Just Remember to Breathe (22 page)

Jesus Christ.

I kept doing my pushups until I got to one hundred, then rolled over and started stretching my legs.
 

She didn’t say a word.

I didn’t say a word.

I don’t know what she thought. That I was just going to change my mind? She didn’t understand. It’s not that I didn’t want her. God, I wanted her more than anything else in the world. Except to let her have a decent life. And that wasn’t going to happen with me.

Finally, I stood, ready to run. I said, “I don’t really need a spotter any more.”

She looked me in the eye, and said, “I’m not here for you. I’m here for me.”

I shook my head and started running. She started out beside me, in her normal long lope, keeping pace with me. I gritted my teeth. Why did she have to make it so hard? Why couldn’t she just accept that it was over? She could have such a wonderful life.

By the time I hit 101
st
Street, I was going fast, and picking up the pace. She stayed right beside me as I turned onto 101
st
and started heading for Central Park. Traffic was just starting to pick up, taxis and commuters from Connecticut and God only knows where else. Who the hell drives into New York City, anyway? Crazy.
 

I stopped at a red light, diagonally across from the park, and ran in place until the light changed.

Even though I was getting winded, I started to talk, half to myself.

“I was six the first time he came home drunk and hit her. I don’t know what it was about… I think he’d lost his job or something. They were both fucking lushes, and that probably led to him getting fired. But I do remember sitting there, about a week after first grade started. We were making brownies in the kitchen of this shitty little apartment in Chamblee, just outside Atlanta.”

Breathe. I paused in my monologue, not sure if she was listening. “Anyway. They had all these pictures, of the two of them. Happy and stuff. They went to high school together, believe it or not. Dated, then got married. Anyway, that day he came home, and he was angry. I could sense it, and I got real quiet. But I wanted to show him what we’d been making. So I picked up a big spoon, and dipped it in the brownie mix, and carried it into the living room shouting something. I don’t know what. ‘Dad, see what we did?’ Or something like that. And the fucking brownie mix… there was too much of it on the spoon, and it fell on the carpet.”

We were almost halfway down the length of Central Park now, and though not quite at a full out sprint, we were going really fast. I glanced over and saw her face was bright red. Well, I didn’t ask her to come.

“Anyway,” I continued, slower now, taking long pauses to breathe in between sentences. “My dad… he stands up and starts shouting. About how I fucked up the carpet, and we were going to have to pay for it. And she went to defend me. It’s all muddled in my head, but the next thing I knew, he hit her, in the jaw. She went down, hard. And I held on to my mom, and yelled back at him, told him to leave my mommy alone.”

I grimaced, realizing a tear was falling down my face. I wiped it quickly. “Point is… people who love each other don’t always stay that way. Sometimes they hurt each other, too.”

She snorted, then said, “Yeah, I know something about that.”

Fuck
.
 

I picked up the pace. I was running flat out now, as fast as I could go, and she was still keeping up. I took the left turn around the south edge of the park at a dead sprint with Alex beside me, and a flock of birds launched into the sky as we ran through them.
 

This was my normal route for running, but I never ran it at this pace. I was getting blown out, sucking air into my lungs, and it was starting to really hurt. After the next turn, I stumbled, got back to my feet and kept running, now going north along the east side of the park, up Fifth Avenue.

As the reservoir came into sight, I knew I wasn’t going to make it any further. I slowed to a walk, blowing out my lungs in big gasps, my chest shuddering, legs feeling like rubber.

Alex slowed her pace, running in place beside me.
 

“Too much?” she asked.

I shook my head, suddenly angry. She knew how I felt about her. It was like she was torturing me. Staying in sight, knowing that I had made the decision I had to protect her.
 

“What do you want from me, Alex?” I cried out.

She stopped running, dropping into a walk at my side. She looked serious, so I was blindsided by what she said.

“I want you to teach me hand-to-hand combat. Self defense.”

“
What?”
I asked, my voice incredulous.

“I’m serious. I’ve faced two sexual assaults in my year and a half in college. Next time anyone touches me, they’re going to regret it.”

I shook my head, flabbergasted. “Are you for real?”

She nodded. “Yeah. And since it looks like I’ll eventually be dating again, well… my history with that isn’t so hot.”

I winced, feeling a stabbing pain. I turned my eyes away. The thought of her dating someone else, anyone else, made me want to howl.

“Well, for God’s sake, Dylan, don’t look so upset.”

I stopped in place, turned to face her. “How can you be so casual about it?”

She shook her head, her face a mix of anger and disappointment. “I’m casual about exactly nothing, Dylan. But you didn’t give me a choice. You didn’t talk about it with me. You decided to make all the decisions on your own. Well, suck it up. I won’t go through another year of crying in my room over you. I’m done with that.”

She was right, and I deserved whatever she was throwing at me anyway. But it hurt. It hurt to see her so angry. It hurt to know she was prepared to move on just like that, even if that’s what I kept telling myself I wanted.

I didn’t know what I wanted.

“All right,” I said, my mouth once again going into gear before my brain engaged.

“What?”

“I said, all right. I’ll teach you what I know.”

She looked at me speculatively, then nodded once.

“When?” I asked.

She looked at me, then said, “I’m busy on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings. That’s when I go running. How about Monday, Wednesday, Friday?”

That’s when
she
goes running?
Oh, for God’s sake.
She was going to drive me insane.

“You’re nuts,” I said.
 

“Look, if you don’t want to teach me, I’ll get somebody else. I’m sure I can get a class or something.”

I shook my head. “No. I’ll do it. Wednesday morning. Six a.m. Don’t be late.”

She nodded, her face still dead serious, and said, “I’ll be there.”

Then she turned and took off running. I watched her go, admiring her audacity, her courage. As I watched her recede down the sidewalk, all I could think was how I’d do anything for her. Anything at all. And I wanted to run after her, and tell her I was wrong, and beg her to take me back. But it was too late for that. Love meant a lot. It meant everything, and it meant nothing.

Your brain is the real weapon (Alex)

“Okay,” Dylan said. “Let’s try that again.”

I’d asked for these lessons, but I hadn’t bargained for how intense they would be. The first couple days, I’d worked with Dylan alone. But his hand was a mess, and for some of the rougher stuff he’d asked Sherman to come along as well.

This was our sixth lesson. For almost two weeks, we’d been at a sort of… truce, really. We still saw each other six days a week, three of them running together, three of them working together on this. Plus the time spent together working for Doctor Forrester.

We barely spoke to each other, except about whatever it was we were actually doing at that time. Businesslike. It was sad beyond belief, and I’m not sure why I was putting myself through this. Except that it allowed me to keep track of him; it allowed me to know that he hadn’t started drinking himself senseless, or skipped town. But it also kept the tension between us alive and well, and that tension was nowhere more at the fore than when he was training me.

“Look,” he said. “You’re not exactly very big. You’re never going to be able to use pure strength to push an attacker off balance. You’ve got to use speed… and most especially your brain. Your brain is the real weapon.”

Sherman nodded. “He’s right. You’re still trying to fight using strength. What you’ve got to do is use his strength and weight against him.”

I nodded, biting my lower lip. “Okay. I’m ready to try again.”

Dylan came at me, without warning, grabbing me around the neck and waist. For a second, as always, I smelled him, and the sensory memory of us embracing was almost too much to bear. His cast was finally off, for good this time, though his hand hadn’t fully healed. He wore heavy layers of padded clothing that he and Sherman had picked up at a sports store. Our practice had become rough more than once. But I needed that. Among other things, Randy Brewer was out of the hospital, and the police didn’t seem to be interested in pursuing charges against him.
 

Dylan had his right arm around my waist, left arm around my neck, and he started pulling me back. I relaxed for just a second, then kicked straight back, in the same direction he’d been pulling.
 

For just a fraction of a second, he teetered, losing his balance. I kicked straight back at his knee, and we went down, Dylan losing his grip and crying out.

I was free! I scrambled away, out of reach.

“Great!” Sherman shouted.

Dylan lay on the ground, eyes shut in pain. Then he opened them, and looked at me, and a huge smile grew on his face.
 

“You did it,” he said.

I shifted on my feet, then smiled back. “I did, didn’t I. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he said. “Trust me, it’s not nearly as bad as the other day.”

I flushed a little, looking away, and said again, “Sorry about that.”

I’d kicked him between the legs the other day, hard enough that he hadn’t been able to move the rest of our session. That had prompted the purchase of the padding.

Dylan laughed. “It’s okay. What we’re here for.” He paused for a breath, then said, “I bet you’ve been wanting to do that for a while anyway.”

I raised an eyebrow and shook my head, then let out a low chuckle. “Maybe you’re right at that.”

I dropped to the ice-cold ground, and said, “No practice or running for the next two weeks. I’m going home for the holidays.”

Dylan nodded, and Sherman said, “Yeah, vacation’s over for me too. Headed back home Sunday. I might be able to drop in and visit around Christmas, though. And Dylan… let me know when it goes to trial. I’ll be there. Understand? You call me.”

Dylan nodded. “Yeah, I will, man. Thanks.”

I looked at him. We’d not talked, not even once, about the events at the party that night. My knowledge of it extended to several interviews with the police, and a deposition with Dylan’s lawyer. They’d listed me as a witness for the defense, but outside of that, I didn’t know anything at this point.

“What’s going on with that?”

Dylan shrugged. “The lawyer says I’ve got a strong chance of going free. The law is pretty clear; you can use deadly force to prevent rape or sexual assault.”

He looked at the ground, and I could see the difficulty he was having, the shame he felt. “The problem is that I kept hitting him after he was down.”

I nodded. There wasn’t much to say to that, because it was true. Even though simple facts didn’t capture everything.
 

Quietly, he said, “He says they’re probably going to offer some kind of plea bargain. I accept a conviction for assault or something, and they drop the charges otherwise. I don’t know if I’m willing to accept that. I don’t like the idea of having a felony conviction. I’d lose my VA benefits… I’d have to drop out of school. I’d lose… everything.”

I looked at him, sitting there, obviously miserable, and I wanted to take his hand. I wanted to put my arms around him. But I couldn’t.

Sherman spoke up. “Dude, we’ll support you, whatever you decide. Put me on the stand; I saw most of it. Yeah, you went too far, I’ll agree. But you also rescued her. Don’t forget that and go wallowing in guilt.”

Dylan nodded. He looked deeply unhappy, and it was driving me crazy that I couldn’t do anything about it. I leaned forward and spoke. “Can we try one more?”

“Yeah,” Dylan said.

“I got this one,” Sherman said. “You’re getting beat up enough.”

So we stood, and Dylan coached. Sherman was harder than Dylan. I think Dylan was holding back. The emotional connection between us, the history, made it impossible for him to go after me aggressively. Sherman had no such compunctions, and he came in blindingly fast, grabbing me around the waist and knocking me to the cold ground.

I kept rolling with the momentum, and managed to roll most of his weight off of me, but he recovered quickly, grabbing my right arm and twisting it up behind my back. I cried out, and froze.

“Crap,” Sherman said, letting go, then rolling off of me.
 

“We’ve got to work on that one,” I said.

“Yeah.”

Dylan came forward, reached out and gave me a hand up. “We’ll work on that when you get back from San Francisco. You’ve got to practice using your attackers weight against him. Roll, rather than push.”

I nodded. I was still winded. “You going to be up for it? I can get pretty mean.”

He smiled. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said.
 

I looked at him and said, “Why don’t we all go grab some breakfast. It’s been a while.”

Doubt clouded his face. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

Sherman shook his head. “Come on, Dylan. It’s only breakfast. Let’s go.”

He sighed. “All right.”

So, wet and dirty as we were, we walked the five blocks to Tom’s. Sitting down, we all ordered coffee, and I pulled my legs up under me in the seat.

“You looking forward to going home?” Dylan asked.

I shook my head. “No, not really. Anxious. My parents can be just a little over-controlling. And I’ve not been very, um, communicative this fall. To tell the truth, I’ve barely spoken with them. It’s going to be one long, tense week. And all my sisters are coming into town, which will mean chaos.”