Without A Breath
Mason's POV
When I wake up my entire body hurts. I roll over and see the bottle of pills Dr. Tanner prescribed me. I pull open the cap and tap one into my palm. I stare at it. It sits so unassuming and blue. I pour a few more.
Emma's sitting at the end of my bed, "If you take them, you could be with me forever."
"There's not enough," I mutter.
"You know what to do," she whispers, her breath tickling my ear. She hands me my phone and I dial Dr. Tanner's number.
"Mason?" she says as soon as the line connects.
"Hi, Dr. Tanner. Sorry to bother you, but I've misplaced my pills and I was wondering if you could possibly get me a refill at the pharmacy."
"Yes of course Mason. I'm happy you've finally opened up to the idea of medication."
"Yeah... right. Just please get the refill."
As soon as she stops sputtering about making advances in my mental health I hang up and look up for Emma's approval, but she's gone. I put the pill back in the bottle and take a swig of the vodka I stashed under my bed instead.
Like most days of the week my mom flutters around me with her usual nervousness. "Did you eat breakfast?" she asks.
"Yes, mother," I say drily and spot Bryan through the doorway. We haven't really spoken since the incident on the day of Emma's funeral. As for her, I'm going to visit her plot today. I already bought flowers, although they're drooping a little.
Dr. Tanner told me it might help me ease past her loss. But recently I've been seeing her more and more. Some times she's sitting on the edge of the tub when I'm brushing my teeth, sometimes she's sitting next to me when I'm out drinking. And recently she's been telling me to join her.
The more that people look at me as something broken, a toy they can no longer play with, the more tempting the offer seems. Daniel won't talk to me, every time Emma's mom sees me she cries, even Dr. Tanner herself, looks at me like something to be pitied. But Emma doesn't come around when Spencer is near by. Not that we spend much time together. The girl annoys me a bit. She's too honest, too upfront. She scares me sometimes.
"I've got to go, okay," I say, backing out the door, my flowers in one hand and the doorknob in the other.
"Okay, but be back before 6, yeah?" Mom negotiates and I feel like I'm twelve again, if she were around when I was twelve.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I say and walk out into the dreary weather.
"Good riddens to her, am I right?" Emma jokes and wraps her arms around me as we walk.
I nod slowly, "Yeah, I guess so."
"And Daniel will forgive you once he remembers how much you love me."
"He already knows," I say, frowning. A girl passing by us gives us a weird look.
"He thinks you're a coward. More afraid to hear what I said before I died than wanting to hear the voice of the only love of your life."
"It isn't that..." I whisper.
She shushes me, "I know baby, I know." Suddenly she disappears as I reach the cemetary. Through the iron gates I can see families huddled around tombstones of lost relatives and friends. Mud oozes under my shoes as I pick my way through the grass.
"Sorry," somebody mutters as they run into me, too blinded by the tears they're wiping from their face to really see me.
"It's okay," I mutter back and spot the landmark tree near Emma's grave. I pick up my pace, pulling my jacket tighter around me. Here, I stop. I breath in and out and read the average words that describe an extraordinary girl.
Emma Reynolds
1996-2015
Loyal friend, loving daughter, forever missed.
I crouch down and run my fingers over each engraved letter. Then I lay my flowers down on the ground and press my lips to the cool stone. "How are you doing Em?" I whisper.
"I'd be better if you could really touch me," she says from behind me, her breath sending cold shivers down my spine.
"I guess I'm... I'm scared," I admit, turning to her.
"You-"
"Mason?" I hear and look up. Spencer is standing with a guy I've never seen before. "Hey, what're you doing here?" she asks. She's wearing purple knitted mittens, and gray rainboots. The guy she's with looks back and forth between the two of us.
"Just visiting a friend," I say, turning slightly to check if Emma is still there, but she's disappeared.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," she says, and makes her way around the grave. "Was she your girlfriend?" she guesses and I nod. She grabs my hand, like she does it all the time, a hand hug of sorts.
"Spence, maybe we should let the guy be," Stranger Guy says, clearly annoyed.
She looks up at me apprehensively, "Oh I'm sorry, you probably just want to be alone."
I'm not alone, I think.
"It's okay, thank you," I mutter and she leaves with Stranger Guy, but not before she looks back to check on me, before leaving the cemetary. I should have asked her what she was doing here in the first place as well.
"I don't like her hanging around," Emma grumbles.
"Why?" I ask, sitting down on the ground, not caring about ruining my pants.
She shrugs, "I don't know, I just don't." She puts her hand on my shoulder and leans close to me. "You know I love you right?"
"Mhmm," I hum and she turns my face to her. She presses her lips real soft against mine. I keep my eyes open, watch the way her eyes scrunch shut, but I can't feel anything. I realize I can't even feel the cold, wet Earth beneath me.
"Mason," I hear again and turn back to see Spencer. The guy is gone and she looks a bit disheveled. "Can you walk me home?" she asks.
"Um... yes, yes I can." She holds out her hand to help me stand up and I take one more look back at Emma's grave before following her through the graveyard.
"I always thought graves were beautiful, did you?" she asks, her mitten-ed hands clasped in front of her.
I shake my head, "Not at all. I avoided them, always." A car passes us by and Spencer turns her face away from the road. I suspect it's the guy she was with. "I hate death. I hate people disappearing forever. And I'm afraid of ghosts," I admit and she blinks at me.
"You've told my mom that?"
"No," I say, shaking my head.
"That's okay," she hums, her breath sending out a puff of white. My fingers start to tremble as I feel Emma walking behind us. I might not like Spencer all that much, but Emma doesn't like her at all.
"Do you mind if I smoke?" I ask.
Spencer looks up at me and raises an eyebrow. "If you'll give me one too."
"I didn't think you would go for that kind of thing. Wouldn't your mom say something about... habits or something?"
"She doesn't know everything about me." I pull my pack of cigarettes out, handing one to her. I take out my light, lighting it behind my palm and clenching my teeth around the butt of the cigarette. Spencer leans forward and lights hers as well, seconds before the flame snuffs out in the breeze. "Thanks," she mutters before taking a drag. I watch her, blow it out between her teeth.
"Who was that guy?" I ask.
"My ex-boyfriend," she answers immediately.
"Oh," I hum.
She laughs, "I'm just kidding. He's my cousin. Don't you see the family resemblence." I shake my head. "Yeah well he lived with my family for a little while. My dad was kind of like his second dad, so when he died, we decided to go visit him together on the anniversary of his death."
"Today?" I ask. She nods. There's no tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry for your loss."
"It was a long time ago," she says. "I don't feel it as much anymore."
"I lost my dad too," I say. As I breath out, letting the smoke cloud up my vision I think of what it would like to have loved my father.
"When?"
"Just recently. The same time as my girlfriend."
"Emma," she breathes her name out like a sigh. I nod again. "I bet she was beautiful."
"She was, she really was. Both on the inside and the outside. She never intentionally hurt someone in her life. I did so many horrible things and she never held it against me. She always saw the good still in me."
"Sounds wonderful. I never got the priviledge of having someone like that in my life."
"Don't go there. It's a trap." I can feel her eyes on me and I realize I have no idea where she's leading me. We've made our way well away from the graveyard and down several blocks. I glance at Spencer, still watching me and say, "What?"
"Nothing... I'm just wondering how a man gets so cynical and sad."
I think about it. Every part of what came together to be me. My mom and my dad, fighting downstairs. My mom leaving, my dad hitting. The cutting. Everything that happened between Emma and me. Her death. My dad's death. "How does a girl starve herself?" I spit out all of the sudden and Spencer simply stops walking.
I turn back to her, my heart sinking into my stomach. But, instead of crying or looking angry, like I've come to expect, she's smiling at me. Grinning practically. "It's really simply actually, Mr. You take it out here," she takes my arm, her mittens sliding the sleeves of my coat up to reveal my cuts. "And I take it out here," she jiggles her thighs and pinches at where her stomach would be."
"I didn't mean to be rude," I whisper.
"Sure you did," she says, still smiling. "But that's okay." I just stare at her because she baffles me. What kind of girl just... takes it, takes shit like it's nothing at all. "It's all up here and that's all that matters," Spencer finishes, pointing to her head.
"You're not fat," I say quietly. Again, she just shrugs and keeps walking. From behind I notice her thin legs, the way her coat hangs off of her. I guess this is what recovering looks like for her. No matter how stressed and depressed she got, however long she'd eat like a bird, Emma never got that skinny. I always liked the slope of her thighs, the soft quality of her stomach. She was beautiful and strong.
I look back at Emma behind me, her eyes narrowed after Spencer. "I don't trust her," she whispers angrily and walks ahead of me too. I jog to keep up with Spencer.
"So where do you live?" I ask.
"Just a few more blocks from here."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty, almost twenty one. You?"
I nod, "Me too. This September."
"You a Libra?"
I laugh, "Yeah... yeah I am."
"I'm a Scorpio. But you seem like a Libra."
"Do you put a lot of faith in that kind of stuff?" I ask.
"Stuff? Stuff?" she says in mock shock. I laugh and she shakes her head, "Nah, I just think they're fun you know? You read a horoscope and you convince yourself it's really talking specifically to you. So tell me something Libra... how long were you and your girlfriend together?"
"We started dating over the summer before I turned 18. She was 16 at the time. We broke up... nine months later or so. And then we got back together this year before Christmas."
"What was she like?"
"She was a dancer. And a damn good one at that. She did all kinds of dance. She could sing, not like you, she sang high and sweet."
"What are you saying about my singing?" she jokes and I laugh again. For the first time, I find myself enjoying talking to someone. I enjoy talking about myself and about Emma. I like laughing.
"That's not what I meant," I assure her. "It was just different you know..." Spencer nods and continues to ask me questions about me wooing Emma back and about Northwestern before I moved to California. Before I know it, we stop walking and I look up at a mediumly sized house. "You live here?" I ask, surprised because I don't know what I expected.
She nods, "My dad and his family were kind of rich and I got a large trust fund after my twentith birthday, so I... moved out of my mom's house."
"You don't go to school?" I ask.
Spencer shakes her head, "I um... I used to be too sick all the time to attend." I nod, but I can't imagine it. Not having enough food inside to sustain yourself or to get up in the morning at all.
"I'm sorry," I mutter.
Spencer nods and we stand silently for a second before she looks back and forth between me and the house. "So hey... would you like to come inside?"