Breathe With Me (Playing For Keeps #5)

by Becka Mack

Carter shakes his head. “I don’t know how to say this without it coming off shitty, but, buddy, we’re tried.” He gestures around the table, all the faces watching me. “We’re tired just watching you two. Watching everything you’re going through, everything you shouldn’t have to go through.” Adam nods. “The way you’re chasing this with your whole hearts.” “Getting your hopes up just to be knocked down again,” Garrett adds quietly. “Wondering why,” Jaxon murmurs. “Why you two, when you deserve it so much? Wondering when it’ll be your turn.” Lennon looks down at her phone, at a thread of messages between her and the girls—the group chat they’ve lovingly named Coochie Gang: The Chamber of Secrets. Named by my wife, I know, and yet the screen I can see shows that she barely gives more than a one-word answer nowadays. When Lennon looks up at me, it’s with a worry etched so deep in those brown eyes. “Watching our best friends go through something so impossible and just … not knowing how to help.” Her words catch in her throat, and she blinks away tears, looking away as Jaxon’s hand finds her back. “Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s not about us. We just want to help, and we don’t know how.”