Free Try Not to Breathe by Jennifer R. Hubbard Page B

done with yourself all day?” she asked, with strained cheerfulness.
    Let’s see: stood under a waterfall, went to see a phony psychic, relived the worst night of my life, fought with Nicki. “Not much.”
    “You might say . . .” Her eyes searched my face. “You might say you haven’t done much since you finished your schoolwork last month.”
    “It’s vacation.”
    “Ryan,” she said, taking the dustpan and broom out of the kitchen closet, “I think it’s time you started doing things again. Your father and I have been very patient; we haven’t kept you on a short leash. But—”
    “‘Leash’?” I said. “What am I, a dog?”
    “I didn’t mean that.” She held out the broom and dustpan. “Come clean up this vase.”
    I swept up the fragments. “I’m not on a leash.”
    “That was a poor choice of words,” she said. “My point is that you need structure. We didn’t want to pressure you into taking on too much too soon, and we thought something like camp or a summer class might be too much, but now I wonder. I worry about you drifting, not having any goals—”
    “I have goals.”
    “Such as?”
    “I’m going to start running again.” I dumped broken glass in the trash.
    “That’s very nice.” Her tone dripped syrup. “But I’m thinking about more than just a hobby.”
    “Will you stop talking at me like I’m five years old? I was a mental patient, not a moron.”
    She sucked in her breath. “You like saying that, don’t you?”
    “Not really.”
    She gripped the kitchen counter where the vase had stood. “You like shocking me.”
    “Why should it shock you? That’s what I was.”
    She shook her head. “You like saying it in the ugliest way possible. Dr. Briggs says it makes you feel that you’re in control.”
    I hated when she talked like that, as if she were looking me up in a manual and reading a section titled “How to Respond When Ryan Reminds You He Was in the Nuthouse.” I threw the broom and dustpan in the closet, instead of hanging them on their special little hooks.
    “Ryan—” Her face creased, and I knew I needed to stop, to pull back, because it never took much to make her crumble. But my nerves were stretched tight, on the verge of snapping, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of what she’d said, or if this tension was left over from my scene with Nicki. I only knew I needed her to shut up.
    She didn’t.
    “You can’t hold your illness over our heads for the rest of your life. It doesn’t excuse you for rudeness. It doesn’t—”
    “You’re the one holding it over my head.”
    Her face collapsed, and she stood sobbing in the middle of the kitchen. Guilt knifed through me. I opened the closet door and hung up the dustpan and broom. But she kept crying, with her hand at her face and her shoulders quivering.
    I should’ve tried to hug her or at least touch her shoulder, but I couldn’t. It was like watching someone drowning, and worrying that if you stuck your arm out to help them, they’d drag you under, too. I tapped the sides of my legs while she choked, tears pouring over her fingers. Finally I managed to pull a paper towel off the roll and hand it to her.
    “Thank you,” she murmured, blotting her face. “Why don’t you just go upstairs.” Her voice was calm now, thick from crying, and she wouldn’t look at me.
    • • • • •

    In my room, I went right to the computer. Val wasn’t around, but Jake was.
    “What are you up to?” I asked him.
    “The Mom wants me to go outside. I told her there’s nothing out there I need to see. Then she gives me a guilt trip about mowing the lawn.”
    “Join us out here in the world where they have marvels like this.” I sent him a picture of an eggplant whose owner claimed it looked like Albert Einstein. After all the drama with Nicki and Mom, it was a relief to focus on vegetables that supposedly resembled famous scientists. I could halfway understand why Jake never wanted to leave his