Try Not to Breathe by Jennifer R. Hubbard Read Free Book Online Page B

hear it in people’s voices, when they got close to breaking: a tight strangled sound in the throat, their words coming out thin and wooden. Maybe that tightness was what made Nicki gulp down all that juice.
    “Did you miss a lot of school when you—you know—went in the hospital?” she asked.
    “Yeah, but I made it up. I came back in May, and I did extra work until July so I wouldn’t get held back.”
    “I’ll be at the high school, too, this year. Who do you hang out with there?”
    “Nobody special.”
    She slurped from the bottom of her bottle. “Don’t you have any friends?”
    I knew people, but I wouldn’t say I had friends at this school. I wasn’t sure what stopped me. It was true I was known as the kid who’d tried to kill himself and spent several weeks in the loony bin, which didn’t make me Mr. Popular—but more than that, it was just easier not to risk anything with anyone else. I didn’t need friends at school anyway, since I had Jake and Val. I told Nicki, “Yeah, a couple of kids I met in the hospital.”
    “Are they, like, crazy?”
    “Right. We get together to drool and whack ourselves on the head. It’s real crazy-people bonding.”
    A mail truck lumbered past us, spewing fumes. We held our breath, and when the truck had turned the corner, Nicki said, “I didn’t mean it that way. Are they still in the hospital?”
    “No, we’re all out. Val got out first—” I stopped, remembering the time Val had come back to Patterson. The recital she’d given in the dayroom. Her hand on my wrist.
    “What?” Nicki said, seeing that I wasn’t fully with her anymore.
    I shook my head. “Just thinking of something.” And Kent pulled up then, stopping the conversation.
    • • • • •

    Nicki played with the radio until Kent barked at her. I leaned my forehead on the car window, still back in that April night at Patterson when Val had come to visit. Seeing her come into the hospital as an outsider, one of Them and not Us, I could barely even speak to her. A ball of acid sat at the top of my throat the whole time she was there. I didn’t want to go to her recital, but Jake had herded me into the dayroom with the others.
    “How come we’re using the dayroom at night?” I snapped, but he didn’t hear. He went and sat right up front, while Val warmed up at the out-of-tune piano, grimacing as she always did at the fuzzier notes.
    I sat in the back, near the window. I didn’t turn on the lamp next to me, but there were enough other lights on so that all I could see out the window was a reflection of myself, and the dayroom with the other psychos. And even though Val’s music pulled at me like a rip current, even though some of the people around me cried, and my eyes stung and my throat hurt, all I could think was how much I hated her, and I would not look at her and I would not listen to her music. I thought that even as the music filled me.
    I had missed her. I’d never stopped looking for her in those halls. There was always a big empty spot next to me in the dining room, in Group, in the dayroom, in the yard. Yet I stayed in my seat when the recital was over, my legs heavy, until I could trust myself to pass her with a blank face. People crowded around her, including Jake. She was talking to them when I slipped out of the dayroom. But she followed me into the hall and tapped my arm.
    “Hey, weren’t you going to say hello to me?”
    “Hello.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “What makes you think something’s wrong?”
    “Well, the whole time I played you sat there with your arms crossed, staring out the window. Looking incredibly pissed off.” Her voice softened. “What is it? Talk to me.”
    “You don’t get it,” I said, refusing to meet her eyes.
    “Don’t get what?”
    I focused on the Exit sign across the hall. “It was nice of you to come play for us pathetic shut-ins, but you can go back out to your regular life now.”
    That’s when she grabbed my arm, circled my