Ten Tiny Breaths (3 page)

“Because we’re in a cool, damp underground
laundromat in Miami. Creepy eight-legged things and things that
slither and crawl hide out in places like this.

I recoil as I fight the shiver from running
through my body, envisioning my hand re-emerging from underneath
with a quarter and a bonus snake. Few things freak me out. Beady
eyeballs and a writhing body is one of them. “Funny, I’ve heard
creepy two-legged things lurk in these places too. They’re called
Creeps. A plague, one might say.” Leaning far over in my short
black shorts, he’s got to be getting a nice view of my ass right
about now.
Go ahead, perv. Enjoy it ’cause that’s all you’re
getting. And if I sense so much as a brush against my skin, I’ll
take you out at the knee caps.

He answers with a throaty laugh. “Well
played. How about you get up off your knees?” The hairs on my neck
prickle with his words. There’s something decidedly sexual in his
tone. I hear the sound of metal against metal as he adds, “this
creep has an extra quarter.”

“Well, then, you’re my favorite kind of—” I
start to say, reaching for the top of the machine as I stand to
meet this asshole face to face. Of course the open bottle of
detergent is right there. Of course my hand knocks it clean off. Of
course it splatters all over the machine and the floor.

“Dammit!” I curse, dropping to my knees again
as I watch the sticky green soap ooze everywhere. “Tanner’s gonna
evict me.”

Creep’s voice drops low. “What’s it worth to
you for me to keep quiet?” Footsteps approach.

On instinct, I adjust my position so I can
dislocate his joint with a kick and make him crumble in agony, just
like I’d learned in my sparring sessions. My spine tingles as a
white sheet sails down to cover the floor in front of me. Sucking
in a breath, I wait patiently as Creep passes my left side and
crouches.

The air leaves my lungs in a swoosh, and I’m
left staring at a set of deep dimples and the bluest eyes I’ve ever
seen—cobalt rings with light blue on the inside. I squint.
Do
they have turquoise flecks inside them? Yes! My God
! The blue
floors, the rusty old machines, the walls, everything around me
vanishes under the weight of his gaze as it strips me of my
protective bitch coat, yanking it clean off my body, leaving me
bare and vulnerable in seconds.

“We can soak it up with this. I needed
detergent anyway,” he murmurs with a boyish amused grin as he drags
his sheet around to saturate the spilled liquid.

“Wait, you don’t have to …” My voice fades,
the weakness in it making me nauseous. Suddenly I’m feeling all
kinds of wrong for labeling him creepy. He can’t be a creep. He’s
too beautiful and too nice. I’m the idiot throwing quarters all
over the place and now he’s sopping up my detergent off this dirty
floor with his sheets to help me!

I can’t seem to form words. Not while I’m
gawking at Not Creep’s ripped forearms, feeling heat ripple into my
lower belly. In a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled and the
top buttons undone, he’s exposing the beginnings of a killer upper
body to me.

“See something that interests you?” he asks,
his taunt snapping my eyes back to his smirking face, blood rushing
to my cheeks. Damn this guy. He seems to flip flop from Good
Samaritan to Evil Tempter with each new sentence out of his mouth.
Worse, he caught me ogling his body. Me! Ogling! I’m around
first-class bodies every day at the gym and they don’t faze me.
Somehow, I’m not immune to him.

“I just moved in. 1D. My name’s Trent.” He
looks up at me from under impossibly long lashes, his shaggy,
golden brown hair framing his face beautifully.

“Kacey,” I force out.
So, this guy is the
new tenant; our neighbor. He lives on the other side of my living
room wall! Gah!

“Kacey,” he repeats. I love the shape of his
lips when he says my name. My attention lingers there, staring at
that mouth, at his set of perfectly straight, white teeth, until I
feel my face explode with a third wave of heat.
Dammit! Kacey
Cleary blushes for no one!

“I’d shake your hand, Kacey, but—” Trent says
with a teasing smile, holding up detergent covered palms.

There. That does it. The idea of touching
those hands slaps me across the cheek, breaking whatever temporary
haze this Trent man has confused me with, pushing me back to
reality.

I can think straight again. With a deep
inhale, I struggle to reactivate my shields, to form a barrier from
this Godlike creature, to end all reaction to him so I can just
live my life and keep it untangled from his issues. It’s so much
easier.
And that’s all this is, Kacey. A reaction. A strange,
uncharacteristic reaction because of a guy. An incredibly hot guy
but, in the end, nothing you want to get mixed up in.

“Thanks for the quarter,” I say coolly,
standing and sliding the pro-offered coin into the slot. I start
the washer.

“It’s the least I could do for scaring the
crap out of you.” He’s up and shoving his sheets into the machine
beside mine. “If Tanner says anything, I’ll tell him I did it. It’s
partially my fault anyway.”

“Partially?”

He chuckles as he shakes his head. We’re
standing close now, so close that our shoulders almost touch. Too
close.

I take a few steps back to give myself space.
I end up staring at his back, admiring how his blue checkered shirt
stretches across his broad shoulders, how his dark blue jeans fit
his ass perfectly.

He stops what he’s doing to glance over his
shoulder, blazing eyes leveling me with a look that makes me want
to do things to him, for him, with him. His attention drags down
the length of my body, unashamed. This guy is a contradiction. One
second sweet, the next second brazen. A mind-blowing hot
contradiction.

A warning siren goes off in my head. I
promised Livie that the random one-night hook ups would stop. And
they have. For two years, I haven’t given anyone the time of day.
Now, here I am, day one in our new life, and I’m ready to straddle
this guy on the washer.

Suddenly I’m writhing in my own skin,
uncomfortable.
Breathe, Kacey
, I hear my mom’s voice in my
head.
Count to ten, Kace. Ten tiny breaths
. As usual, her
advice doesn’t help me because it makes no sense. All that makes
sense is getting away from this two-legged trap. Immediately.

I move backward toward the door.

I don’t want these thoughts. I don’t need
them.

“So, where are you …?”

I run up the stairs to safety before I hear
Trent finish his sentence. Not until I’m above ground do I search
for a breath. I lean against the wall and close my eyes, welcoming
that protective coat back as it slides back over my skin, and takes
back control of my body.

A hissing sound …

Bright lights …

Blood …

Water, rushing over my head. I’m drowning.

“Kacey, wake up!” Livie’s voice pulls me out
of that suffocating darkness and back into my bedroom. It’s three
a.m. and I’m drenched with sweat.

“Thanks, Livie.”

“Anytime,” she answers softly, laying down
beside me. Livie’s used to my nightmares. I rarely go a night
without one. Sometimes I wake up on my own. Sometimes I start
hyperventilating and she has to dump a glass of cold water over my
head to bring me back. She didn’t have to do that tonight.

Tonight is a good night.

I stay quiet and still until I hear her slow,
rhythmic breathing again, and I thank God for not taking her from
me too. He took everyone else, but he left me Livie. I like to
think he gave her the flu that night to keep her from coming to my
rugby game. Congested lungs and a runny nose saved her.

Saved my one ray of light.

***

I get up early to say bye to Livie on her
first day at her new high school. “You have all the paperwork?” I
remind her. I signed everything as Livie’s legal guardian and made
her swear to that if anyone asks.

“For what it’s worth …”

“Livie, just stick to the story and
everything will go smoothly.” To be honest, I’m a little worried.
Depending on Livie to lie is like expecting a house of cards to
stay up in a windstorm. Impossible. Livie can’t lie if her life
depends on it. It kind of does in this case.

I watch her finish her Cheerios and grab her
school bag, pushing her hair back behind her ear a dozen times.
That’s one of her many tells. A tell that she’s panicking.

“Just think, Livie. You can be anyone you
want to be,” I offer, rubbing her biceps as she’s about to head out
the door. I recall finding one shred of solace when we moved to
Aunt Darla and Uncle Raymond’s—a new school and new people who knew
nothing about me. I was dumb enough to believe the break from
pitying eyes would last. But news travels fast around small towns,
and soon I found myself eating lunches in the bathroom or skipping
school altogether to avoid the whispers. Now though, we’re worlds
away from Michigan. We really do have a chance to start over
fresh.

Livie stops and turns to stare at me blankly.
“I’m Olivia Cleary. I’m not trying to be anyone else.”

“I know. I just mean, no one knows anything
about our past here.” That was another one of our negotiating
points coming here. My requirement—no sharing our past with
anyone.

“Our past isn’t who we are. I’m me and you’re
you and that’s who we need to be,” Livie reminds me. She leaves and
I know exactly what she’s thinking. I’m not Kacey Cleary anymore.
I’m an empty shell who cracks inappropriate jokes and feels
nothing. I’m a Kacey imposter.

***

When I searched for our apartment, not only
was I looking for a decent school for Livie. I needed a gym. Not
one where pencil-thin girls prance around in new outfits and stand
near the weights, talking on their phone. A fighter’s gym.

That’s how I found The Breaking Point.

The Breaking Point is the same size as the
O’Malleys in Michigan and I instantly feel at home when I step
inside. It’s complete with dim lighting, a fighting ring and a
dozen bags of various sizes and weights, hung from the rafters. The
air is infused with that familiar stench of sweat and aggression—a
bi-product of the fifty to one male to female ratio.

As I step into the main room, I inhale
deeply, welcoming the security it brings with it. Three years ago,
after the hospital released me from long term care—after extensive
physiotherapy to strengthen the right side of my body, shattered in
the accident—I joined a gym. I spent hours there each day, lifting
weights, doing cardio, all the things that strengthened my
shattered body, but did nothing to help my devastated soul.

Then one day, a ripped guy named Jeff with
more piercings and tattoos than a jaded rock star introduced
himself. “You’re pretty intense in your workouts,” he said. I
nodded, uninterested in any direction the conversation could go.
Until he handed me his card. “Have you tried O’Malleys down the
road? I teach kick boxing down there a few nights a week.”

I’m a natural, apparently. I quickly excelled
as his star pupil, probably because I trained seven days a week
without fail. It has turned out to be the perfect coping mechanism
for me. With each kick and each hit, I’m able to channel my anger,
my frustration, and my hurt into one solid blow. All the emotions I
work hard to bury in my life, I can release here in a
non-destructive way.

Thankfully, The Breaking Point is cheap and
they let you pay month to month with no enrollment fees. I have
enough cash set aside for one month. I know it should be going
toward food but not working out is not an option for me. Society is
better off with me in a gym.

After I enroll and get the grand tour, I drop
my gear by an available sand bag. And I feel their eyes on me, the
questioning stares.
Who’s the redhead? Doesn’t she realize what
kind of gym this is?
They’re wondering if I can throw a punch
worth shit. They’re probably taking bets already on who gets me in
the shower first.

Let them try.

I ignore the attention, the flagrant comments
and snickers, as I stretch my muscles, afraid I’ll strain something
after missing three days. And I smirk. Cocky assholes.

Taking several breaths to sooth my nerves, I
focus on this bag, this gracious thing that will absorb all my
pain, my suffering, my hatred without protest.

And then I release it all.

***

The sun isn’t even up yet, and the worst kind
of old man heavy metal blasts through my room. My alarm clock reads
six a.m.
Yup. Right on schedule
. It’s the third day in a row
that my neighbor wakes me up to this racket. “Keep thy peace,” I
mutter as I jerk my covers over my head, replaying Tanner’s words.
I guess keeping thy peace means not kicking down thy neighbor’s
door and smashing thy electronics against the wall.

That doesn’t mean I can’t exact thy
revenge.

I grab my iPod—one of the few non-clothes
possessions I grabbed in our dash—and scroll through the playlists.
There it is. Hannah Montana. My best friend, Jenny, loaded all this
tween shit as a joke years ago.
Looks like it’s finally going to
come in handy
. I push away the ache that goes along with the
memories tied to it as I hit play and crank the volume to max. The
contorted sound bounces off the walls of my confined space. The
speakers will likely blow but this is worth it.

And then I dance.

Like a maniac, I bop around my room, waving
my arms, hoping this person hates Hannah Montana as much as I
do.

“What are you doing?” Livie yells, barreling
into my room in rumpled PJs, her hair untamed. She leaps onto my
iPod to slam the power button off.

“Just teaching our neighbor a lesson about
waking me up. He’s some kind of dickhole.”