Page 54 of Save Your Breath

Then, she had my arm inhergrip.

It was a move I’d taught her in high school when I’d felt like she needed to know how to protect herself, and I barked out a laugh when she was standing behind my barstool with my arm angled behind my back and my chest forced down onto the countertop.

“Say uncle,” she teased against the shell of my ear, and although I could have easily escaped her grasp and had her pinned on this countertop, I relented.

“Uncle.”

She wore a victorious smile when she released me, and I spun on my barstool to face her, folding my arms over my chest.

“See?” I said. “You’re not some poor little thing who needs the approval of your ex or his little posse of parasites. You don’t need the media to tell you you’re doing great. You’re Mia Fucking Love.”

I stood, and when I did, my chest brushed against hers, her eyes staying locked on mine until I was towering over her. I tapped her nose with a grin.

“Don’t let them steal your pen when you’re just getting to the good part.”

Too Bad

Mia

I don’t even bother locking up my bike when I find him.

The January air is bitter cold against my cheeks and nose as I ditch my bike just off the trail, eyes on where Aleks is slumped on the beach. He’s alone, the only one brave enough to sit by Lake Michigan as the wind whips in icy and brutal.

I wrap my coat tighter around me as I approach him, and though my teeth are already chattering, I don’t ask him what the hell he’s doing, or tell him he’s crazy, or pull at his arm until he stands and leaves with me.

I just plop down next to him in the cold sand.

On a winter day like this one, the lake feels apocalyptic — its water deep and dark, white caps crashing, each wave letting out a roar of warning.

Aleks is burrowed into his puffy jacket, the hood pulled up over his beanie, arms wrapped around his knees. He rocks slightly as he stares off into the distant waters, and I can just barely see the tip of his red nose.

I don’t know what to say.

I don’t have any experience with death, with grief of this magnitude.

I don’t know how any words could alleviate a pain so sharp.

Aleks has lived with us for seven months now. He was quiet at first — so much so that the kids at school made fun of himwhen the year first started up. They assumed he didn’t know how to speak English. He proved them wrong when he perfectly cursed out Ben Harmon before punching him so hard in the nose, it cracked and spurted blood everywhere.

Since then, I’ve watched every girl in our school crush on him, and every boy try to be his friend. He’s dated a few of those girls. I’ve watched him kiss them in front of our house from the safety of my bedroom window. And he’s hung out with some of the guys on his hockey team, but he always seems to keep them at a distance.

For some reason, Aleks is only himself around me and my family.

But now, I worry we may lose him, too.

Aleks doesn’t talk much about home. He doesn’t write to any friends or girlfriends back in Switzerland, doesn’t regale us with tales of growing up playing hockey or share family memories. When we ask, he clips out the straight, often-times terribly sad truths.

His parents were drug addicts.

His birth mother died, and his dad gave him up before he died, too.

He doesn’t remember them.

He doesn’t try to.

But if there’s one person Aleks loves to talk about, it’s his foster mom — Annaliese.

It’s the only time I ever see his real smile, the only time I see him light up about anything he talks about other than hockey. When he tells us about Annaliese, he beams with pride and love. He brags on her cooking, laughs as he recounts her silly dancing and how she’d make a game out of moving pots and buckets under each spot in their leaky roof when it rained. He has a picture of the two of them on his dresser in the guest roomwhere he’s staying, and he never misses their weekly Sunday calls.