Breathe With Me (Playing For Keeps #5)

by Becka Mack

It never fails to remind me that I’ve chosen the right path, chased the right dreams, put in the damn work to get where I am. I said that things come easy to me, but never has that meant that I’m not busting my ass along the way for the life I want to live.

“My, you’re eager. Aren’t you going to ask my name first?” “Nah. Already know it.” With a perfect, wide grin, Emmett Brodie deposits his phone into my hand. It’s opened to the New Contact page, except the name field has already been filled out. Mrs. Brodie.

“C’mon, Mrs. Brodie. The quicker we get through the formalities, the quicker we get to the fun stuff, like my ring on your finger and you in my bed for the rest of our lives.”

New Year’s baby, freshly twenty-seven. Feels a lot like the first day of my life, though.” “Happy birthday,” I breathe, heart pounding at the feel of him pressed against me, his fingers dancing down my hair. “What did you get?” His palm settles in the curve of my lower back, his whisper pressed to my ear. “You.”

It’s realizing that everyone before him has meant nothing, because this? This is what it feels like to be alive.

There was Cara Hunter, the woman who was happy and capable of doing it all on her own. And then there was Cara Brodie, the woman who’d never need to do anything alone again, but with the man who reminded her day in and day out that she could. I was unstoppable before Emmett. With him, I’m indestructible.

We’re a part of a family, big and overbearing, loud and in each other’s business. A little much, maybe, for some, but not for us. Because the thing about family is that we all need each other at one point or another. Because sometimes we can’t bear the weight on our own. Can’t remember how. Can’t remember how strong we are, and everything we’re capable of. And in those moments? That’s when your family steps in. They bear the weight for you. Remind you that nobody’s ever expected you to bear it alone. That you’re stronger together, and nothing can pull you down.

She likes me annoying her. That’s good; I’m gonna be doing it for the rest of our lives.

Being with him is like stepping into the light, lifting my face to the sky, and bathing myself in everything warm and good and safe, not knowing how I ever lived before my soul found his.

“Your future is full of love, Cara. Full of family. We’ll be here, all of us, every step of the way. You don’t have to do this alone.” And I think that’ll be the only thing that gets me through this.

“You, Cara Brodie, are a once-in-a-lifetime woman, and you can do anything.” She sniffles, nose scrunching. It draws my attention to the teensiest freckles that live there, scattered like stars. I remind myself that she’s a galaxy, and I’m just the moon lucky enough to be in her orbit. She holds my whole universe in her skies.

“We love you, Cara. You’ve always been our rock. Let us be yours.”

I’ve never had to work so hard to hold on to pieces of myself. Loving myself has always come so naturally to me, because it’s how I was raised. And yet when I look down at my hands, the way they tremble, I’m reminded that I’ve been watching myself slip through my fingers for months now, struggling to hang on to what makes me who I am.

and for the first time in my life, I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to fix his hurt, because I’m drowning in my own. I don’t know how to love him through this, because I don’t … I don’t know how to love myself through this. I’ve never not known how to love myself.

I give up the fight, the very last bits of myself that I can’t find anymore. I give up the woman I’ve always been, and I accept that I don’t know who I am anymore. That I’ve lost myself.

His following breath is deep and steadying, and when he sniffs, my heart aches with the knowledge that he’s taken on every ounce of my pain he can manage in this moment.

“I hated everyone constantly asking me if I was okay. I knew they meant well, but frankly, it’s a stupid question. I wasn’t okay. Everyone knew I wasn’t okay. They asked because they felt like they had to, because it made them feel better when I said I was fine. But what else was I supposed to say? No, I wasn’t okay. I was angry. Angry at the person who was responsible. Angry at myself for being the reason my dad was on the road that day. Angry at the world for moving on like my world hadn’t just stopped. I was jealous of friends who still had their dads, who took their relationships with them for granted. Jesus, the jealousy was disgusting, and I hated myself for feeling it.”

“My world felt like it ended the day my dad died. In a way, I think it did. The world as I knew it, at least. I had to let go of a future I’d dreamed of, one where my dad was by my side through it all, like he’d always been. But life went on for everyone else, and that pissed me off. Made me more bitter than I could ever put into words. It felt like the biggest insult, like nobody could understand how special my dad was to me, and they didn’t understand why I couldn’t just … move on. Not on their timeline. But nobody wanted to hear that when they asked me if I was okay. And if I told them anyway, they’d smile and tell me I’d be okay soon.”

because you were brave when you didn’t want to be. Because you can do hard things, Cara. Even when you don’t want to. Even when you shouldn’t have to.

“You deserve a future filled with love. You’ve got so much of it to give, and you give it so freely. There are some things you can’t control, hard as you try, and there are the things you can choose. Emmett is going to spend the rest of his days loving you, and you’re going to spend yours loving him. Choose to do it together. Love makes life worth living, even in the face of everything we lose along the way.”

You and me? We don’t quit. Not on each other. Not on a love like ours.”

I was existing before you. But since you? Since you, I’ve been living.”

Always fighting for the people you love. So why aren’t you fighting for yourself right now?”

“I’m so fucking tired of fighting, Emmett. I’m tired of being strong. I don’t want to be brave anymore. Haven’t I been brave enough? Strong enough? Haven’t I fought long enough?” I hang my head as my cries wrack my body, shaking every inch of me to my core. “Please, Emmett. I’m so tired. I can’t do it anymore.”

Emmett. He is … the long haul. He’s the sunny days and the smooth sailing. He’s the top down, the wind in his sun-kissed hair, and what happiness sounds like when he says there’s never been a more beautiful day. He’s the early-morning easy rides that lead into the quiet, peaceful nights.

“There isn’t a world out there, a lifetime that exists from now until forever, where I’m not yours and you’re not mine. I don’t need to dream about a brighter future, because wherever life takes me, I’ll be standing next to you. You’re my life, Cara. My yesterday, my today, and my tomorrow. And I’m going to love you right for every one of those days.”

Rather, we’re trying to figure out how to be a little kinder to ourselves right now when we need it most. To give ourselves some grace while we heal, and figure out what that healing looks like for us.

“Every day I wish I could take your pain, help you hold it, just so that you’d feel like you had someone who understood. So you didn’t feel alone. I would do it in a heartbeat, Cara. I’d do anything for you.”

“We’re harder on ourselves than anyone else. I think, deep down, we wonder if we really deserve the best, the love, the good things.”

“Only you can decide what’s enough for you,” I tell her quietly. “You’re not used to it, I get it, but you’re in charge. You’re your own boss. You get to decide which path you take. You decide how worthy you are of the life you want to live. You’re the only person who can go after it. You’re the only one who can choose you, over and over.”

One thing about me? I know exactly who I am, and I own it proudly.

I’ve learned that loving myself doesn’t require perfection, but it does require me to show up for myself every damn day, and celebrate all my efforts, no matter the outcome. Loving myself means understanding that I can’t do it alone. It means asking for help, letting people in, letting them love me extra on the days the love escapes me.

I sink into the feeling, this certainty that I’m exactly where I’m meant to be in this life, loving and being loved by exactly who I’m meant to. And that? That right there is a special kind of peace.

Watching her step out of the car and look up at her future was like watching someone take their first breath.

It feels like putting one foot in front of the other, slow but certain, knowing that I am strong enough to survive anything this life lays at my feet, because I have survived what was meant to break me beyond repair. It feels like water surrounding me in a warm embrace as I step deeper. It feels like facing my fears as I dive headfirst into the water.

“Love isn’t easy. It’s cracking yourself wide open when you’re terrified to do so, just so someone can know the deepest, darkest parts of you. It’s recognizing your faults so you can grow as a person and grow together. It’s choosing to have the hard conversations instead of taking the easy way out, fighting to be together even when the fight is exhausting. It’s a choice you have to make every day, a mountain you climb together. Love isn’t easy. It’s not supposed to be. But loving you, firefly? Loving you is the easiest choice I’ve ever made, and I’ll choose you for the rest of my tomorrows.”