Page 82 of Room to Breathe

“Oh,” he said, then waited for me to proceed.

But now that he was staring at me expectantly, I didn’t know what to say. What else was there to say about their birthdays? “When’s your birthday?” I asked.

“July,” he said.

“Mine is in May,” I responded. “I thought my parents were going to get me a car for this birthday.”

“Are you fifteen?” he asked.

“No,” I said, then pointed to the window. “I drive, remember?”

“Oh, right,” he said.

“They didn’t last year, though, and then I started saving money, so I thought this year they were going to.” I thought it would be a fun memory. A car in the driveway with a big bow on it or something. But instead my mom had done it on a whim behind my dad’s back.

“I got a longboard for my birthday,” he said.

“I’ve never seen you ride a longboard.”

“I do sometimes,” he said. “Wanna see it?”

“Sure,” I said.

He stood and pulled me to my feet, then led me to the back of the house and into his bedroom. He opened the closet and pulled out a longboard that had a red dragon on the underside. Its wheels were red as well. “Sick, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I like it.”

He put it on the carpet and stood on top of it, pretending to ride.

“Should I make them a cake?” I asked. If they hadn’t planned anything today for In Between, maybe that would be a good bridge. An olive branch. Did I want to extend a peace offering? Did I want peace? The pit in my stomach told me I did.

“Make who a cake?” Cody asked.

“My people. For their birthdays.”

“I like cake.” His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out. He chuckled and then typed something back.

I was going to break up with him (were we together?). I wasn’t sure when, but I was. The thought of having nobody right now kept me from saying anything. Maybe that made me a horrible person, but I hadn’t felt like a good person lately regardless.

“I have to go,” I said.

He jumped off his board and tucked his phone away. Then he wrapped me in a hug. “Don’t be jealous, it was just April.”

I had no idea who April was. “I’m not,” I said, which was true. I actually wished Iwasjealous. It would mean I had more feelings invested in this than I did. Maybe I had no feelings to invest in anything at the moment. I’d been angry for months.

He pressed his lips to mine, sliding his tongue into my mouth. I responded, kissing him back. Beau’s eyes flashed through my brain and I gasped and pulled back.

“What?” Cody asked.

“Nothing, I need to go.”

I made two small cakes. Both saidHappy (In Between) Birthdayon top. Well, that was what they were supposed to say. Writing with frosting was hard. If I squinted and used context clues, that was exactly what they said.

I drove to Ava’s first, but her car wasn’t parked out front where it normally was, so I kept driving until I got to Beau’s. Ava’s car wasn’t there either. Beau’s was, sitting in front of the third garage door in the driveway. I parked across the street and one house over, trying to decide how I was going to do this. Should I just knock on the door? His parents loved me. Would they be surprised to seeme? I thought about the news story that had just come out. Would they confront me about that like some of the people at school had?

One girl I didn’t know at all had asked me if my dad was going to jail. I didn’t know how to respond. I just put my head down and kept walking.

Mrs. Dulaney, my calculus teacher, had stared at me like she wanted to ask me the same question, like she now understood why I had cheated on my test—because I was the daughter of a cheater. But she hadn’t said anything. Maybe she hadn’t seen the news story and it was all in my head.