Breathless (The Breathe Series Book 1) Read online

  Breathless

  Christy Johnson

  Copyright © 2012 Christy Johnson

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1543032656

  ISBN-13: 978-1543032659

  DEDICATION

  To my fiancé Gerald Hargrove. I’ve fallen for you and haven’t gotten up since. Thank you for all your love and support.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Coup De Foudre

  1

  Destruction

  2

  The Beginning

  3

  Temptation

  4

  The Death of Me

  5

  The Past 1.1

  6

  Numb

  7

  Choices

  8

  The One to Blame

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  Love’s Retaliation

  The Creator

  Death Vision

  Breathless

  The Elites

  Ominous

  Inquisition

  Take My Heart Away

  Chasing Butterflies

  Standards

  Dreaming

  Connections

  Cosmic Love

  Behind Closed Doors

  Fallen From Grace

  Unconscious

  Secrets

  Secret’s Out

  Chosen

  A Dose of Him Daily

  Supernova

  The Better Part of Me

  Poem

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank my “go-to,” the person who helped me through all the hard times, listened to all of my sappy stories and never judged. Thank you, Robert Hodges. To Amanda Worrell, you are truly my inspiration. I didn’t know what “following my dreams” meant until I met you. You are a person with great class, humility and I can’t forget how many times you made me laugh through the heart aches. Thank you! To Katrina Spencer, I love you so much cousin! Thank you for being there when I needed you most. Thank you for all of your love, support and honesty. And last, but not least, to my fiancé, Gerald Hargrove, thank you for being my motivation to finish. Without you, this book would have still been sitting on my desktop, festering away. I love you with all that I know. No one means more to me than you.

  Prologue: Coup de foudre

  It feels different… loving someone. It feels inexplicable. Almost non-existent. It always feels like I want to hug you so hard that I mesh clean into you… becoming one… with you. It’s overwhelming and exciting all at once. I think the word is simultaneous. It’s the X’s and O’s… ups and downs, in-betweens, our woes and here we are, interwoven and I’m constantly falling for you.

  He pulls his sleeve down to his wrist, clenching the end of it under his forefingers, wiping the smudge of chocolate from the corner of his mouth. From under my brow, I watch him as he pants in between laughs and sniffles, nodding his head in gestures since the chocolate cake captivated his mouth. A perfect mouth it is. I didn’t know him—he didn’t know me but something about him drew me to want to know more. I needed to know him.

  A girl sitting with him smiles, looking over to meet my gaze. Unhesitant, I lower my eyes to sever any connection that is bound to occur between us. From what I saw of her, she was beautiful—worth being with if he was only into her for her looks. Her jaw line sturdy and pointed downward, giving her an edge that only she could pull off. I glance back up at her to see her gaze sunken back into his. I study her eyes which are small and chancy as she deepens her observation into him. Her lips purse before she flashes those white teeth again. He says something funny to her, making her toss her head backwards in gut clutching laughs. Her curls bounce as she tosses her brown hair back behind her shoulder. I assume her hair is the same length as mine; almost touching the small of her back. She was mesmerizing; I knew I could never compete with her.

  He glances over at me in between the smile exchanges he was giving her. I look away in fear he would catch me gawking for the fifth time tonight. I glimpse back at him to be sure he is done looking my way but my heart flutters when I find out he hadn’t stopped staring at me. His face chiseled with perfection. He places his hand on the top of his forehead trying to eclipse his caramel skin but the more he tried, the more his freckles seeped through his parted fingers. His eyes warm my soul, leaving me here to melt alone at this table across from him. I couldn’t believe he was looking at me with those sweet green eyes. I feel the pierce in my lungs expand as he continues to figure me out. Our connection sucks me in while she escapes off to the restroom, leaving him behind to eye fornicate with me a while longer.

  “Hey, babes.” She walks back over to him, touching the back of his chair, running her finger along his spine. I feel a twinge of jealousy stir in the pit of my stomach.

  “Heeey.” He stands up awkwardly to greet her once more, snatching his attention away from me. I look away for a final time forgetting I was ever trying to create a fictional life with him.

  “You get the check?” I hear her ask him.

  “Yes. Ready to go?” She doesn’t respond to him but I assume she nods to ensure him she was ready. The metal seats scrape the wooden floor, allowing them to add their own character to it, as they push the chairs up to the table. I look over to meet his gaze once more but he had already gone. I close my eyes trying to imprint him into my mind, sighing in between each thought I had of him. I had to remember who he was, although, I didn’t know who he might be.

  “Psst.” I open my eyes, falling out of my seat when I see him sitting in front of me. I reach back to seize the back of my cold, rusty metal chair. He chuckles, “I’m Riley,” holding out his hand for me to shake it. I look around to find the girl he had just been sitting with. “She’s gone home now.” He interjects my thoughts, still leaving his hand out in front of me to grab.

  “Girlfriend?” I ask, taking his hand and shaking it.

  “Nice to meet you, Girlfriend.” He smiles as I lower my eyes trying to mask my grin.

  “Nora. My name is Nora.” I slip my hand away from his.

  “She wasn’t my girlfriend. She was my friend.” My eyes widen as I replay the ‘what seemed to be’ intimate dinner (well, dessert) between them moments ago, “She’s um, my sister’s friend.” Like that made it any better. He scratches the back of his head.

  “Nice to know.” I nod. My eyes dance off to the back of the diner. The walls tethered with crooked pictures and chipped white paint, allowing my eyes to play a small game of connect the dots, making my own images to keep my thoughts distracted from him.

  “Who are you?” He breaks my concentration, impelling me to face him. The question anomalous but he had to be wondering the same thing I had when we first laid eyes on each other. Maybe he felt that same connection—that infinite feeling of us forever.

  I laugh shyly. “I told you.”

  “No—I mean who are you? There’s just something about you I cannot steer myself away from.” He felt it.

  “What do you mean?” He looks down at my one cup of coffee and no food. I observe his thoughts as they conform into concern for me—it was almost as if his mind had been stirring out of control.

  “You hungry?” I had only enough allowance bits t
o purchase a cup of coffee.

  “Um, no, I’m fine.” I say, shifting my feet nervously. I knew nothing about him but he still insisted on buying me dinner.

  “Please?” His eyes soften as he lifts one side of his mouth into a crooked smile.

  “I—I’m not hungry. Thanks though.” I smirk and lower my eyes, hoping he wouldn’t hear my stomach roar with hunger.

  “Waiter?” He calls out anyway, “Can we get the lady a slice of pizza and–”

  “No, no that won’t be necessary. I’m getting ready to go, anyway.” I grab my bag that’s hanging from the back of the seat and stand from the table.

  “Go? We have more talking to do, right?” He flashes his teeth once more and I drop my bag by my side, sitting back down again.

  “Okay.” I whisper, breaking the eye connection with him. The blotched brown floor boards creak as Jason steps in closer to us. He stares at us as he awaits Riley’s order confirmation.

  “So, could we both have a whole pepperoni pizza please?” He nods and types the order into the order board he’s holding. “Thanks.” He turns his attention back to me. “So?”

  I raise my eyebrows, letting my eyes flicker between him and the scratched wooden table, still waiting for him to finish his sentence. He clears his throat when I don’t respond to, “So?”

  “So, are you from Abenaki?” He continues.

  “Yes.” I answer in fear he would have something unpleasant to say about my tribe but he doesn’t. I take a sip of my coffee. “So, what tribe are you from?”

  “Braedon.” He lifts his chin with dignity.

  “Great.” I give him a half smile as we continue to sit in silence. Looking at him seemed to be more interesting than us sitting here and not having anything else to talk about. My eyes wander off again as I wait for him to say anything that could make this interaction less awkward.

  “Let’s take a walk.” My eyes widen with distress. This must be the part where he kills me and dump my body off into the ocean. I gulp, not sure if I should even respond but I guess this is what I get for making so much eye contact with a potentially taken stranger in a diner. Great, Nora! You’ve attracted a sociopath.

  “What about the pizza?” I ask, famished—it wasn’t just an excuse.

  “We’ll take it to go.” He smiles. I couldn’t fight his beauty, his eyes, that quintessential smile. How could I reject his proposal? “Please?” He requests.

  What the heck? I sigh, “Why not?” He grins, fist pumps, and runs over to the waiter to ask him if he could put the pizza into a box for us. Riley hands him the allowance bits for the food and a tip as Jason hands him the box of pizza. I finish my last bit of coffee and look through my wallet to find at least five allowance bits for coffee plus tip but there were only two bits in my wallet. I rub the two pale green, square bits together, wondering where the rest had gone. My heart drop to my knees. Coffee was almost three bits and tips were always 20% of the bill—no exceptions. If I am caught again without the correct amount of allowance bits, I will be fined and my mother could not afford another fine because of me. I gulp with embarrassment, trying to push that lump down that had just formed in my throat.

  Riley jogs back over to the table, smiling. “You ready?”

  “Yea, I’m just going to pay him so we can go.” I keep my head down, trying so desperately to dry my eyes by continuously batting my eyelids.

  “No! Don’t worry about it—I’ve already taken care of it.” My eyes flicker back up to him. His smile wears thin and his eyebrows mush together with concern as he doesn’t mask his apprehension for me. “What’s wrong, Nora?” He slides into the chair next to me.

  “Not here.” I whisper. “Let’s go.” He nods and walks around to pull the chair from behind me. I stand clumsily; my foot slams into the floor, and my hands grip the table as I try to keep my balance.

  “Whoa, you okay, love?” His voice lavishing in the pit of my ears. I nod. He grabs the pizza from the table and we walk over to the door as he allows me to exit first, leading the way.

  *****

  “So, what was wrong?” He asks taking a huge chunk out of his pepperoni pizza slice. The savory smell of the slice churns my stomach, coercing my mouth to salivate. I grab a small slice from the box.

  “With?” I act as if I do not understand what he’s talking about. I take a small bite of my pizza in hopes he would drop the subject all together.

  “You know what I’m talking about.” He puts his crust down on the empty side of the round pizza box. “Tell me what’s wrong.” I look off into the trees, admiring the dark beauty of the leaves as they sway from side to side with the rush of wind. The trunks of the trees burn dull orange-red in my retinas. The branches stretch closer to the sky, almost as if they are pleading for an escape from this wretched world. I study the grass—the greyish black grass as it sways with the trees in the wind. The grass, too, stands tall trying to mask an escape from Riley and I. The fact is, some of us here, on Jeshyria, have an amazing life with no worries but those of us who fall short of that amazing life are the very ones comparing our lives to the leaves of the trees and the grass of this planet and here I am, pleading for an escape because I don’t want to talk about my life problems with a stranger. He gawks at me waiting for my response. But I guess it is better than not talking at all.

  I sigh. “I don’t know you, Riley.” I say, abandoning the small courage I had just built up to tell him my deepest fears.

  “But you can know me. I can know you. I want to know you. Your fears, hopes and dreams. I mean at the diner; I saw fear all over your face and the tears in your eyes. Something was wrong. I’m just, um, a friend who’s concerned. That’s all.” I feel him digging deeper in my brain, trying to figure out the real me that no one else knew—not even myself.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” I put my pizza down on the cardboard. My stomach whips with nervousness. I wasn’t ready to escape my own private world; let alone, invite someone else in but here he was, knocking on the doors of my heart wanting me to open up and envelop in his ambiance. He didn’t know me.

  “All it takes is one foot in and I promise the water won’t feel cold to you forever. Your body must adjust to difference—change. We must start somewhere. Why not start now?” He stops eating to gaze into my soul again, leaving me begging him to stay and leave simultaneously, conflicted with emotion that I could not continue to fathom why I shouldn’t tell him anymore about me.

  “My—ugh… I don’t know what I should say.” I look up at the stars, pleading for an escape of this horrid emotion that was sweeping over me; too vulnerable to him.

  “Why don’t you start with the diner? Why were you crying?”

  I peek at him through the corner of my eyes. “It’s embarrassing.”

  “Let me be the judge.”

  Breathe. Pull in, let out. I had almost forgotten how to. Breathe. “I didn’t have enough bits to pay for the coffee and to tip Jason.” I look down at the ground but still feel his eyes on me.

  “I was fined before. I couldn’t afford to pay for a bill because I left my case at home.” He takes a bite of a new slice of pizza. I roll my eyes.

  “Tuh, well, that’s nothing like my situation.”

  He stops mid-chew, “What do you mean?”

  A tear slips down my cheek and I wipe it before he could notice that I was crying again. “My father died when I was a child and ever since then, my mom just cannot afford to take care of me and my sisters. I use my five allowance bits for coffee just to keep me going. I’m working overtime just to pay for a good academy. It’s just been hard, without him. That’s all.” I sniffle.

  “Hey,” he puts the pizza box to the right side of the bench and slides in closer to me, “I’m sorry about your dad. I didn’t know. I can’t imagine how it feels to lose someone so close.” He touches my shoulder, and a jolt rushes through my body causing me to jump up from the bench. “What’s wrong?” He looks up at me. Unlived memories flood i
n as I feel my mind strengthen itself. I grip my chest as I feel my heart mend itself back together. Life didn’t seem to suck too much anymore. What is happening to me?

  “You feel that?” I gasp.

  “Feel what?” He looks at me with confusion.

  I sigh. “Nothing, I guess.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” His expression deepens with further concern.

  “Yea, I’m fine. Sorry.” I sit back down beside of him hoping he wouldn’t find me weird at all.

  “You’re a real psychopath, you know?” He bursts into laughter.

  “Ha Ha, real funny.” I nudge him.

  “Shoot!” He exclaims jumping up from the bench.

  “You felt it too!?” I stand, facing him.

  “Did you feel something shoot through your body when I touched you?” He asks astonished.

  “YES!”

  “What was that?” He looks behind the bench to see if someone is there but the park is empty. “We have to figure out what that was, Nor.”

  I smile, lifting one brow. “Nor?”

  His face reddens, “Sorry. Nora, I mean.”

  “Nor is fine.” I blush, sweeping the excess hair back from my face. He smiles employing my heart to flutter, my knees to buckle, and my stomach to roil. I think I’m falling for him.

  Maybe love doesn’t come from the heart. Maybe it’s a psychic jolt that wakes you when you touch them—leaving you breathless.

  1 Destruction

  TWO YEARS LATER

  A long term mental disorder involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy, delusion, and a sense of metal fragmentation. My eyes scan the computer screen. Reading the fancier term for crazy was the hardest part of this diagnosis. I sigh. I was nowhere near ready for this—for being this person who will be controlled by doctors, always poked and prodded. It was all his fault. I should have never –