Heart Breaths (9 page)

I burst into laughter. “You have
Mean Girls
?”

He scowled. “Sam probably downloaded it from iTunes one night when I was at work late,” he said. “God help her if she watched it with Noie.”

I kept laughing, now imagining Noie telling Gabe to stop trying to make fetch happen. “It’s actually a great movie,” I said, giggling.

“I’m sure it is,” he said, doubt written all over his face. “Sam’s given me the same lecture about
The Notebook
and
Legally Blonde
and some other pink girly movie.”

“You never watched
Legally Blonde
?” I fake gasped. “It was a groundbreaking movie, Gabe. And you claim to be cultured.”

If his eyebrows could go up higher, they probably would have. “I’m going to get cultured about some blonde girl who goes to Harvard and wins a court case by knowing about perms?”

“You know, that sounds suspiciously like you watched it.”

“No, but Sam has. Probably fifty times. And feels the need to explain to me, after every single time she watches it, why it is imperative for my future romantic life that I watch it.”

“
Legally Blonde
?” I asked doubtfully. “That’s more of a
The Notebook
thing.”

He shrugged. “
Legally Blonde
is the pink Harvard one,
The Notebook
is the romantic one with the house. I told her she should watch something with Leonardo DiCaprio in it. Something that’s not
Titanic
.”

“You guys are nuts,” I said, smiling, so jealous my teeth hurt. Had I ever had a relationship like that with Jen? Never.

“Well, I don’t have
Titanic
, so if you wanted to watch that, I’m sorry.”

“It’s crushing me inside,” I snarked. “I was all set to sing along with ‘My Heart Will Go On’ with you.”

“Next time then. Anything else sound good?”

“I never saw
Inception
.”

“Awesome,” he said, opening the movie up and setting up the laptop so we could both see it comfortably. I looked at the space in between us on the couch, and inched a little in the other direction.

“Do I smell?” he asked as the previews played quietly.

“No, just like the arm of the couch,” I said. What was I supposed to say? I’m terrified of sitting too close to you because I’m trying to keep this platonic but really I want to sit on your lap but that’s got to be one of the stupidest ideas I’ve had recently?

Not if I wanted to stay I couldn’t.

The movie started, and I was sucked into the story.

If I breathed at all the next two hours, I couldn’t tell. The movie was edge-of-your-seat, one scene to the next. And somewhere in the middle of the movie, Gabe and I were sitting closer to each other than we had been in the beginning. Not right next to each other, but not at the opposite ends of the couch.

And then closer. And closer.

Somewhere nearing the end, I felt the brush of Gabe’s thigh against mine. And I nearly jumped out of my skin. Focusing on the movie, I tried to pretend not to notice the warmth of his leg next to mine. The smell of him, which seemed to be all I could smell.

The credits were rolling when we heard a cry from the bedroom. Noie. Turning to each other, we both rushed to her room. “No! No!” she screamed, terrified. Gabe reached over, scooping her out of her bed and rocking her against him.

“It’s okay,” he crooned as she cried. “It’s okay, baby.”

Noie kept crying. “No, no, no,” she sobbed, still in the throes of her dream. Her eyes opened and she stared straight ahead, sightless, still screaming. She thrashed and kicked, panicking as Gabe tightened his hold on her.

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay.” It was hard to hear him over the sound of her screams.

It wasn’t okay. Something was wrong. Something was scaring her, and there didn’t seem to be any way for him to stop it.

Gabe’s expression collapsed as Noie continued to sob, terrified. Nothing hurt like hearing someone you love cry and knowing that you couldn’t make it stop. That you couldn’t make it go away. I knew that feeling of scared hopelessness well. Too well. It was killing me, to hear her cry like that.

“Does this happen often?” I whispered.

He nodded, stroking her back and whispering to her. I stood there, helpless and hopeless while Noie cried. Walking out of her room, Gabe started toward his bedroom.

“I should go,” I whispered, knowing there was nothing I could do to fix things.

He looked at me over her head, looking exhausted. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” he whispered.

I nodded, not sure.

“Thanks for tonight,” I whispered. He smiled wanly, and bent back down to Noie.

Turning, I walked out of the apartment, Noie’s sobs following me out.

My own tears waited until I hit the beach.

Chapter · Ten

The café was at its usual busy pace when Gabe walked in the next morning. “I’m going to the back to refill this tray, okay, Grandma?” I asked, grabbing a tray at random. I couldn’t face him after what happened last night.

It wasn’t so much him as it was me. Last night was an emotional earthquake, and seeing him again would just bring everything back. It was like he was some sort of trigger for remembering everything that had happened—the good and the bad. It was too much for me to deal with. Especially in front of other people.

Her eyebrows lifted but she didn’t say anything. Taking as long as I could in the back, I walked back toward the front counter, hoping that Gabe was gone by the time I got back. Peering around the edge of the doorway, I saw the back of his suit jacket as he walked out the door and heaved a sigh of relief.

“You running away from people?” Grandma said to me, refilling the coffee pots.

I shrugged.

“It’s for their own good,” I whispered.

“Honey, you’ve barely said three words to the boy. Give it time before you start freaking out.”

I leaned against the counter, exhausted. I was always so tired. “I’m just a mess, Grandma,” I mumbled, staring at my paint-splattered Converse.

She looked at me, hands on her hips. “Honey chil’, you think I’m blind or something? You say that like I didn’t know.”

I laughed.

Walking over and placing her hands on my arms she looked me in the eye. “We’re all a mess, darling,” she said. “But you got to learn to work around your mess before you bury yourself in it.”

“What if it’s too late?”

”You dead yet? No? Then you’ve still got time.”

“Maddie!” Grandma stuck her head out of the kitchen. “Did I forget to order enough milk again?”

I shrugged. “There’s none left?”

“I don’t think so. I’m going to have to put in a call to Martin, this is ridiculous.” She shook her head, exasperated. “Which will help for tomorrow, but we’re going to need another gallon or two for the rest of today, just to make sure we don’t run out.”

I glanced around the quiet café. “Want me to run and pick up some?”

Her face brightened. “Perfect. Go to Joanie at the grocery store and have her put it on my tab. Get two gallons of two percent milk.”

I shrugged out of my apron and retied my ponytail. “No problem.”

Walking down Oceanfront Lane, I looked into the windows of every store I passed, feeling like a Peeping Tom. I had been living in Eno for almost two months at this point, and I still hadn’t gotten used to the charm of North Carolina. The grocery store was at the other end of Oceanfront Lane and was the only grocery store inside town limits. It felt like a movie set labeled “Small Beach Town,” with the fishing store, lingerie boutique, record store and ice cream parlor all snuggled next to each other like bugs in a rug.

Apparently, living in Eno for two months had made my subconscious decide to use Southern similes, too.

I took my time walking back to the café, a gallon of milk in each hand. Everything was quiet, the surge of summer people still had a while until they started to trickle in. A small sign caught my eye. Tarnation Bookstore. I snickered and kept walking.

A bookstore. I hadn’t been to one since I moved. And truth be told, my nights needed distracting. I hadn’t brought my laptop with me, my phone was in pieces on the New Jersey Turnpike, and apparently Martina, the government painting waitress, hadn’t been one for any sort of entertainment. And if she was, she had taken it all with her. Spending nights wandering by the beach was therapeutic and all, but there were only so many hours I could spend sitting by the sand dunes and trying to put the pieces of my life back together.

Instead of going up to my apartment after we finished closing the café that night, I headed over to the bookstore. Pulling the door open, I walked inside.

I didn’t even know where to look. It had been so long that I read for pleasure. I wandered up and down the aisles, trying to find something that I wanted to read. Fifteen minutes later, I walked to the front of the store with a pile of books. “This all for today?” the lady behind the counter asked.

I reached over and grabbed a big Sudoku book. I loved Sudoku, and had missed doing them. “Yeah, that’s all.”

“Oh, you’re the new waitress at Evelyn’s,” she said, beaming. “I keep on missing you when I go there.”

Apparently, I didn’t even have to introduce myself to people anymore—my accent gave me away. Which I was okay with—it saved me from any awkward introductions. That part of small town life suited me just fine—they knew who I was, and were more than happy to let me know who they were.

“I was actually going to come on over tomorrow to ask you something,” she said, ringing up the books. “My husband’s a newspaper purist—he won’t read them online, says they’re not the same. We get the
New York Times
, and I was wondering if you’d want to read them after he’s done. But he does the crossword.”

The New York Times.
I hadn’t read the paper in months. “I’d love that, actually.”

“And I even have today’s here with me. I brought it in so I wouldn’t forget to come and talk to you tomorrow.”

She tucked it into the bag with the rest of the books. “Happy reading.”

Wallet a lot lighter, I made my way back to the café and headed upstairs to my apartment.

Searching for a pen, I brushed into the wall, and hearing it creak, I turned, startled.

It was a sliding door—one that hadn’t looked like it had been used in years. Pushing it slowly, I opened the door to find a little porch, looking out onto the back of the café, with a view of the beach.

Picking up the phone that she had installed there, I dialed Grandma. “Is this porch safe?” I asked, looking at it through the open doors.

“The porch? Of course, honey. Why would you think it wasn’t?”

“The door was painted shut. I don’t know, maybe it got damaged during the last hurricane.”

“No, nothing’s wrong, it just sticks when you don’t use it in a while.”

I walked gingerly onto the porch, still a little nervous. The porch was solid and sturdy, and full of sand. After sweeping all the collected sand off the edge of the porch, I went back in to grab my Sudoku book, pen, and newspaper. The wicker chair was worn and comfortable. Propping my feet up against the little footstool, I watched the waves roll off in the distance. The weather was warm, and the smell of ocean danced around me.

Sudoku or the newspaper? I hadn’t picked up a newspaper since I left New York—for that matter, I hadn’t turned on a radio, checked my email, or had any urge whatsoever to find out what was going on in the world. Running away meant running away from everything, not just from the people. Working in the café, I heard random bits of national news, but for the most part, people in the café talked about the things going on here in Eno.

I was in North Carolina, sitting on a porch watching the ocean. But after years of reading the newspaper every day, I itched to unfold the New York Times, the same way I used to do every morning, and let myself read about what was going on in the world.

Decision made, I picked up the newspaper and folded it unconsciously, and started to scan the headlines. There was something familiar about reading the
Times
—familiar without being too stifling. I read through the sections slowly—more carefully than I normally had. But this was a part of me that I had left behind, only because I needed to get as far away from anything that reminded me of home as I could. But I was miles and miles away from New York and the people I left there. Nothing in the business section would make a difference to me here. And then I got to the society pages.

Why I hadn’t burnt them before coming back to the apartment, I didn’t know.

But there it was. Nestled in the corner, big enough to scream important but not big enough to be tacky. Because God forbid would they do anything tacky.

Mr. and Mrs. Russell Darlington-Gray are proud to announce the engagement of their daughter, Jennifer Anne, to Crawford Francis Duport III.

I dropped the newspaper, my fingers numb.

It figured, didn’t it?

She had to.

A knock on the front door startled me.

Walking toward the door, I looked through the peephole. Gabe.

I wrenched open the door. “What are you doing here?” I snapped.

“Whoa, you okay?”

“I’m fine, okay? I’m fine. Everyone needs to stop fucking asking me if I’m fine!”

“Sorry,” he said, putting his hands up. “I didn’t see you at the café this morning, and I just wanted to make sure everything’s okay.”

I was tired of lying.

I was tired of pretending.

“Everything’s just shitty, thanks for asking. Shouldn’t you be with your kid, or something?”

“Okay, that was uncalled for.”

I sagged against the doorway. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“What happened?”

“I can’t do this now.” I swallowed hard. “You should go. I’m not the best company right now.”

He looked down at my face, his eyes worried. “Everyone’s shitty company sometimes,” he said. “Usually when they need other people the most.”

“I just can’t right now.” I turned away, feeling the tears start to form.

Shit.

I wasn’t going to cry in front of him.

“Why do you think pushing it off is going to make it easier to deal with?”

“I never said it would!” I turned away from the door and walked toward my couch. My tears had to stop before they leaked all over my face.

Gabe didn’t say anything, just leaned at the doorway to the room.

“You know when you think your life is about as shitty as it’s ever going to get, and everything has to go up from here because you can’t even think about something that could happen that’s worse than what already did? And then something else happens?”

There was silence.

“Yeah, so that.” I stared down at the floor, tired of all these stupid feelings. Why couldn’t I just not feel anything anymore? Why did everything have to keep hurting like this?

“Is everybody okay?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I guess it depends on who you mean when you say everybody.”

“The people you care about.”

“I don’t know… I just…” I sighed. “Why is it always the people we love who hurt us the most, Gabe?”

“They know how,” he said simply.

“Is Noie okay?” I asked, seeing the worried look on his face.

“She’s fine. No need to worry about her.” He looked at me, his eyes searching. “Are you okay?”

“Not really.”

Why was I being so honest with him? I didn’t know. But there was something about him that made me think that he understood. That to him, I wasn’t some emo-rambling psycho from New York, running away from everything to serve coffee near the beach. To him, I was just Maddie.

God, I had missed being Maddie. It had been so long, I almost didn’t remember what that meant.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked gently.

I was silent for a while, as I tried to process everything. “I don’t know,” I finally said. “I hope so.”