Just Remember to Breathe (Thompson Sisters)

regret. That I was afraid it wasn’t working any more, that the distance and danger was ruining us. I mean, it had been a long time since we’d seen each other. A long time. And so much had happened.
    Dylan’s eyes went cold without any warning. I can’t even describe what his look did to me without breaking into tears. It was a look of incredible sadness, and worse, of contempt and disgust. He disconnected the Skype connection without a word. No warning, no word, no nothing.
    I tried to call him back, but there was no answer.
    The next day, I tried again. His Skype account was gone. So was his Facebook account. He didn’t just de-friend me… he deleted the account entirely. He didn’t answer my emails or letters, and until this week it was like he had just … disappeared off the face of the earth.
    After a month of pure devastation, Kelly started urging me to date again. And I tried. I really did. I went out a couple times with Randy. Then one night, Randy and I were having drinks, and then we had a couple too many. And somehow I found myself back in his room, and he tried to make out with me. I wasn’t ready. Not by a long shot. But the next thing I knew, Randy had shoved me down on the bed and was trying to rip off my shirt. I tried to fight him off, but I could barely move.
    I screamed, and it was pure luck that his roommates were coming back in right at that moment. They pulled him off me, and I stumbled out, crying.
    It would never have happened if Dylan hadn’t cut me off so suddenly.
    It would never have happened if I hadn’t drunk too much.
    “You okay?” Kelly asked.
    I looked over at her and nodded.
    “I was just thinking about Dylan, and … and everything.”
    “Oh, shit,” Kelly said. “You’re still head-over-heels for him, aren’t you?”
    “No,” I said, at the same time I nodded.
    Kelly grinned. “Try that again.”
    “Oh, shit, Kelly. I still love him.”
    “You know he was a complete asshole to cut you off like that.”
    “I know.”
    “He didn’t give you a chance to explain. It was just stupid. He let his stupid male pride kill the best thing he ever had.”
    I nodded. This wasn’t helping. Not. One. Bit.
    “You’re going to try to get him back, aren’t you?”
    “No,” I said.
    “I don’t believe you. You’re lying to me, Alex.”
    “No. Not a chance. He blew it, Kelly. He broke my heart. I can’t go back there. Never. Not a chance.”
    “Sure, Alex, sure. Whatever.”
    She went back to her drink, and I looked in the mirror over the bar. Was I lying to her? To myself?
    I didn’t know the answer to that.



CHAPTER FOUR

    Bring it, jarhead (Dylan)

    Eight a.m. Monday morning. It was time for my torture session at the VA.
    When I was first injured, they evac’d me to the hospital in Bagram, a sprawling affair hidden behind blast walls and littered with shipping containers and temporary facilities. I saw it briefly from the doors of the hospital, still somewhat conscious. I remember watching the hospital flying by below me, and realizing that I was probably going home.
    I remember being wheeled into the ER, but nothing after that until I woke up in Germany. There, the doctors told me there was still a significant risk of losing my leg: the muscle and deep tissue damage was pretty bad. I spent almost thirty days in Germany, then they shipped me to Washington, DC, where I stayed until my discharge from the Army in the middle of May. They’d saved my leg, but at that point I was still in a wheelchair.
    It was at Walter Reed that I met the outreach coordinator from Columbia University, who urged me to apply. I was doubtful. Beyond doubtful. I didn’t think I’d be able to succeed in college, must less at a top-rated college like Columbia.
    My mother, though, pushed me to do it. She pushed me to get out of the wheelchair, to follow through with my physical therapy, to do everything the doctors said and more. She worked with the guy from Columbia, who smoothed the path ahead of me, including the fact that I’d long since missed the application deadline. And so here I was.
    Look, I get it. I’m a pretty lucky guy. Roberts is pushing up flowers in a cemetary in Birmingham, Alabama. I met his family back in August. I’d finally gotten free of the wheelchair, and I went out there to have a beer with his dad, hug his mom, and cry. Of course, I didn’t tell them it was my fault Roberts was dead. Sometimes I wish he’d been the one who lived. I mean, it was just