Breathe Into Me (9 page)

He sat his cup down on the table and stared at the cardboard sleeve around it. I could tell he was lost in his own thoughts. Maybe about whatever had been going on with him that year that would cause him to fall so far behind like he had—but I wasn’t going to press it. I had my own secrets that I wasn’t willing to share just yet, so I was in no position to ask about his.

“So, anyway,” I started.
Might as well get this over with. Just like ripping off a Band-Aid.
“You have quite the rep around here, ya know.” I tried to make my tone light so that I wouldn’t come off as a judgmental bitch.

“Is that so?” He leaned back in his chair and casually draped one arm over the back.

I cleared my throat before I began again, “Seems to be. I hear you are quite popular with the ladies.”

He rolled his eyes and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table as he stared straight into my eyes.

“I could only guess the person you might have heard that from; but yes, I can’t lie, I have done some pretty terrible things in my past. I used a lot of innocent girls and treated them a hell of a lot worse than they deserved. But I can assure you that I have grown a lot in the past year or so. I’m not the same person I used to be. But none of these assholes around here believe it.”

His stare was so intense. As if he wanted more than anything for me to believe him.

Looking back down at my cup, I shrugged. “It’s not really of my business, Kane.”

“Then why even ask?”

His statement made me look up at him. I wanted to be honest with him because he’d been honest with me. Letting me know that in his past he wasn’t a real stand-up guy, and may have used some girls in the process, couldn’t have been easy. But I couldn’t be one hundred percent truthful with him. I couldn’t tell him that I have zero experience with guys and the pull I felt toward him scared the living daylight out of me. That his abundant amount of experience with women had me ready to run scared for the hills. So instead, I settled for as close to the truth as I could get and prayed that it was enough.

“I just didn’t understand why. If you can get all these other girls, why would you even be wasting any time with me? Why bother taking me out for coffee? Because I can tell you right now, I’m so different from your average girl that is my age. I’m not ready to go into detail about anything just yet, but I’m not the type to hook up.”
There. I said it. Now let’s see how he reacts to the fact that he’s not going to be getting any extras from me.

He took a minute to respond, though that minute seemed like an eternity. “Kelsey, I can promise you now that I have no ill-intentions toward you. There is something about you that I can’t shake and I honestly just feel the need to be close to you. I know that sounds completely creepy, but it’s the only way I know how to explain it.” He shrugged.

I knew all too well what he was trying to explain. It was the same pull I had felt toward him from the moment I saw him in the café.

“Well, I am looking for new friends.” I glanced back down at my coffee because the way he was staring at me was a little intense. “Can you do that, Kane? Can you be my friend?”

I’m so embarrassed that I let all that fall out of my mouth like that. Could I have sounded anymore babyish?
Can you be my friend?
I felt the need to bang my head on the table in front of me, but I refrained.

Kane surprised me by reaching across the table to gently lay his hand on my wrist. I looked up at his face and am confused that he seems upset.

“Kelsey, I would never try to coerce you into sleeping with me. That was never my style anyway. And why would I not want to spend time with you? I won’t lie about it, your beauty is the first thing that attracted me to you. But in just the short time that we have got to talk, I have enjoyed our conversations and can’t help but feel I want to know you better. I would never pressure you into anything, and when I say
anything,
I mean it. Even about your past. When you feel comfortable with talking to me about it, know that I will be here to listen. Friendship is something I need at the moment too. So I should be asking you the same question. Can you be my friend, Kelsey?”

His lips turned up into a tiny smile and I smiled back. I’m glad he didn’t think I was a complete dork for asking for friendship. Things like that used to come so easy to me before. I never had to
ask
someone to be my friend. If it weren’t for the incident that changed my life forever, I would like to think that I would still have the same group of friends. But things change … people change, and life doesn’t always work out the way you think it will.

Taking my free hand, I laid it on top of his. “Friends it is.”

While I was so happy to have finally made a new friend—deep down in my gut, I found it hard to actually believe that one could stay
just friends
with someone who looks like Kane. I could be setting myself up for disaster, but at the moment, I’ll take friendship with him over nothing at all.

The first week of classes had gone by as smoothly as one would expect college to. I was comfortable with my classes and the work that each professor assigned … and Kane had been right about Professor Hanson. After that first class, more than half the people in attendance dropped her class and she was a lot friendlier and less stern than she had presented herself to be originally.

Jessi and Landon were still spending every ounce of free time they had together, which in turn, left me spending a lot more of my time with Kane. Every day we ate lunch at the same table, and every day after lunch, Jessi and Landon would run off to steal a few minutes of alone time before the next class began. Leaving Kane and I alone. And Kane, being the good guy he was, refused to ever let me walk to class alone.

I was beginning to form a friendship with Nate, also. We usually only had short chats inside the class while we waited for Professor Hanson to come in, because he seemed to always avoid walking out of the class with me like he’d done that first day. I think it was because Kane was now always waiting for me outside the door and Nate wanted to avoid another confrontation. But I was finding out that Nate was quite enjoyable to be around. Though his family probably had more money than God, Nate never seemed entitled to me.

His future involved following a plan that his father had picked out for him. He was to graduate med school and become a physician’s assistant in his father’s practice. The way he talked about it, he had no say in the matter, but he seemed to be okay with the general idea of how his life was already planned out for him. I wouldn’t be able to follow a set idea that someone had made for me, but to each his own. If he was happy following his father’s perfectly laid plan, then so be it.

It was finally Friday and as I was packing my things up, I saw a shadow fall over me. I looked up to find Nate standing there. His million dollar smile beaming at me.

“So she said we could pair up in groups for this next project. I thought I might see if I could work with you and your friend. Everyone else seems to have already teamed up.”

I glanced around the room, and sure enough, you could see little groups clustering and exchanging contact information. I looked over at Jessi, who just shrugged, letting me know she was okay with the partnership.

“Sure, that sounds fine. Why don’t you give me your cell number? That way we can text each other to go over what times and days would be best for all of us to meet up and start planning out this project.”

“Sounds great.” He tore a corner piece of paper from the notebook he had been carrying, and scribbled his number on it before handing it to me.

“Just text me whenever you want to meet up.” He smiled, then turned and headed for the door.

“The way I see it, the more people in the group the less I have to do, right?” Jessi asked as she rose from her seat.

We walked to the door, and as usual, Landon and Kane were waiting. I looked at Kane who was watching Nate head down the hall. When he finally turned to look toward me, I smiled at him and the scowl on his face immediately disappeared and turned into a full dimple smile. The fact that he was giving Nate that look didn’t escape me though.

“Hey, what’s up?” I placed my hand on Kane’s arm. I really wanted to know where the animosity toward Nate came from, but I didn’t want to pry.

He glanced at me, and then back down the hall before he spoke. “So you and Nate talk a lot?” He nodded his chin in the direction Nate had exited.

“Sometimes”—I shrugged—“Jessi and I are doing a project with him, though.”

“Oh.”

Even only knowing him for a short time, I could tell something was off about Kane. We had been spending a lot of time together this week, and this Kane was not the usual happy, carefree Kane that I had gotten used to. He was tense now, and you could tell his body was strung tight by the way he kept clenching and unclenching his fists. I studied him for a brief second, trying to figure out what was actually wrong, but was suddenly dragged away by Jessi before I could figure it out.

“Come on, chick! We have an appointment to get to!” she said enthusiastically.

It took me a minute to grasp what she was talking about, but when I finally did, I dug my pink Chucks into the ground and jerked my arm free from her grasp. Jessi whirled around to face me, red hair flying like wild angry flames.

“I change my mind!” I stated as I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Oh, no! No you’re not! We ARE doing this Kelsey! We have talked about this far too long to back out now.” She placed her tiny hands on her hips and glared.

“This is all happening so fast, Jess. We just got here. We are finally getting settled and making new friends. Now we’re going to get tattoos?! Can’t we just slowly move into the next phase of this whole ‘Jessi and Kelsey free as birds, Thelma and Louise’ life you have planned?”

“Thelma and Louise, Kels? Really? They die at the end of that movie! We are just getting a tattoo!”

She was so not getting it. I was all up for change, I really was. That was the whole plan for going off to a college in a different state. I was ready to get away from the place that held so many bad memories, that for the past six months I had counted down the days ‘til our move here. I wanted this clean slate … hell I needed it. But I had sheltered myself for so long, that I didn’t know the fear and uncertainty that would come with the changes I was making in my life now. And honestly, now that I was finally living out everything I had said I couldn’t wait for, I was just a little overwhelmed with it all.

The look Jessi was giving me was enough to make grown men cry. She could be kind of scary when she was determined, and she was damn determined for us to finally get these tattoos.

I huffed and stomped around Jessi, heading toward the parking lot. “Fine! Let’s do this. Let’s go see a man about some tattoos.”

I didn’t turn back to look at her, but I could hear her
squee
and then her heals clicking against the ground as she hurried to catch up with me.

Lopping her arm in mine, she asked, “So did you finally make up your mind about what you wanted to get?”

I shrugged. I had a general idea of what I wanted. I could see it in my head so clearly, but when it came to describing it to someone for them to draw up, I wasn’t so sure I could make them understand what I wanted. The tattoos I had picked out held a special meaning to me and it needed to be perfect.

“I think I’m pretty set on what I want now but I guess we will see when we get there. Landon said his brother is an amazing artist. That he started out drawing and painting before someone suggested tattooing. When he finished his first tattoo he’d found a passion he never knew he had before.”

Well that was a nice story and all. I was really hoping this guy lived up to his reputation. Since I’d become better friends with Kane and was actually getting to
secretly
study his tattoos up close, the detail in them did amaze me. Tattooing really should be seen more as art and less as stereotyping the people that have them. If people would take the time to actually look closely at other people’s tattoos, then maybe they would see that not everyone goes and gets a tear drop for murdering someone, or gets a butterfly when they turn eighteen just because they want to rebel against their parents. Some people put a lot of thought into their tattoos. Making each one reflect a certain time in their life. Or maybe an event that held so much significance to them, they want it to be remembered forever.

So far, the things I could make out from Kane’s tattoos were the very realistic portraits of an attractive man and woman on the inside of each of his forearms. An extremely detailed fish was also on the forearm with the man, and some roses and script were on the arm with the woman. I hadn’t been able to read the script as of yet, though.

I was still daydreaming about Kane’s tattoos when we approached Jessi’s car, and it hit me that we were really about to do this. Climbing inside, I began to fidget with my seatbelt and Jessi placed her small hand on my arm.