Forgetting to Breathe Read online

  Forgetting to Breathe

  By Megan E. Bean

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2019 Megan E Bean

  ISBN 9781634868662

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  Forgetting to Breathe

  By Megan E. Bean

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 30

  Prologue

  This is it. I was finally starting my senior year of high school. I was excited, but since I was taking Advanced Placement classes, I wouldn’t be having many classes with my friends. Sure, I would see them at school still, but I would have classes with new and unfamiliar people. Understandably, I’m a nervous wreck.

  Cactus High School was a big school. Such a big school, in fact, that we even had sports teams for lacrosse and golf, for God’s sake.

  There were so many students that each grade was housed in its own building on the campus. The gigantic football field looked like it was collegiate level. Our football team, the Cactus High Armadillos, have been state champions for the past ten consecutive years. Our teachers and students take a lot of pride in that.

  I am not athletically inclined. I was student body president each year of my high school career. I was on honor roll. I am already getting scholarships. I had so many obligations already that sports weren’t on my mind at all.

  My home life was rather picture-perfect, as well. My mother was a stay-at-home mom. She cooked Food Network-worthy meals, cleaned the house top-to-bottom each day, drove my brother to and from his practices every week. My father was a well-known business man. He owned an insurance company in town, and work long hours, practically every day of the week.

  He and my mom are very much in love—I envy their relationship. They had been high school sweethearts. He was the varsity quarterback and she was the head cheerleader. He proposed to her at their high school graduation. She said yes.

  Then there is my brother, Brandon. He was in his senior year, again. He failed last year, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He loved playing football and hanging out with his friends at school. Personally, I think he knows he is going to peak in high school and is afraid to leave.

  My daily routine was extremely bland and I didn’t expect it to change this year. In fact, it would be getting even duller with my extra classes. I would wake up every morning, take a shower, eat breakfast, drive to school (I had just gotten my license, so this was the only change in my routine), take class after class, meet with the student council at the end of the day, drive back home, eat dinner, study, do homework, watch an hour of TV, and go to sleep.

  I know that I seem boring, but I actually have a sense of humor. I’m also not that glasses-ponytail-and-sweater-wearing girl. I am decent-looking—at least that’s what the hormonal teenaged boys say. I never dated any of them, to Mom’s disappointment. I always reply that I am too invested in my studies to lose focus on some boy. And it was true. But also, it’s because I am into girls. And very much in the closet.

  Chapter 1

  “Attention everyone: let’s stand up and introduce ourselves, okay? Tell everyone something interesting about yourself,” the teacher suggested and I rolled my eyes.

  Why must we always do this? What fun fact am I supposed to say? Hi, I’m Ashley and I’m hiding the fact that I’m a lesbian’? Or maybe, My name is Ashley and a fun fact is that I think these introductions are stupid, a waste of time, and pointless’?

  “Hey, I’m Fred. I play football,” the red-haired muscle head in a letterman jacket stood up. I know him, at least. Not sure if it’s really a good thing, though. He is one of my brother’s best friends. They have been playing football with each other since they were kids. He is relatively good-looking, so all of the girls swoon over him. He has never kept a steady girlfriend and he constantly hits on me. Luckily, my brother tells him to knock it off whenever he’s around.

  “My name is Geraldine,” a timid, frail girl with glasses stood and sat down just as fast. Poor thing. Who names their daughter Geraldine?

  “Hi, I’m Keira,” another girl stood and I didn’t recognize her, unsurprisingly. She had long brown hair and bright brown eyes. She was wearing our school’s golf team uniform—khaki pants, black UnderArmour shoes, and a dark green polo with the Armadillo logo on it. She was really tan—from playing golf, I would imagine. “I’m the captain of our golf team,” She finished.

  “Hello, I am Lisa,” another student stood and sat. “Oh,” She stood back up. “I like horses.”

  I kept glancing over to Keira, for some reason. There was something about her that kept catching my attention. She was absentmindedly doodling in her notebook. The girl next to her stole the pencil out of her hand and stuck her tongue out at her. She tries grabbing it back, to no avail. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it seemed…flirtatious?

  “Miss?” I heard our teacher’s voice and glanced up at him. He was talking to me. I was so engrossed in watching the two girls that I totally spaced out. God, I hope no one noticed.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. My name is Ashley. Hi. I skipped my junior year, so here I am,” I fumbled with my words for a second and I heard Fred whistle. I rolled my eyes and sat back down. This was going to be great.

  I turned my concentration back towards Keira and the other girl and my heart stopped when I noticed that they were both looking at me. I quickly looked away. I prayed I wasn’t blushing.

  “Hello, everyone. My name is Sadie,” the girl who was sitting next to Keira introduced herself. I noticed the brunette staring up at her, smiling. Smiling, proudly it seemed. “I am the HBIC—Head Bitch in Charge—on the cheerleading squad,” she finished, with attitude.

  Were they together? The girl was blonde and fit, she had gorgeous blue eyes, she was dressed in a tight V-neck and skinny jeans. She was pretty, but she had nothin
g on Keira.

  The rest of the introductions drew to a close and our teacher delved right into work. Our teacher had been at our school for decades. He was extremely old and I couldn’t believe he was still teaching. I’m pretty sure he was my father’s teacher when he went here.

  This was my first class of the day and I found it extremely unfair that my first class was math. Whose brain is awake enough to do math first thing in the morning? Especially AP math.

  “I am going to partner you guys up. It’ll be a little team building-type project, too. It’ll make it fun.” He smiled, and I inspected the piece of donut in his grey moustache. How does he not know it is there?

  “Fred and Sarah. Lisa and Kyle. Geraldine and Greg. Keira and Ashley—”

  As soon as he said our names together, he lost my attention. Is this a dream come true? Or a nightmare, even? Oh my God. I looked over at her and saw her and Sadie looking at each other, saying something. They looked disappointed.

  Great, was she upset she was stuck with a loser like me? I felt discouraged and upset. I acted like I was engrossed in the paper in front of me, as she made her way over to the seat next to me.

  “Hey,” she said, and I looked up at her. She had a small smile on her face and I couldn’t help but smile in return.

  “Hi,” I spoke softly and immediately overanalyzed the way I had said it. Did I say it too eagerly? Did my voice crack? This is going to be a train wreck.

  She plopped her binder down on the desk next to me and took a seat.

  “So, I hope you are good at this stuff, because I certainly am not awake enough for this shit right now,” she joked.

  “Yeah, well, I think we may be in trouble then.”

  She let out a beautiful laugh and I knew then and there that I was in trouble.

  “Do you think he knows that’s there?” Keira asked me.

  “Hmm?” I absentmindedly replied as I scribbled my name down on my paper.

  “That piece of egg or whatever?” she asked and discreetly pointed over to our teacher.

  “Oh, that’s donut,” I corrected and looked up at her. She had an amused grin on her face.

  “Donut? No way. That’s egg,” she argued with me, one eyebrow raised.

  “That is a hundred percent donut,” I said, matter-of-factly.

  “No way! It’s yellow,” she protested and we were both laughing now, but sticking to our guns. We decided to call him over to get help on a question, that way we could have a closer inspection.

  “Mr. Dunphy! Can you help us really quick?” I asked and the older man struggled to get out of his chair, and walked over to us. I almost felt bad, making him get out of his chair. I’m pretty sure I heard one of his knees crack. He placed his wrinkled hand on top of my desk and leaned down at our papers.

  “What is the question, girls?” he asked, looking between the both of us.

  I drew a blank. Luckily, Keira stepped in, pulling a question out of thin air.

  As he explained the answer, the golf captain and I were pretending to pay attention, but we were both studying his face closely.

  “Does that help?” he asked, wrapping up his long answer and smiled sweetly as we both nodded our heads and thanked him.

  “Damn it!” Keira said under her breath. I looked at her and smirked. “Shut up.”

  “I didn’t say anything!” I held my hands up and shrugged, but couldn’t help the smirk on my face.

  “In my defense, it did look really yellow,” she said, pouting.

  “Yes, yes it did,” I agreed and lost myself in smiling at her. I hadn’t gotten along with someone like this in a while.

  “Oh my God, my partner is a total nerd,” Sadie said, exasperated, and made Keira scoot over in her chair so that they could share it.

  “Don’t be mean,” my partner scolded and moved her hands onto her desk, trying to get comfortable.

  “It’s true! Look at him!” she said and looked over to her partner. We followed her gaze. She was partners with Thomas. He was a nerd, but he was really nice. I felt bad for him. He had giant glasses, was battling with acne, and wore yellow striped shirts every day.

  “Who cares what he looks like?” Keira asked.

  “Ugh, you’re so annoying, Keira,” the blonde let out a huff then turned to face me. “I’m Sadie,” She introduced herself, in a not-so-friendly tone.

  “Yeah, I know. We all announced ourselves, remember?” I sounded a bit harsher than I usually did, but this girl seemed like a jerk. My defenses were up.

  She glared at me and wasn’t too pleased at the small chuckle Keira had let out.

  “What’s so funny?” she snapped, staring daggers at her friend.

  “Nothing,” Keira answered and tried suppressing her smile. “Just relax a little, okay? And quit being such a jerk,” she said firmly.

  The blonde did not like that. It almost sounded like she let out a growl when she stood up, going back to her seat. She leaned back in her chair, with her arms crossed. She looked like a pouting eight-year-old who was just told that she can’t have dessert before dinner.

  “Sorry about that,” Keira turned to me and apologized.

  “Oh, it’s nothing to apologize for. She seems…” I struggled to find the words.

  “Cold?” Keira finished my thought and I nodded. “Yeah, she is. But she’s not all that bad. She can be really sweet, but not many people get to see it.”

  “So, you two are close?” I asked, feeling…jealous?

  “Yeah…” She started off cautiously, before finishing, “We’re dating.”

  Yeah, it was jealousy. My heart sank.

  “Does that make you uncomfortable?” she asked, looking worried.

  “Oh! No. Not at all,” I quickly replied. She did not make me uncomfortable at all. Quite the opposite, actually.

  “Oh, thank God,” she let out a dramatic breath before continuing. “Are you dating anyone?” I couldn’t help but notice how perfect her teeth were when she smiled. Everything about her was.

  “Me? No,” I simply replied, staring at our papers. I started scribbling on mine.

  “What?” she said loudly, drawing my gaze back up to her. She looked me up and down. “You?” She raised her eyebrow. “Guys here have to be all over you.”

  “I mean, I get asked out by guys a lot, yes,” I smiled, bashfully. I was inwardly celebrating that she thought I was attractive.

  “But you don’t go out with them? Are you Mormon or something?” she asked, very seriously, causing me to laugh.

  “No. I just…don’t want to go out with them,” I gave a simple reply.

  “Oh.” She lowered her voice. “Are you into girls?”

  “What?” I said and my eyes widened. I wanted to say yes. But no one knew about me and I sure wasn’t going to tell some girl I had just met. She was looking at me expectedly. “I don’t know. No.” I fumbled over my words. Great.

  “Okay,” she said and looked back at her paper like nothing had happened.

  The rest of the class, we talked as if the conversation never happened. We made fun of the teacher some more. We struggled with the problems together. She told me about how she was the Tiger Woods of high school golf.

  The conversation I had with her came with ease, but in the back of my mind, I was panicking and overthinking about what I had said. Could she see right through me? Did she think I was an idiot for stumbling over my words?

  * * * *

  Lunch time had finally come and I was able to see my friends. I was glad that we had a shared lunch and I wouldn’t be stuck sitting by myself, or even worse, with my brother and his horny, pig friends.

  “So how are your AP classes, Poindexter?” Jacob asked me and I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s going well. It’s a bit much and I feel quite overwhelmed to be honest,” I answered before biting into a slice of greasy pizza. I should really start packing my lunches. That would only prompt more nerd jokes, though, I’m sure.

  “Well, you’re smart. Y
ou’ll adapt,” Jennifer replied. She had been my best friend since grade school. We lived on the same street. We built a little playhouse in the park next to our houses and we still hung out in it on occasion. It was a bit more cramped nowadays, though.

  “Or she will fail miserably and they will ship her back to the dumb kid classes with the rest of us peasants,” Johnny said and smirked at me.

  “Shut up, Johnny!” I laughed and threw a fry at him. Which he picked off of his lap and ate.

  “You are so gross,” Ariel said and lightly slapped him on his shoulder. They had been dating for the past two years. They were a perfect couple. He was the school basketball star; she was one of the best volleyball players we had. They were both blonde-haired and blue-eyed. They planned on going to the same college after graduation.

  We were all joking and catching up when something else caught my attention. Keira was standing at the grass area of the yard and had a golf club in her hand. She was surrounded by other members of the golf team, and it looked like she was showing them how to swing. I zeroed in on her toned forearms, then immediately felt like a weirdo for becoming engrossed with someone’s forearms.

  “What are you looking at?” Jennifer asked. I realized I had zoned out and had no idea how long I was staring at Keira.

  “Oh nothing,” I quickly replied and snapped my eyes back to Jennifer. She continued staring over at the golf team. “Anyways, do you want to catch a movie tonight?” I asked, trying to distract her.

  She stared a little longer before looking back at me. “Sure, what do you want to see?”

  “Hey, I wanna go!” Ariel interjected.

  “Well, I was thinking just a movie at my house. I don’t care what we watch.”

  We all agreed and carried on our normal conversation. As soon as everyone was distracted, I looked back over to where Keira was. She was sitting now, this time with Sadie next to her. They were talking about something, but I was relieved that it was nothing entertaining. Sadie wasn’t making her laugh the way I was in math class this morning. Still, it made me feel sick to my stomach. When I looked back at my friends, Jennifer was looking right at me.