Just Remember to Breathe

“No. That’s fine.”

  Good God. What was I doing?

  My mouth ran off with me again. “Let me get your number, in case something comes up.”

  So, for the first time since we broke up last February, we exchanged phone numbers.

  After we split up, I walked back to the dorm. And I was afraid. Oh, God I was afraid. Afraid I was going to ruin it. Even more afraid that he would. That I’d let myself get close to him again, and that I’d let him break my heart again.

  Last February … it was a nightmare. I cried myself to sleep every night. Tortured myself really.

  I was a mess.

  I got back to the dorm and let myself in, then sat down on my bed, my eyes turning to the bottom drawer of my bureau. Don’t do it, I thought. I’d packed everything away, when six weeks had gone by with no word from him, no response from him.

  Feeling like I was going to cry, feeling like a robot with no control over my own actions, I leaned forward and slid open the drawer.

  To a casual examination, for example from a nosy as hell roommate, you’d see folded sweaters in the drawer.

  Underneath, however… was a box. I slid the box out of the drawer and sat in on the bed next to me, and opened it.

  On top was an 8 by 10 photo of me and Dylan. He was leaning on the grass on his side, head propped on his right arm. He wore a black trench-coat and a white turtleneck, and he was smiling. I was curled up against his legs, facing him. In the photo our eyes are locked, faces close together, huge smiles on both of our faces.

  A tear ran down my face, looking at the picture. Angrily, I swiped it away, then set the photo to the side.

  Underneath the picture was a thick leather photo album.

  Inside was our own love story.

  There we were, together in Tel Aviv. Holding hands together as we walked on the pier in Jaffa. Standing waist deep in the Mediterranean Sea, arms around each other.

  Sitting together on the tour bus. He was wearing the ridiculous kuffiyah he’d bought in Nazareth. I was wearing a light brown sweater, hair loose around my shoulders. Because he liked it down. His arm was around my shoulder.

  A whole series of the youth hostel in Ein Gedi near the Dead Sea… where we’d kissed for the first time.

  Someone took a picture of us together standing on the Golan Heights, the Sea of Galilee to our backs. He’s standing behind me, arms around my waist, my head thrown back in a giant laugh.

  A series of greying photos taken in the photo booth at the bus station in San Francisco. He’d taken Greyhound all the way from Atlanta to come see me, the summer after his senior year. In the photos he’s wearing a leather jacket and a fedora, and we’re kissing.

  Dried roses. They’d come on my nineteenth birthday, last fall, not long after he left for Afghanistan. It was the last thing I’d ever expected, to have flowers delivered from halfway around the world on my birthday.

  When Kelly walked in the room, I was curled up on my bed crying, surrounded by all the evidence of my stupid inability to let go. She got one look and said, “Oh, no. Alex, hun. You’ve got it bad.”

  “Oh, shit, I’m sorry Kelly.”

  “It’s okay, babe. Slide over.”

  I did, and she climbed into bed beside me and hugged me while I cried my eyes out.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Just remember to breathe (Alex)

  The alarm starting ringing at an ungodly hour. As in, before six in the morning. I hadn’t seen that early in the morning since high school, and I’d been perfectly happy that way.

  Kelly, across the room from me, muttered, “Oh my god, what the hell is that?” then started snoring again.

  At first, I rolled over and hit the snooze button. I closed my eyes, thinking I should just go back to sleep. My mind drifted, half unconscious, to a semi-dream. I was holding hands with Dylan, and it was summer before my senior year of high school. I could feel the calluses on the tips of fingers from his guitar playing. We’d walked a quarter of the way out on the Golden Gate Bridge, staying close the entire time,and were looking down at the bay. His eyes were wide, dreamy, and we talked about our dreams of the future.

  We were struggling, because our dreams were… different. He was going to travel, and write. I was going to college, probably in New York. He was finished with high school, and planned on leaving the country within months. I had another year in San Francisco. We’d turned to each other, there on the bridge, and as the wind blew through our hair he gently kissed me.

  Dylan.

  Dylan.

  My eyes popped open. It was 5:56, and I was going to be late.

  I jerked out of bed, stumbled, and fell flat, catching myself at the last second. Heart beating rapidly, I threw open my top drawer and started throwing clothes, trying to find something to wear.

  “What are you doing?” Kelly asked, her voice slurred with sleep.

  “I’m late. To go running with Dylan.”

  “Oh. I must be dreaming. It sounded like you said you’re going running. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Her words faded into a mumble, and I finally found some shorts, a sports bra and a halter top. Where the hell were my sneakers? I searched around for them, and finally stumbled over them and nearly hit my head. Oh, God. I was being such a spaz.

  At 6:05 I sent Dylan a quick text message:

  Running Late. There vry soon.

  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 114th 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 that had been done 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 leg 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 use
d 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 fell from 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 really slowly, 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 on 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 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 if I remember it or not. 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.”