The Art of Breathing (The Seafare Chronicles 3)

“I don’t think I could have,” she says, her voice cracking. “You don’t know what it was like.”

“I did. I do. I was there.”

She shakes her head. “Not that. You don’t know what it was like. In my head. There were times when I thought everything was closing in on me. When it was easier to just stay in bed instead of getting up. I stayed there, sometimes, for days.” She looks back at me, then averts her eyes. “It was just easier.”

“You couldn’t breathe,” I say, thunderstruck. I expected to feel anger when I came here. I expected confusion. I never expected understanding.

She nods. “Those were the worst days. Like I didn’t have lungs anymore.”

“And so you ran.” Oh, Dom.

“Yeah.”

“Running doesn’t help.”

“It gets you farther away. For a time.”

“But it always comes back.”

“I know,” she says. “I know that every day.”

“Where’s Frank? Or Joe? Or whoever?”

She snorts. “It’s just me and Izzie. They left. Everyone leaves.”

“Oh how unfair.” I can’t keep the sarcasm from my voice.

Julie laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “I suppose it’s what I deserve.”

“I suppose there’s always that rough guy at the diner, huh?”

“It is what it is. I’ve accepted that.”

“Have you?”

“It’s who I am.”

“How fatalistic of you.”

She shrugs. “I don’t know what that means.”

“That’s not what family does,” I say slowly. “They don’t leave when things get hard.” The words are hard to get out because I know how hypocritical they sound coming from me.

The defiant look comes back. “I know.”

“Do you?” Do I?

“I was never meant to be a mother.”

“Buy condoms next time.”

“Are you done?” she asks, eyes flashing. “You come here, into my house, and—”

“I did the same thing,” I tell her. “I ran.”

She stops. Stares. Rubs her mouth with her free hand. Wipes her eyes. “From Bear?”

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