Betwixt and Between

Betwixt is neither here nor there.  It is purgatory.  It is the space between.  Betwixt your sweltering sheets, I know not if we are here in this moment or somehow somewhere else.  We have somehow slipped between the defined and the meaningless, and I am unsure of how we landed somewhere so nebulous and disjointed.  The space between us is so far apart yet I lie close enough to extend my hand and trace the curve of your brow.  The shape used to be so familiar, but the recent furrows make it something I no longer recognize.  Behind closed eyes hide clouded windows that bar me access from what was once the only place I needed to look to know all of you.  Behind closed lips waits nothing, for nothing is what they now give me across the dinner table or in the hall.  Half closed hands caress the sheets more tenderly than they do me.  Somewhere between now and then, a wayward breeze did blow.

Falling back through flickering memories in time, I can see us laying cheek to check and walking arm in arm.  Harmonious steps lead us down the same path on the journey from I to us.  What is betwixt us now?   Neither here nor there.  My security slips away as your freedom from what bonds you to us dissolves.  Dissolves like baseless fabric of our days gone by.  All that was once betwixt us now covered with a brume; mistier than eyes wide shut.

Once so secure in my footing, I was sure, steady.  I walked bravely into the world, knowing you were steady at my side, had my back, and together moving forward.  Now I know not where I can place my next step.  Once aplomb,  now uncertainty wracks me.  Once whole, now broken into one.  Between the me of we and the I now foisted upon me, I dare not move.  Every step forward is one away from you.  Further into vagueness we slip, neither wholly one thing or another.  Still your direction is unmistakable.

On the edge of sleep, betwixt awake and asleep.  Betwixt my heart and the rational, between me and you; here I lie alone by your side.  I can feel you breathing; the air we share between us will soon dissipate and be lost among all the rest.  We are undefined, you are undecided, and I am on the wrong side of right.  Soon, it will be very soon, that all that is betwixt and between us will slip into that space between.  Soon all that is us will be lost among all the rest.

My Crush

Bling!  The tiny electronic cricket of the phone breaks through my sleep and I am suddenly awake.  My skin crawls with the desire to move, but I master the impulse and lay still.  The light of early dawn is the palest of blue as it creeps in around the curtain and gives me just enough light to see.

I am glad my slumber was shattered for I am now acutely aware how many hours there are left until you leave.  Our time is so short.  Juliet's plaintive cry over the coming of the morning sounds in my head, and like her, there is nothing I can do to slow the clock.  All I can do is savor this sliver of time.

Your body is curled into mine, both hands rest of my stomach and I hold each in my own.  Our fingers curled together in a delicate balance, much like our legs.  Your breath betrays how deep you slumber; respirations slow and even.  With each exhalation your sweet scent wafts over me, and it is intoxicating.  I wish I could hold on to it, so I try to memorize it every time it comes.   It is so soft, like the fuzz of a chick, yet so overwhelmingly male that I am suddenly aware of just how manly your entire being is.

The bulge of your arm is soft now that your arm is at rest, but I know it can carry out all the work you must do.  The broadness of your chest, that I know holds a tender heart that few have a chance to see, extends around to your back, that I know is strong enough to carry the world.  Tiny blades of stubble cover your perfect face; lashes closed in prayer.

I lay perfectly still in this moment, for fear of waking you and losing it forever.  For as much as I long to see your eyes looking back at me, I know when they do, it will be to take their last look before our separation.  So I instead I lay, basking in the heat your body is radiating out and fighting off the return of my slumber.  Slumber will steal the few precious hours we have left.  Whisk them away into nothingness.  Obliterate the last moments of happiness I will get to enjoy of you.  I try to hard, but fight it as I may, finally my perfect moment is stolen away, gone with the blink of my eyes.

Days Like Last Friday

They don't tell you when you become a nurse that there will be days like last Friday.  They don't tell you when you become a nurse there will be days that are 11 hours and 45 minutes of normal and 15 minutes of the surreal.  They don't tell you when you become a nurse that somedays there is nothing you can do but be the sentinel that watches the end come.  They don't tell you when you become a nurse that there will be days like last Friday or you would never have become a nurse.

I have not had a patient die in four years.  I have not had a patient die in four years but I can remember every last one.

The first death I was ever present for was when I worked in the ER. It was a woman who had an aneurysm while driving.  She was 50ish; an average looking woman. After her car met the highway barrier, the paramedics were able to restart her heart once, but when she came in, she was fading fast. After she coded for us, we lost her.  Her very large hispanic family began the ritualistic weeping and wailing in the hallway, that I could hear through the curtain where I had been left to clean the body.

Alone in the room with her, I finished cutting off the rest of her clothes, removed all the IVs and equipment attached to her, washed and prepped her for viewing. What I remember that most was that she had these ridiculous Halloween earrings on; tiny hinged skeletons that danced when moved. Removal of jewelry is not part of the checklist, due to the jewelry usually being quite expensive, so we leave them on the person. Had they been any regular, expensive earrings, I would not have given them a second thought. All I kept thinking was she got up this morning in her own house, she put those earrings on, jolly and having no idea she would never see another Halloween. She was not a failing body shipped to us from the nursing home, awaiting the sweet release of death. This morning she was a person, and now she is nothing more than a chunk of flesh that had to be dealt with.

The first death of my own patient was an elderly black gentleman, exactly the nursing home patient most of my deaths are.  He had been my patient the previous two days, and no family came to see him, no friends crowded his room wishing him well.  The third day, I had some extra time, so I pulled out a razor gave him a shave he was in very bad need of.  While I shaved him, we had pleasant chat.  Near the end of my shift his heart failed, and upon his request, we did not attempt to save his life.  Instead I watched from the doorway while the death he knew was coming claimed him.  His was the only death I have cried at.

I remember the toddler we could not save after she choked on a toy, I remember the post-op bleed that left literally pints of blood in the bed, I remember the AAA who died on the toilet, I remember the cancer ridden patient who's family was finally ready for the morphine that would release him, I remember them all, and Mr. S from Friday will be no exception.

Mr. S was not even my patient.  He came up to the floor around 04:00 with a GI bleed of unknown origin.  As I helped the other nurse get him settled in, he chatted with us.  He told me about his dog, Precious, whom his daughter rescued from Mexico last time she was down there, and I showed him pictures of Tucker on my phone.  He chatted with me about how warm it was getting, and about how the doctors were making a big fuss over nothing.  We tucked him in and told him to call if he needed anything. I didn't go into the room till his call light went on at 0645.  His nurse was not around, so I got up and went to see what he needed.  When I got there, he asked to see his nurse because he needed to urinate.  I left the room, had another room ask me for a warm blanket, told his nurse he wanted to see her, and went to get the blanket.

I could not have been gone for more than 30 seconds.  When I returned, his nurse yelled at me to get the charge nurse.  I went and got her, and by the time I turned around, she yelled at me to call a code.  I called the code and when I entered the room, he looked nothing like the man who asked me less than two minuets ago to get his nurse because he had to pee.  He was ashen, and limp, and the monitor told all of us, heading for death.

His heart stopped, and we intubated.  After we intubate, the doctor told us that his lungs were full of blood.  Turns out he was bleeding from more than his rectum.  We pulled out 1,000 cc of bright red blood from his lungs. We brought him back once, but he never had a chance.  One moment he was holding my phone, talking to me about my dog, and the next he was just like the 50ish Hispanic lady with the skeleton earrings.  Covered in blood, naked, surrounded by a room of frustrated people who want nothing more than for him to open his eyes.

By the time we were done, he was cold, he was pale, and he and half the room were covered in blood.  For most people, death is an abstract concept.  People are in their lives one day, and the next they are not.  They might as well have moved away.  For the unfortunate few, death is life shattering because the one on the bed is their whole world.  But for the even more select few, death is something we work against everyday.  We struggle and we fight, and even when we do everything right, and we do all that we can, we still have no control over death.  We don't get to say that Mr. S gets to go home to his dog, or toddlers get to live because they are young, or that someone should live because they are loved.  They don't tell you when you become a nurse that there will be days like last Friday, days where there is no control, that you don't get to be the hero, that your patient doesn't ever get to leave.  They don't tell you when you become a nurse that there will be days like last Friday or you would never have become a nurse at all.

Puppy Love

Tiny Tucker lays curled in the crook betwixt my hips and rib cage.  He has somehow perfectly alined the curve of his spine with the curve of my waist.  I look down at him and watch his pint-sized chest rise and fall.  Puppy love washes over my heart and a smile creeps over my lips, but then it is almost immediately over taken by a tsunami of guilt.  An accusatory voice echos in my head, asking how quickly have I forgotten Carson.  Like a new husband, can teeny Tucker ever replace the colossal Carson shaped hole left in my life?

When I made the cross country move with all my possessions in tow, Carson was my co-pilot.  And why not, he had been beside me for every life change for the past 11 years.  Finally free of my collegiate bonds, the first two major purchase I was determined to make were washer and dryer, and a dog.  Shortly after arriving to my new job in clothes fresh from my own appliances, I went in search of a my canine companion.

Living in a small apartment with an even smaller yard, I had to find a pup who's mass would not make my tiny space a mess.  I visited several shelters but found nothing but the Greatest of Danes, Bloodhounds requiring their own queen mattress, and St. Bernards who could consume a metric ton in a week.  It was not until leaving a Petsmart adoption event empty-handed, and spied a man walking in with nothing more than a wee tuft of hair in his arms, that I found what I was looking for.  After chatting with him, he told me that the breed was a Britney Spaniel and the breeder had one more male he was anxious to find a home for.

A phone call, a short drive, and $150 later I returned home with a perpetual motion machine incarnate of a puppy.  His name was Chris for a few days, but after that didn't seem to fit his sizable personality, I landed on the moniker of Carson.  Carson is lucky he made it out of puppyhood alive.  His antics made the movie "Beethoven" look like a walk in the park.  He was a holy terror.  The day I came home and he dug a hole in the wall, and ate all the insulation, he was so lucky the pound had already closed their doors for the day.  Several weeks of obedience classes, some patience, and the unkindest of snips helped us settle into the routine of everyday life together.

Carson was not the brightest bulb.  In fact, amongst my friends it was the running joke that I had one of the dumbest dogs alive.  He never could quite get the gist of frisbee.  He would allow it to hit him in the face, fall the ground, and then pick it up from there.  I had to finally stop trying for fear of the resulting brain damage.  You could literally knock on the table for eight hours straight and he would still be convinced there was someone at the door.  My favorite illustration of his lack luster mental prowess is one day he was laying on the floor, spies something across the room, gets up, and starts to lick it.  I cannot imagine what is on the floor that he is licking.  I get up to investigate and discover he is licking a spot of light.  Lovable but not solving world hunger in the near future.

It was shortly after the move that I began to notice old age over taking my energetic guy.  He began to put on weight, was less interested in playing fetch and would rather sleep than go for a walk.  Old age happens to all of us.  Since the dog's life is condensed compared to ours, I had the opportunity to see him from infancy to a geriatric.  It had me pondering how our bodies changed, and how none of us can escape it.

One night I came home and found him down in the backyard.  He was so sick he could not even stand.  I had to dead lift my 55 lb dog into the house, where I tried to give him what comfort I could until the vet opened.  The verdict there was ominous.  Carson was suffering from DKA secondary to acute pancreatitis.  After a valiant battle, the call came that it was time to release Carson from the pain.  My dad  came in and together we sat with him while he drew his last breath.  I was a wreck.  I cried so hard that the entire staff, including the vet cried with me.  Suddenly after 12 years of constant companionship, he was gone in the blink of an eye.  All our time together, all our understanding, all of our relationship was suddenly just extinguished like it never existed.  Having never lost anyone close to me, I had just the slightest, tiniest, minute glimpse of what some of my patient's families must feel.  I was devastated.

Coming home to an empty house was the hardest.  The first day I caught myself yelling for him to come greet me at the door.  You don't realize how something so silly like a dog fills your life with happiness and unadulterated joy.  There was a hole in my life that made the loneliness ebb in from the fringe of my consciousness.

It was then that I found myself at the shelter.  I was just going to look, to see how I felt about someday having another dog.  I had no intention of bringing anything home.  That was all before Tucker.  Tucker was found somewhere off Jones, nearly dead, grossly underweight, and considered by the staff to be unadoptable in his condition.  He would need special medication for his infected eyes, a regiment of soft food and high calorie kibble to try to get his weight back up to healthy, a vet visit fairly soon after adoption, and someone to show him not all humans will leave him helpless and alone.  The whole story melted my heart.  Picking him up, I could see him hip bones clearly beneath his taunt skin, but all it took was a flick of his tongue smaller than that of a cats across my cheek to seal the deal.

Bringing Tucker home has already had its associated growing pains.  I have caught myself comparing the two dogs to each other.  I find myself wishing Tucker was as free with his love as Carson was, or loved to be outside like Carson did.  I logically know it is not fair.  Tucker is an individual with his own individual personality.  He cannot forever live in Carson's shadow.  While on the flip side, I cannot let the place Carson will alway have in my heart leave no room for Tucker to make a place.  Like all people in our lives whom leave us, there should be no guilt in finding the ability to love again.  It is a matter of allowing myself to not feel like I am abandoning my love for Carson, while allowing a new one to grow.

How Meta Is It To Blog About Blogs?

I have recently been on hiatus from blogging for various reasons, but tonight putting the proverbial pen to paper seems apt.  While I may not be ready to return to my prose, I was thinking about my own little niche in the electronic sphere.  How meta is it to blog about blogs?  I have always done a mental eye roll when reading fiction and the protagonist is a writer by profession.  Authors like King, Irving and Vonnegut have elevated their narcissistic to a level of masturbation.   "Write what you know", has just earned its cliche status.

Still, the need to decide what I am doing here has taken hold of my active thoughts.  Originally I started my blog to give my self a space to work on my writing.  A skill that lays dormant will soon wither and fall away.  My daily interaction with the written word is laid down medical jargon, cut to the bone to be concise and declarative.  No room to describe the tone of the air, the tilt of a head as the question is asked, or the lithe movement used to cross a room.  With school behind me, if not to blog, my textual competency would need not to be more sophisticated than the ability to make smiley faces and hearts via text message.

"A Girl and Her Blog" is acutely personal to me; sharing it is akin to intimacy.  As I fill the space with my words, my reader can judge me, love me, or revile me.  I am opening myself up for it all.  While some of my posts are silly or cathartic, most are serious expressions of my creativity.  Reflective and probative of self or prose hammered out over months, all are elemental to my core.  Sharing not only allows me to practice my art but allows me to lay bare my character.

While I am hesitant as a cat with strangers to starts regular posts again, it feels so nice to be back amid my words.  I miss the way I look at the world, searching for the next stroke of inspiration to quiver inside me.  I miss the way I stop before speaking to search for the perfect turn of phrase.  I miss the way it changes how I read books, looking at technique and appreciating the subtle art.  I miss the way my fingers itch to tap out all the buzz inside my head.  I miss the way I get to tell you, my reader, just who I am.

'Tis The Season

Its beginning to feel alot like Christmas.  While my halls are not decked, the aisles of Walmart are.  I did not hang my stocking with care, but am sure my parents took care of the task.  And my winter wonderland looks more like the aftermath of Katrina.  Still the unmistakable feel of Christmas is all around.  My breath hangs upon the frigid air, cheery cards holding wishes of yule tide joy arrive daily, and the calendar creeps ever closer toward the appointed day.

This year will be somewhat different because of my big move back to Vegas.  Going home is now a drive across town as opposed to a flight across the country.  Gifts no longer have to purchased with thoughts of their capacity to fit into a suitcase.  The holiday will be spent at home instead of the home of others.  Despite the differences, I love all that is Christmas.

Giddiness overwhelms me with the thought of finding the perfect gift for someone, I love the chance to fire up my oven and pump out cookies and treats, and cherish the opportunity to tell those in my life how much they mean to me.  Twinkling lights and tinsel clad trees will always bring a tender smile to my lips.  The season is rarified and special.

While this post may not be long, I wanted to take the opportunity to tell all of you that you are in my heart this Christmas.  I should not wait for just one day to say so, and this year my resolution is to try to change that.  Merry Christmas everyone, and to all a good night.

The Kiss of Life, The Kiss of Death

     Crash! CJ did not see Mia fall, he had only heard it. In the time it took for the sound to hit his ears, and for this head to turn in her direction, she was already on the ground. It had only been a small party tonight; a few friends over to celebrate nothing more than their middle class ease. Through the forest of legs, he could see the way her familiar figure lay askew, with an arm crumpled beneath her and knew that she was not alright. Nobody fell like that and did not right themselves if they were alright. Panic started at his head and began to wash down his lanky frame.

     With his long legs, it only took a few strides for him to cover the distance of the room. So focused on Mia he took no notice of the rough shove he gave his paralyzed guest as they stood looking down at her, not yet being jolted to action.

He hit his knees in a skid, but took no notice of the burn that denim meeting carpet made against his skin. All of his senses were focused on Mia. His hands trembled in front of him for a moment, trying to decide how to make things right. Reaching up he brushed back a mass of her dark curls from her face and he could see her lips turning blue.

     "I am not a doctor", he thought, "What am I supposed to do?" The panic was well into his chest and he noticed his heart raced as he took a full beat to realize what was happening to his beloved friend.

     Mia was by no means a fragile girl. Lithe and athletic, despite her small stature, had always allowed her to keep up with most guys he knew. She played on his work softball team, was the one who introduced him to rock climbing, and rolled her eyes when he himself was hesitant to squash a bug. She was no hot house orchid. But like the mighty Samson, she had a weakness, her asthma.

     He had laughed when he first heard the term, “brittle asthma”, it sounded like something old ladies living in Florida had, not something that could affect her perfect picture of health. Only now, faced with a blue lipped Mia, did he realize just how unfunny it was. Struggling back to the day they discussed death and how they had each imagined they would die, he tried to recall her words. Her narrative floated back from long ago and was quiet through the fog of panic.  Concentrating he could now remember Mia assuring him she fine as long as she followed the medication regiment she took such pains to hide but was sometimes subject to severe and unexpected attacks. He had never seen her have an attack, but this must be what was happening now.

     The beat over, and the need to act suddenly cleared his mind, and he knew what to do. Turning to the stunned crowd, he was angered by their inaction. Singling out a co-workers wife, who still clutched a wine glass by its delicate stem, he barked at her to call 911. 

Turning his focus back to his charge, he delicately straightened out her body, clumsily tilted her chin back and lowered his head to listen. No breath to speak of as he looked down her body, which from this angle included everything normally covered by her shirt. The unexpected look at that which made her female was odd and slightly embarrassing for him. They had never been anything more than friends; in fact the best. He could tell her anything, and she had a pathological need to do the same. He knew everything about her except the touch of her hand and the taste of her lips.

     His assessment of her, minus the awkward observation, told him that in fact she was not breathing. He knew that he would not need to pump her chest, he would only need to breathe for her until the ambulance arrived. Turning his head to hers, their mouths perpendicular, he put his mouth over hers and blew.

Breathe

     It was in that instant that everything changed. As soon as the air rushed from between his lips, a rush of thoughts that were not his own flooded into him. The cacophony of thoughts clashed together like massive waves. The alien thoughts fought with his own for dominance. It was so jarring that he almost pulled back and broke contact except the first thought that broke through the mass of confusion was so shocking that he could not move. She loves him.

     In the three years that they had known each other, despite the fact that they had seen each other nearly everyday, except for the time that she had spent 10 days in Boston, it had not occurred to him that this was the truth. They had met while standing next to each other in line at a Chuck Palahniuk book signing. Both had arrived nearly four hours before the event, and after the conversation over their mutual excitement to meet their favorite author in the flesh had faded, their witty parlay lead to what they were today.

     It was in this early day of their relationship, that he had sensed that she was in it for the dating experience, but his subtle overtures that she was not what he was looking for and then a not so subtle internet chat, was the last time he had considered it. She had vehemently denied it and still likes to tease him to this day for assuming, “every girl he meets wants to jump his bones”.

     “How could this be?”, his own thought cut into the boggling revelation. How often had he heard her make it clear to those questioned them in a semi-joking manner that they were anything but just friends? Hadn’t she always asked and seemed genuinely interested in whichever girl he was currently dating in all earnestness? If this was so, then why make all the comments about the great ease it created between them to always know that they were just friends?

     Before he could formulate an answer to any of his own questions, her emotions surged behind her mere thoughts into him, testifying of the truth.  Roiling beneath her raw emotion were layers of her desire.  She would take his jacket from the back seat of the car while he ran into the bank and breath in his scent deeply, trying to memorize it.  She made special note of the way his fingers moved around the ear of the dog while they sat on the couch watching TV and thinking how much she wanted those fingers to touch her own skin. She would watch the subtle way his suck in the corner of his lip when contemplating an answer or the way he held his body as he walked across the room. She loved to hear the lilt in his voice he always adopted when he read to her her own blog posts aloud and could tell with a glance at his face exactly how tired he was. She was a student of all things him.

     Lights popped in the edge of his vision and he was forced to break contact with her. Panting, trying to catch his own breath, he was reeling from more than lack of oxygen. His analytical nature screamed for him to take a step back and try to figure out what was going on, but knew without the respirations he was providing, there would be no Mia to question. Not even waiting for the dizziness past, he again lowered his lips down to hers.

Breathe

     The foreign presence was back again, and this time there was no pause before the rush of emotion flooded him. She wants to be with him. He could hear snippets of the artificial narrative she composed to him in her head as she sometimes allowed herself to believe that they someday would be together. He could feel the anger and disappointment when he somehow failed to live up to what she expected of him in their fabricated romance, of which he had no idea he was in. He could feel her heart break every time he talked to her about a girl that was not her and the great lengths she took to seem excited for him. He could feel her misery when a text would come over on his phone that brought a smile to his face. He now knew the torture she felt that the other girl, a lesser girl got to be a part of that section of his life that she was barred access to. He could hear her axiom repeated in her mind, “It is better to sit for a half portion than not to eat at all”. Her need and want began to press down over his own.

Breathe

     How often had she thought about spanning the distance between their hands and feeling the smooth skin there? How often had she imagined when another touched her that it was truly his caress? Why had she denied herself this? Why had she not given in to the burning desire that consumed her waking thought and nightly dreams? She does not want to ruin things. She would rather have him still in her life than not there at all. She would rather live in a pseudo-relationship that fulfilled some of her needs than to feel the bitterness of loneliness and the feeling of not being understood. She needed him, he was her emotional crutch.

Breathe

     A scene he knew opened up before him, only when he saw it, it was from his eyes at the back of the room, seeing Mia perched on a stool at the front of the room. This time he could see himself standing brilliantly illuminated while the rest of the crowd melted together like a charcoal drawing that has gotten wet. This was Mia’s first reading. It was his prodding that she should take her love of books and crafting her words into art to the next level. For months, he encouraged her to use her skill for more than the exhaustive blog that she created. 

     Finally taking his advice, she shut down her blog and put proverbial pen to paper. A year later she sat perched upon the well worn stool in the very same book shop they met in, reading a passage from her own work aloud.

"I never knew love was so torturous. Love is now the constant source of all my misery. When you are not here, the physical separation is like acid slowly eating away at the essence of me. My being slowly erodes away as each moment slips by. I am only restored when you finally rejoin me. But only so I can be subjected to even more ruinous torture.

The mere act of being with you is more agony than the longest separation. In your presence, my skin cries out for your touch as if it were cracked and chapped and you held its only relief. My chest longs to feel your weight upon it, for then, and only then would I be able to breath freely. Breathing in your scent is sweet oblivious, so thick and complete that I could hide from all else there. My essence is so intertwined with yours, that I would scarcely know myself without you. It is only with you that I feel complete, as if all parts of me are now in place. It is only then that I can feel the perfection of my love."

     These words were not really from the forlorn Mr. Gunthrie to his beloved Miss Sally in regards to his unrequited love as she explained in her preface. He now knew the reason he shone so bright in this memory was because while the words were in fact about unrequited love, they were her own words from her journal, composed to him, the night she first realized she loved him, read especially to him and only him.

Breathe

     Something was there that she did not want him to see. Like a blur on the corner of the eye. Catching on to it, he turned his focus on it and watched as his attention seemed to dissolve the barrier that she had erected around it. Slowly dissipating until the protection around it was membrane thin. As the first pinhole burst in, her panic of discovery began to leak out. This only made him concentrate harder, for since the moment his lips had touched hers, he felt like he had some sense of control.

     Encased inside her barrier was something that he never expected but at this point had no more new shock to give to the revelation. This thing that was happening to him right now, was her ability, it was coming from her. This gift was something that she was not only aware of, but was something that she had some control over. She had used this ability before, but there were limitations. She could not hide anything once she chose to share. She could only share the gift by the touch of the lips. She had to give everything on one subject. Once she had tried to share with someone how much she loved cake and instead infused them with everything she ever knew about, saw, or tasted related to it. It was overwhelming.

Breathe

     She had decided since she was unable to tell him how much she cared to show him instead. She wanted him to see the depth and breathe of her love for him. But she knew that her one shot at making him love her came with risks. He would see everything.

     Suddenly he was overcome with the dark emotions she was trying to hide from him. He felt the jealousy in his mind for every time he had fallen into love's embrace with a woman that was not her. It was more than just the jealousy of his time, or jealousy of the intimacy that she did not get to share, but also an irrational and ugly jealousy that bred hatred for the woman that he was with. The emotion was so hot and bitter that it scared him to feel it rush through his mind. He longed  to pull away before he was forced to see more.  

    Before he could break, he saw her sifting through all that was supposed to be private. She wanted to know him completely, to have some sort of control over her helplessness.  She had felt guilty at first, only reading emails at his house when he left his email account open, or sneaking peeks at his text messages over his shoulder as he responded.  Soon, this became not enough information, there were holes in the story she burned to fill.  Slowly she began to stealthily observe every time he logged in, slowly piecing together his password until one day she finally figured it out.  Now she had a copy of each email sent directly to her phone.  Several months ago she had figured out a simple call to the cell company as CJ's "personal assistant" had enabled her to turn on the option to record his text messages on-line for a mere $2.99 surcharge.  Now she read more of his text messages than her own. 

Breathe

     He saw her systematically ruining every romantic relationship he ever tried to have, and some he had not known he had a chance at.  It had started good natured, acting only upon what she thought was in his best interest.  She would discourage certain types of girls from talking to him, or steering them to other friends that she considered more "suitable" matches.  If the other woman would not be dissuaded, she would befriend her and work on her downfall from within.  She would report back modified versions of conversations to CJ's ears, or let slip where this woman or that was spending her Saturday night and in who's company.  Loose lips sink ships indeed. 

     Soon her well meaning protection turned into an out and out offensive.  She began to deceive in both word and deed.  It was only small acts at first, such as occasionally deleting text message before he had a chance to read them.  Another nice option available from the webpage.  She would play victim at especially crucial times in newly forming relationships to force him to chose her, or use the coveted "we" a touch too often for comfort with the new woman to force her to show C.J. the jealousy he so greatly despised, drop condom wrappers into open purses at auspicious times so he would suspect she was less than true, and even made one girlfriend appear to be a kleptomaniac by systematically stealing objects from his house every time the unfortunate soul was over. 

Breathe

     While each one of those sabotage campaigns only served to sink a failing ship, it was the destruction of his love for Katie that struck so hard a fissure began to form.  He had met Katie earlier that year while sitting at the bar in his favorite sushi restaurant.  Due to Mia's utter hatred of all things fish, he hardly ever indulged in his love of the tiny, bite-sized food.  Returning from dropping Mia off at the airport for her Boston trip, he made a beeline for Sushi Zushi.  Both being solo diners and fortuitously sitting next to each other, he and Katie quickly decided sharing rolls and company made for a far better experience. 

     For those ten days they lit the world on fire.  Inseparable except for work, and even then a few sick days were used, the two were deeply entangled upon Mia's return.  He reined in his own excitement upon Mia's first night home.  She arrived flushed with excitement to tell of her adventures as an actual author being called for a meeting by a publishing house.  After they agreed to publish her book, she stayed for an intense eight day vivisection of her creation and then reassembled it into a sellable product.  Finishing her hour monologue in which he counted not a single breath, she finally turned the conversation to him. 

     With his own enthusiasm bubbling over, he painted his own version of their 10 days apart, bright and vivid.  Describing Katie in such loving detail that the words raked their pointed edged down her soul until nothing was left.  So caught up in the telling of the story, he never had in inkling of what it had done to her.  Now, he had a chilling vision of her literal desire to physically hurt not just this girl but any girl who was able to penetrate this close to his heart.  The irrational thought process now coursed him that illustrated the resolve she made that night to completely control him.

Breathe

    He had never known what had caused Katie to disappear several months after injecting Mia into the situation.  It had taken him weeks upon weeks to come to terms her sudden departure and finally say it had nothing to do with him.  Now, seeing it happen through Mia's eyes he knew with a sure knowledge that this was the truth. 

     Unable to handle the thought of CJ and Katie close, touching, loving each other, Mia enacted a campaign of terror.  Careful to allow Katie to know she was the culprit without ever giving her direct proof, Katie was subjected to unauthorized charges on her credit card to outlandish websites, car length key scratches, a corn snake in shower, an autodialer that would call repeatedly until picked up scheduled to call home or work, depending on where Katie was, a cancelled flight that was only discovered when she tried to check in and since the airline stated Katie herself cancelled it was charged to rebook, but all of this Katie was determined to endure.  And endure she did until a tiny webcam's grainy recording of CJ and Katie together was emailed to her boss, mother, and half of her real estate client list.  Mia could not have asked for a better outcome than Katie's ghost like exit from CJ's life.

Breathe

      Utterly horrified at the violation, his own thoughts fought to surface on center stage, to be analyzed for the full ramifications they represented.  Despite his effort, there was still more that came crashing over him like a wave in the sea.  He wondered how there could any more, how there could be anything worse. 

    He focused on the last bit of darkness, the last corner with information she was attempting to hold back from him.  Directing his concentration, he then saw tonight's tragedy was no twist of fate.   Her asthma attack was no accident, that she had caused this asthma attack. Slipping into the bathroom, she held the delicate handkerchief laced with an allergen over her nose and inhaled deeply, knowing what it would do to her. Knowing of no other way to have their lips meet for an extended period, this was her last ditch effort to snare him.

     She gambled everything, including her life to get what she wanted. She knew if he could just feel what she felt that they would be together. The only thing was that if he got far enough to realize she did this to herself, that she used her ability in an attempt to superimpose her feelings over his, that he would hate her. She would ruin the beautiful facade that they had.

     No breathe followed.  Finally saddled with the full knowledge of what Mia really was, not the facade he had come to love and cherish, he could not do it.  He could not put his mouth upon hers again.  He could not feel the hate and blackness seep into him anymore.  His audience stood still as trees, unaware of the unspoken drama that had passed between them, but still did nothing to prevent his cessation of respiration.  He looked down at her, and with glossed eyes, watched her lips fade from the rosy pink he had restored to them, to the dusky blue of cyanosis.  He watched and did nothing to stop it. 

     "CJ?", croaked a voice behind him, timidly attempting to call him back to action after the tension of his inaction crested among the observers.  Still not roused, he turned his head to the door as the EMTs arrived. Brushing him aside, they worked rapidly with bags and tubes, and mechanically took over the traitorous artificial breathing. They loaded her up and began to wheel her away. The last thought that she had blown across to him now was the only thought pulsing through his muddled mind.  She had known.  She had known he would hate her for what she did. That the hate would black out the white hot light of her love.  She had known he would hate her, and she was right.