Hold My Breath(12)

I push the gearshift back into reverse, but I’m not fast enough to escape his attention. Curtis holds up a hand, waving hello while he holds the front door open for a group of young swimmers and their parents.

I gnash my teeth together hard and plaster a smile on my lips while I mentally repeat the word f*ck over and over again. I don’t like confrontation. Avoiding conflict is half the reason I’m as miserable as I am. If I’d embraced it, once—the important time—I wouldn’t be carrying half of the misery that I walk around with every minute of the day.

But I can’t change who I am, and I’m a lying chicken shit.

Curtis holds the door open for me while I lock the car and jog up the front walkway, mentally running through every possible excuse I can give. His reaction is going to be terrible regardless of what I say, but not nearly as awful as it would be if I just spoke the truth.

“You remember being that young?” he says as I step up next to him. I turn and look at the young bodies wrapped in towels all making their way to idling cars.

“I don’t think I was ever that young,” I say.

I feel Curtis looking at me, so I hold my attention on the last kid, watching as his mom dries off one leg and then the other so he can push his feet into a pair of socks. I can tell by the look on the kid’s face that the last thing he wants is to put socks on, but he’s still too young to be defiant. I’d say he’s seven, maybe eight. Hang in there, buddy. When you’re twelve, you can decide about your damned feet on your own.

“You were that young,” Curtis says, drawing me from my trance. I squint one eye and look at him. “You were a lot better of a swimmer, and maybe twice that kid’s size, but you were still young, Will. And oh my god were you a pain in the ass!”

I wince on instinct, but when Curtis starts to laugh I relax a little.

“You and your brother would come in here, and I swear to god the volume of life in general would go up about a million decibels. Maddy…she didn’t know how to scream, I don’t think, until she met the two of you,” he says, holding the door more open and urging me inside. I step in, and he follows, clicking the lock behind us, and flipping the main sign around to show the business number and open hours.

“Maybe we wouldn’t have been half as loud if that girl of yours didn’t provoke us mercilessly. I seem to remember a certain phrase she’d say, something about ‘if only we could learn how to swim like a girl?’ She always said she learned it from her dad, but…I always gave you the benefit of the doubt,” I say, smirking at the man I’ve always admired as much as I’d feared. My stomach still churns with my rapid pulse, but my body is getting used to the rhythm. Nerves are a funny thing—eventually, they start to enjoy the rush of adrenaline.

“Oh, I said it all right. Whenever Maddy would catch on to something faster than you two,” he chuckles.

“Well, that wasn’t fair. Girls are smarter, and we were two blockheads,” I say. He pats my arm and nods, agreeing with me. We both laugh, but mine…it’s a lie. All I can think about is how I’m going to say what I need to so I can do what I need to.

“You and your uncle settling in okay?” he asks, and I feel my palms start to sweat because I know I’m going to have to say something soon.

“We’re comfortable, yeah…thanks. Honestly, I think you could set my Uncle Duncan up in a closet and as long as he had a desk, a magnifying glass, and a decent lamp, he’d be happy for days,” I say, not happy that Curtis has started to walk up the stairs toward my room and the business office. I follow him, my hand sliding along the railing, gripping with each step as if I have some power to anchor us where we stand.

“He seems like a good man. Your dad…” he stops midsentence, his feet faltering on the last two steps. I can see the apology on his face as he turns to look at me.

“It’s okay. It’s honestly nice to hear people talk about him,” I say. Curtis grins and nods once, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me. I’m going to need to get better at lying, and fast.

“I’m sure it is…” he says, chewing at the inside of his lip for a second. “I was just going to say that your dad, he always said nice things about your uncle. I guess they were pretty close?”

“Sort of. I mean, we saw Uncle Duncan on holidays and stuff, but he and my dad were pretty different. Duncan likes being alone,” I chuckle, nodding toward the shut apartment-room door where my uncle has been happily holed up with his gears and tools since I woke up for practice this morning. “When we’d get together, though, it’s kinda like each would get a little of the other’s personality. My dad would quiet down, and Duncan would cut loose.”

“Kinda like you and Evan, I guess,” he says, his eyes still apologetic.

“A lot like us, yeah,” I say, my mouth closing tight because we need to stop talking about Evan.

We both pause in the middle of the hallway, my hand on my door and his on the office door—awkwardness comes with every breath. His face contorts in twitches, the same as mine, almost like he’s trying to muster up the nerve to say something, too, and we both end up opening our mouths in unison.

“About tomorrow…” I start.

“Breakfast go all right?” he says over me.

“Sorry…” I hold up my hand. “You first.”