Just Remember to Breathe (Thompson Sisters)

darted up.
    It was Alex. She was in sweats and running shoes, and started stretching. Just like it was any normal morning.
    Jesus Christ.
    I kept doing my pushups until I got to one hundred, then rolled over and started stretching my legs.
    She didn’t say a word.
    I didn’t say a word.
    I don’t know what she thought. That I was just going to change my mind? She didn’t understand. It’s not that I didn’t want her. God, I wanted her more than anything else in the world. Except to let her have a decent life. And that wasn’t going to happen with me.
    Finally, I stood, ready to run. I said, “I don’t really need a spotter any more.”
    She looked me in the eye, and said, “I’m not here for you. I’m here for me.”
    I shook my head and started running. She started out beside me, in her normal long lope, keeping pace with me. I gritted my teeth. Why did she have to make it so hard? Why couldn’t she just accept that it was over? She could have such a wonderful life.
    By the time I hit 101 st Street, I was going fast, and picking up the pace. She stayed right beside me as I turned onto 101 st and started heading for Central Park. Traffic was just starting to pick up, taxis and commuters from Connecticut and God only knows where else. Who the hell drives into New York City, anyway? Crazy.
    I stopped at a red light, diagonally across from the park, and ran in place until the light changed.
    Even though I was getting winded, I started to talk, half to myself.
    “I was six the first time he came home drunk and hit her. I don’t know what it was about… I think he’d lost his job or something. They were both fucking lushes, and that probably led to him getting fired. But I do remember sitting there, about a week after first grade started. We were making brownies in the kitchen of this shitty little apartment in Chamblee, just outside Atlanta.”
    Breathe. I paused in my monologue, not sure if she was listening. “Anyway. They had all these pictures, of the two of them. Happy and stuff. They went to high school together, believe it or not. Dated, then got married. Anyway, that day he came home, and he was angry. I could sense it, and I got real quiet. But I wanted to show him what we’d been making. So I picked up a big spoon, and dipped it in the brownie mix, and carried it into the living room shouting something. I don’t know what. ‘Dad, see what we did?’ Or something like that. And the fucking brownie mix… there was too much of it on the spoon, and it fell on the carpet.”
    We were almost halfway down the length of Central Park now, and though not quite at a full out sprint, we were going really fast. I glanced over and saw her face was bright red. Well, I didn’t ask her to come.
    “Anyway,” I continued, slower now, taking long pauses to breathe in between sentences. “My dad… he stands up and starts shouting. About how I fucked up the carpet, and we were going to have to pay for it. And she went to defend me. It’s all muddled in my head, but the next thing I knew, he hit her, in the jaw. She went down, hard. And I held on to my mom, and yelled back at him, told him to leave my mommy alone.”
    I grimaced, realizing a tear was falling down my face. I wiped it quickly. “Point is… people who love each other don’t always stay that way. Sometimes they hurt each other, too.”
    She snorted, then said, “Yeah, I know something about that.”
    Fuck .
    I picked up the pace. I was running flat out now, as fast as I could go, and she was still keeping up. I took the left turn around the south edge of the park at a dead sprint with Alex beside me, and a flock of birds launched into the sky as we ran through them.
    This was my normal route for running, but I never ran it at this pace. I was getting blown out, sucking air into my lungs, and it was starting to really hurt. After the next turn, I stumbled, got back to my feet and kept running, now going north along the east side of the park, up Fifth Avenue.
    As the reservoir came into sight, I knew I wasn’t going to make it any further. I slowed to a walk, blowing out my lungs in big gasps, my chest shuddering, legs feeling like rubber.
    Alex slowed her pace, running in place beside me.
    “Too much?” she asked.
    I shook my head, suddenly angry. She knew how I felt about her. It was like she was torturing me. Staying in sight, knowing that I had made the decision I had to protect her.
    “What do you want from me, Alex?” I cried