Breathe Read Free Page A

have the baby, not work, and I would be back in school. I could do this.
    Yes, Jax Stone was famous, and his incredible steel blue eyes made my heart flutter. I made myself admit that much. However, it wasn’t just because he happened to be one of the most beautiful creations known to man. Everyone knew beauty ran only skin deep. I assumed the shallowness leaking out his veins would be so revolting I wouldn’t care if I cleaned his house and passed him in the halls. Besides, guys were a species I knew nothing about. I never took time to talk to one even when they did their best to talk to me. I’ve always had bigger problems in life, like making sure we ate and my mom remembered to pay our bills.
    When I think of all the money I'd wasted on the condoms I shoved in her hands and purses before she went out with the countless men who flocked to her, I really had a hard time not getting angry with her. Even in thrift store clothing, she looked gorgeous. One of her many disgusting men told me I inherited the cursed looks. From her blond curly hair to her clear blue eyes and heavy black lashes, I somehow managed to get it all. However, I lacked the one thing I knew would save me from certain disaster, I actually appeared rather dull. Something my mother loved to remind me of, yet instead of being upset by it, I held onto it for dear life. What she thought would be a downfall to my character, I liked to think of as my lifeline. I didn’t want to be like her. If having a dull personality kept me from following in her footsteps, then I would embrace it.
    The apartment we lived in for almost five hundred a month sat underneath a huge, old house. I walked in to find she wasn’t inside. With only four rooms, Jessica couldn’t have gotten far.
    “Mom?” I got no answer.
    The sun was setting so I stepped out onto what Jessica referred to as a patio. If you asked me, it was really more like a small piece of slab. She stood out in the yard with her increasing stomach on view for all to see, in a bikini I’d bought at a thrift store a few weeks ago. She turned and smiled. The sick façade from this morning no longer appeared on her face. Instead, she seemed to be glowing.
    “Sadie, how did it go? Did ol’ Ms. Mary give you a hard time? If she did, I sure hope you were nice. We need this job, and you can be so rude and unsociable.”
    I listened to her blabber on about my lack of social skills and waited until she finished before I spoke. “I got the job for the summer if I want it.”
    Jessica sighed dramatically in relief. “Wonderful, I really need to rest these next few months. The baby is taking so much from me. You just don’t understand how hard it is to be pregnant.”
    I wanted to remind her I’d tried to keep her from getting pregnant by sacrificing food money to buy her some stupid condoms, which didn’t help at all! However, I nodded and walked inside with her.
    “I’m starving, Sadie. Is there anything you can fix up real fast? I am eating for two these days.”
    I’d already planned what we would eat for dinner before I got home. I knew Mom was helpless in the kitchen. I somehow survived the first eight years of my life on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Somewhere around the time I turned eight, I realized my mother needed help, and I began growing up quicker than normal children. The more I offered to take on, the more she gave me. By the time I’d turned eleven, I did it all.
    With the noodles boiling and the meat sauce simmering, I went to my room. I slipped out of my work clothes and into a pair of cut off thrift store jeans, which happen to be the core of my wardrobe, and a tee shirt. My wardrobe was simple.
    The pan in the kitchen with the noodles in it whistled letting me know the food needed to be checked. Jessica wasn’t going to get up and check things out anytime soon. I hurried back into the small kitchen, took out a spaghetti noodle on a fork, and slung it at the wall behind the stove. It