Out of Breath (Breathing, #3)(18)

‘Do you want to get something to eat?’ he whispered across to me on Friday. I was calculating a Statistics problem and erasing – a lot. I hated Statistics.

Shocked to hear his voice, I glanced up into translucent blue eyes that awaited my answer.

‘Are you hungry? I’m getting something to eat, and was asking if you’d like to come along.’

‘I’m not quite done. I need to stay a little longer.’ I bent over my notebook and figured he’d walk away like he usually did.

‘How about tomorrow?’ he persisted. I raised my eyes inquisitively, wary of his motives.

‘I don’t date.’

‘I wasn’t asking you on a date,’ he clarified, his neck turning slightly red. ‘I was just asking you to get something to eat – you need to eat, right?’

‘That I do.’ I deliberated. ‘But no, I don’t want to get something to eat with you tomorrow.’

‘Are you trying to be cruel, or is it just me?’

‘It’s just you.’ I continued to work out the math equation in front of me.

When he remained silent, I looked up to find him watching me intently. His eyes narrowed in on me for a silent moment, as if trying to read whether I was sincerely messing with him. Then he stood up to walk away.

I let out a breath and said, ‘Fine. I’ll meet you at The Alley at seven tomorrow night … for food.’

‘Yeah, just food.’ His annoying crooked smile now flustered me because I had no idea what it meant. I found myself looking after him as he walked around the corner. I couldn’t be cruel enough to make him stay away, but I was certain that he should. I bowed my head and returned to the misery of my assignment.





6


A Thousand Words


MY EARS PICKED UP THE MUSICAL CHIME coming from my nightstand before my brain could understand what it was hearing. I hit the snooze button, but the notes continued. I squinted an eye open to peer at the clock. It was after three in the morning. The chiming stopped, and I fell back into my pillow.

My phone started ringing again, insistent that I pick it up. I groaned and grappled with the device, pulling it in front of my face.

‘Sara?’ I grumbled, my voice still lost in the world of sleep.

‘Emma!’ she sobbed, her voice broken and full of pain. I bolted upright.

‘Sara, what is it?’ I demanded urgently, sitting in the dark of my room with my heart pounding. I tried to remain patient as I heard her strain to catch her breath. ‘Sara, please tell me.’

‘He’s engaged!’ she screamed in piercing agony. My entire body stilled. A moment passed, and all I could hear were her deafening cries.

‘Who’s engaged?’ I whispered, knowing the answer.

‘Jared,’ she whimpered. She collapsed into something that muffled her cries. I waited until she finally said, ‘I saw it … in The Times …’

And then there was nothing.

‘Sara?’ My phone displayed the lost connection message. ‘Shit.’ I dialled her back, only to hear the blaring of a busy signal. Frustrated and still confused, I pushed my blankets back, flipping on the bedside lamp.

I tried to call her back again, but was blocked by the same bleeping signal. I scrambled to my desk and booted up my laptop.

I searched ‘Mathews’ and ‘New York Times’ and was directed to a link. The page opened to the engagement section of The Times, featuring a large black-and-white photo of Jared and a girl. I stared at the screen in disbelief.

It wasn’t a professionally posed engagement photo. They were surrounded by formally dressed people at some kind of function. The photographer captured an image of them walking hand in hand. Jared was grinning slightly, while the girl next to him was simply glowing, with a vibrant, open-mouthed laugh. Her dark eyes twinkled, even in the colourless image. Her brown hair was swept up into a loose style, with elegant wisps framing her undeniably stunning face. She held a hand up, as if to cover her laugh, and there it was … the ring. A huge square diamond on her left hand.

I couldn’t focus on the words announcing their engagement. I didn’t care when they were getting married. I didn’t even care what her name was. Sara’s heart was being torn out of her chest in another country, without me there to console her. I called back again, and just as the phone started to ring, my eyes shifted. And I saw Evan.

He was in the background, within the crowd of partygoers. Most of his face was cut from the picture, though with the distinct structure of his jaw and the sharp lines of his mouth, there was no denying it was him. I did, however, have a full view of the girl draped around his left arm. It was hard to forget the detestably smug grin of Catherine Jacobs, the same girl who’d practically thrown herself at him at the dinner we’d attended years ago at her parents’ house. She looked very comfortable on his arm, like she thought she belonged there.

‘Emma?’ Sara answered. ‘Are you there?’ But I could barely hear her.

My insides had fallen into a bottomless pit, and my throat had closed up.

‘Emma?’

I dropped the phone and rushed to the bathroom, crashing the door against the wall, just in time to reach the toilet before expelling the contents of my stomach. I broke out into a cold sweat, gripping the rim of the seat tightly as my entire body convulsed.