Breathe Read Free Page B

get my crazy panic attacks under control.
    The next few days held no sightings of Dream Guy. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. He was gorgeous, but I still got a sick feeling in my stomach when I thought about how we met. Sometimes I really wanted to see him again, and other times I was glad I hadn’t. He probably didn’t even remember me. I don’t know why I had spent so much time in the last week thinking about him.
    I did, however, see Trenton most days. He had been a big help getting me familiar with how everything worked at the school. I had taken to eating lunch with the girls from French, who turned out to be Julia, Mandy, Raquel, and Lisa. They were actually part of a bigger group made up of all juniors like me. Since I’d always thought making friends and fitting in had been made easier by Daisy, it was a nice change being able to make friends and fit in on my own without any outside influence. Did it make me a bad person that I was excited about doing something without my sister? I had loved her so much, but I wanted to move on in my life. I wished I didn’t have to leave her behind. Even making friends here was complicated by my past.
    Fortunately, none of the kids asked too much about my past life except the inevitable: Did I know/see/live by any stars? And “Did you live close to the beach?” So funny. They moved on after my mostly “no” answers. I mean, I did see Zac Efron once at Universal Citywalk, but you can’t live very long near LA and not see someone famous. I liked most of the girls so far except for the angry girl from French class who turned out to be Lisa. She had seemed to take an instant dislike to me. She had gone out of her way to ignore me and make a show of trying to exclude me from conversations. Thankfully the other girls didn’t go along. I just pretended not to notice. This was something I did not miss about girlfriends. She was most definitely a mean girl, and I wanted nothing to do with that. LA was full of mean girls. I knew her type. Yuck.
    The pep rally and game was the next day, and I had made tentative plans to go with “the girls,” based on mom’s approval. It was nice to actually have plans and act like a normal teenager. With the exception of Lisa, I liked hanging out with the girls; they made me laugh. They seemed to get along with each other mostly, and I took that as a good sign. There were some boys that hung out in the group too, but I was still a little ways from being comfortable enough to go beyond “hey” to any of them. I felt like I was waking up from a two-year nap. I was ready to get on with my life. Sad as it was, this was part of the reason we moved. I don’t think any of us could have done it if we had stayed in LA.
    By Thursday at lunch, the girls were finalizing their ideas for the weekend. I was actually getting excited about being part of it.
    “So I think we should make shirts with the numbers of our favorite players on the front. My mom can pick us up the boy V-necks from Wal-Mart,” Mandy stated excitedly. “Wouldn’t that look so cute? We could totally use the school colors and everything.”
    “Uhh… I don’t even know anyone who plays.” This did not seem like a fabulous idea to me. Well, there was Trenton, but I was not going there.
    “And isn’t that like announcing to the world that you like someone?” Julia reasonably pointed out.
    “Well, duh, of course.” Mandy rolled her eyes. “Why else would you do it? Boys are clueless. Unless you point it out to them, they don’t notice!” Raquel was nodding her head in agreement.
    “I’m putting number four on mine,” Lisa said.
    “You’re not going to get anywhere with Easton Ward, Lisa. He already told you he doesn’t feel that way about you. You just make yourself look desperate if you put his number on your shirt,” Julia told her.
    Lisa gave Julia a dirty look. “You don’t know. I swear he was staring at me today during break while we were in the quad.”
    I