Breathe (2 page)

The first day at school was more chaotic than I expected. Deciding on an outfit took forever. I didn’t know what these kids dressed like. My entire closet was now strewn across my room. I had thought I had my outfit chosen already, but when I put it on this morning I hated it. I finally decided on my newest jeans and a tee I had gotten from Urban Outfitters before we moved. I hoped my California clothes wouldn’t look completely out of place here.

Next was hair. Should I put it up or leave it down? I had a lot of hair. It was going to be hot. Unfortunately, when I put all that blond hair up in a ponytail, I looked twelve. Down, it is. All the choices I had to make seemed ten times harder now than they would have been before. That’s one of the things I hated about my life now. Someone else made this choice to upend my family, and we all just had to deal with it.

Even getting to school was an issue. My mom had to work. We only had one car, so the bus was a necessary evil. I had to get the twins ready and out the door, since my mom had to work a twelve-hour seven-to-seven shift at the hospital. My bus was crowded and loud, of course, so I just stuck my headphones in my ears and looked out the window. If people wondered who the new girl was, I didn’t know about it. I did my best to be unobtrusive.

I went to the office to get my schedule and a map. It looked like I wasn’t the only new person to the school, and for that I could be grateful. The school was pretty huge, but I found my morning classes without too much difficulty. I spent the morning trying to get an idea about what the other kids were like and figuring out how to get around without looking like a complete dork. I hadn’t really spoken to anyone yet. I’m not super shy, but I am not a really outgoing person, either. Life had been easier with Daisy. Since she was older, she had blazed the trail for me throughout my life. She had been popular and outgoing. She had also been beautiful—black hair and blue eyes. “Black Irish” my dad called her. The exact opposite of me. She was petite, while I was just another tall blonde in a sea of green-eyed blondes in California. Everyone had loved Daisy. I never noticed how easy that made things, until she was gone. Since Daisy was already popular, that made it easy for me at the beginning of high school. I already had the “in.” After her murder, I didn’t much care about school or friends or sports. All the things that had been so important in my life seemed to fade away with the loss of my sister.

The classes so far had gone pretty well. I had taken mostly AP since it was my all-important junior year. It didn’t seem like they were going to be harder than I expected, so that was a relief. I made it to noon without incident, but when I reached the quad where everyone ate lunch, I had the age-old question: Where do I sit? I decided to take my time and check out the situation. I wasn’t sure how I was going to fit in here. Would these kids accept me when I obviously didn’t come from the South? I was pretty sure I stood out like a sore thumb. Just my height made it hard to blend in. Everyone here had a pretty thick accent, so if I spoke at all it was going to be clear I wasn’t a local.

I’d brought an apple from home, so I decided to make my way to a bench and survey the crowd. There was the typical cliquishness, and it was surprisingly easy to differentiate between the groups. The obviously popular athlete/cheerleader group hung out at some benches under a tree. Everyone else divided up into the typical stereotypes: nerds, theater kids, druggies, etc. It was interesting to watch from the outside, for once. I wondered how hard it was going to be to make friends here. So far everyone had been polite, but no one had really made an effort to have a real conversation yet.

I decided to eat my apple and enjoy my umpteenth reading of
Twilight
. The irony was not lost on me. I almost giggled to myself, but not wanting to seem like the crazy new girl, I controlled myself. I was a little weirded out about sitting alone. I tried not to think about the fact that it felt like the whole school was watching how pathetic I was.

“Hey,” I heard from right beside me. I only jumped two feet this time as I looked over to see the grating-voiced Trenton of Wal-Mart fame.

“Hello,” I responded after I caught my breath. I couldn’t believe he was here. I had been so embarrassed last night. Lafayette did have more than one high school. I had hoped that I wouldn’t run into either of them again.

“You aren’t going to faint, are you?” He was grinning like I had made his day.

“Uh, no.” I scowled. He laughed. He was practically bouncing up and down while he straddled the bench.

“I can’t believe you go here. I was hoping you weren’t just visiting Lafayette. I feel really bad about scaring you. East said I shouldn’t sneak up on people, but I really don’t think I did that. Did I? Hey, why did you faint?” He certainly could rattle on.

“I just do that sometimes. No big deal,” I mumbled.

“Where are you from? You have a funny accent.”

I laughed at that. “I don’t have an accent—you do.”

He was actually kind of cute—or he would be if he didn’t talk a hundred miles an hour and ask a million questions. He was tall with light-brown hair and soulful brown eyes. I was pretty sure he was younger than me, so it was more of a little-brother kind of cute.

“You are in Louisiana now, ma’am, and you most definitely have an accent.” He smirked. “Where are my manners? My momma would skin me. I didn’t even introduce myself,” he said, playing up his accent for all it was worth. “I’m Trenton Ward and you are… ?”

“My name is Jasmine, but everyone calls me Jas. I’m from LA, you know, Los Angeles. We just moved here two weeks ago,” I answered, avoiding my last name, hoping to head off another round of a hundred questions. I knew Daisy’s murder had gotten national media attention. I was hoping to put off letting that bit of information out for as long as possible. People immediately treated me differently as soon as they knew who I was—or rather, who Daisy was.

“Wow! LA, huh? Did you live near any movie stars?” he said, hopeful. “You know, like, Megan Fox or Miley?”

I laughed again. “No, sorry.”

“Oh bummer.” He looked crushed. “So how do you like it here so far?” He perked right back up.

“Good. I haven’t really seen much yet. We’ve been unpacking and getting ready for school,” I said noncommittally.

“Well, we’re gonna have to fix that. You should come to the pep rally after school on Friday. And the game, of course. I know people say it about Texas, but football is like a religion here too. It’s really all there is to do on Friday night. The whole town shows up.” He looked at me with a hopeful expression.

“Thanks. I’ll try, if my mom isn’t working. Do you play?” I asked, trying to seem interested. He was, after all, my only friend so far.

“Of course. I start on JV, but I’m second string varsity. I am only a soph, so… you know…” He looked at me like I would understand the subtleties of high school football politics. I just nodded. “Easton is the starting quarterback, though, so you’ll get to see him play.”

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, my brother, Easton. You know, he caught you last night?”

I felt myself blushing. Not just blushing. I must have turned red and then three shades of white. “That was your brother? He goes here?” I put my face in my hands. “Are you kidding me?”

He started laughing. “What’s the big deal—so you fainted? Happens all the time.” He was grinning from ear to ear.

I looked up at him. “This is so not funny. You are talking about the single most embarrassing moment of my life. I was planning on never seeing either of you ever, ever again!”

“Hey, you weren’t embarrassed about seein’ me again!” he protested.

“Well, you kind of caused the whole thing,” I grumbled. All I could think of is, if I had to face Dream Guy again, I would die of an overdose of embarrassment. First day officially ruined.

“Hey, don’t worry. He probably forgot by now.”

Was he trying to make me feel better or worse? I was trying to figure out a way to change the subject, when the bell rang.

“Hey, want me to walk with you to your next class? What do you have?”

I dug through my bag for my schedule. “French with Piaget. Room 203.”

“Not too far from my algebra class. Come on, I’ll show you.” He stood up and led the way. He even bounced when he walked. He reminded me of Tigger. I had to just smile and follow.

I met some girls in French who didn’t ask a lot of questions but were friendly and tried to fill me in on where I should and shouldn’t hang out. We were supposed to be speaking in French about what we did this summer, but that only lasted about two minutes. Madame knew nobody was ready to go 100 percent into schoolwork yet.

“Don’t hang out on the shop side of the school. All the druggies hang out there,” informed one girl whose French name was Danielle, but I wasn’t sure of her real name. “Was that Trenton Ward who walked you to class?”

“Yeah, he talked to me at lunch. He seems nice?” It came out like a question.

“Oh yeah, he’s sweet—a little hyper sometimes, but really nice. And his brother is a hottie.”

“Their whole family is gorgeous,” added one girl whose French name was Nicole. One of the girls sitting next to Danielle seemed a little more standoffish than the others. When Danielle mentioned Trenton’s brother, she got a look on her face that I couldn’t figure out. Angry maybe?

“He’s not available,” she said, glaring at me.

“Well, not as far as you know anyway,” Nicole told her with a smirk.

“If not to me, than not to anyone.” She turned her glare on Nicole.

I decided not to comment. Were these girls friends or not? I wasn’t sure, but I made a mental note to give Angry Girl a lot of space. I did not need any drama.

They went on to gossip about lots of people I didn’t know, catching up on summer news. I just sat back and enjoyed being part of a group that didn’t look at me with sympathy in their eyes. I missed girlfriends and the mindless chatter that came with them. In Burbank, I had separated myself from everyone by the time we left. I couldn’t stand the weight of their pity. I was a little rusty at making conversation and just being one of the girls, but it was coming back to me. I envied these girls their normal lives and their certainty that nothing bad could ever happen.

After school, I supervised the twins’ homework, started dinner, and set out my stack of syllabuses for mom to sign. I also checked her schedule on the calendar to see if she was working Friday. It looked like she was off, so I could possibly go to the pep rally and game. The question was: Did I want to? I was still pondering that question when the phone rang. I jumped and my heart started pounding. No one had this number yet. We hadn’t given it out. Could my mom be calling? Why would she call the house phone? No panicking. It was either a wrong number or a sales call.

“Hello.” Silence. “Hello?”

A muffled whispery voice spoke just one word in a low whisper: “Jasmine.”
Click
.

“Hello?” My hands started to shake. What the heck was that? A joke? Maybe. I took a deep breath. I guess my mom could have given the number to someone, but I would be surprised. But how would he know my name? And why did he hang up? Probably just a prank, but now I was kind of freaked out.

After Daisy died, we had to change our number. Three times. There are some really sick people out there. We got all kinds of prank calls at all hours of the day and night. Finally, we got rid of the house phone and kept our cells only. We had to change those too, but only once. We never gave out the number unless it was an emergency. We also got new cell phone numbers as soon as we got to Lafayette. I couldn’t believe it was starting up again. We had to have our house phone here because the cell service in this neighborhood was sketchy. Not a very strong signal and unreliable. Surprising in this day and age, but there you go.

After a few calming breaths, I started up the stairs.

“Hey, you guys,” I yelled to the twins. “Did you give out the house phone number today?”

As I walked down the hall to their rooms, they both responded, “Why would I do that, Jas?” Caedan said in his most patronizing voice, “I have a cell, duh.”

Lily poked her head out of her room. “Did something happen?” she asked, her eyes big.

“No, I was just making sure.” I smiled at her. She was a worrier. No need to add anything else to her long list of things to worry about.

Lily looked at me skeptically. “Are you sure?” Lily was very observant, so I had to think quickly.

“Yeah, yeah. Mom just wanted me to remind you, that’s all. So when I got that sales call, I realized I forgot to tell you this morning. Dinner in twenty.” I swung around quickly and bounded down the stairs, taking a quick detour to check the lock on the front door. When I made my way back to the kitchen, I checked that one too. Fifteen minutes later, my mom got home and we ate together in the kitchen. She was in such a good mood, I decided not to tell her about the phone call. I was probably just overreacting anyway. I needed to get my crazy panic attacks under control.

The next few days held no sightings of Dream Guy. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. He was gorgeous, but I still got a sick feeling in my stomach when I thought about how we met. Sometimes I really wanted to see him again, and other times I was glad I hadn’t. He probably didn’t even remember me. I don’t know why I had spent so much time in the last week thinking about him.