Breathe (10 page)

Chapter Nine

Garrett

I drove to Zoe’s house. It was a dick move, but I had to get Abby out of my head and I knew the best way to do that was to distract myself with Zoe. Zoe and her hair and her lips and the fact that she didn’t make me feel like garbage on a regular basis.

The funny thing is I probably never would have gotten together with Zoe if not for Abby. All through junior high and the first two years of high school, I was aware that Zoe had a crush on me, but I’d only wanted Abby. If Abby hadn’t agreed to go out with Nolan Carter sophomore year, I wouldn’t have asked Zoe Winchester out in some asinine attempt to make her jealous. Not that I didn’t like Zoe. Everyone liked Zoe. She was sweet and gorgeous, and not at all the giant pain in the ass that Abby was. But she was a consolation prize. The person I settled for when the one I wanted didn’t want me.

“What are you doing here?” she asked when she answered the door. Zoe lived in the trailer park on the outskirts of town. Her house was a bright blue double-wide mobile home with a cinder block foundation. When it rained hard, like it had the night before, it seemed to sink slightly into the mud beneath it.

“I just wanna talk,” I told her

Her parents weren’t home—her dad was a truck driver and gone for weeks at a time, while her mother worked the night shift at a diner by the interstate the next town over—so she let me in. I scraped mud off my shoes and onto the welcome mat before I stepped inside. In the living room, the television was tuned to a rerun of America’s Next Top Model—Zoe’s favorite show. She used to make me watch it with her. She’d tell me all about the girls that season. Which ones were mean. Which ones she thought were ugly. Who she wanted to win.

She used to tell me she was going to audition for the show someday. Become famous and get the hell out of Little Bend. Like Abby, she’d viewed this town as a disease. A poison that crept into its resident’s veins. Killed them slowly and painfully.

At five foot nine, she had the height for it. She even made me drive her to an open casting call in Syracuse once. We got halfway there before she wanted to turn around. I think a part of her was more afraid of failing than staying in Little Bend the rest of her life. For Zoe, being beautiful was the very definition of her entire existence. It probably would have crushed her if she’d lost. At least in Little Bend, she was the prettiest girl in town and she didn’t have to worry about anyone upstaging her.

She led me to the couch and sat cross-legged on one side while I took a seat on the other. “Well, talk,” she mumbled.

“Can we just sit for a bit?” I asked. “Watch some TV? Like we used to?”

“I thought you didn’t want things to be like they used to be?”

I just needed a friend and without Abby around, Zoe might have been the only one I had left. But how could I ask her to be my friend, to comfort me, when I’d been so cruel to her? 

“Do you want something to drink?” she asked, clearly taking pity on me. If I looked even half as bad as I felt, it was no wonder. I nodded and she went to the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with two cups of Coke and crushed ice. They were the red plastic cups like you might see at parties. I wondered if she had real glasses like my mom had at home. Crystal, cut into pretty designs. Regular glass trimmed in silver leaf or in startling shades of blue. Or was this it? An entire town populated by people who sat on secondhand furniture and used plastic utensils.

I don’t know why it never bothered me before. But I guess that was before Abby made me feel like this town wasn’t good enough to make a home in. Before she made me feel like I wasn’t good enough to love if I wanted to stay.

I thanked Zoe for the soda then took a long sip while she sat back down and turned her body so she was facing me. “Listen,” she said. “We don’t have to do the whole big long apology thing. If you want to get back together, we can.”

I nearly choked on my soda. “Really?” I sputtered.

“Sure. I was stupid to force you to give up your friend. You were even stupider to choose her over me, but since we both acted like idiots, I think it makes us even.” She paused to take a sip of her own drink. “Besides,” she said when she’d finished. “Homecoming is on Friday, and I’d already bought my dress before you broke up with me. It would be nice to get to wear it.”

I knew her quick forgiveness was less about wanting to be with me than it was about having a date to the dance. Someone to escort her to the center of the dance floor after they crowned her homecoming queen. But I wanted to rewind the last week. Go back to a time when everything made sense. When everything was easy. So I placed my soda on the rickety coffee table so I could lean in and kiss her.

She kissed me back, soft at first, and I thought of Abby. Of the first time I kissed her the Saturday before last. Of how her lips were so soft and unsure. Like she’d never been kissed before.

I tried to focus on Zoe. On the way she felt as she curled into my body and moved to straddle my lap, her knees pressing down the sofa cushion on either side of me. I leaned back and brought her neck to my mouth. Slowly, I moved to her collarbone and I heard a soft moan escape her throat.

She bent down to bring her mouth to mine. She kissed me hard and deep and I knew where this was going. We’d had sex already. A lot. Sometimes in my truck. Sometimes in the cheerleader’s locker room before school. Sometimes on the couch where we were sitting, on those occasions when her parents weren’t home, which was often. I’d been a virgin our first time but Zoe hadn’t, having slept with Nolan Carter sometime freshman year.

My hand worked its way up her shirt. “Bedroom?” she asked quietly and I nodded, following her in a haze down the hall.  When it was over and she turned into me—lounging against me, one leg draped over mine—to fall asleep, my thoughts drifted to Abby once more. To our first kiss.

“You’re gonna get yourselves killed is what you’re gonna do,” Abby had shouted to the group of boys lining themselves up along the old railroad bridge on the southern edge of town. I’d asked Zoe to come with, but she’d refused, staying behind at the party at the river while Abby had piled into back of someone’s pickup truck with most of the boys.

“Come on,” I’d said as I bent over to remove my shoes. “It’s not that big of a drop.”

“For you and I, maybe not. But one them is going to break their neck.”

I’d unbuckled my jeans and slipped them off so I was wearing only my boxers. “C’mon, Rhoades. Don’t be a chicken shit,” I teased and she’d hopped from the bed of the truck and started to strip. I’d thrown down the gauntlet and Abby was never one to ignore a challenge, even though I knew now that she hadn’t wanted to remove her clothing. That she’d been afraid of what I might see.

“So what are the rules?” she’d asked.

I tried not to ogle her while she stood there in her white bra and underwear. Luckily, it was dark enough that she couldn’t tell I was staring. “No rules,” I’d replied. “Just fun.”

“Where’s the fun if there aren’t any rules? How do you know who wins?”

We threw our clothes into the back of the truck with everyone else’s and started walking towards the gathering on the bridge. “You need to learn to relax, Ab,” I’d told her. “Just go with it every once in a while.”

“Go with what exactly? The risk of injury and potential death for nothing more than sport.”

“Exactly.”

She’d laughed. One of her really amused laughs that showed me all the teeth in her mouth and I remember noticing how pretty she’d looked that night. Not just because she was wearing nothing but her underwear. But because her hair was down—which was rare for Abby as she usually pulled it into a tight ponytail—and it framed her face, slinking a little into her eyes. And because her eyes were shining. Bright green like emeralds. She’d won all her races that morning and winning always made Abby sparkle.

The train bridge had been out of service since they’d built the larger one down river and it was in a state of severe disrepair. Rusted and creaking. Weeds and wildflowers grew undisturbed and curled around the iron making it look like a macabre garden. Trees that lined the track leading to the bridge had grown without trimming and limbs hung down, blocking the entrance. You had to push them aside to get onto the bridge. I held one back while Abby sauntered through.

Nolan was already in position and was the first to jump, shouting on the way down and hitting the river with a giant splash. A few other football players followed him. They made so much noise during their descent that it was no surprise when a while later the flashing lights broke through the trees. We heard car doors slam and Sheriff Wilson’s booming voice calling through a megaphone. Ordering us to exit the bridge in an orderly fashion. So, no surprise, everyone bolted, taking off towards the trucks, towards their clothes, hoping they wouldn’t be caught.

Abby and I stood there, looking at one another and knowing that they were all heading in the wrong direction. She grinned and I swear I could read her mind because when I approached the edge of the bridge, she’d followed. “You lied,” she whispered. “That is a big drop.”

Luckily there wasn’t time to think or we might have talked ourselves out of jumping. Nearby, kids were being thrown into the back of police cars and I could hear boots crunching along the path towards the bridge. If we didn’t jump right then we would have been caught. And so we did, clasping each other’s hand firmly and jumping silently. I saw Abby cover her mouth with her free hand to avoid making a sound. She didn’t let go of my hand until right before we went under.

We surfaced at the same time, our heads bobbing together in the darkened water, and we swam as quietly as we could up river, back toward the clearing in the woods where I’d left my truck and Zoe.

It was several miles away and after awhile we needed a break. A small dock offered us a place to rest. I pushed out of the water first and reached down to help Abby climb up. She collapsed face down onto the wood and I tried not to stare at her ass, but there was a small strawberry birthmark on her back that I hadn’t noticed before. It was just hanging out by the edge of her underwear and I found myself yearning to touch it.

Abby rolled over, sat up, and while the strawberry disappeared, the desire to touch her did not. Her skin was wet and glistening in the faint light from the house just up the hill and her dark hair bled into the blue-black sky. It was dark and I hoped to God that it would mask the fact that she turned me on.

My gaze grazed her skin and I imagined kissing her shoulder. The smattering of freckles right on top she’d earned from summer days spent swimming in the sun. They were like the stars that pricked the night sky. I could’ve spent hours counting them. Mapping them. Tracing constellations. When I raised my eyes to her face, I realized she’d caught me staring. “What?” she asked, looking down at her freckles. “Is there something on me?”

No, and that was the problem. Her proximity. Her lack of clothing. I was too aware of her. Too aware of the way she looked. The way she moved. The way she smelled—like rain and honey. She overwhelmed my senses. Filled me with the scent of her. I leaned in and she didn’t jerk away. She leaned forward, almost daring me to do what I meant to do. So I kept going. Cupping her cheek first. Then brushing her jaw with my thumb. Bringing my lips to hers. Kissing her.

She parted her lips, drawing me into her as her fingers slipped to the back of my head and knotted in my hair. Clutching me to her, she laid back against the dock. Pulled me down on top of her.

A few minutes later I pulled back for air, pushing myself up onto my palms. A small moan sounded in her throat, making her dissatisfaction with the new distance between us as clear as the star-filled night above us. “I’m sorry,” I’d breathed and I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t sorry. Not about kissing Abby. The last few minutes, with our bodies entwined, had been the happiest of my life.

I wanted her to tell me I had nothing to apologize for. That she had wanted to kiss me too. But all she managed was a garbled, “Why?”

My wet hair dripped, droplets falling to her forehead. “This complicates things,” I replied, and we both knew Abby hated complications. I prayed she wouldn’t hate this one. That she’d let me kiss her again. I needed to kiss her again. Needed it like I needed to breathe. Abby was like my oxygen. She kept my heart pumping. Kept me alive.

I was taken aback when she propped herself up onto her elbows and kissed me with enough force to let me know it wasn’t an apology she was looking for. I’d given her an out. A chance to keep our friendship intact. Unchanged. Only, she didn’t hesitate. She kissed me like never wanted to stop.

“I love you,” I’d whispered and I’d meant it. I’d said it before. To Zoe after she declared her love for me. But I’d never meant it before. I lifted my hand to trace the outline of her lips gently with my fingertips then brought my mouth down on hers again.

I cradled the back of her head in my palm—it fit so perfectly—and guided her back down against the warm, wet wood. I kept my mouth on hers as I explored the slick skin of her flat abdomen with my hand, inching upward until I felt the small swell of her breasts. She arched into my touch. Urged me on. Lifted her back from the dock so I could slide my hand around and unhook her bra. I slid the straps from her shoulders and pulled them from her arms, tossed it aside, not caring when I heard the splash as it hit the water.