Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn Read Free Book Online Page B

time Elsa showed up at my car, I thought I’d picked up a homeless person. She was scrawny, with floppy hat and trailing gauze everywhere. She didn’t acknowledge the fact that we’d sat next to one another in English for two weeks. She just looked at me with narrowed eyes, then inspected my backseat like a rodent sniffing for predators. Finally, she said, “Nice car. I suppose you worked overtime at the family farm to afford it? Or are you in Junior Achievement?”
    I said, neither. It was on loan from my cousin, Guido, who’s in the joint. I pronounced it jernt , like in a Joe Pesci movie. Hey, I was joking. But Elsa didn’t smile, like she thought as much .
    Yet she accepted a seat and rode to lunch with us. Every day .
    After three days, I realized Elsa was a permanent guest. I confronted Caitlin before Spanish class, asking her why exactly I had to have lunch with Elsa .
    “We’ve sat together at lunch for ten years. I can’t just flake on her.”
    “Why not?” I was rooting for flakage .
    “’Cause it’s something Zack would do, not me.”
    I told her you don’t get to the top of the food chain without eating some bugs. Caitlin fit in with our group, but they didn’t let just anyone join their reindeer games .
    The rest of the week at Mr. Pizza, Elsa spent the entire hour either talking to Cat or making comments to no one in particular. “I wonder how much that watch cost his parents,” she’d say to her sandwich. Or, “She’s trying to prove that less really is more,” when Peyton showed off her new crop top. Her hatred for me was obvious and (I won’t lie about this) mutual. By the second week, we greeted each other with barely concealed disgust. Before the summer heat had burned off, I’d had enough. Caitlin and I had to talk .
    It happened in the Mustang. We’d dropped Elsa off and were going to study at Caitlin’s. It was raining. The top was up, and the sound of rain on the ragtop made me horny .
    Elsa had been in her usual form, dressed gypsy-style though Halloween was weeks away, and somehow, when we ran for the car, she’d managed to wedge herself between me and Cat, sitting in front of the stick shift. She flipped through the radio stations like she owned the car, finally settling on something by this teen group I detest. I said nothing. I’d rather listen to them than Elsa. But she babbled on, ripping me and my friends. Peyton’s too into her boyfriend. Tom’s too into his looks. I’m too into Cat (well, that part was true). And the whole time, her mouth got bigger and bigger until finally you couldn’t see her face at all. Just mouth. I went in. I reached down her tunnel of a throat, past her intact tonsils, and down until my arm disappeared. I yanked out her still-beating heart and hurled it to the street. It bounced away. Elsa gasped her last, and I switched the radio back to Y100 .
    KIDDING .
    The music part was true, though. And Elsa’s yakking, needless to say. I even got out in the pouring rain to let Elsa out. Once she left, I snapped off the radio. Silence, except the rain, splashing the window, making the world a blur. Like I said, rain makes me horny. I draped my arm across Caitlin’s shoulders, fingertips grazing her breasts. Uncharted territory. I waited for Cat to yell stop, but all signals were green, except the traffic light ahead which was—incredible luck—yellow. I skidded to a stop and kissed her, lips moving down her neck. Then, my tongue. A sound escaped her throat. Promising. I reached into her shirt .
    “Nick… It’s too soon.” Caitlin pulled my fingers from her shirt and placed them on her shoulder. The car was moving again, and she kissed my cheek .
    I told her lots of girls wouldn’t think it was too soon, Ashley, for one .
    “You want Ashley?” she asked .
    I said maybe so. As if. So I said, no. I wanted her. I just thought we were pretty serious. “I sort of thought I was your boyfriend.”
    She smiled. It was the first time I’d called