Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn Read Free Book Online Page A

“Do something quiet, then.”
    “That’s what I was doing.”
    Faure nods, and I smile at Jessica Schweitzer, who sits next to me. She looks away. I pull a sheet of paper from my looseleaf. Across the room, Saint raises his hand, and I know what’s coming.
    “Yes, Señor O’Connor?”
    “Señor Faure,” Saint says. “You seen those beaches in Spain?”
    Faure nods, and the trap is set. It’s like one of those nature shows, where some clueless mouse or bird crawls right into the Komodo dragon’s path. Right now, Faure is the mouse.
    “The Spanish beaches, they are très beautiful,” Faure says in his accent, which is more French than Spanish.
    I fold the sheet of paper in half and slip the photographs inside, not looking at Señor Faure. I used to laugh at O’Connor’s jokes. Now, they seem cruel.
    “Are the women, like, naked there?” Saint asks.
    Faure tugs on his guayabera shirt. “They are topless sometimes, yes.”
    “Let me ask you, Señor Faure … why don’t European women shave their pits? I mean, do they reek?”
    The rest of the class is laughing, like I used to when Saint would ask Faure the Spanish word for copulate or mammary . I sneak a look at Tom. He’s not laughing, not listening probably, left hand moving on the page before him. I know he’s not doing the workbook. He’s doodling. Five years ago, he saw a magazine contest: Draw the Pirate. He’s been drawing the pirate ever since. I think it’s supposed to take less than a thousand attempts , I told him once. He just shrugged.
    Saint’s still going. “How’s a guy keep from getting … excited around all those topless women? I mean, European men wear those faggy Speedos that don’t hide nothing.”
    I write Tom’s name on the package of photographs and pass it to my right.
    It’s back on my desk before the bell finishes ringing.
    “I don’t want these,” Tom says on his way out the door. But I think I see something in his face, just for a second. Like maybe he’s sorry we’re not still friends? But he says, “I don’t want anything from you, Nick.”
    “You can’t give me a break?” I hold the photographs in front of me before shoving them into my backpack. “We were best friends for, like, ten years.”
    “ Were being the operative word. That was before what you did to Caitlin.” He keeps walking.
    I follow him. “You’d think your best friend would give you a second chance.”
    “I don’t even know who you are.” He shakes his head. “My best friend, Nick, wouldn’t do what you did.”
    Then he and Saint disappear into the crowd.
    Later, in my room, I rescue the photographs from my backpack. The one of Tom and me is crumpled at the corner, but I smooth it as best I can and slip it into my mirror frame next to five pictures of Caitlin and me. I stare at it a long time.
    It was stupid thinking I could work things out with Tom. For the first time since Caitlin dumped me, I face facts: I’m on my own.
    After Zack’s party, I became an addict .
    Every year, in an assembly for the perkily named Red Ribbon Week, they pass out pamphlets emblazoned with “Just Say No,” spouting the party line: A single joint today, you’ll shoot up in an alley the rest of your life. Yeah, right. But being with Cat was like that. My satisfaction seeing her in school gave way to a need to pick her up every morning. Then, drive her home, days I didn’t have football practice. Or call after practice. Or drive her home, then call .
    For Caitlin’s part, she took the locker by mine, a seat on our group’s regular bench at Mr. Pizza, and the appropriately named “hump” seat in my car. And we sucked face, lots of it. This was all before I said I loved her, even though I did. I was a junkie. Caitlin was my dealer and my drug of choice .
    The one barrier to bliss was Elsa. Elsa was Caitlin’s best friend and fellow first soprano (whatever that meant), which translated into my driving her to lunch with us. Every day .
    The first