Hold My Breath(74)

“How are you coping?”

Words, words, words.

“Are you in any pain? Will you ever swim again?”

Words, words, words.

“You must feel a tremendous amount of guilt. It’s natural; can you share a little about that?”

Words, motherf*cking words!

I know why Curtis is pushing for this interview—I bring buzz, and that gets airtime, which equals revenue. As painful as the interview is, I feel like I owe him for this shot, and if it can help secure him as head coach—a coach, at the very least—then one afternoon of misery on my part isn’t so unbearable, especially when I look at it in context with the big picture of four years of grief.

I have one nice suit, and I’ve worn it once already since I’ve been back in Knox. Either my muscles have doubled in size from a few weeks of workouts, or that panic I thought was reserved for airplane rides is starting to bleed into other areas of my life. Either way, this collar is f*cking tight. I slip behind the counter at the club’s small snack bar and tug my tie loose, fumbling because, well…f*cking panic, when I feel her cool hands glide over mine and take over. I let them.

“Thank you for doing this,” Maddy says, her thumbs dusting across my knuckles. I stop her and work my fingers through hers, nodding lightly and blinking once. Bringing her hands together, I press them between mine and turn her wrist to kiss the inside. She sighs. She’s worried about me, but she doesn’t realize how many interviews like these I’ve survived.

I let go of her hands and she goes to work retying my tie, a little looser, so I can breathe.

“There are probably going to be some questions…some things…that you don’t want to hear. I’ve done dozens of these, and they like to talk about Evan, about his path to greatness getting cut short. It just…it might be hard to hear,” I say, partly preparing myself to hear the awful regurgitation of events I’m only now starting to overcome. For Maddy, this will be the first time she has to hear the story knowing about Tanya. It makes it hard to sit quietly and listen without choking out a laugh every time they compliment his great character.

“I’m staying,” she says, her eyes focused on her hands at my neck. Her mouth is set in a hard line. I figured she would stay, but I felt like she at least deserved the warning.

“They’re ready,” Curtis says. Maddy walks away the second her father walks beside her, and we both turn to watch.

“She’s just mad because she thinks you’re forcing me to do this,” I say, giving my attention back to him, his brow low and his eyes not blinking until his daughter steps outside.

“Yeah, probably,” he says, shaking his head and turning to me, our feet squared with one another as I stand straight. He puts a palm on either shoulder and brushes out twice before patting and squeezing. When he’s done, though, he doesn’t let go, and the way he looks me in the eyes feels off, but then again, so does everything in my life.

I reach forward with my right hand and pat his arm, squeezing and nodding to let him know I’ll be okay, and his mouth curves into a tight smile.

“I’m happy to help, Curtis. You taking a shot on me…that means everything, and if I can help you in return, I’m glad,” I say.

His cheeks tick higher, and while his mouth smiles, his eyes dip and look sad. His hands fall from my shoulders. I nod to him one more time before sliding around him and moving to the deck area, which is now covered in lighting equipment and a play-back station on a cart. The chair I’ll soon be sitting in is centered on the TV screen. Maddy is sitting in one of the chairs by it, her feet pulled under her legs and her hands in her lap, twisting.

I stop just long enough to run my hand along her back and bend forward to kiss the top of her head. She grabs my arm as I walk by and her hand slides down from my elbow to my fingers, clinging to them until I step completely away. That one touch fills my lungs, and I know I can do this.

The Cumberlands are standing nearby, and as I slide into the tall chair and raise my chin to let the nervous college-intern guy clip a mic to the inside of my tie, I see Curtis move between them, the same look on his face as before. I wait for his eyes to hit mine, and when they do, I smile and give him a thumbs up. He reciprocates, but the hard line on his face doesn’t change at all. I know the look—it’s guilt. He thinks he’s making me do this, but what he doesn’t get, what no one gets, is I make myself do these things. I was allowed to survive. I owe the universe many favors.

“Will, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Donna Morris,” a tall woman says as she reaches her palm forward to shake mine. We shake, and her grip is strong. My lip ticks up on one side.

“Former swimmer?” I ask.

She chuckles and nods. She looks to be in her late forties, maybe early fifties.

“I had my time. College, but never the big stage. I wasn’t as good as you and Maddy Woodsen,” she says, pausing before sliding into her chair to glance up at my eyes. “Or your brother,” she adds.

That’s obligation speaking. Evan was talented for a college swimmer, but he was never Maddy. Death makes people greater than they were.

I nod politely and glance over to Maddy, her thumbnail between her teeth and her eyes intent on the TV screen.

“We’ll start slow, some general questions about your training and workouts here, then move into a little bit of your history. The questions will sound weird because this airs with next weekend’s race, and portions with the trials, so we’ll be pretending it’s the future, sound good?” she says, not really looking at me. She’s focused on the stack of cards in her lap with subjects she’s been told to bring up—the gory ones people tune in for.