Breathe by Melanie McCullough Read Free Book Online Page A

bloodied shirt, wondering what Uncle Jim had seen in those first few seconds that I had escaped my notice. 
    Garrett face was crestfallen. Looked as if I’d kicked him in the gut. In a way, I suppose I had. He couldn’t have expected to find me in the woods with Jeff Walker. Hell, I hadn’t expected to find me in the woods with Jeff. Not after last week. Not after we Garrett and I…
    “I’m sorry,” I apologized.
    Garrett gawked at the shirt in his hands. “You wore this here?” He was practically shrieking at me. “What in the hell were you thinking?”
    The plan had actually been a simple one—wear the shirt to the bonfire and somehow toss it in. But sitting around, the crowd growing thicker by the minute and Jeff refusing to leave me alone, I’d had no opportunity to remove it. “I needed to get rid of it,” I confessed. “I figured the fire was my best bet.”
    Garrett slid down the trunk of the tree behind him, coming to a rest at its base. I moved across the small clearing to crawl beside him and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. Pulled me closer. A week ago, I’d wanted nothing more than for Garrett to hold me. A week ago, I’d thought things between us could change. But a week ago I didn’t have Tom Ford’s blood on my clothes.
    “I wasn’t about to strip in front of the entire crowd and I thought it would be weird if I disappeared into the woods myself,” I tried to explain.
    “Why didn’t you just ask me to help you?”
    I watched him ball my tiny shirt up—he easily concealed it in one of his large hands—and I knew he was right. If I’d asked for his help, I wouldn’t have had to let Jeff Walker fondle me. I wouldn’t even have had to wear the disgusting garment again. But then I would have had to admit that I couldn’t handle things on my own.
    The silence between us grew louder with each second I failed to provide an answer. I concentrated on the little twitch in his jaw that appeared when he was upset and tried to remember to breathe. Inhale and exhale. Just like swimming, fluid and exact. 
    Moments later, he withdrew from our embrace and stood, extending his hand to help me to my feet. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”
    He always did. When all else failed, I knew Garrett would take care of it. And so I waited alone in the truck while he returned to the bonfire, and wrestled with the images from that night a week ago in my mind—the river cold and black beneath the moonless sky. The way the water fell from Garrett’s hair. His smile. His lips nearing mine. I’d wished then for the ability to stop time, to freeze that image, so I would always know that look in his eyes. Now I didn’t know if he’d ever be able to look at me that way again.
    I turned the rearview mirror in my direction and studied my reflection in the dark. It scared me how much I looked like Maggie. We shared the same deep-set green eyes. Same heart shaped face. My large forehead and high-arched brows, were her forehead and her brows. My thin, straight nose, full lips, pale skin, even the freckles that dotted my face—all Maggie. If not for the assistance of a few bottles of Loreal, we’d even have the same hair color.
    Of course, I knew our resemblance went much deeper than the shade of our skin and our bone structure. There was disquiet in our eyes. Like a war veteran who knew and had seen too much to ever be fully settled. You wait, constantly on edge, for something to go wrong, for someone to confirm your suspicions. For the world to prove you right. I didn’t want to look like Maggie. Wanted even less to be like her. But I couldn’t fight my DNA.
    While smoothing the lines beneath my tired eyes I caught a glimpse of Jeff Walker in the rearview mirror passing behind the truck with an arm slung over the shoulder of a girl whose name I didn’t know. Probably the friend of a local kid, visiting for the weekend. He’d certainly moved on quickly.
    I was thinking how grateful I