Hold My Breath(43)

Maddy needs to understand why I’m going to be gone Thursday and Friday, though, so I roll my shoulders and pinch the bridge of my nose, squeezing my eyes closed and cracking my neck to one side. You’d think I was heading out to the dumpsters behind the schoolyard for a good old-fashioned ass kicking.

Maybe I am.

I leave our makeshift apartment, and pause for only a second before pressing my palm flat against the office door, pushing it open enough to slip inside. She had left it open the tiniest bit, and I wonder if she was hoping I’d notice when I walked upstairs the first time. I wish I had.

She’s sitting in the window seat, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms holding them in place. Her hair is messy waves, the way it looks when she just lets it dry after swimming, which means she probably got here early. She’s been waiting here for a while.

“Hey,” I say, my voice light, not wanting to scare her.

She turns slightly, her chin falling to her shoulder, but not far enough for her eyes to meet mine.

“Hey,” she says, leaving her head in its place for a few long seconds before turning back to stare out the window.

I walk closer to her, rounding the desk behind her and sliding to sit on top of it, pushing a few of the tools my uncle has left here to the side.

“You working on your dad’s books or something?” I ask.

She laughs lightly.

“I never want to see those books,” she says. “I bet they’re a nightmare. Receipts stapled to margins, arrows pointing to expenses, moving them from month-to-month. This place is an IRS treasure trove.”

I look around, layers of dust on binders stacked haphazardly in a nearby bookcase, each marked with a year in black Sharpie on the spine.

“Your dad used to swear up a storm when he worked on that crap up here,” I say.

Maddy turns her head again, her eyes moving to the same bookcase I looked toward. Her shoulders rise with a short laugh, and I see her mouth curve on the right with a smile.

“He sure did,” she says. Her chest rises slowly, her body moving as she breathes in deep, then exhales. “My mom does it all now. Mostly on the computer. They just like to store things up here.”

“You still come here to hide, I see,” I say, holding my bottom lip between my teeth, worried that I overstepped with that statement, about hiding.

Her head waggles from side-to-side, and she adjusts her posture, leaning forward and pressing her head against the glass.

“I guess. I just always liked to watch the world from up here,” she says.

I study her. I look at her so long that minutes pass, neither of us saying a word, and when Maddy finally speaks, it hits me dead center.

“I used to watch you. You and Evan, but mostly…if I’m being honest…I looked at you when I came up here,” she says.

My throat tightens, and I let my head fall forward, looking at my dangling feet above the wooden planks of the floor.

“You can’t see the pool from here,” I say.

“I know,” she says. The silence that follows makes me think she’s done, but after several seconds, she says something I’ve ached to hear since I was sixteen. “I’d wait to see if you were coming to practice, too. It was the only place I could look at you like a part of me really wanted to.”

My jaw works side to side and I hold the back of my tongue between my teeth, trying not to be a chicken shit. My eyes close, and I keep my head down.

“And how’s that?” I ask, every breath I take after the question hurting my chest.

The short silence that follows is filled with her breathing, my heart pounding, my fingers gripping the edge of the desk hard, my soul hoping.

“Like maybe I should have fallen in love with you instead,” she says, the last word escaping with only a breath, barely audible, but enough that I heard it perfectly clear.

“What are you saying, Maddy?” I ask, lifting my head to find her looking at me over her shoulder.

She shakes her head, her forehead dimpled with worry and confusion. I’m sure I look the same. All it takes is for her tongue to pass lightly over her bottom lip for me to slide from the desk and walk over to her, coming as close as I can without touching her.

“I don’t know what anything means anymore, Will,” she says.

I shake my head.

“Evan was my whole life. He was the plan, and I know…” she takes a sharp breath, a small sob escaping her chest. “I know he was planning on marrying me, Will. I even think he was going to ask. Before you all left that night, he wanted to talk.”

My eyes grow heavy, and my heart stills completely. She couldn’t be farther from the truth, and this moment—it’s literally breaking me into two halves. I want to protect her, but I also want her more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. How can I keep saving her when every greedy bone of my body wants her for my own?

“My being here,” I say, moving my hands to my pockets and forcing my feet to slide a step away, to give myself distance from temptation. “I haven’t made anything better for you, and I’m so sorry, Maddy…”

“No, that’s not it,” she says, her body turning until her legs fall to the floor.

Her hands reach for my wrists, and I grow weak, letting her pull them from my pockets and bring them close to her, my body following. She turns one hand over, her thumb running along the metal of the watch I’d just been given, and I watch her eyes react to it. It’s obvious it’s old, and there’s a part of her that suspects it was probably my father’s. I can tell by the reverence with which she admires it. She looks up at me slowly, her cheek falling against one open palm, and the pleading look in her eyes undoes me. My hands move into her hair, and I step closer, gently coaxing her to stand, her chin resting on my chest as I lean my head forward and brush my nose against her, my mouth grazing her cheek, my eyes closing as I inhale.