Breathers Read Online Free Page A

unsweetened, watered down. Even the wine I drink I can't appreciate. And I don't get drunk. You need a functioning circulatory system for that. So mostly I eat out of habit or boredom, with perfunctory pleasure and no definitive memory of how anything is supposed to taste.
    But as I watch my mother spread icing across the cinnamon rolls, I'm overcome with nostalgia. It's like thirty years have been wiped away in an instant and I'm sitting at the breakfast table, my stockinged feet dangling above the floor, a mug of steaming hot chocolate in front of me as I wait in anticipation for my mother to finish icing the cinnamon rolls.
    I want to tell my mother that I love her but I can't. I want to give her a hug but I don't because I'm afraid she might scream. Or else open up another can of Glade on me.
    Sometimes I feel guilty about what I've put my parents through, but it's not like I've done this on purpose. Still, I appreciate what they've done for me, all that they've sacrificed.They could have left me at the SPCA. I guess that just proves that you never stop being a parent, even after your son comes back from the dead.
    “Here you go, honey.” My mother hands me a plate with a hot, steaming, freshly iced cinnamon roll. I smile and go to sit down at the kitchen table.
    “Oh, Andy, could you take it downstairs?” she says. “We have company coming over.”

go to a therapist twice a month.
    His name is Ted. He and Helen used to work together, so he sees me as a personal favor to her. If you can call charging twice his hourly rate a favor.
    I've been meeting with Ted for six weeks. Several other members of the group have seen Ted on one or more occasions, but I'm the only regular. Naomi went once and said she didn't get anything out of the session that she couldn't get from watching
Oprah.
Tom's been in three times but canceled his last two appointments due to conflicts with the League Championship Series between the Giants and the Cubs. Neither Carl nor Jerry thinks they need therapy. And Rita isn't ready to talk to anyone outside of the group.
    I don't think Ted really helps me much, if at all, but it gets me out of my room two nights a month and Wednesday nights have a dearth of quality TV programming.
    “How are you feeling today, Andrew?”
    That's the first thing Ted always asks me, a smile plastered on his face like someone's taking his picture and he's supposed to look happy about it.
    Ted is fifty-five going on thirty. Over the last five yearshe's had a facelift, necklift, chin tuck, and cosmetic muscle enhancement. He works out in a gym five days a week, has a wardrobe that comes exclusively from The Gap and Eddie Bauer, and he has a full head of his own hair that he dyes dark brown because he's going gray. He also wears a twenty-four-carat gold hoop in his left ear, which he had pierced for his fiftieth birthday.
    I know most of this because Ted has told me all about himself during our previous five sessions. I guess he feels comfortable with me. Either that or he figures one of us has to do the talking.
    He stares at me, still wearing that fake plastic smile, waiting for an answer to his question. I scribble the word
Peachy
on my dry erase board, which is resting in my lap and elevated at an angle against my bent knees. Ted sits just behind me and off to my right, so he can read my responses. I can see him out of the corner of my eye. Even after six weeks, I still catch him staring.
    “Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?” asks Ted.
    I scribble
You think?
beneath my first response.
    In the corner above us, a timed air freshener releases the scent of lilac into the room with a hiss. The air freshener wasn't there on my first visit.
    “Then why don't you tell me how you're honestly feeling.”
    I glance at Ted over my shoulder. He smiles at me with a strained expression. No teeth.
    How am I honestly feeling? I'm resented by my parents, abandoned by my friends, and discriminated against by a community that no longer