Page 18 of Free to Breathe
“Yeah,” I mutter. Mentally bracing myself, I follow Ali back down the restored hallways of the mansion toward the kitchen where the heady aroma of Italian lures us toward the kitchen. Raucous laughter can be heard long before we reach the door. Ali sweeps into loud applause and well wishes. Trailing in behind her, I go unnoticed, which works to my advantage.
Like the targeting system on a guided missile, I find Corinna in the crowd and I stop in shock.
Without the cover of the sheer shirt she wore the other night or her chef’s jacket she was wearing earlier, Corinna’s thin gray tank top does nothing to mask the amount of weight she’s dropped.
Her once ripe curves are edged out by muscle. Corinna’s arms are ripped, presumably from all the hard work baking daily requires. Where her stomach once pooched in the cutest way, her jeans barely catch low over her curvaceous hips. At least those are still there. My mind drifts back to when I’d hold her while she slept and my hand would find this certain spot on her hip. So smooth, so soft, so…Corinna. Her breasts, still ample by anyone’s standards, are smaller. God knows I’d spent enough time studying them.
How have I not noticed the finer cut to her already chiseled cheekbones? Her long-lashed, catlike eyes are almost too big in her heart-shaped face. And lips that were often dusted with whatever rich concoction she dreamed up, too pouty.
She’s still curvaceous, for sure, but she’s now more compact. And to make matters worse, while everyone else is gorging themselves on some of the best Italian food in the Northeast, she’s eating a salad from a container she’d obviously brought from home.
How did I not notice she’s disappearing in front of my eyes?
Suddenly, I’m angry at myself. Instead of forcing the issues to come to a head between us long ago, I’d let her walk away. I let her become someone I couldn’t talk to. Well, fuck that. I wasn’t going to watch her waste away as well.
Obviously, Corinna hadn’t met someone man enough for her while she was dating her way through the states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, to get through her skull she needed to take care of her body and not starve it to death. Yeah, I’d heard the talk from Jack about her serial dating one night over dinner. He laughed himself sick telling me, even though I felt like vomiting just hearing him talk about all the men she was seeing.
I’m contemplating whether or not I even feel up to eating, when I hear a sound I haven’t heard up close in so long. It burns deep in my heart’s memory. Corinna’s laugh. It’s not directed at me, but I don’t care. I savor it. There were nights I was stationed in some no-named hellhole and wished I could pick up the phone and just say something, anything, to hear her laugh. To let me know the fight I was sweating, bleeding, crying for was worth it.
Randomly, I shove a bunch of food on my plate and turned around to see Phil wrestling with Corinna for a spoon filled with the frosting she made earlier. But it’s the ink that wasn’t there years earlier decorating her back that almost causes me to drop my plate.
The wordsnumquam obliviscar qui sisare woven like a chain through an antique key in between her shoulder blades. Unobtrusively pulling out my cell phone, I pull up a page to translate the words.
Never forget who you are.
Keys. What is it with both of us and keys? For me, the set I have is a direct replica of the set I gave to Corinna, down to the key chain she kept them on. But why a key for her?
I don’t know how, but I intend to find out what I need to know. When Corinna Freeman shines her golden light on you, that light becomes your reason for breathing. I just didn’t realize until now I was living on life support to get back to the real air I need.
10
Corinna
Dinner last night was a blast even if I had to see Colby’s face across the farm’s table for the duration of the meal.
Phil started out by saying that he should be the one receiving the gifts because he’s the one who taught Ali how to give blow jobs. Keene, Ali’s significant other and father to their precious daughter, Kalie, looked like he swallowed something putrid. Over the loud laughter that broke out, Keene said to Ali, “I did not need to know that.”
Ali, utterly unperturbed by Phil’s opening play solely made to antagonize Keene more than to embarrass Ali, nodded at Cassidy, Keene’s biological sister. “On our first date, I warned you there were pictures of Phil teaching your sister about sex.”
Keene’s wide-eyed face resembled that of a panicked horse, and he looked like he was about to break out in a sweat. “And didn’t I say it was immaculate conception?”
The whole table broke up at their byplay. Especially Caleb and Cassidy, who exchanged a kiss so heated I expected Keene was going to grab the fire extinguisher to break it up.
“Jesus, do I have to lay down the law about this shit again? No sex at the table,” Keene grumbled. “It ruins my appetite.” Patting his washboard abs, Keene glared at Phil first—because everything is Phil’s fault—then at his sister and her husband, who has the disturbing honor of being his best friend.
Cassidy rolled her eyes at her older brother while Caleb threw him the middle finger.
Ali, never one to let Keene get away with too much crap, winked at me before dragging her fingers up Keene’s chest. She was so going to mess with him. “But what if I want sex at the table, baby?”
Keene’s head snapped around so fast, you’d think his neck would’ve broken. Keene’s cheeks were flagged in red, betraying his lust for the birthday girl. His flustered state was proven when he stood up less than five seconds later and announced, “Party’s over. Everyone get the fuck out.”
We all cracked up. And that was before the serious drinking began.
* * *
As I’m preparingfor Bryan’s imminent arrival, I’m still laughing. I can’t wait to see the photos Holly was taking all night long. At one point, Charlie grabbed the camera from her and took some of just the Freeman siblings: Em with her arm wrapped around Phil’s waist, Phil’s arm wrapped around Cassidy’s chest, who was just in front of him. My arm draped over Em’s around Phil’s waist, Holly’s around me. Ali tucked next to Cassidy, in between me and Phil.
It was a picture of the six of us who fought and clawed our way from hell to become the premier wedding- and event-planning business in the Northeast. The six of who held no faith but the tender bonds we had with each other. We picked each other up, rebuilt ourselves, and molded a future from the pittance of scraps life saw fit to hand us.
