Just Remember to Breathe (Thompson Sisters)

at math. Now, sometimes I stare at the problems, and I can feel the headache building behind my forehead, and the formulas just swim in front of my eyes, letters and numbers everywhere, like they’re swimming around in a damn whirlpool.
    Three weeks into it, and I was already failing the class. And the thing is, I was on the GI Bill. I couldn’t afford to be failing classes. So I broke down that day, and at the end of class that day I walked to Professor Wheeler’s desk from my own in the front row and said, “Professor Wheeler, can we talk a minute?”
    He looked up from his papers and said, “My office hours are Thursdays at 10 a.m.”
    “This won’t take but a couple minutes, sir.”
    He frowned, deep creases forming in his face below his beard, and said, “What can I do for you, Mr. Paris?”
    I took a deep breath, and said, “I’m failing your class.”
    He nodded. “You are.”
    “Listen, sir… I’m wondering… is there tutoring available that you know about?”
    “Perhaps, Mr. Paris, algebra is simply beyond you. Have you considered taking ‘Math for Liberal Arts Majors’ or something similar?”
    For a brief second I wanted to punch him, to wipe that smug smile off his face. He’d made no secret of his antipathy for soldiers since I’d walked into his class. I took a deep breath, and counted to ten, and then I laid it out. That math had been one of my real talents in high school. The bomb, and what it had done, scrambling my brain so I couldn’t remember things.
    “Sir… I know you don’t like me. But… I’m asking you for help here. I’m doing everything I can to rebuild my life. I need to get this. Do you understand?”
    He tugged at his beard with his thumb and forefinger, staring at me. Finally, he said, “I can put you in touch with a couple of tutors.”
    I breathed a sigh of relief. He wrote down the contact information, and passed me the sheet.
    “Understand, I expect you to perform,” he said. “Just because you were a soldier doesn’t mean you get any kind of a pass from me, Paris. If you’re going to stay in my class, you’ll earn the grade that you earn. Am I clear?”
    I nodded. “That’s all I ask.”
    From there I moved on to my Ancient Western Civilization Class, which I was having a much easier time with. That night, I sent off an email to the tutors he had suggested.
    I had trouble sleeping that night. And I should be clear: I never have trouble sleeping. The Army taught me to sleep at any opportunity I have. Got a fifteen-minute ride in the back of a two-ton truck going down a dusty road in the middle of nowhere? Sack time. For the last two years, I’ve been able to close my eyes and sleep without preparation, thought or warning. But the night after Alex went running with me, my mind kept turning back to the things I’d said—the things she’d said.
    She didn’t have to say it for me to realize it. If I hadn’t been such an asshole, deleting my Skype and Facebook and refusing to answer her emails, she wouldn’t have been out trying to date last spring. And that guy wouldn’t have tried to rape her.
    It was my fault. I’d left her unprotected. I’d put the woman I loved more than life itself at risk.
    That wasn’t going to happen again. It was too late for Alex and I as a couple, but I’d damned sure be her friend as long as she would have me.
    I’d be whatever she wanted.
    But my traitor of a mind turned to other things. It wasn’t the first time we’d broken up, not by a long shot. In fact, when we returned home from Israel, both of us said it was over. What we had was beautiful, magical… and temporary. She was going back to dating Mike in San Francisco, and I was going back to Hailey in Atlanta.
    But I broke up with Hailey four days after my return to Atlanta. And she did the same with Mike.
    Neither of us said anything, really. It was just what happened. We weren’t dating, we weren’t exclusive, we weren’t anything at all. Which was why I found myself in bed with Cyndi Harris on New Year’s Eve, which was fun but… also sad. All the time we were rolling around in bed, I kept thinking of Alex, and how much I wished it were her. It made me… incredibly sad. And Cyndi knew it.
    At one point she turned away from me, then said, “What’s her name?”
    “Who?” I asked.
    “The girl you’re in love with.”
    So, what could have been a fun roll in the hay on New Years Eve turned into me breaking down and crying, telling her how