Just Remember to Breathe (8 page)

Then I ran out the door. I hoped he’d get the text. I hoped he’d wait for me. I hoped he wouldn’t hate me. Oh, God, why was I putting myself through this?
 

It was ten after six when I finally ran across 114
th
Street, past the Butler Library and onto the field. At this time of the morning, the campus was virtually deserted, though there were a few early risers out there running in the darkness.

I came up short when I saw him, my breath caught in my throat.

Dylan wore grey cotton shorts and a t-shirt with the word ARMY emblazoned on it in large black letters, and he was in the middle of doing pushups when I saw him. His broad shoulders and thick biceps were clearly used to this form of exercise. The muscles in his neck and shoulders were tense, bulging as he worked himself up and down.

“I’ll just be a minute,” he said to me. He was hardly winded.

That’s when I realized I’d just been standing there, staring. For how long? I didn’t know. Quite a while. Was my tongue hanging out?
 

Stop that,
I thought.
Bad Alex.

I looked away, because that was the only possible thing I could do, then looked back. Tearing my eyes away from those arms, I could see the damage the bomb did to his right leg. Thick, ropy scars covered his entire calf. Another ugly looking red welt, sewn back closed and healed like a dark red zipper, ran from below his knee right up his thigh and under his shorts. More jagged scars covered his entire right thigh. His right leg was noticeably less bulky than his left: the left was well defined, with powerful calf muscles.

“Got your text,” he said, as he finally stopped doing pushups. He pivoted on his butt, pulling one leg in close and stretching out the other. He leaned forward, reaching for and grabbing his left foot. “Sorry I didn’t answer. Limbering up. Last thing I want to do is get out there running and freeze up.”

I’d carry you home if you did. Right up to my room.

Oh, for God’s sake
, I thought,
get a grip
. He’s your ex-boyfriend. The asshole who left you to grieve, not knowing if he was alive or not. The guy who broke your heart, without any warning, without any explanation.

“It’s okay,” I said.

I wasn’t exactly an athlete any more than he had been before the Army, but I did understand the importance of stretching. I sat down across from him and tried to mirror his actions, stretching out as far as I could, taking hold of my left foot, then switching to the right.

“So, um… I don’t do this often. Or rather, I never do this.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Go running,” I answered.

“You might find you enjoy it. I used to run with the boxing team in our battalion sometimes… they’d go out for fifteen, twenty miles every morning.”

I gaped. Then noticed the pack of cigarettes rolled up in his left shirt sleeve.

“You did that and smoked?”

“Yeah, well, everybody gets some vice, I guess.”

I didn’t know how to answer that. I put both my feet directly in front of me, facing him, and stretched forward as far as I could.

I literally heard him stop breathing, and I sat up quickly. He averted his eyes, and then I realized, holy shit, Dylan was looking down my shirt!

I felt the heat rise on my face, so I averted my eyes and stood up.

“I’m all stretched out, I think,” I said.

He chuckled, then said, “Um… I’m sorry. That was… totally uncalled for. And… unintentional. And… I better shut up while I’m ahead.”

“You’re an ass, Dylan.”

He nodded, frankly, with just the hint of a smile curling up on the left side of his mouth. “It’s true.”

Okay, he thought it was funny. He really was an ass. I frowned, said, “It’s not funny. I’m going home.”

His face instantly dropped the joking expression. “Wait… please don’t go.”
 

He looked so wounded, I stopped in place, and he said, “I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget, that’s all. I know about the rules and all that, but you’re still the…”

He trailed off, and turned away. “Sorry. This was a bad idea.”

I wanted to know what he was going to say before he trailed off. But somehow I had the feeling that the answer would be breaking one of my rules, and damn it, that made me want to start crying. And hadn’t I done just about enough of that lately?

I closed my eyes, then said, “Dylan. You’re right. I’m too sensitive. And, to be fair… maybe I was checking you out, too. Let’s go.”

He turned back at me, took a deep breath, and nodded, carefully avoiding what I’d said.
 

He started out slow, so I was able to keep up. But I won’t lie. My legs aren’t used to running, and I can’t even imagine what planet he came from that he came to enjoy running 15 or 20 miles on a regular basis. The Army put him on drugs, I’m sure of it now.

“So, um, how far are we going?” I asked.

“Not far,” he replied. “I haven’t been running since… well, before. I don’t want to push it too far.”

“Do you always go this early?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s… long standing habit, really. Plus, it’s not really muggy yet. You wouldn’t want to be running anywhere in noon heat, know what I mean?”

He had a point.
 

And, after a few minutes, I realized something else. Even though I was breathing heavily, and my legs were starting to hurt, I was enjoying myself. Maybe too much.

I could tell Dylan was really working at it now. He was loping along, every time his right foot came into contact with the sidewalk he lurched just slightly to the right. His lips were set in a grim line, face staring straight ahead.

“You okay?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. Just got to remember to breathe. Two more blocks, and I think we walk back?”

“Okay,” I said, really winded now.
 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just not used to this.”

“We can slow down,” he said.

“No, keep going.”

We ran two more very painfully long blocks, then slowed to a walk.

“You want to keep walking at a pretty decent pace,” he said. “Don’t come to a sudden stop. Helps your heart rate come back down to normal.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling a little inadequate that I was having difficulty keeping up with someone who’d nearly lost his right leg just a few months ago. And, looking at his chest and arms, tight inside that t-shirt, I thought it would take a lot more than a short walk to bring my heart rate down.

“You look kind of flushed,” he said, eyeing me closely.

Jesus
. I felt more heat run to my already overheated cheeks. Then it suddenly hit me. Dylan Paris was flirting with me. I snapped back immediately. “Yeah, well, chasing after guys does that to me.”
 

His eyes widened a little bit, and then he smirked.
 

I blushed a little more, as if that were possible.

A few seconds later, he pointed. We were approaching Tom’s Restaurant, a diner just off campus.

“Stop for breakfast?” he said. “It’s on me. Least I can do for you keeping me company.”

Did I really want to let Dylan buy me breakfast? Where was this leading? Normally, all my caution signals would be up and blaring, but for some reason I just gave in without an argument.
 

“Sure, thanks.”

Two minutes later we were sitting at a table in the garish, fifties styled diner. With bright red chairs, stainless steel equipment, and black and white checks everywhere, it was frightful to the eye. But also kind of comfortable. Not the diner. What was comfortable was being there with Dylan.

A tired waitress who looked as if she’d been working all night came over and took our order. Me: a single scrambled egg, wheat toast with tomato slices and a glass of orange juice. Dylan ordered a ham and cheese omelet, pancakes, bacon, biscuits with gravy, coffee and hashbrowns. I don’t know where on the table they were even going to fit all that food.

I couldn’t help it.
 

“Eat much?” I asked.

He chuckled. “You get an appetite in the Army. I can put away some food these days.”

While we waited for the wagon train to pull up with his breakfast, I asked him, “So, um… I know this is weird, but other than Doctor Forrester’s work, I don’t really know much about what you’re doing these days.”

He leaned back and looked me in the eyes, an odd smile on his face. “That’s a pretty open-ended question,” he replied.

Oh, wow. That was exactly what I’d said to him on an airplane a lifetime ago. “You remember that?”

“I’d answer that, but I don’t want to break the rules.”

“Very funny,” I said, wrinkling my nose at him.

He grinned, and said, “All right, fair enough. You go first.”

“What?”

“I won’t say whether I remember it. But you get to ask the first question.”

I laughed and shook my head. “All right. I guess I let myself in for that one. Why exactly did you pick Columbia University of all places?”

He shrugged. “Believe it or not, Columbia has really active outreach to vets. One of the recruitment guys found me in a hospital room at Walter Reed back in March. The rest is history.”

At this point he was leaning back in his chair, one arm resting on the empty seat next to him. I leaned back in mine as well, stretching my feet across underneath the table and letting them sit on the empty chair.
 

“Your turn,” I said.

He looked at me, and I blushed a little, looked down at the table.

“So, last winter you were trying to decide what to write for your final paper. What did you end up settling on?”

I took a deep breath, and looked up at him. “I can’t believe you remember that. I mean… you were in the middle of a war, and getting shot at and blown up and hospitalized, and you remember me agonizing over my paper?”

A sideways smile, and he replied, “I’m the one asking the question right now.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay. I ended up doing a paper on the legal defenses for rape in the nineteenth century in the United States.”

“Wow,” he said. “That’s fantastic. I’d love to read it sometime. I probably wouldn’t understand word one of the legal stuff, but I’m interested anyway.”

“Don’t knock yourself, Dylan. You may come from a different background than me, but you’re a smart guy.”

“Not anymore,” he said, grimacing and tapping on his forehead.

I grimaced, thinking with regret that I wished he’d stop beating up on himself, and said, “My turn?”

He nodded.

I thought. There was so much I wanted to know. And most of it skirted too close to the topics we avoided, too much of it broke the rules, too much of it simply led to heartache. Finally, I said, “What was the best thing you saw in Afghanistan? I know there was horror, and war. But were there moments of … I don’t know… grace?”

He swallowed, and nodded once. I was astonished to see his eyes start to water.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to —“

He held up a hand, saying stop. “It’s okay.” He took a deep breath, then said, “Okay. So, we’re out there in the boonies. And I mean… way out there. Little village in the middle of nowhere called Dega Payan. It’s way up in the mountains, and until a couple years ago, there wasn’t even much of a road to connect them to anything. It was like a five hour drive to get anywhere.”

“So, one day we’re there. Helping distribute food, there’s UN workers, and we’re trying to make a nice impression and all that. And there’s this little girl, standing there watching us. I guess she was… about twelve, maybe? I could picture her in middle school, if they allowed her to go to school, which they probably don’t. Anyway, she was smiling, and joking around. Kowalski… he was from Nevada. Also from the middle of nowhere, go figure. Kowalski gives her a candy bar, and she hugs him. And then he turns to come back to us, and we hear a clink sound. Everybody panics, and I look down, and see the grenade. Someone threw it from the crowd, and it landed right at the little girl’s feet.”

Oh, my God. All I could think was, this was his moment of grace? His good thing that happened?
 

His eyes were really red now, and his face twisted a little as he said, “So, anyway, Kowalski… he threw himself on the grenade. He hugged it, with his back to the little girl. And it went off, and … he was just… shredded. Killed instantly. And you know… that little girl… she didn’t get touched. Not even a drop of blood. He saw that little girl, and just… threw his life away to save her.”

I shook my head, and even though he couldn’t cry, I started to. I couldn’t help myself. Because when he was telling that story, it was like I could see into his soul, and oh, God, did that hurt.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry I asked. I’m so sorry that happened.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t be. Don’t you get it? Can you imagine the… the heroism? That’s what grace is all about. He didn’t even think for one second about himself. All he thought about was that little girl, and saving her life.”

I sniffled. “Okay, new rule. If I’m about to ask you something that will make me start crying when I hear the answer, um, can you veto the question?”

He smiled, gently, and said, “If you want.”

“Your turn, then.”

The waitress showed up then, and brought us our food. And… let me tell you. I had actually underestimated how much he ordered. She had to bring two trays. Seriously. He tried to reorganize the plates a little, and ended up taking three quarters of the table. Pulling the pancakes toward him, he poured about ten thousand calories worth of syrup and butter on them, then started eating.

After swallowing he said, “Okay. What’s your favorite thing to do now that you’re in New York?”

I took a small bite of toast while I thought. Then I frowned. What was my favorite thing? I had things I liked to do, for sure. Kelly and I going out together. Going to the Butler Library. Picnicking in Riverside Park. What else? It’s not that I hadn’t enjoyed my freshman year in college, I really did. It’s just that… nothing stuck out that I could tag as a favorite thing. Except one. And that was sitting in Doctor Forrester’s office. With Dylan.