The Air He Breathes

  “Well, aren’t you the gentleman?” she nervously said.

  I cocked an eyebrow.

  Sighing, she avoided eye contact. “Gentle and slow…like you love me,” she whispered, hoping not to sound too desperate.

  I didn’t tell her, but that’s exactly how I needed it.

  That’s exactly how I would’ve loved to love Jamie on her birthday.

  God, my mind was fucked up.

  What was scary was how Elizabeth’s thoughts were almost a carbon copy of my own.

  How did two people so broken find each other’s shattered pieces?

  I was slow to enter her at first, my eyes watching how her body reacted to my being inside her. Her eyes wanted to close as I pushed in deeper, her lips parting, allowing a small moan to escape. When my tongue ran across her bottom lip, I was in the strawberry fields, tasting all of her.

  My hands were shaking, but I stopped the nerves by focusing on her eyes. She caught her breath, placing her hand over her heart for a moment. Her eyes were with mine, staring as if we’d never see one another again; it felt as if we were both terrified of losing that small bit of comfort.

  Did she see him when she stared my way? Did she remember his eyes?

  I could almost tell that her heart was beating as hard as mine, working as intensely.

  “Can I stay the night?” she whispered as I lifted her thighs and placed her back against the headboard.

  “Of course.” I sighed, rolling my tongue against her ear, massaging her breasts in my hands. She shouldn’t stay the night. But I wanted her to. I was so terrified of being alone with my thoughts that the reply fell from my mouth like I was begging. “We can pretend till morning,” I offered.

  She shouldn’t stay here, my brain ordered me. What are you doing?! it scolded.

  Harder. We both wanted it more and more now, our eyes locked the whole time. Our hips moved in harmony. “Oh my God,” she muttered, breathless. Our heart rates intensified as we allowed our bodies to become one for a while. I slid into her tightness and she arched her back for more.

  “Steven…” she whispered, but I didn’t even care.

  “Jams…” I muttered back, and she didn’t mind.

  We were so fucking insane.

  Deeper. I yanked on her hair as she wrapped her fingers in mine. Each second it grew a bit rougher, a bit wilder, a bit more untamed. “Fuck.” I sighed, loving how it felt being between her legs, loving the sweat that rolled down her body. It felt good to be inside her, it felt safe.

  Faster. I wanted to feel all of Elizabeth. I wanted to bury myself so deep inside her that she would never forget the way I made her skip reality. I wanted to fuck her as if she were my love and I was hers.

  Lifting her right leg, I placed it over my shoulder. I allowed her to feel every inch of me as she told me to make love to her harder. Did she realize what she’d said? Had she really said love? I knew it was what we had agreed to, but hearing the words fall from her lips made me lose focus for a moment.

  I wasn’t him.

  She wasn’t her.

  But my God, it felt good to lie to ourselves.

  She was out of breath, and I liked the way her head fell back to the headboard. I also liked how her nails dug into my skin as if she never wanted to let me go. Then she blinked once, and when her eyes reappeared, they were holding back tears. The tension of struggling tears strived for an outlet, yet she took a breath instead.

  Slower. She asked me once more if she could really stay the night. She was probably nervous that I’d kick her out afterward, and she would be forced back into the reality that she was alone. And I was alone. Pre-rejection was swimming in her eyes. But I’d promised I wouldn’t. I could see it in those brown eyes of hers: she hated being by herself with her own thoughts.

  We had something in common.

  Gentler.

  We had many things in common.

  Laying her down on the mattress, I kept myself inside her but slowed my movements. “I’ll stop,” I said, seeing tears falling from her eyes.

  “Please don’t,” she begged, shaking her head. She dug her fingers deeper into my back, as if she were trying to hold onto something that wasn’t even there.

  This is nothing more than a dream.

  “We’re dreaming, Elizabeth. We’re dreaming. It’s not real.”

  She pushed her hips up. “No. Keep going.”

  I wiped her tears away, but I didn’t keep going.

  It was wrong.

  She was broken.

  I was broken.

  I removed myself from her warmth and sat up on the edge of the bed. My hands gripped the sides of the mattress. The sheets wrinkled with her every move. She sat up on the other side of the bed, her hands gripped to the sides of the mattress. Our backs faced one another, but I swore I could still feel her heartbeats.

  “What’s wrong with us?” she whispered.

  My fingers brushed against my temple and I sighed. “Everything.”

  “Was today one of the big moments?” she asked.

  I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. “Jamie’s birthday.”

  She chuckled. I turned around to see her wiping tears away. “I thought so.” She stood up, slid on her panties, and tossed on her bra.

  “How did you know?”

  She moved over to me and stood between my legs. Her eyes studied my stare, and her fingers combed through my wild hair. She placed her hand against my chest, finding my rapid heartbeats. Her lips lay against mine, not kissing me, but feeling my breaths. “Because I could really feel how much you longed for her. In those stormy eyes I could see how disappointed you were that I wasn’t her.”

  “Elizabeth,” I said, feeling guilty.

  She shook her head and pulled away from me. “It’s okay,” she promised. She picked up her T-shirt and tossed it onto her small frame. She slid her pajama shorts up her legs and walked over to my window to leave. “Because I’m guessing you could see how disappointed I was that you weren’t him, too.”

  “We should probably stop doing this,” I said as she walked over to her window.

  She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and smiled. “Yeah, probably.” She climbed into her house and gave me a sly grin. “But we probably won’t anyway. Because I think we’re both a bit addicted to the past. I’ll see you later.”

  I fell backward onto my bed and groaned, because I knew she was right.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Elizabeth

  “So you’re seeing that Tristan Cole guy, huh?” Marybeth asked at the book club meeting.

  I arched an eyebrow as I held Little Women in my grip. “What?”

  “Oh, honey, you don’t have to be shy about it. Everyone in the neighborhood has seen the two of you hanging out. And don’t worry, you can tell us all about it. This is a safe place,” Susan promised.

  Yeah right.

  “He just cuts my grass. We hardly know each other.”

  “Is that why I saw you climbing out of his bedroom window at one in the morning the other night? Because he was cutting the grass?” asked a woman I’d never even spoken to.

  “I’m sorry, who are you?”

  “Oh, I’m Dana. I’m new to the neighborhood.”

  It took everything in me to not roll my eyes. She would fit right in.

  “So is that true? Were you climbing out of his window? I told Dana I didn’t believe it because you just lost your husband and it would be insulting to his memory for you to already be moving on with another man,” Marybeth explained. “It would be like a slap in the face of your marriage. Almost as if your vows were only written in sand and not in your heart.”

  My stomach twisted in knots. “Maybe we should talk about the novel,” I offered.

  But they kept asking me questions. Questions I didn’t have answers to. Questions I didn’t want to answer. The night went on and on, and it all felt like slow motion. When the end of the night came, I couldn’t have been happier.

  ??
?Okay, bye, ladies!” Susan said, waving to Emma and me as we left her house. “Remember, in two weeks make sure you’ve read Fifty Shades of Grey! And bring notes!”

  I waved goodbye to everyone. By the end of the night, we hadn’t spoken one word about Little Women, but I felt extremely belittled by these women.

  August 23rd.

  It was just a date to most people, but to me, it was more.

  Steven’s birthday.

  One of the big moments.

  I was supposed to be better at the big moments. The little moments were what were supposed to hurt me the most.

  I leaned against the tree in my backyard and looked up at the bright sky, the sunrays shining overhead. Emma was playing with Zeus in the small plastic swimming pool I’d bought her, and Tristan was working outside his shed building a dining room table.

  Out of nowhere, a white feather came floating past me. A small, tiny feather that somehow stung my soul. An overwhelming feeling of loss flew through me as I hit the palm of my hand against my head repeatedly. My heart was pounding against my chest as memories of Steven came flooding in, suffocating me, drowning me. I couldn’t breathe as I slapped myself repeatedly and slid down the tree trunk, my body shaking uncontrollably. “I’m sorry,” I cried, to myself. To Steven. “I’m sorry I couldn’t…” I howled, shutting my eyes.

  Two hands landed on my shoulders and I jumped in fright. “Shhh, it’s me, Elizabeth,” Tristan whispered, falling to the ground and wrapping his arms around me. “I got you.”

  I pulled on his T-shirt, pressing my body against him as I soaked him with my tears. “I couldn’t save him, I couldn’t save him,” I wailed into his shirt. “He was my world and I couldn’t save him. He fought for me and—” I couldn’t talk anymore. I couldn’t get my scrambled thoughts to leave my choking heart.

  “Shh, Elizabeth. I got you. I got you.” His voice soothed me as I fell apart, having the first breakdown in a long time. I held on to him, silently begging him to never let me go.

  That was when he held on tighter.

  Then I felt two tiny hands wrap around me, and Emma pulled me close to her.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” I whispered, shaking against Tristan and my little one. “Mama’s sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Mama,” she promised. “It’s okay.”

  But she was wrong.

  It wasn’t okay.

  And I wasn’t sure if it ever would be.

  That night, it began to rain. For a while I sat in my night robe, just watching the deluge of raindrops hitting hard against the ground. I cried with the rain, unable to hold myself together. Emma was sleeping in the other room, and Tristan allowed Zeus to stay the night with her.

  Make it stop, I begged my heart. Make the pain go away, I pleaded.

  I crawled out my window and over to Tristan’s. I was soaked within seconds, but I didn’t care. I tapped lightly on his window, and he wandered over, shirtless, staring at me. His arms held the edge of the windowsill, showcasing his toned arms.

  “Not tonight,” he said, his voice low. “Go home, Elizabeth.”

  My eyes still burned from all the crying. My heart still hurt from all the longing. “Tonight,” I argued.

  “No.”

  My fingers wrapped around the string holding my robe together and I untied it, dropping the fabric to the ground, standing in the rain in only my bra and panties. “Yes.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, sliding his window open. “Get inside.”

  I did as he said. A puddle of water formed around my feet, and I shook from the cold. From the hurt. “Ask me how I want it tonight.”

  “No.” His voice was stern, and he wouldn’t make eye contact with me.

  “I want it like you love me.”

  “Elizabeth—”

  “You can do it hard, if you want.”

  “Stop.”

  “Look at me, Tristan.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” I asked, walking close to him as he turned his back to me. “Don’t you want me?”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t think I’m beautiful? Am I not as pretty as her? Am I not as good as—”

  He shot around and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t do this, Elizabeth.”

  “Fuck me, please…” I cried, running my fingers against his chest. “Please make love to me.”

  “I can’t.”

  I hit his chest. “Why not?!” I cried, my vision becoming blurry. “Why not?! I let you touch me when you wanted her. I let you screw me when you needed it. I let you…” My words faded off, becoming sobs. “I let you… Why not…”

  He grabbed my fists, stopping me from pounding all my anger against his chest. “Because, you’re broken. You’re extremely broken tonight.”

  “Just make love to me.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, I can’t.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Yes, it is,” he said.

  “No, it’s not. Stop being a coward. Just tell me why not. Why the hell not?!”

  “Because I’m not him!” he shouted, my body shaking in his grip. “I’m not Steven, Elizabeth. I’m not what you want.”

  “You can be, though. You can be him.”

  “No,” he said, sternly. “I can’t.”

  I shoved him. “I hate you!” I shouted, my throat burning as tears fell against my lips. “I hate you!” But I wasn’t talking to Tristan. “I hate you for leaving me! I hate you for leaving me. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.” I lost myself in Tristan’s arms.

  I fell apart in a way I’d never experienced in my life.

  I shook, I screamed, and a part of me died.

  But Tristan held me, making sure not all of my soul disappeared that night.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Elizabeth

  I waited two weeks before I could face Tristan again. I was embarrassed, ashamed of the way I’d broken down in his room, but when he called me over to talk about the possibility of me doing the interior design for his home, I felt as if I had to suck up my fears.

  “Are you okay? You seem off,” Tristan said as he walked Emma and me through his house. I was still so extremely uncomfortable with what I’d done, the way I’d fallen apart in front of him.

  “No, I’m fine,” I said. “Just taking everything in.” I gave him a fake smile he saw straight through.

  “Okay, well, you can do pretty much anything you want with the place. There’s the living room, dining room, bathroom, my bedroom, and the kitchen mainly. And I would love for the study to not look like a complete mess.”

  I walked into the study, where boxes were stacked on top of boxes. His desk was covered with items, and as he walked Emma and Zeus out of the room, I stayed paused, staring at a receipt partially hidden under some paperwork. I picked it up and read it.

  Five thousand white feathers.

  Overnight shipping.

  I opened one of the boxes on his desk and my heart skipped as I saw more bags of feathers. He hadn’t found the white feathers at Mr. Henson’s shop. He’d ordered them. He’d ordered thousands of them, just so Emma’s heart wouldn’t be broken.

  Tristan…

  “You coming, Elizabeth?” I heard him shout. I closed the box and hurried out of the room.

  “Yup, I’m here.” I cleared my throat and gave him a smile. “What about your shed? I asked, catching up to Tristan. “I can fix that up for you too.”

  “No, the shed is off limits. That’s…” He paused and frowned. “It’s just off limits.”

  I narrowed my eyes in understanding. “Okay…well, I think I’ve got everything I need for now. I’ll draw up some different ideas and make some boards with fabrics and colors for us to go over together later on. I better get going.”

  “You’re in a hurry.”

  “Yeah, well, you know.” I glanced over at Emma, who was playing with Zeus, living in h
er own world. “Emma has a sleepover tonight that I have to get her ready for.”

  Tristan stepped closer to me and spoke softly, “Are you angry with me? For the night you came over?”

  “No.” I sighed. “I’m angrier with myself. You did nothing wrong.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Truly, Tristan. You held me when I needed you the most.” I smiled. “But maybe it’s best we don’t use each other to remember anymore… Obviously I can’t handle it.”

  He frowned and looked at the ground, almost as if he were disappointed, but within a second he held his head up and gave me a small grin. “I want to show you and Emma something.”

  He led us to the back of the house and held the back door open. I listened to the nightly crickets chatting amongst themselves. It was a comforting sound…peaceful even.

  “Where are we going?” I wondered out loud.

  He nodded toward the darkened woods as he picked up a flashlight from the back hallway. I didn’t ask any more questions. I grabbed Emma’s hand and walked beside Tristan. We walked into the night and he led us deeper into the woods.

  The skies were star-filled and the sweet, wet spring air greeted us as we stepped in and out of the shadows between the trees. The branches swung back and forth as we pushed our way through the woods. “We’re almost there,” Tristan insisted.

  But where?

  When we reached it, I knew instantly that it was where he wanted to take us, just based on the beauty. My hands covered my mouth to keep from making any sound. There was this odd fear that if I made a peep, all the beauty would vanish. A small river flowed before us. The stream was quiet, as if all the creatures who traveled by the small waves were resting peacefully. Across the river lay what seemed like an old stone packhorse bridge. Through the cracks of stones flowers were growing, making the view perfect under the moonlight.

  “I found this place with Zeus,” Tristan said, walking over to the bridge and taking a seat. “Whenever I need to clear my head, I come here to refocus my mind.”

  I sat beside him, took off my shoes, and slipped my feet into the chilled water. Emma and Zeus splashed in the water joyfully, freely.