Hold My Breath(57)

I stare at him for miles, at that face I touched and still want to. I watch his chest rise slowly, his seatbelt growing tight with each full breath. His eyes only flit to mine once, and the moment we connect, I see how much he regrets giving in and looking at me. I see how much this hurts—how much I am hurting him because I hurt.

“Your car couldn’t accommodate Dylan’s chair,” Will finally speaks.

I flinch at the break in silence, but he doesn’t notice. His teeth saw at his bottom lip and his eyes move along the highway ahead of us, flashing to the mirror as he signals for an exit. I recognize the road instantly. We turned this way when I brought him to the strip club—when his body was jerking with nerves and he nearly chewed his fingers to the bone. I thought it was because of how close this area was to the scene of his car crash, but that’s not what it was at all.

We turn down a neighborhood street, rows of tiny houses pushed closely together, dirt for front yards, and sparse of trees—except for the few growing wild and covering sidewalks. Cars are parked front to end along the road, and the further in we weave, the faster Will’s fingers begin to drum along the steering wheel. He slows the car in front of a small gray house, a long wooden ramp still waiting to be painted or stained stretching along the entire front to the driveway with a gold van that looks to be only a month or two old parked in the front.

Will pulls the car in behind the van, coming as close as he can without hitting it. Our car still hangs out into the street, but a glance around the area doesn’t show much traffic, or any other alternatives for parking.

“We’re here,” he breathes, rolling his hands on the steering wheel then falling forward, and folding his arms on top, his chin resting on his knuckles.

“I won’t say anything.” These are the first words I’ve spoken in nearly two hours. Will’s head falls to the side and he looks at me through his empty eyes. “To her…to Tanya?”

I look forward at the small house, the cracks as obvious as the homemade attempts nailed, puttied, and painted along the trim in an effort to hold this house together. The mother of Evan’s child—and Evan’s child—live here. Nothing about any of this is good.

“You may have been right about the ignorance. She’s better off with the lie…” I say, my eyes shifting back to Will. “Whatever version of the story she has.”

His eyes hold mine for a second then move to the house as he pushes away from the steering wheel, nodding.

I follow Will’s lead, letting him guide me from the car up to the house, not bothering to knock or ring a bell. He pulls a torn screen door open, then pushes the main door so we can both step inside. My nose is hit instantly with the scent of bleach and lemon-scented cleaners, dryer sheets, and vanilla-scented candles. To the right, the house looks spotless, but to the left are piles of sheets, towels, clothing, and towering boxes of some type of medical supplies.

“She has a hard time keeping up,” Will says through an apologetic smile. “I think she wanted to leave the house in a semi-clean state.”

I nod and look around me again. She made it halfway.

“Tanya? We’re here,” he says, his voice loud and echoing around the cramped room. I notice a path is cleared stretching straight from a hallway into what looks like the kitchen, and I remember what Will said about needing room for Dylan’s chair. Dylan. His name is Dylan.

“Hey, Will. I’m almost done in here. Come on in,” a voice calls from the kitchen area. My heart starts to pound, and my fingers feel numb from the blood flowing so fast and hard through my body. Somehow, my legs continue to work and I follow Will into the kitchen. A thin blonde, wearing a plain white T-shirt with the sleeves bunched up over her shoulders and a pair of gray sweats, rushes from the sink to a cabinet, stacks of plates in her hands for one trip, fists full of forks and spoons on her next. She glances up at both of us while she works, and her face looks nothing like the trampy whore I’ve dreamt up in my hateful fantasies. This woman looks frail, and tired, and…kind.

“Oh, hey! You must be Maddy,” she says, running her palm along the leg of her sweats and blowing a tuft of hair out of her eyes while she approaches me. My mouth quivers and my ears fall deaf with the rush of blood to my head, but I manage to reach out my hand to shake hers. “Thank you so much for helping us. Will said you and he were good friends, and you knew how much he hated to fly. I’m just…” she pauses and leans her hip out, running her shoulder against her face as her eyes well up. “I’m just so grateful he’s coming with me. I don’t think I can get him there alone.”

I let her hand slide from mine and look over her shoulder at the piles of things yet to do. Unwashed glasses line the counter. Stacks of files sit in haphazard piles, some with sticky notes jutting from the edges. And underneath it all, layers of dust and stickiness from a kitchen that she probably hasn’t been able to clean since the day she moved in.

“I’m glad he can help, too,” I answer, swallowing away so many things I thought I knew.

“I swear I’ll be ready, Will. I just wanted to get a head start on some of this. I was taking advantage of Dylan napping. I had yesterday off too, and our therapist, Wendy…she helped, even though I know she’s not supposed to do housework, but God, I was grateful,” Tanya says, her words vomiting out amid her nerves. Will stands with his hands in his pockets, his posture stiff, and his head sunken in-between his shoulders. The only response he can seem to give her is a fast nod, and I can see it affecting Tanya more and more by the second. She starts to rush around the kitchen, moving things, but never really accomplishing anything. Will steps backward until his legs meet a chair, and he falls back and sits.