Hold My Breath (5 page)

“Sort of. I mean, we saw Uncle Duncan on holidays and stuff, but he and my dad were pretty different. Duncan likes being alone,” I chuckle, nodding toward the shut apartment-room door where my uncle has been happily holed up with his gears and tools since I woke up for practice this morning. “When we’d get together, though, it’s kinda like each would get a little of the other’s personality. My dad would quiet down, and Duncan would cut loose.”

“Kinda like you and Evan, I guess,” he says, his eyes still apologetic.

“A lot like us, yeah,” I say, my mouth closing tight because we need to stop talking about Evan.

We both pause in the middle of the hallway, my hand on my door and his on the office door—awkwardness comes with every breath. His face contorts in twitches, the same as mine, almost like he’s trying to muster up the nerve to say something, too, and we both end up opening our mouths in unison.

“About tomorrow…” I start.

“Breakfast go all right?” he says over me.

“Sorry…” I hold up my hand. “You first.”

“Oh, no, it’s okay. I was just making sure breakfast went all right is all. I know Maddy’s been…” he begins, but stops, pressing his lips in a tight line, his brow furrowed in thought while he tries to define his daughter’s feelings and behavior for me. He doesn’t need to. Of everything, that’s the one thing I understand.

“She’s working through things. Me being here, it reminding her of Evan…I get it,” I say.

Curtis begins to nod.

“She’s trying,” he says.

Our eyes meet, and my drumming pulse stops for just that second.

“Breakfast was good,” I say.

Curtis smiles, and I know that I have to say what I need to now, while he’s relieved.

“Listen…I uh…I’ve got something I need to deal with, and I hate to ask, especially now, and I know it looks bad on the second day of training camp and everything, but…” I make the mistake of looking him in the eyes again, and I see the mix of suspicion and concern. I hate it, and my mouth starts to taste the acid from my stomach.

“Are you…slipping…Will?” He asks me with his head cocked to the side, and it reminds me of the way every doctor and therapist has looked at me over the last four years. It’s such a rehearsed gesture when they do it, feigning genuine concern, and even though I know Curtis is looking at me with nothing but the best intentions right now, it still kicks at my nerves.

“I’m fine. Really, I promise. I just need to take care of an estate thing with my uncle in Indianapolis. It’s just easier if we drive to the city rather than me waiting for the lawyer to come down here. I’m just afraid I won’t make tomorrow’s sessions, but I swear I’ll put in the work. My uncle can’t drive alone, not all that way. I’d really like to put it off, but I just…it has to be done now.”

I breathe out a long sigh through my nose, resting my weight against the door I’m dying to disappear behind, while Curtis sizes up every word I just said. Not a single bit of it was true, and I’m honestly a little impressed with myself. It’s going to be a bitch to sort through the details if I ever need to embellish on or reference this lie again. I’m still not certain Curtis quite believes it as he moves his gaze from me to the floor, but he looks up again with his hand out, as if to shake. I reach for his palm and grasp it, the weight removed for barely a second before it comes crashing down on me again with the feeling of the apartment door opening behind me.

“Will, geeze louise…I didn’t know you were out here. You scared me,” my uncle says, one hand on his chest, the other out in front of his face, palm open to catch the eyeglass he lets fall from his eye. “I guess I’ve been concentrating in my own little world.”

“We didn’t mean to distract you. Sorry, Dunc,” I say, stepping forward into our room with him. I give my uncle a glance, my eyes widen, and his narrow, trying to understand my silent message. I hope to God it’s enough.

“You know, I have a watch…it’s an old family heir loom. Thing hasn’t worked for years, if you wouldn’t mind taking a look at it?” Curtis says.

My uncle’s ears literally perk up.

“Absolutely,” he says, his fingers rubbing the edge of his eyeglass, flipping it around in his palm with nervous excitement. A new puzzle brings my uncle immense joy.

“Perhaps when you two get back tomorrow. After the estate thing. I can hang around after the afternoon workouts, or come by tomorrow night and drop it off with you,” Curtis says.

My uncle’s head tilts a fraction, but before he responds, I see him put it all together—my nonverbal plea, the lie he’s just heard.

“That’d be good. In the evening, when we get home,” he says, essentially repeating everything Curtis said.

“Wonderful,” Curtis says, smiling as he turns to the office door, gripping the handle and pausing before stepping inside. “If you guys need any help, you know…getting in and out of the city, or with documents or something, just let me know. I’m no lawyer, but I know a lot of really good people.”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” my uncle says, again, his answer vague.

“Okay, then. I guess I’ll see you Wednesday, Will. I’ll know if you skipped that workout, too,” Curtis says with a wink.

“There won’t be any doubt, sir,” I respond, holding a thumb up until Curtis finally disappears behind the office door and my uncle closes ours, turning to face me slowly.

We both stare at one another for a few seconds before my uncle speaks.

“I’m guessing she needs something?” he asks.

“Yep,” I nod.

My uncle pushes forward from the door, moving to the small desk he’s set up with his tools and light, his eyepiece landing on the wood with a heavy thud before he grips the armrests of his chair and lowers himself down.

“You didn’t tell him the truth.” My uncle doesn’t ask. He doesn’t have to.

I shake my head to affirm his statement.

“Didn’t quite know how. I think it’s probably easier for them all to just have this certain idea in their heads,” I say, kicking my shoes from my feet as I walk. I stop at the edge of the sofa and tug up one corner, flipping out the bedframe. I collapse on the pile of messy sheets and rub my face into their coolness, wishing I could erase a lot of things by doing this.

“It’s always easier to walk around life believing in bullshit,” my uncle says. I twist my neck, my face flat against my bed, and I stare at him. He’s not looking at me anymore, instead lost back in one of his projects.

“What time are we leaving in the morning?” he asks, his hands holding tweezers steady while his neck cranes forward, his eyeglass already back at home between his cheekbone and brow.

“Five,” I say.

“Dibs on showering first,” he says.

I lie there for the next several hours and watch my uncle work. He hardly moves, and I’m inspired by his level of concentration. I don’t think I have ever focused on something so minute—on the details and the parts. Maybe if I did I’d start to understand how things work. Maybe I need to take his magnifying glass and press it against pieces of my life.

And maybe if I hold it there long enough under the sun, I can just set all this shit on fire.

* * *

W
ill didn’t make
practice today. Morning and afternoon.

It’s all I focused on during my entire swim. I was off. Everything about me was off. The fact that Will wasn’t here threw me off, which is screwing with me even more because I didn’t really want him here in the first place for that very reason. His presence was supposed to throw me, not his absence.

I asked my dad where Will was, but he didn’t have a real answer.

“He said something about estate papers, having to drive his uncle to the city. I questioned it at first, but his uncle backed it up. Seems legit,” my dad said.

That’s the thing, though. I never thought it could be anything more than something simple until my dad put that idea in my head. Then I lost focus. As much as I’ve tried to pretend that I don’t think about Will Hollister, because it’s a direct line to thinking about Evan, I do think about him. I have for years. Every time I read something about the State swimmer who blew it his senior year—the guy who drove his car into a tree just outside the city because he has, as the newspapers put it,
a death wish
—I thought about Will.

And I worried.

And then I hated him…just a little. He was the one spared, and here he was—wasting it. The last time I saw him in the news, in a short local spot that referenced the talented former swimmer and brother of the late, great Evan Hollister, he looked like a bum. His unshaven face poked out of an ill-fitting suit while his uncle walked him up some courthouse steps to deal with an extreme DUI. That was a little over a year ago, and I swore I would quit thinking about him, quit worrying.

He’s still in there, though. He’s always been in my head, rattling around. This nagging worry, this source of resentment—a symbol for all of my worst parts. It wasn’t fair that I begrudged him for his self-destruction. He was suffering, too. I just hated him for making it all so public. I didn’t want to see it, because no matter how much I worried about Will, in the end, all I was left doing was mourning Evan.

Yet here I am—worrying about him again.

I pull my phone into my lap and lean back into the deck chair, looking out on the quiet pool lanes of my parents’ swim club. It’s peaceful here at night. I like the quiet.

I’ve been waiting for Will to come back for about an hour, but now, with each minute that passes, I begin to feel more and more pathetic. It’s clear that he wasn’t lying. At least, his uncle is gone, so it seems reasonable that they did, in fact, go somewhere together. I still crave proof, though.

I send a short text to my friend to ease my whirling mind.

I think I need to get a job.

I wait for Holly to respond, and when my phone buzzes with her call, I’m happy. She speaks the second I answer.

“Why would you want to do something crazy like that?” she asks. I can hear the beeping noises around the nurses’ station behind her. I miss those sounds.

“Because…” I sigh, sliding lower in my lounger, pulling my knees up and swaying them side-to-side. “I have too much idle time. I swim all morning, then I work out. Then I watch shows about tiny homes, tree houses, biker life…Neilson should really hire me. I’d be a great ratings representative.”

“I don’t think Neilson ratings work like that,” she says, stopping to crunch through a snack.

“You on a break?” I ask.

“Yeah. Slow night. Not that I’m complaining,” she says.

Our conversation goes quiet for a second. It feels nice, like I’m sitting there next to her, watching people so we can make up stories about them later. Holly and I are comfortable with our quiet. Introverted soul mates.

“So…” she says finally. She doesn’t finish. She doesn’t have to. I know everything the
so
implies. Holly knows my sad story, and she was with me when my dad called to tell me about Will coming to train. Holly was the only person I could truly rant to and not sound like a heartless bitch. I told her that I didn’t want to see his face because it reminded me of Evan’s, and that I hoped he washed out right away or changed his mind. She never once judged.

“He’s still here,” I say.

She crunches something again. It sounds like celery.

“Oh,” she says, through a full mouth.

More silence.

“I’m actually at the pool right now waiting for him. He never showed today, and…”

“And you’re afraid something bad happened to him,” my friend fills in.

I breathe in deeply and let the air escape through my nose.

“I think maybe I am,” I say.

“He isn’t Evan,” she says. They’re words I need to hear.

“I know. That’s what worries me. Evan would never have missed a practice. Not for anything in the world. And Will has a history of…”

“Missing life? Yeah, you said that before. But don’t let his shit stick to you,” Holly says.

I chuckle, because she has a way with words.

“I miss you,” I say.

“Awe, hon…I miss you more. There’s a new doc. He’s…well, frankly, Maddy, he’s fucking delicious. Like, he has me eating celery and shit because he’s all about nutrition, and I want him to notice
me eating celery,”
she says, punctuating with one more crunch.

I knew it was celery.

“He’s probably married, Holly.”

“Nope. Checked. Double checked. Asked,” she says. I can hear her moving, and the sounds in the background start to fade, which means she’s probably heading to the break room to throw away her trash and get back to work.

“I can’t believe you asked,” I say.

“Someone had to, and I’ve sorta become the outspoken one. It’s my thing here now. I have a thing,” she says.

“You, the outspoken one. Shocker,” I laugh.

“Bite me,” she says, and I hear her locker slam shut in the background. “Call you tomorrow.”

I chuckle to myself after she hangs up, but it only takes a minute or two for me to feel lonely again. It’s strange how I can crave the quiet but miss the noise all at once.

Before tucking my phone back in my pocket, I check the time. It’s almost nine, and if I want to get my ass up at four to show up here again, I should give up on this rescue mission I seem to feel obligated to carry out. I straddle the chair as I stand and tuck my phone into my back pocket just as the sound of tires on gravel hits my ears.

By the time I slide the back door open, Will and his uncle are unlocking the front. I stand, half inside, half out, while Will’s uncle takes a heavy-looking messenger bag from Will’s shoulder. I step inside and meet them at the bottom of the steps.

“Maddy, I’m not sure how well you remember me, but I used to come to some of your meets…when you all were kids,” Will’s uncle says. “I’d come down from Michigan for the summers?”

I reach forward and grasp his hand, smiling.

“Duncan, of course I remember you. I’m glad you’re here with him. This one…he needs eyes on him at all times,” I lean in close, smirking. “Can’t be trusted.”

Duncan laughs at my joke, but it fades quickly. Will watches my eyes the entire time, only allowing a slight smile.

“I’m gonna head up to the room. Long day for me, but Maddy…I do hope we get a chance to catch up sometime. I’m looking forward to watching you two swim. I always loved watching you race,” Duncan says, squeezing my grasp on his hand once before letting go.

“I’ll be up later. I’ve gotta get my workout in,” Will says, his eyes leaving me for only a second.

“No matter to me. I’ll be asleep in about thirty seconds,” Duncan says, his hand waving over his shoulder.

When the door shuts, Will leans back against the wall, his thumbs looped in his pockets and his eyes paused just below mine.

“You’re here kinda late,” he says, and his gaze flits to mine for only a beat. He’s nervous.

He’s guilty.

“You missed. I wanted to make sure you were taking this whole thing seriously,” I say, falling against the opposite wall and folding my arms across my body.

Will’s mouth tugs up on one corner just before he pushes off from the wall and walks past me and through the back door.

“If you want me to pee in a cup, Maddy, all you need to do is ask,” he says.

I open my mouth to argue that’s not why I’m here, but before I can utter a word, Will’s hands reach above his head and he tugs the black T-shirt he’s wearing up and over his head.

“What are you doing?” I ask instead.

“I’m getting my laps in. Promised your dad I would,” he says, his feet working to kick off his shoes before he pulls one heel up and slips away a sock.

“Will, it’s nine at night. You’re swimming again in…” I pull my phone from my pocket to help me with the math as I look at the clock. “Less than eight hours. You’re going to exhaust yourself.”

“Better than not trying,” he says, unbuttoning his jeans and sliding them down without hesitation. I turn to the side and bring my thumbnail to my teeth, shielding my eyes with my other hand.

“Maddy, you’ve seen me in my underwear more than any girl I know,” he says.

His words make me shift to look at him again, but the moment I do, my eyes grow wide and my face heats up at the sight of him. There’s something different about seeing him like this—not in his training suit, but just…like a man. He’s toned, hell, ripped even. His muscles make that perfect parallel down his stomach and into his underwear, which hug his hips and legs like only the world’s greatest pair of boxer sport briefs can. I cover my eyes and turn again quickly.

“Yeah, I know, but it’s different when you’re scrawny and fourteen. I’ll leave you to it,” I say.

“Suit yourself,” he says. I take a few steps to the door, and my heart is pounding in my throat, when Will baits me. “If you’re afraid to lose to a boy.”

Goddamn him.

I hear the water splash, and I wait a second before turning to make sure he’s submersed. When I face the water, he’s treading in the center lane, a dozen yards out, moving backward. The deck light is only bright enough to see his profile.

“I’ve got nothing to prove to you, Will Hollister,” I say, taking more steps forward until I’m at the end of the deck.

“Yeah…I know,” he says, splashing as he pushes backward a few more strokes. “But I have a mountain of shit to prove, most of it to myself. Racing you always brings out the best in me, but it’s okay.”

The water moves with his strokes as he swims slowly to the other side. I watch as his form fades until the only evidence he’s in the pool at all is the ripples left in his wake. He doesn’t move for several seconds, and I know he’s waiting at the edge, watching me.

“Shit,” I say finally, kicking my sandals to the side.

“Ohhhh ho ho yes! I knew you couldn’t handle walking away from a challenge,” he says through cocky laughter.

“Turn around,” I yell.

“Oh I am, don’t you worry,” he says, nothing about his tone sounding honest.

“Will, you better turn your ass around or so help me God…” My hands are frozen on the button of my shorts, my arms and legs tingling with adrenaline.

“I’m turned; I’m turned! Pinky swear,” he says.

He’s never broken a pinky swear. Not with me. Shit, I’m really going to do this.

I tug my shorts down fast, then flip my T-shirt over my head, leaving my clothes in a pile by my shoes a few feet away from the water.

“You’re in my lane. Move over one,” I say, sitting on the edge and feeling the water. The heater hasn’t been working great, so the temperature is a little cooler than I’m used to.

“If you want the center lane, Maddy, you’re going to have to earn it,” he says, and I can tell he’s facing the other way by the way his voice echoes off the back wall. I stop swishing my legs in the water and look up, squinting in his direction.

“I
always
swim in the center lane, Will. Move. Over,” I grit. It’s a stupid thing to pick a fight over, but aggression has always been my friend in a race, so I let myself be childish.

“Tonight you don’t,” he says, and I hear the water splash with his movement. “And if there’s something you don’t want me to see, you better get your ass in the water now, because I’m coming back.”

* * *