Breathe (3 page)

I did, however, see Trenton most days. He had been a big help getting me familiar with how everything worked at the school. I had taken to eating lunch with the girls from French, who turned out to be Julia, Mandy, Raquel, and Lisa. They were actually part of a bigger group made up of all juniors like me. Since I’d always thought making friends and fitting in had been made easier by Daisy, it was a nice change being able to make friends and fit in on my own without any outside influence. Did it make me a bad person that I was excited about doing something without my sister? I had loved her so much, but I wanted to move on in my life. I wished I didn’t have to leave her behind. Even making friends here was complicated by my past.

Fortunately, none of the kids asked too much about my past life except the inevitable: Did I know/see/live by any stars? And “Did you live close to the beach?” So funny. They moved on after my mostly “no” answers. I mean, I did see Zac Efron once at Universal Citywalk, but you can’t live very long near LA and not see someone famous. I liked most of the girls so far except for the angry girl from French class who turned out to be Lisa. She had seemed to take an instant dislike to me. She had gone out of her way to ignore me and make a show of trying to exclude me from conversations. Thankfully the other girls didn’t go along. I just pretended not to notice. This was something I did not miss about girlfriends. She was most definitely a mean girl, and I wanted nothing to do with that. LA was full of mean girls. I knew her type. Yuck.

The pep rally and game was the next day, and I had made tentative plans to go with “the girls,” based on mom’s approval. It was nice to actually have plans and act like a normal teenager. With the exception of Lisa, I liked hanging out with the girls; they made me laugh. They seemed to get along with each other mostly, and I took that as a good sign. There were some boys that hung out in the group too, but I was still a little ways from being comfortable enough to go beyond “hey” to any of them. I felt like I was waking up from a two-year nap. I was ready to get on with my life. Sad as it was, this was part of the reason we moved. I don’t think any of us could have done it if we had stayed in LA.

By Thursday at lunch, the girls were finalizing their ideas for the weekend. I was actually getting excited about being part of it.

“So I think we should make shirts with the numbers of our favorite players on the front. My mom can pick us up the boy V-necks from Wal-Mart,” Mandy stated excitedly. “Wouldn’t that look so cute? We could totally use the school colors and everything.”

“Uhh… I don’t even know anyone who plays.” This did not seem like a fabulous idea to me. Well, there was Trenton, but I was not going there.

“And isn’t that like announcing to the world that you like someone?” Julia reasonably pointed out.

“Well, duh, of course.” Mandy rolled her eyes. “Why else would you do it? Boys are clueless. Unless you point it out to them, they don’t notice!” Raquel was nodding her head in agreement.

“I’m putting number four on mine,” Lisa said.

“You’re not going to get anywhere with Easton Ward, Lisa. He already told you he doesn’t feel that way about you. You just make yourself look desperate if you put his number on your shirt,” Julia told her.

Lisa gave Julia a dirty look. “You don’t know. I swear he was staring at me today during break while we were in the quad.”

I was surprised to hear he had been there. I hadn’t seen him, but then again, there were so many kids smashed together during break, I could have missed him.

“I know you need to give up and move on. He told you he isn’t interested.” I could tell Julia was irritated with her.

“You don’t know anything. You won’t even talk to a guy you like. Y’all are ridiculous, and I don’t think I want to have friends who don’t support me. Y’all are always bringing me down. I am done hanging out with you. I’m out.” Lisa glared at us and stomped off.

We all looked at each other. Mandy spoke up first. “Well, that’s been a long time coming. What a relief. She was driving me crazy with her Easton Ward obsession.”

“He is so polite to her, but you know she has to be driving him nuts,” Julia said.

Raquel looked at me and explained. “She’s had a crush on him for years, but he has never, ever, been interested. I mean, why would he? He could have anyone he wants. Why would he pick a desperate stalker like her?” Julia and Mandy were nodding.

“Okay, now that we don’t have to deal with the crazy, what is everyone putting on their shirts?” Mandy asked.

“I think I’ll just put ‘Go Lions!’ on mine,” I decided. I was feeling incredibly awkward after that little incident. I was glad I hadn’t mentioned my Wal-Mart moment. Lisa already didn’t like me, and she didn’t even know about it.

“Well, that makes sense for you, since you don’t know anyone well enough yet. But the rest of us have to make a move before all the good ones are gone!” Mandy was pointedly looking at Julia.

“I am not moving anywhere. If he is too clueless to notice, then I’m not interested.”

Julia looked to me for confirmation. I had no idea who
he
was, but I slowly nodded my head. Julia was the quieter one of the three, and I thought I would support her if she didn’t want to be all out there. Mandy huffed.

“Well, it’s easy to see that you two are going to sit on the bench this year. I can’t help you if you don’t want to be helped!” she complained and moved off to get the other girls on board, with Raquel following behind. Julia looked at me and we both cracked up.

“Well, maybe we should put ‘We Love Benchwarmers’ on ours?” I told her.

“Or we could put numbers that nobody has and watch them all try to figure it out!” We were laughing so hard, we were crying by now.

“Ohhh, mystery boys! We’ll just make ours up!” She decided.

“I’m sure some of the boys on the team are cute.” I looked at her sideways.

“I just don’t think I want to broadcast that I think that,” Julia said, as she tried to catch her breath. “Oh, my stomach hurts,” she wailed. The bell rang, and we made our way to class holding our stomachs and giggling.

At the end of my last class, I stayed to ask my calculus teacher to explain a project that I didn’t understand. By the time I got out, the halls were pretty empty. I must have been talking to Mr. Evans for longer than I thought. The hallway was already kind of dark where my locker was, and clouds had rolled in. A thundershower was expected by evening. Normally, I would be excited about that. We never got lightning and thunder in LA. Right now, though, it just seemed creepy.

I got to my locker and looked around. How stupid was I that I couldn’t even be in the hallway alone? It took me two tries to open the lock because I was a little shaky. At home we all had our own padlocks we used. Here we had to memorize the existing combination that came with the locker. It had taken me all week to get it, but now I was rattled. When I finally flipped open the door and grabbed my bag, something white fell out. I reached down to grab it and started to hyperventilate. A small bunch of daisies mixed in with jasmine and tied with a yellow ribbon were on the ground at my feet.

Fear trickled down my spine. I started to shake. This could not be happening.

“No, no, no!” I backed up fast. I had to get out of there. A loud voice in my head was screaming,
“He’s here. Run!”
I took off.

I hit the door at the end of the hall at a dead run, pushed it open with both hands, and turned the corner still sprinting. I hit something solid.

“Oomph!” Arms wrapped around me as we went tumbling to the floor. Full panic set in. I was right. He was here and I was dead. I started screaming.

“Nooo! Let me goooo!”

I had to get away. I was flailing and trying to get up, but the arms were still around my upper body. I was hyperventilating and trying to scream at the same time. A voice broke into the panic.

“Stop, stop. What’s wrong? Are you all right?” He grabbed my arms and gave me a little shake. I looked down and realized I was practically lying on top of Dream Guy. He was looking at me like I was a trapped animal and he was trying to decide if I was going to bite him. He put his hands up in front of him as if in surrender.

Terror was still making my heart feel like it was going to pound out of my chest. I pushed off the floor and skidded backward, fast, on my butt, until my back hit the row of lockers behind me. I started looking around frantically to see if anyone else was there and realized, belatedly, that whoever had put that in my locker was long gone by now.

The panic was starting to subside. Relief set in. I put my head in my hands and burst into tears.

“Hey, hey. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

I nodded and tried to wipe my face on my sleeve.

He came over and squatted next to me. “Just breathe for a minute.”

I shook my head and started to get up. The buzzing in my ears started, so I decided to stay down. I did not want to faint in front of him again. “I got a little spooked, I guess.” I sniffled. Was I always going to embarrass myself in front of this guy? Good grief.

“Uh, yeah, I think you did. What happened?”

I was trying to come up with a reasonable response to that without telling him anything I didn’t want him to know.

“I, umm… just… you know… got a little creeped out in the hallway by my locker, that’s all. It was dark and…” I looked up at him and realized he was even more beautiful than I remembered. He had the darkest hair and the bluest eyes I had ever seen. They were almost purple. He also didn’t believe me, I could tell. Dream Guy was no dummy.

“Hmm…” he said as he stood up. “Well, Sleeping Beauty, let’s just go and see what there is to be worried about in your locker, hmm?”

“Oh… uh… no, that’s okay. I really just got spooked. I can go myself. I’m really sorry I ran into you like that,” I babbled. He just looked at me and held out his hand to help me up. I took it. He gave a little pull and just started walking. He kept hold of my hand as I trailed behind him. I tried to pull my hand back, but he had a tight grip and was pulling me forward through the doors and down the hallway to my locker.

“Really, I’m fine. I can go by myself.” He didn’t slow down.

“Uh-huh.” We were almost to my locker, and I could see the door swung open and the flowers on the ground. He stopped and reached down and grabbed the flowers. “This is what happens when someone gives you flowers?” He held them out to me.

I could feel the edge of panic inching its way back in. I started to shake. I took a step back and felt the blood rushing out of my head. “Can you get rid of them? Just throw them away?” I asked. “Please?”

He looked at me for a second. “All right, but I think you need to tell me exactly what is goin’ on here. You know, most girls like flowers?” I just took another step back.

He turned and went down the hallway to the trash can and threw them in. Real life was starting to come rushing back. I grabbed my books out of my locker.

As he made his way back, I dug my cell phone out of my purse and saw the time. It was getting late. I needed to check on Caedan and Lily. Fear tried to get another foothold as I pushed myself not to think about where those flowers had come from. Did someone put those in my bag earlier when I wasn’t looking, or were they in my locker? I wasn’t exactly sure what they fell out of. I stomped down the fear and closed the door on it. I would deal with the flowers later. Right now I had to get home and make sure the twins were all right.

“I have to go. I’m going to miss the bus.”

“I can take you home,” he offered.

My stomach felt like it hit my feet and bounced back. Drive home with Dream Guy? Safety warnings clanging in my head warred with my heart that was screaming, “Say yes! Say yes!” My heart argued that he had already saved me twice. Pretty sure he wasn’t out to kill me.

“You don’t even know my name. Are you sure you want to spend time with a freak like me?” I wrinkled my nose.

He laughed. “I am pretty certain you aren’t a freak, and I already know your name, Jasmine Rourke.” I must have looked surprised and a little wary. “Trenton can’t stop talking about you.”

Ah, the ever-vocal Trenton. What had he said? Had he told his brother how embarrassed I was about the Wal-Mart incident? I guess it didn’t really matter, since the hallway incident would now overtake the Wal-Mart incident in the Embarrassment Hall of Fame. Shame skittered its way into my stomach. I needed to get away from Dream Guy so I could go home and be embarrassed in peace.

“Well, you haven’t told me yours, so… I don’t know if that is such a good idea.” I was still shaky, but I really needed to stop acting like a lunatic around Dream Guy. I closed my locker and started to walk toward the exit to the parking lot. He caught up to me as I got to the doors.

“My name is Easton Ward. We already met at the neighborhood Wal-Mart. You know my brother, so you know I’m not a serial killer. I am a safe, responsible driver with a clean driving record. You’ll be safe with me.” He grinned.

My heart stuttered at the serial killer reference, but I purposefully ignored it. My heart won the argument.

“I live on Bellevue near University. Is that too far?”

“Nope, just down the road from me. Let’s go.”

As we came through the doors to the parking lot, I realized the rain had started. It wasn’t just sprinkling, like it does this time of year in California; it was pouring. I could hear the thunder in the distance. Easton looked at me.