Just Breathe Read online

  She sounds like Sharon, who likes running on a treadmill and doing her AP English reading at the same time. Time is the main thing they both hate wasting.

  “Maybe I am being productive, but I’m doing different things than you want. Maybe I’m starting to see a different future. Even if I get a new pair of lungs and feel great, I’m not sure I’d want to rush off to college next year. It might be better for me to slow down a little.”

  It feels strange to say this out loud. It’s the first time I’ve told anyone what I’m thinking (besides Jamie, who doesn’t really count because she doesn’t know the old me).

  The whole time Mom’s been here, she’s been straightening the room. Now she sinks down in the chair beside my bed. “This is exactly what we’re worried about. You have one little health setback and you’re ready to give up. We’re not going to let you do that.”

  “I’m not giving up. I want to consider all my options and think about taking a gap year at least.” Now that I’ve started this conversation, I don’t want to back down. I haven’t been to school in three weeks. To me, this seems like a reasonable thing to say.

  She looks down at her phone, which has pinged with a message. “All right, I wasn’t sure whether to tell you this or not, but I’ve talked to Dr. Chortkoff about putting you on Prozac. I think it’s a good idea right now.”

  “You think I’m saying this because I’m depressed?”

  “I think you’re seeing things in a very negative light these days. It’s not helping you make good decisions. Dad and I agree on this.”

  “I am looking at reality, Mom. The truth is a little depressing right now.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. That’s why you need medication.”

  “But maybe I also need to talk about all this. And think about what I really want to do with the rest of my life.”

  “You’ve spent your whole life taking AP classes and doing extracurriculars. You have an exceptional transcript. The school counselor said your college list might not have been shooting high enough. She thinks you should include some Ivy Leagues—maybe Cornell or Princeton. This is Ms. Lowenstein, who never tells anyone this. Usually she reminds everyone that community colleges are excellent backups.”

  It’s true. She’s the world’s least optimistic college counselor, but I can’t help wondering how my mother heard this. Did she call her up, looking for a message like this?

  “You were all set to apply to eight schools—now you’ve been sick for three weeks and suddenly you’re thinking that’s not a good idea? What if you get better and don’t need the transplant? What if you get it and feel great five months from now? Why would you want to eliminate your options for next year?”

  Later, when I tell Sharon about all this, she agrees with my mom. “I don’t understand what you’d do instead of college. It’s not like any of us will still be around, and you don’t exactly love spending time with your family. I don’t know, David. It seems like you’re seeing things through a pretty dark lens right now.”

  Am I? I honestly don’t think I feel depressed. I feel like I’m seeing some truths for the first time, but when my dad visits he goes into a whole speech about the importance of staying positive.

  “They say it’s the best medicine there is! You visualize your future as a healthy, well person, away at college, having fun like everyone else, and your body responds.”

  “Come on, Dad, is it really being so negative to say I might die in the next few years if that’s what the doctors are saying? I’m looking at the whole picture. I feel different than my friends, and I feel like even if I make it to college, I’m not sure I’d have anything in common with eighteen-year-olds who’ve always been healthy and don’t know what this is like.”

  I thought my dad would understand, but he keeps shaking his head like he’s not sure what to say.

  “That’s most of the world, David. I’m sorry but it is.”

  “I know. It’s not only that, though. It’s about taking control of the time I have left. I want to figure out my priorities and set my own agenda. Is that so crazy?”

  “Of course not. Except you don’t have any alternative plans.”

  “But I do! Okay, look—here’s an example. There’s this girl who volunteers here. She’s Eileen’s age, but she was homeschooled most of her life. Up until eighth grade she spent all her time going to art museums and watching old movies with her father, and she’s interesting. She’s more interesting than me because she’s thought about what she wants to learn. That’s what I want to do.”

  “You want to go to art museums and watch old movies?”

  “No. I want to take control of the time I have left. I want to decide what’s interesting to me and learn more about that.”

  Even after all this, I’ve apparently convinced no one, because the next morning, Dr. C says my parents have asked him to put me on a generic antidepressant. “Is that something you’re interested in?”

  “No. They think I’m depressed, but I’m not. I’m just rethinking my life a little right now. If it’s going to be shorter than I expected, I want to make sure what I’m doing means something. Is that so crazy?”

  He gives me a look. “Not crazy, no. Just hard.”

  He says he’ll check back in with me in a week to see if I’ve changed my mind.

  JAMIE

  When Eileen finally approaches me about signing up for Starlight, it’s pretty much as awkward as I imagined it might be. Her mouth doesn’t move from the thin, angry line it was in when she walked up.

  “My brother says I have to sign up for this weird dance class and you’re doing it, too.”

  “Well, I haven’t signed up or anything. I don’t know too much about it.”

  “Basically, you learn to waltz and cha-cha in case you want to try out for Dancing with the Stars someday.”

  I laugh. “It seems pretty random that teenagers actually do it, right?”

  “Only weird teenagers. Like my brother and his girlfriend.”

  Even though it’s obvious Eileen wants no part of this activity—or me, for that matter—I have to admit, I don’t mind the prospect of spending time with her. I like the furious way she rolls her eyes about her brother and makes fun of Sharon. In my old friend group, Missy was sarcastic without ever being funny. Eileen seems funny. Though I’m not completely sure, of course, so I don’t laugh.

  “The new session starts Wednesday. If you want to go, we can give you a ride.”

  “That sounds great. I like ballroom dancing. And weird teenagers.”

  She rolls her eyes again, but there’s the start of a smile in the corners of her mouth, like maybe she doesn’t mind this idea as much as she’s pretending to.

  That afternoon, I tell David that I finally talked to Eileen.

  “Did she tell you she hates me for making her do this?”

  “No. She made fun of it a little, but I think it might be okay.”

  “You’re a hero. Seriously. Eileen might have a bad attitude, but I think you’ll love it.”

  He’s already told me that he had to drop out because of his health, though he told other people it was about being overscheduled and making time for college applications. I can tell it makes him sad to think about the way he’s sacrificed things he loved for a future he’s not sure he wants anymore. Recently, David’s been talking more about his friends and their college applications. Usually, I don’t say much, because what do I know about applying to prestigious East Coast schools? My mom got her nursing degree at a community college, and my dad finished two years of art school before dropping out. When I told David this, his eyes lit up. “Art school? Really?”

  Maybe I keep bringing my father up because he always gets this reaction. David has romantic ideas of being an artist, even though I tell him he shouldn’t. “My dad went to Trinity Arts, which is really hard to get into, but he never liked it that much. He thought the teachers tried to impose their own aesthetics on the students. He’d already sold a few pai
ntings, so it didn’t hurt him too much to leave. Or that’s what he said, anyway.”

  “But he made money at it? People bought his paintings?”

  “For a while, yeah. He was profiled in Art World magazine once. It was before I was born, but I’ve seen the copy. He was kind of a big deal when he was younger.”

  “So he was famous?”

  “Well, no. Famous is different.”

  I think about the corner of my mother’s bedroom where the paintings he made the last ten years of his life are stored now. For months after he died, she visited his old galleries to see if they’d be willing to try to sell them. She heard the same thing every time: they loved his early work; his recent stuff, not so much. She pressed them on it—suggested old clients, people whose houses they’d visited and gone to parties at. They wanted to help, but there wasn’t much they could do.

  “You can be successful for a while, but it’s hard to keep making money, I guess. Art buyers are fickle. They want whoever’s young and hot.”

  “Still, that’s pretty cool,” David says. “He made his living as an artist.”

  I don’t say anything more.

  I wish I could tell my mom how often David writes me now. Every afternoon, I get home to two or three emails. He writes about different things—his thoughts about college (he doesn’t want to go), his thoughts about his friends (and the hard time he’s having relating to them), even his thoughts about his health. Yesterday, he told me he’d started reading a book that someone online recommended called Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. He was the emperor of Rome a zillion years ago, which apparently meant he was always going into battle, and every time he did, he expected to die, so he wrote a lot about living life to the fullest while one can. In David’s latest email he sent this quote: “Why do you hunger for length of days? Death is only a thing of terror for those unable to live in the present.”

  If I show my mother these, she’ll see only more reason to worry.

  I know she doesn’t want me to get in over my head, which I understand. I also know that David will probably get better soon, and when he does, he’ll return to his old life and the world we don’t really share. When he talks about living life to the fullest after he gets out of the hospital, I have something like the opposite thought: I have to make the most of this friendship while he’s still stuck in here.

  On Wednesday, I get home to a frantic IM:

  DAVID: Jamie, where are you? Weren’t you going to stop by this afternoon? Shouldn’t you already be here?

  For a second, I wonder if I could just show my mother this. Would it be enough for her to believe that we’re friends and he wants me to visit him? I don’t because then she’d read the rest of our messages and put a stop to all of them. It’s too much, she’d say. You’re not ready for this. Instead, I write him back quickly, before she gets home.

  ME: Maybe you forgot—our dance class starts tonight.

  DAVID: That’s right! So I guess I won’t see you today, unless you want to stop by and show me what you’re wearing.

  ME: Absolutely not. I didn’t have a skirt or the right shoes, so I had to borrow an outfit from my mom, which means I’m going to look like a middle-aged nurse, off-duty.

  DAVID: They talk a lot about dress codes, but they don’t really mean it. You’ll look great, I’m sure.

  ME: I really won’t, trust me.

  DAVID: Have a great time. Tell me how it goes afterward!

  “I know I look ridiculous,” Eileen announces when I get in the back seat. She sits up front next to her dad, who nods hello but doesn’t say anything.

  She doesn’t look ridiculous; she looks great. Her hair is down, which I’ve never seen before—styled and curled around her face in a pretty way. She’s also wearing about half the makeup she usually wears in school. No black eyeliner, no dark lipstick, just a little mascara.

  “You look great, Eileen. Seriously.”

  The ride is quiet and a little awkward until Eileen surprises me by asking whatever happened to the girls I used to be friends with in middle school.

  “Do you know them?” I ask. What I mean is, Do you know me?

  “Missy and Nicki? Yeah, I never liked them. No offense, but you can do better.”

  I can? I thought. With who?

  This whole time I’ve assumed that Eileen lives in a different league than me, friendwise. She talks to other kids in our class and moves down school hallways saying hello. She seems buffered from the abyss of friendlessness that I live in. Now I wonder if she plays the same games I do. Does she sit mutely in a group she’s no longer part of? Does she perch on the periphery of conversations she never joins?

  The first hour of our lesson is in a small group with two other beginners and will be followed by a larger group lesson in the big studio. Tonya, our teacher, is a middle-aged woman with bright red hair and strappy black sandals. She introduces us to two dance coaches who will partner with Eileen and me as we learn our first moves. They look at least five years older than us and are both ridiculously handsome. One is dark-haired, with a beard; the other is blond with blue eyes.

  “Girls, please meet Stenyak. And Antonin.”

  They bow in front of us, which makes me blush and Eileen laugh.

  “Seriously?” she says, looking around behind her.

  Tonya runs us through the basics: dance position, box step, and the one-two-three, cha-cha-cha. After about twenty minutes, she dismisses our partners with an apology.

  “We’re busy tonight! We must spread our extra gentlemen around, you don’t mind, ladies?”

  Eileen offers to be the leader and dance with me after they go, but Tonya shakes her head. “That won’t be necessary. You dance alone for now and follow my steps.”

  Dancing alone makes me realize how thrilling it was to dance with a partner who knew what he was doing. The fox-trot—slow, slow, quick, quick—with our empty arms in the air, isn’t the same as having a tall boy with his hand on your back, standing close enough for all your clothing to touch.

  For the second hour, we move into the larger studio with the big group. David is right—there are a lot of kids our age here, but I don’t recognize any of them from school. Though no music is playing, most of them are dancing anyway, working on steps they’ve just learned in their smaller sessions. Of course beginners aren’t doing this, so we sit for a while and watch really good dancers strut their stuff. I’ve been at this for an hour and I don’t even recognize a correlation between the moves we’ve just learned and what these people are doing.

  “Where are the bad dancers?” Eileen whispers.

  If I were here with any of my old friends, we wouldn’t be having fun like this. We’d be silent and self-conscious and terrified of being found out as beginners. Eileen doesn’t think this way. When two boys sit down next to us, she leans across me and introduces us both. “This is our first night, and we have no idea what we’re doing. She might be okay”—she hooks her thumb at me—“but I’m terrible. What do you guys think—do you want to dance with us?”

  They smile and reassure us. It looks hard at first, but we’ll catch on quickly, they say. Of course, they’ll dance with us. They’d love to.

  Eileen is impossible to resist. I don’t understand why David said she needed better friends and “influences” in her life when she seems so confident to me, hardly like someone who is easily influenced. With our new partners, we start with a basic box step on the edge of the floor, so we don’t crash into the better dancers who can move in circles without bumping into each other. About halfway through the song, my partner pulls me closer.

  “Shall we try a turn?” he whispers.

  “Okay,” I say, sounding a little breathless.

  A moment later, he’s turned me into the river of couples swirling clockwise around the room. After two spins, I realize: it’s possible to be led around the dance floor by someone experienced enough to make you look like you know what you’re doing. With every mistake I make, he adjusts his own
feet for a swift recovery. Once, when it seems like my confusion might actually knock us over, he grabs my lower back and brings me in tighter to steady me again.

  “There you go,” he whispers. “You’re fine now.”

  From the corner of my eye, I see a flash of Eileen and her partner spinning around, too. At the end of the song, we return to our chairs, breathless. “That was awesome,” she says, smiling. She’s worked up a sweat. I have, too.

  None of this is like what we imagined.

  As the night wears on, though, I notice something. Watching Eileen in action is like watching a how-to demonstration on flirting with older boys. She sidles up to our first partners and asks where exactly in Russia they’re from.

  “Do you know Russia?” Stenyak asks.

  “Not at all,” Eileen says, not breaking eye contact. “I’m just making conversation.”

  For a while, her approach seems generalized to include every older boy in the room. She finger-waves, and smiles, and walks with a twist in her step so the formfitting dress with the flared skirt she’s wearing almost touches the knees of the boys she walks past. She’s a beacon that draws every eye to her and then insists, too loud, that no one should watch her dance, she’s terrible at this.

  Toward the end of class, Tonya announces that a special guest has come tonight to help her demonstrate the last dance, a merengue. “Everyone please welcome Nicolai, Arizona’s newly crowned Latin-Salsa Swing King!”

  The door opens, and a handsome young man wearing all black glides into the room to take his place beside the teacher up front.

  A few people clap; others look confused.

  A moment later, Nicolai and Tonya are moving through a merengue so graceful it catches my breath. It’s impossible to look away and impossible to fathom how they stay so connected to one another as their hips swivel and their feet take them in one direction and then another.

  Eileen leans into my shoulder. “Okay. So how do we get a chance to dance with him?”

  For the next five minutes, we form separate lines. Leaders (boys) on one side; followers (girls) on the other. We practice the moves until Tonya claps her hands and says, “All right then. Let’s partner up and try this.”