Just Remember to Breathe (Thompson Sisters)

much, and then maybe they’d realize that parents are supposed to remember to buy groceries.”
    I took a deep breath, and said, “So… when we met, I guess part of me still blamed myself for things that weren’t my fault. And it made me… so cautious. So afraid. So I held myself back. I never let you know exactly how I felt, because that’s part of how I control situations, it’s part of how I keep myself safe.”
    Oh God, I thought, taking a deep breath. This was hard. I looked her in the eyes, and my eyes were watering too. “Alex, I don’t need to keep myself safe from you. I don’t want to keep myself safe from you. You mean too much to me. I’d rather have a lifetime of heartache, from you breaking my heart, than even imagine my life without you. Because a life without you wouldn’t be a life at all.”
    She was huddled over, her arms wrapped around her shoulders, looking as if at any moment she was going to burst into tears. I looked at the next card, and it said Running. She reached out, and took it from me.
    I whispered, “Alex, you make me want to push myself harder. You’re right… the thing is, I never believed I was good enough for you. I never believed I measured up. But here’s the thing: you believed in me. No one has ever done that before in my life. And being around you, it makes me want to push myself to be better. It makes me want to be the best person I can. It makes me want to work, to deserve to have you in my life. You don’t just complete me. You make me a better person. When I’m with you, every single moment, I want to work to become someone you look up to, someone you admire, someone you can love. And I want to do the same for you. I want to protect you, and make you feel safe. I want to support you, whether you continue on to law school like your parents have pushed you, or if you decide to do something else entirely. If you took on a life of running a roadside concession stand, I’d want to be right there beside you, supporting you, no matter what you chose. I want to protect you, but I don’t just want to protect you… I want to help you learn to protect yourself. I saw the pride and happiness in your eyes when you threw me on the ground during our self-defense practice the other day, and I think that may have been one of the happiest moments of my life.”
    She took a deep breath, as if she was going to say something else, and I said, “Wait… one more.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Just one more, okay? I have to get this out, because it scares the hell out of me.”
    She nodded, and I took up the last card. It said, The Ring.
    I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry as hell. She reached out and put her hand on the card, hesitated, then took it from me. When she saw the words on it, she started to shake uncontrollably.
    I couldn’t talk any louder than a whisper.
    “The night we left Tel Aviv, you were right to yell at me, because I couldn’t tell you how I felt. I was too afraid. And then I came out here to San Francisco, and I thought I was ready, but I wasn’t. We had a wonderful time, but it was tense, it was scary, and in the end, I went away and didn’t say it. And then I was in the Army, and you were in your senior year of high school, then at Columbia, and the time never seemed right. And then … well… we both know what happened.”
    I took a breath, and then said, “So, I’m going to tell you what I wanted to say that night in Tel Aviv, what I wanted to say here in San Francisco. What I’ve wanted to say every day since, but couldn’t.”
    My heart was thumping in fear. Where did she get the power to do this to me, I wondered, to make me terrified that she would break my heart, to make me so damn afraid that I’d lose her?
    I’d rather take the risk and lose her forever than not say it at all.
    “Alex, that night in Tel Aviv, what I wanted to say was this: Let’s pick the same college. Despite the challenges in our life, and the distance, and everything else, let’s make a choice. A choice to be together. I can imagine a life without you, but it seems impossibly dreary, imperfect, unhappy.”
    I took a deep breath, then whispered, “Alex, I don’t want to date you. I don’t want you to be my girlfriend. I don’t want us to be together for just a little while. I want you forever. I want us to look at each other, and say we love each other, and decide to be together forever. Alex…. I want to spend our lives together. If we ever