Breath: Pages 161-202 Summary & Analysis

Sando and Loonie depart for Java. Angry and bored, Bruce rides out towards Sando’s house for lack of other ideas. Eva invites him in, though she seems stoned. She quickly seduces Bruce and they make love, for Bruce’s first time. Later, they smoke hash together and she reveals that her trust fund from her parents pays for the life she and Sando share. Her mood shifts, and she tells Bruce that perhaps he shouldn’t come back.

The encounter electrifies Bruce, keeping him constantly wired for a week. Eva crowds out all his other thoughts, as he repeatedly recollects every moment of their rendezvous and begins judging all other girls in comparison with Eva. He’s confused by her advice to never come back. One night, he thinks he hears her car outside his house but can’t be sure.

Unable to bear the separation any longer, Bruce returns to the house after a week. Eva initiates sex without hesitation, and this kicks off a steady pattern over the following weeks. Bruce at one point tells her he loves her, but she dismisses him as immature. She opens up about Sando, revealing that he’s 36 and afraid of growing old, hence why he keeps reckless kids like Loonie around. She then grows bitter again about her injury, and Bruce takes the cue to leave.

In the present, Bruce reflects on the unfortunate end of his and Eva’s affair, resenting her ultimate callousness towards an inexperienced kid. Nonetheless, he feels that he understood her deeply, as someone out of the ordinary, driven by extreme desire to flaunt physical limits in her sport but crushed by her inability to do so after her injury. The all-or-nothing philosophy she lived by was in some ways immature, hence her compatibility with a teenager, however brief. In the intervening years, Bruce has learned to give up the intense loathing he felt for her for a long time after their affair, realizing that she was more misguided than deliberately malicious. The disgust he used to read in her features as directed at him may well have been intended for herself.

Sando and Loonie remain abroad without any communication. Bruce spends all his time at Eva’s, and their affair develops. Bruce becomes adept at lying to his parents about his whereabouts. They become like strangers to him; all he thinks about and cares about is Eva. Bruce relishes studying every physical detail of her. He knows that eventually she will volunteer information about her past, which he’s dying to know.

This day finally comes, and Eva opens up about her history with Sando. She had finished college and was travelling in Oahu, where Sando was working at a surfboard shop. They met at a party and rapidly developed a serious romance. They parted for the winter season, but Eva missed Sando too much and called him; the next day he came to her in New Hampshire.

After more months of debauchery, Sando gets serious about diet, training, and meditation. He condescends to Eva, offending her, but she takes him back and makes him her coach as well as lover. She quickly rises from a rich skiing dilettante to a serious athlete. Her cohort of freestyle skiers were upsetting the stodgy pro skiing establishment with their daredevil antics, something that Eva remembers fondly.

When her knee injury occurs, Eva’s thankful to have perspective: another skier broke his neck that day, becoming paralyzed for life. Nevertheless, she returns to the slopes next season despite her uncertainty, and she re-injures the knee, ending her skiing career up to now. She says that those moments before she fell were her last moments of happiness. She says she misses being afraid.

Despite the deepening of their relationship, indicated by Eva revealing her past, she continues to act intermittently dismissive and indifferent towards Bruce, and her drug use increases. Bruce alleges that she’s bored with him, and she admits that she is. To counter this development, she invites Bruce to aid her in autoerotic asphyxiation. Bruce is baffled and frightened and he refuses, but she pressures him until they have sex. During intercourse, he chokes her as requested and she loses consciousness. Bruce is terrified: the world of sex that he thought he was mastering up until now has suddenly become totally mysterious and hostile to him once again. After a long while, she suddenly gasps wildly, much like Bruce’s father does in the night after momentarily ceasing to snore.

Bruce doesn’t return to her house the next day, even though Eva is expecting him. He’s angry and distraught over the events of the night before. He feels used by Eva and can longer kid himself that the love he thinks he feels for her is mutual. She can’t hide her boredom with him and even calls Sando’s name in bed. Bruce actually wishes Sando would return and end this situation.

Bruce calls Eva from school, intending to end things with her, but she starts crying and apologizing and he is unable to do it. She pulls up outside his school the next day and takes him for a drive during his brief lunch break, performing oral sex on him before returning him to school.

That weekend, Bruce calls on Eva again. She says she wants to test her leg and suggests they go on a hike. At first, she does well, but her leg soon starts to cause her pain. They stare out at Old Smoky, and Eva chides him for his recklessness in surfing it alone. She says, however, that she understands him: unlike Sando, who’s “never had anything precious taken away,” Bruce looks like he’s constantly expecting to lose everything he has. The remark thrills Bruce and floods him with sexual desire, but Eva continues babbling until she decides they should go home. Her leg has become too painful to walk, and Bruce takes her on his back.

At home, Eva takes more pills and ominously repeats her remark about everything being snatched away. They have sex, and Bruce grudgingly chokes her with the plastic bag. She continues to request this at each subsequent meetup, despite how much Bruce dislikes it.

Bruce in the present reflects that, at the time, he knew nothing about the physiology of suffocation. He knew enough, however, to see that Eva’s reactions to being choked were not the thrilling out-of-body experiences of surfing but a more morbid sampling of death. He thus began to fake it, using less pressure than he was capable of, out of fear for her life. He wonders if she ever got wise to his strategies.

One day, Bruce notices a bulging vein on Eva’s belly. She admits that she’s pregnant. Bruce is shocked, but she assures him the baby is not his. Bruce is thankful that the development spells an end to her irresponsible choking and, thus, to their affair. Bruce can now easily agree to his father’s nervous order to stay away from the Sanderson people, and their relationship seems on the mend.

Shortly after the pregnancy revelation, Sando returns. Bruce runs into him at a gas station, and Sando excitedly declares that he’s going to be a father. He says that the trip with Loonie was packed with gnarly adventures, and that Loonie ultimately ditched him to continue travelling. Henceforth, Bruce makes an effort to avoid Sando and Eva’s house.

Months later, Bruce sees a more pregnant Eva in the general store. He slips out, pretending not to hear her say his name. Bruce suffers from insomnia and spends nights in his father’s shed sharpening tools. He fantasizes about returning to Eva’s but doesn’t act on it. His grades for the year are abysmal, but he reassures his mother that he will get his act together and begins hitting the books again.

One day, Bruce is surprised to see Sando next to him in the water at the point, surfing in just a speedo. They banter, and then Sando expresses his disappointment in how Loonie turned out. Bruce counters that maybe being ordinary is alright.

Back on shore, Bruce sees Eva and admires her pregnant physique. He pressures her into meeting him to have sex a final time, bluffing that he would spill the beans about their relationship if not. They have joyless sex beneath her house and make no effort to conceal their unhappiness.