Hold My Breath(82)
“It’s kinda tight, actually,” she says.
“Like I said…fits perfectly,” I say, my mouth tugging up on the side near her skin. I kiss the space where her shoulder curves into her neck and she nestles deeper into me.
We lay together, my eyes on the profile of hers, my hand tracing the perfect lines that sculpt her muscles. My mind is calm and my heart is steady. My world, it feels right, and I don’t know what I did to deserve it. I doubt I do, but I’m taking it. I’m not giving any of this back.
“You know you’re going to have to win, right?” Maddy says.
I don’t answer right away, instead just continuing to trace patterns along her skin. I’m not surprised by the thought. Maybe a little at hearing Maddy acknowledge it. It means that her dad has probably said something to her. It makes the hurdles more real. I knew that my role here began and ended with the money, and now that I walked out on an interview securing big-time cash flow, well…
“I know you’re going to think I’m giving up when I say this, or that I’m making excuses before I even try, but honestly…from my heart, Maddy…I’m good with whatever happens. I’m satisfied having come here, having trained here with you—with your dad—in this place that…” I let my palm fall flat along her arm and breathe out, shaking my head slightly. “Maddy, do you know how hard it was to come back here?”
“I can’t even imagine what it’s like for you to be here after everything that’s happened, Will,” she says.
For a minute, I allow her to think that’s where it starts and ends, that the accidents are what kept me away. But the more seconds that pass, the more unsettled it feels not to be raw and honest right now. Losing my family left an enormous emotional scar, one that I will never get rid of completely, but my heart was broken long before that plane went down.
“Do you remember when I left for State?” I ask, my eyes memorizing every freckle on her shoulder blade, every tiny hair along her neck.
I feel her quake with a small giggle against me. I memorize the feel of that, too.
“You didn’t want to go,” she says. “You thought they were just taking you on the team to lure your brother.”
I nuzzle into her hair, hiding my embarrassed smile even though no one can see it.
“Do you remember what you said?” I close my eyes, wondering if these moments are locked away as tightly in her mind as they are mine.
“I told you that you were better than your brother,” she whispers, her voice cracking with the words. I feel her swallow. “I meant it, you know.”
She turns into me, and I let her, my hands finding her face, then sweeping back her hair. Our legs tangle and we push apart just enough to look each other in the eyes.
“I can tell you every single thing about that moment, Maddy. We were on the other side of the Swim Club parking lot, where your dad had those old wooden benches carved out of logs. The air was humming with the sound of June bugs and the sun was half below the horizon, storm clouds covering one side of the sky and orange filling the other. Everything smelled like cedar, except for your breath. That smelled like cinnamon, because you’d just finished eating a bite of my mom’s cobbler. You were wearing that purple T-shirt we got for free for completing the presidential fitness testing at our high school. Your hair was down, but it was crinkly and wavy on the ends from swimming with a ponytail all afternoon. And,” I stop, because saying this next part terrifies me. As close as Maddy and I are right now, I’m not sure if it’s as real for her as it is for me. Evan is always there—even when he doesn’t deserve to be.
“Maddy, I know you wanted me to kiss you that day. For just a second maybe, but it was there. I stopped questioning, and you stopped talking, and it was quiet,” I say, encouraged that she isn’t flinching right now, or denying anything. Her eyes are set on mine, and her mouth is soft. “I got up when we heard Evan pull the car into the parking lot, but I kicked myself all semester for not having the balls to kiss you then and ask you to be mine.”
Her hand moves to my face and she inches up higher against me, her eyes fluttering closed and her lips dusting my mouth.
“I remember,” she breathes.
I let my eyes close with her touch, relishing it. But Evan…he’s still always going to be there. Maybe even more for me than her. I think the only way to move past it is to weave our stories together, to make sure she knows all of my details so I can learn to live with what they shared.
“I came home early for Thanksgiving,” I say. I feel her muscles tighten against me, her face shift in my hands, but I keep my eyes closed and my head down against her. Her eyes make me weak, and I tuck things away, because I’m too afraid of losing what’s in front of me.
“I came home with plans of following through with it, kissing you like I should have before I left. And when I came to your house, you and Evan were sitting on the couch together, holding hands…” I stop, shaking my head and pulling my lips in tight. “Then later that night…” I swallow hard. “I saw you both together…at The Mills. That’s when I knew you were never going to be mine.”
Her lips find mine again before my eyes can open. She kisses me hard, her hands weaving through my hair and her body inching forward until the space between us is completely eaten up with her response to my doubt.