as we trail behind him toward a row of dark red doors. Each has a small window next to it and all three floors are identical.

  “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

  “You’re the second apartment I’ve rented this past week through email. Same situation—desperate for a place, don’t wanna wait, will pay in cash. Strange. I guess everyone’s got somethin’ to run from.”

  Well. How about that? Maybe Tanner is smarter than his movie twin.

  “This one here just arrived this morning.” He thumbs a stubby finger at Apartment 1D before leading us to the apartment next to it with a gold ‘1C’ sign on it. His huge set of keys jangles as he searches for one in particular. “Now, I’ll tell you what I tell all my tenants. I’ve only got one rule but it’s a deal breaker. Keep thy peace! Don’t be throwin’ no wild parties with drugs and orgies—”

  “Sorry, can you specify—what qualifies as an orgy in the State of Florida? Are threesomes okay? What if blow ups are involved, ’cause, you know …” I interject, earning a pause and a scowl from Tanner and a sharp jab to the shoulder blade from Livie.

  After clearing his throat, he goes on as if I didn’t speak. “No feuds, family or otherwise. I don’t have patience for that crap and I’ll boot you out faster than you can lie to me. Understand?”

  I nod and bite my tongue, fighting the urge to hum the Family Feud theme song as Tanner pushes the door open.

  “Cleaned and painted it myself. It’s not new, but it should give you what you asked for.”

  The apartment’s small and meagerly furnished, with a green and white tiled kitchenette area lining the back. The white walls only enhance the hideous puce and orange floral couch. Cheap forest green carpet and the faint scent of moth balls pulls together the 70’s white trash look nicely. More importantly, it’s nothing like the picture in the ad. Surprise, surprise.

  Tanner scratches the back of his graying head. “Not much to it, I know. There are two bedrooms over there and a bathroom between them. Put in a new toilet last year so …” His lop-sided gaze shifts to me. “If that’s all …”

  He wants his money. With a tight smile, I reach into the front pocket of my backpack and slide out a thick envelope. Livie ventures further into the apartment while I pay him. Tanner watches her go, biting his lip as if he wants to say something. “She seems a bit young to be out on her own. Do your parents know you two are here?”

  “Our parents are dead.” It comes out as harsh as I intend and it does the trick. Mind your own damn business, Tanner.

  His face turns ashen. “Oh, um, sorry to hear that.” We stand uncomfortably for all of three seconds. I fold my hands under my armpits, making it clear that I have no intention of shaking any hands. When he spins on his heels and heads out the door, I release a small sigh. He can’t wait to get away from me, either. Over his shoulder, he hollers, “laundromat’s underground. I clean it once a week and expect all tenants to help out with keeping it tidy. I’m in 3F if you need anything.” He disappears, leaving the key sitting in the lock.

  I find Livie investigating the medicine cabinet in a bathroom made for hobbits. I try to step in but there isn’t enough room for both of us. “New toilet. Old, repulsive shower,” I mutter, my foot tracing the grungy, cracked tile floor.

  “I’ll take this room,” Livie offers, squeezing past me to head to the bedroom on the right. It’s empty except for a dresser and a twin bed with a peach crocheted spread over it. Black bars line the single window that faces the exterior of the building.

  “You sure? It’s small.” I know without looking at the other room that this one is the smaller of the two. That’s how Livie is. Selfless.

  “Yeah. It’s okay. I like small spaces.” She grins. She’s trying to make the best of it, I can tell.

  “Well, when we throw those all-night ragers, you won’t be able to fit more than three guys in here at once. You do realize that, right?”

  Livie tosses a pillow at me. “Funny.”

  My bedroom is the same except it’s slightly bigger and has a double bed with an ugly-ass green knit blanket. I sigh, my nose scrunching with disappointment. “Sorry, Livie. This place looks nothing like the ad. Damn Tanner and his false advertising.” I tilt my head. “I wonder if we can sue him.”

  Livie snorts. “It’s not so bad, Kace.”

  “You say that now, but when we’re fighting roaches for our bread …”

  “You? Fighting? Big shocker.”

  I laugh. Few things make me laugh anymore. Livie, trying to be sarcastic is one of them. She tries to pull off airy and cool. She ends up sounding like one of those radio announcers doing a dramatic rendition of a cheesy murder mystery.

  “This place sucks, Livie. Admit it. But we’re here and it’s all we can afford right now. Miami’s freakin’ expensive.”

  Her hand slides into mine and I squeeze it. It’s the only one I can handle touching. It’s the only one that doesn’t feel dead. Sometimes I have a hard time letting it go. “It’s perfect, Kace. Just a little small and mothbally and green, but we’re not that far from the beach! That’s really what we wanted, right?” Livie stretches her arms above her head and groans. “So, now what?”

  “Well, for starters, let’s get you enrolled in the high school this afternoon so that big brain of yours doesn’t shrink,” I say, popping open my suitcase to empty its contents. “After all, when you’re making a bazillion dollars and curing cancer, you’ll need to send money my way.” I rifle through my clothes. “I need to enroll at a gym. Then I’ll go see how much Spam and creamed corn I can buy for an hour with my sweaty, hot body on the corner.” Livie shakes her head. Sometimes she doesn’t appreciate my sense of humor. Sometimes I think she wonders if I’m serious. I stoop to yank the covers from my bed. “And I definitely need to bleach the shit out of this entire place.”

  ***

  The building’s laundromat beneath our apartment is nothing to write home about. Panels of fluorescent lights cast a harsh light over faded robin’s egg blue concrete floors. A floral scent barely masks the musky odor lingering in the air. The machines are at least fifteen years old, and they’ll probably do more damage than good to our clothes. But there’s not a cob web or a piece of lint anywhere.

  I shove all our sheets and blankets into two machines, cursing the world for making us sleep in secondhand bedding in the first place. I’m buying new bedding with my first pay check, I commit to myself. Dumping in a mixture of bleach and detergent, I set the water to its hottest setting, wishing it was labeled, “boil the hell out of any living organism.” That would make me feel marginally better.

  The machines need six quarters per load. I hate paid laundry machines. Earlier, Livie and I accosted strangers at the mall with our dimes and nickels, asking for a trade. I have just enough in my stash, I realize, as I begin sliding them into their designated slots.

  “Any free machines?” A deep male voice calls out directly behind me, surprising me enough that I yelp and throw the last three quarters in the air. Luckily, I have cat-like reflexes and I catch two coins midair. My eyeballs glue on to the last one as it hits the ground and rolls toward the washer. Dropping to my hands and knees, I dive for it.

  But I’m too slow.

  “Dammit!” The side of my face hits the cold pavement as I peer under the machine, searching for a glint of silver. My fingers can just fit underneath …

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Now I’m pissed. Who sneaks up on a female in an underground laundromat, other than a psycho or a rapist? Maybe he is one of the two. Maybe I’m supposed to be quivering in my sandals right now. I’m not though. I don’t scare easily and, frankly, I’m too damn annoyed right now to be anything else. Let him try to attack me. He’ll be in for the shock of a lifetime. “Why is that?” I force out between clenched teeth, trying to remain calm. Keep thy peace, Tanner warned us. No doubt he sensed something about me.
<
br />   “Because we’re in a cool, damp underground laundromat in Miami. Creepy eight-legged things and things that slither and crawl hide out in places like this.

  I recoil as I fight the shiver from running through my body, envisioning my hand re-emerging from underneath with a quarter and a bonus snake. Few things freak me out. Beady eyeballs and a writhing body is one of them. “Funny, I’ve heard creepy two-legged things lurk in these places too. They’re called Creeps. A plague, one might say.” Leaning far over in my short black shorts, he’s got to be getting a nice view of my ass right about now. Go ahead, perv. Enjoy it ’cause that’s all you’re getting. And if I sense so much as a brush against my skin, I’ll take you out at the knee caps.

  He answers with a throaty laugh. “Well played. How about you get up off your knees?” The hairs on my neck prickle with his words. There’s something decidedly sexual in his tone. I hear the sound of metal against metal as he adds, “this creep has an extra quarter.”

  “Well, then, you’re my favorite kind of—” I start to say, reaching for the top of the machine as I stand to meet this asshole face to face. Of course the open bottle of detergent is right there. Of course my hand knocks it clean off. Of course it splatters all over the machine and the floor.

  “Dammit!” I curse, dropping to my knees again as I watch the sticky green soap ooze everywhere. “Tanner’s gonna evict me.”

  Creep’s voice drops low. “What’s it worth to you for me to keep quiet?” Footsteps approach.

  On instinct, I adjust my position so I can dislocate his joint with a kick and make him crumble in agony, just like I’d learned in my sparring sessions. My spine tingles as a white sheet sails down to cover the floor in front of me. Sucking in a breath, I wait patiently as Creep passes my left side and crouches.

  The air leaves my lungs in a swoosh, and I’m left staring at a set of deep dimples and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen—cobalt rings with light blue on the inside. I squint. Do they have turquoise flecks inside them? Yes! My God! The blue floors, the rusty old machines, the walls, everything around me vanishes under the weight of his gaze as it strips me of my protective bitch coat, yanking it clean off my body, leaving me bare and vulnerable in seconds.

  “We can soak it up with this. I needed detergent anyway,” he murmurs with a boyish amused grin as he drags his sheet around to saturate the spilled liquid.

  “Wait, you don’t have to …” My voice fades, the weakness in it making me nauseous. Suddenly I’m feeling all kinds of wrong for labeling him creepy. He can’t be a creep. He’s too beautiful and too nice. I’m the idiot throwing quarters all over the place and now he’s sopping up my detergent off this dirty floor with his sheets to help me!

  I can’t seem to form words. Not while I’m gawking at Not Creep’s ripped forearms, feeling heat ripple into my lower belly. In a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled and the top buttons undone, he’s exposing the beginnings of a killer upper body to me.

  “See something that interests you?” he asks, his taunt snapping my eyes back to his smirking face, blood rushing to my cheeks. Damn this guy. He seems to flip flop from Good Samaritan to Evil Tempter with each new sentence out of his mouth. Worse, he caught me ogling his body. Me! Ogling! I’m around first-class bodies every day at the gym and they don’t faze me. Somehow, I’m not immune to him.

  “I just moved in. 1D. My name’s Trent.” He looks up at me from under impossibly long lashes, his shaggy, golden brown hair framing his face beautifully.

  “Kacey,” I force out. So, this guy is the new tenant; our neighbor. He lives on the other side of my living room wall! Gah!

  “Kacey,” he repeats. I love the shape of his lips when he says my name. My attention lingers there, staring at that mouth, at his set of perfectly straight, white teeth, until I feel my face explode with a third wave of heat. Dammit! Kacey Cleary blushes for no one!

  “I’d shake your hand, Kacey, but—” Trent says with a teasing smile, holding up detergent covered palms.

  There. That does it. The idea of touching those hands slaps me across the cheek, breaking whatever temporary haze this Trent man has confused me with, pushing me back to reality.

  I can think straight again. With a deep inhale, I struggle to reactivate my shields, to form a barrier from this Godlike creature, to end all reaction to him so I can just live my life and keep it untangled from his issues. It’s so much easier. And that’s all this is, Kacey. A reaction. A strange, uncharacteristic reaction because of a guy. An incredibly hot guy but, in the end, nothing you want to get mixed up in.

  “Thanks for the quarter,” I say coolly, standing and sliding the pro-offered coin into the slot. I start the washer.

  “It’s the least I could do for scaring the crap out of you.” He’s up and shoving his sheets into the machine beside mine. “If Tanner says anything, I’ll tell him I did it. It’s partially my fault anyway.”

  “Partially?”

  He chuckles as he shakes his head. We’re standing close now, so close that our shoulders almost touch. Too close.

  I take a few steps back to give myself space. I end up staring at his back, admiring how his blue checkered shirt stretches across his broad shoulders, how his dark blue jeans fit his ass perfectly.

  He stops what he’s doing to glance over his shoulder, blazing eyes leveling me with a look that makes me want to do things to him, for him, with him. His attention drags down the length of my body, unashamed. This guy is a contradiction. One second sweet, the next second brazen. A mind-blowing hot contradiction.

  A warning siren goes off in my head. I promised Livie that the random one-night hook ups would stop. And they have. For two years, I haven’t given anyone the time of day. Now, here I am, day one in our new life, and I’m ready to straddle this guy on the washer.

  Suddenly I’m writhing in my own skin, uncomfortable. Breathe, Kacey, I hear my mom’s voice in my head. Count to ten, Kace. Ten tiny breaths. As usual, her advice doesn’t help me because it makes no sense. All that makes sense is getting away from this two-legged trap. Immediately.

  I move backward toward the door.

  I don’t want these thoughts. I don’t need them.

  “So, where are you …?”

  I run up the stairs to safety before I hear Trent finish his sentence. Not until I’m above ground do I search for a breath. I lean against the wall and close my eyes, welcoming that protective coat back as it slides back over my skin, and takes back control of my body.

  Chapter Two

  A hissing sound …

  Bright lights …

  Blood …

  Water, rushing over my head. I’m drowning.

  “Kacey, wake up!” Livie’s voice pulls me out of that suffocating darkness and back into my bedroom. It’s three a.m. and I’m drenched with sweat.

  “Thanks, Livie.”

  “Anytime,” she answers softly, laying down beside me. Livie’s used to my nightmares. I rarely go a night without one. Sometimes I wake up on my own. Sometimes I start hyperventilating and she has to dump a glass of cold water over my head to bring me back. She didn’t have to do that tonight.

  Tonight is a good night.

  I stay quiet and still until I hear her slow, rhythmic breathing again, and I thank God for not taking her from me too. He took everyone else, but he left me Livie. I like to think he gave her the flu that night to keep her from coming to my rugby game. Congested lungs and a runny nose saved her.

  Saved my one ray of light.

  ***

  I get up early to say bye to Livie on her first day at her new high school. “You have all the paperwork?” I remind her. I signed everything as Livie’s legal guardian and made her swear to that if anyone asks.

  “For what it’s worth …”

  “Livie, just stick to the story and everything will go smoothly.” To be honest, I’m a little worried. Depending on Livie to lie is like expecting a house of cards to stay up in a windstorm. Impossible. Livie can’t l
ie if her life depends on it. It kind of does in this case.

  I watch her finish her Cheerios and grab her school bag, pushing her hair back behind her ear a dozen times. That’s one of her many tells. A tell that she’s panicking.

  “Just think, Livie. You can be anyone you want to be,” I offer, rubbing her biceps as she’s about to head out the door. I recall finding one shred of solace when we moved to Aunt Darla and Uncle Raymond’s—a new school and new people who knew nothing about me. I was dumb enough to believe the break from pitying eyes would last. But news travels fast around small towns, and soon I found myself eating lunches in the bathroom or skipping school altogether to avoid the whispers. Now though, we’re worlds away from Michigan. We really do have a chance to start over fresh.

  Livie stops and turns to stare at me blankly. “I’m Olivia Cleary. I’m not trying to be anyone else.”

  “I know. I just mean, no one knows anything about our past here.” That was another one of our negotiating points coming here. My requirement—no sharing our past with anyone.

  “Our past isn’t who we are. I’m me and you’re you and that’s who we need to be,” Livie reminds me. She leaves and I know exactly what she’s thinking. I’m not Kacey Cleary anymore. I’m an empty shell who cracks inappropriate jokes and feels nothing. I’m a Kacey imposter.

  ***

  When I searched for our apartment, not only was I looking for a decent school for Livie. I needed a gym. Not one where pencil-thin girls prance around in new outfits and stand near the weights, talking on their phone. A fighter’s gym.

  That’s how I found The Breaking Point.

  The Breaking Point is the same size as the O’Malleys in Michigan and I instantly feel at home when I step inside. It’s complete with dim lighting, a fighting ring and a dozen bags of various sizes and weights, hung from the rafters. The air is infused with that familiar stench of sweat and aggression—a bi-product of the fifty to one male to female ratio.