Breathe, Annie, Breathe Read online

  “It’s her stepdad’s niece. Apparently their parents are insisting on them being roommates.”

  I stare across the store at Kelsey. She’s browsing through a rack of dresses, throwing confused glances my way. I doubt she likes hanging around me any more than I like being around her.

  On the one hand, I don’t relish the idea of ending up sharing a dorm room with a crazy girl who sports a faux hawk and plays the accordion or something. I also like the idea of starting anew. But being with Kelsey doesn’t feel new. It feels like reawakening something I want to forget.

  When I look up into Vanessa’s eyes, they are kind and waiting for an answer.

  “That could be good,” I choke out.

  “So you’ll think about it?” She sounds excited. Truth be told, the idea kind of excites me too. It also terrifies me.

  “Don’t you think Kelsey will be pissed? I mean, would she go for this?”

  Vanessa shrugs. “It’s my bedroom. I can choose to live with whoever I want.”

  “When do we need to decide by?”

  “July, I think,” she says.

  “Let me talk to my mom and I’ll get back to you,” I say, making her smile.

  Vanessa yanks a red mini dress off the rack. “This would be great for you for the senior cruise.”

  I take the mini dress from her. It would look good with my strawberry blond hair. Last year, before Nick and Kimberly left for their senior cruise, Mom snapped a billion pictures of them. She made my brother pose by the birdfeeder, on the porch, by the oak tree. Kyle and I stood off to the side, snickering at Nick’s misfortune.

  “We’ll be posing by the mailbox next year,” Kyle said, wrapping his arms around my waist, my back to his front. I settled against his chest, and he kissed the top of my head.

  Here in the now, I sigh and hang the red dress back up.

  •••

  During lunch, I stop by the table where the student council is distributing graduation caps and gowns. The boys will wear black and the girls get red. With my hair, I’m glad it’s not mustard yellow.

  I stuff the cap and gown into my backpack, which suddenly feels very heavy. I glance around at the other students, and it’s hard to believe that in less than a week, I may never see some of these kids again. We won’t come back together after spending our summer at the city pool and cruising around town. Jared Campbell is joining the army and going to basic. Brooke Taylor, the best violinist our school’s ever seen, will study music at Brevard in North Carolina.

  Soon I’ll only see these people online.

  I pass by the table where Kelsey, Vanessa, and Savannah are chatting with the guys. If I decide not to room with Vanessa, would I ever see her and Kelsey again? I mean, the school I’m going to has, like, 30,000 students. That’s a sea of people. We only have about 500 kids at Hundred Oaks. Savannah says something and everybody at the table bursts out laughing.

  And I feel lonely.

  I’ve often wondered if Kelsey and I hadn’t grown apart when she moved, would I have been a part of her group? Along with Vanessa and Savannah, she hangs out with Colton Bradford, the mayor’s son; Rory Whitfield, one of the cutest guys at our school; and Jack Goodwin, the heir to Franklin’s largest horse farm. With my trailer’s ratty orange carpets and the gross brown spot on our counter, how could I invite guys like that over to eat pizza and watch a movie? I know they must be down to earth, because Savannah works on Jack’s farm and they are dating, but still. The people Kelsey left me behind for make me feel inferior in all sorts of ways.

  I used to eat lunch with Kyle, his best friend, Seth, and Seth’s girlfriend, Melanie, but I haven’t since Kyle died. In terms of dealing with what happened to my boyfriend, I’ve heard that Seth is doing about the same as I am: he doesn’t want to play video games with anybody else; he shoots hoops alone.

  When I walk past their table, Seth looks up and nods. Even though he knows Kyle and I made up and agreed to start dating again right before he died, Seth isn’t rushing to invite me to sit down. Another day, same story.

  At least it’s Wednesday, which means I have my personal workout with Matt tonight at the gym. I never imagined I’d be that girl who comes to love working out, who craves it like a cop wants a donut. But I can’t figure out if I like being active or if it’s that I love working toward something. Regardless, I haven’t even run the race yet and I’m already missing the structure this program brings.

  I glance around the cafeteria again as I pop open my Diet Coke. Good luck posters from the juniors hang everywhere. High school is over. I take a sip of my drink. The more I think about it, what I love most about the running and exercising is the control. I have complete control over me, my body, my future. Which is something I haven’t felt since he died.

  And I want to keep that feeling.

  I find myself barreling across the cafeteria to Kelsey and Vanessa. Their group glances around at each other when I walk up to their table. Kelsey bends her head and whispers to Colton, ignoring me. When Jack Goodwin sees me, ever the gentleman, he immediately stands to offer me his chair.

  “Thank you,” I tell him. He smiles as he steals a chair from another table.

  I take a deep breath and lean over to Vanessa. “I’ve been thinking about college. If you haven’t found a roommate for your suite yet, and you still want me…I’m in.”

  Marathon Training Schedule~Brown’s Race Co.

  Name Annie Winters

  Saturday

  Distance

  Notes

  April 20

  3 miles

  I’m really doing this! Finish time 34:00

  April 27

  5 miles

  Stupid Running Backwords Boy!!

  May 4

  6 miles

  Blister from HELL

  May 11

  5 miles

  Ran downtown Nashville

  May 18

  7 miles

  Tripped on rock. Fell on my butt

  May 25

  8 miles

  Came in 5 min. quicker than usual!

  June 1

  10 miles

  June 8

  9 miles

  June 15

  7 miles

  June 22

  8 miles

  June 29

  9 miles

  July 6

  10 miles

  July 13

  12 miles

  July 20

  13 miles

  July 27

  15 miles

  August 3

  14 miles

  August 10

  11 miles

  August 17

  16 miles

  August 24

  20 miles

  August 31

  14 miles

  September 7

  22 miles

  September 14

  20 miles

  September 21
>
  The Bluegrass Half Marathon

  September 28

  12 miles

  October 5

  10 miles

  October 12

  Country Music Marathon in Nashville

  THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE

  The radio said this is the first Hundred Oaks graduation to take place indoors in twelve years. Normally students graduate out on the football field, but this year it’s in the gym because the rain hasn’t let up in four days.

  Last year, we had to write a thesis paper for junior English. To determine paper topics, students pulled prompts out of a hat. I chose “Can Coca Cola save the Third World?” which was awesome. Kyle, however, chose “Did the Great Flood actually happen?” I made fun of him, but he ended up loving the assignment. He learned that some Indian tribes believed Noah didn’t build an ark; they thought an evil god was eating peanuts in heaven. The god scraped the shells out the window, they fell to earth, and mankind survived the flood by floating in the shells.

  Even rain makes me think of him.

  In the cafeteria, teachers line us up in alphabetical order to take our seats. Mrs. Lane just made Zack Burns put on a new graduation cap. He wrote IT’S OVER! in silver paint on top of his, but apparently that’s against school rules. The minute Mrs. Lane turns her head, Zack makes jerking-off motions to his friends. Do boys ever grow up?

  The teachers lead us into the gym like we’re back in kindergarten again and a rush of humidity hits me in the face. The gym feels like a sauna. I spot Mom and Nick on the third row of the bleachers. Nick is fanning himself with a program and she’s dabbing at her eyes with Kleenex. Regardless that we aren’t the same team we once were, this is a big moment for her: both of her kids made it through high school. She never graduated because she got pregnant with my brother. Seeing her tear up makes my eyes water, and I scrunch up my face to hold myself together. I don’t want to cry. If I start, I won’t stop.

  I sit in my chair and pick up my program. The cover says In loving memory of Kyle Allen Crocker. People throughout the gym are using their programs as fans, just like my brother. I peer through the audience to see if Mr. and Mrs. Crocker showed up. No sign of them. I doubt they’ll be here. If they come, the floodgates in my eyes will crumble.

  I run my fingers over Kyle’s name, and a single tear falls from my eye, spotting the paper. I can’t cry. I can’t. Haven’t cried in months. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. I bite into my lower lip hard. So hard I break skin. Taste bitter blood. Think of happy times. Think, think.

  If he were here, I bet he would’ve found a silver marker and wrote something on his hat in the middle of the ceremony, just to piss off Mrs. Lane. He would’ve launched a beach ball into the crowd like Nick and Evan did at their graduation. Think more, Annie.

  This gym has a lot of memories. I first met Kyle here when I smashed him in the head with a volleyball. Thinking about it now makes me laugh, and since I’m struggling not to cry, it comes out as a snort.

  “You okay?” Leslie Warren asks. I’m with other people whose last names begin with W. We had French together.

  “Just thinking about how much has happened in this gym in the last four years.”

  She grins. “Remember during the first football pep rally this year, how the senior guys played tug-of-war against the guy teachers?”

  “That was hilarious,” I reply with a laugh. The senior boys had been strutting around for days boasting how they were gonna kick some teacher ass, but then they got owned by the teachers. The guys toppled to the floor like bowling pins.

  Our ceremony begins with lots of raucous cheering and clapping, and a rumor goes around that crazy Zack Burns is completely naked under his robe. That makes me laugh and cringe.

  The evening grows more somber during the speeches. During his valedictory address, Mark MacCullum says, “Kyle Crocker was friends with everybody. He always wandered around the cafeteria, talking people up and eating food right off their trays. He also was a pen thief.”

  Murmured laughter brushes through the crowd. It doesn’t really matter what Mark’s saying, because everyone is remembering their own Kyle stories. I glance down the aisle to where Kyle’s best friend, Seth, is crying.

  Even the people who didn’t know him are silently weeping. Maybe not for him specifically, but for what Kyle lost: the chance to have experiences, good and bad and crazy and life changing. They feel sorry his mother and father lost their son. And maybe they start thinking of losing their own parents or children or brothers and sisters and how that feels like darkness, a hole that can never be filled. And if they’ve never lost somebody, what will it feel like when they do? When you finally watch your loved one being lowered into the ground, away from you forever. Before October, I couldn’t have fathomed it.

  I felt immortal.

  Guilt builds up under my skin, because Kyle’s the one who lost out on not being here at graduation. Never getting married or having kids. Never buying a house out on Normandy Lake, where he could live on a sailboat on weekends, doing nothing but swimming and snuggling up with me under sunsets. He’s the one I should feel sorry for. But I feel bad for me too. Because I can’t enjoy my future knowing he’s missing out.

  •••

  Later that night, I curl up in bed with my phone. I should be getting to sleep considering I have a ten-mile run/walk tomorrow. Matt told me I could skip the run and make it up with him on Sunday since I graduated today. But I told him it was no big deal. It’s not like I’m going on the senior cruise.

  The entire class is out on the General Jackson Riverboat on the Cumberland tonight. I went back and forth on whether to buy a ticket, and ultimately I didn’t. In twenty years, will I look back on this night and wish I’d gone? There’s nothing on that boat for me. Sure, I could pose for pictures with Vanessa and Savannah, but then they’d go dance with their boyfriends and I’d be left alone. Kelsey would ignore me…and guys would ask me to dance, and they wouldn’t be Kyle. The entire time I’d be thinking: I’m here, and he’s not.

  My mind flashes to junior prom when Kyle and I left an hour early, before Mom would get off work at the Quick Pick. We rushed back to my place and made love, then wrapped ourselves up in my bed sheets. We sat Indian style and talked about the road trip to Myrtle Beach we would take that summer. And I kept thinking, He is all I could ever want. He’s the guy for me. He’s my fate.

  But when Kyle laid it out for me and asked me to marry him, I—we screwed everything up. Why couldn’t he have waited until after graduation to ask? Or after I graduated college?

  If he’d just respected my wishes about college, he’d still be here.

  I pull Instagram up on my phone and watch pictures from the cruise pop up. Cute, colorful dresses and dark suits fill my screen: a selfie of Vanessa Green and Rory Whitfield leaning against the boat’s railing; a photo of Savannah Barrow and Jack Goodwin kissing in the middle of the dance floor.

  I wipe away the tears threatening to roll down my cheeks. Feel a sudden urge to go grab some beers and drink my loneliness away. I’d do anything to make my mind go blank. I stuff my phone under my pillow. Grab the photo of me and Kyle from my bedside table and turn it face down.

  Twenty years, my ass. I’m already wishing I’d gone on the cruise.

  •••

  The next morning, I see him stretching next to the 0 mile marker.

  Jeremiah.

  He pulls his arm back behind his head and stretches his triceps, causing his T-shirt to ride up, revealing strong stomach muscles. Stubble covers his cheeks and jaw, and his light brown hair is a disaster. When he sees me, a grin breaks across his face, and after last night’s loneliness, I’m glad to see it. Really glad.

  I adjust my CamelBak as I approach him. “How many m
iles you doing today?”

  “It’s a big one,” he says. “We’re shooting for twenty. And Charlie, the guy I’m pacing, wants to finish in less than two and a half hours.”

  “Good luck,” I say. “I bet I couldn’t even ride a bike twenty miles in that amount of time. I could drive it though.”

  We laugh together and smile. I don’t look away from his pretty blue eyes.

  “What?” he says, his mouth quirking up.

  I shake my head. “Nothing.”

  And then my finger reaches without my permission and gently traces the long, white scar on his arm. Then I move to the mysterious circle tattoos on his forearm.

  “What are these?”

  “Crop circles. I saw the design and just went for it. You like them?”

  Very much. “Yeah,” I say with a thick voice. He watches me touch his skin, and I see his Adam’s apple shift. He stops watching my finger and his light blue eyes move to my lips, then chest, then legs. And a queasy feeling rushes through me, sort of a mixture of excitement and feeling like I’m standing on a plank, fixing to tumble into crashing waves.

  I stop touching his arm and look away.

  “Well,” he says, clearing his throat. “Have a good run today.” He meets up with a buff-looking guy, takes off on the trail, and disappears within seconds.

  Matt gives our team instructions. We’re to run/walk ten miles, which means we run as much as we can and take walking breaks when we need to.