Page 86 of Room to Breathe

“Yes,” Dad agreed.

“What?” I asked.

“Your punishment,” Mom said. “You need to find a job. I’m sure the school is going to charge you for destroyed property. You need to pay for it.”

She was probably right. Had I just waited to check my texts that day until after class, none of this would’ve happened. I’d stopped caring. But I cared now. I wanted to do better. “Okay.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re not going to fight me on that?”

“Do you want me to?”

A small smile found its way onto her face and she tilted her head. “Something is different.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “I was trapped in a bathroom with Beau.”

“You’re ready to forgive him for whatever he did?”

I knew he wasn’t perfect. Like my dad said, nobody was. He had made mistakes. And so had I. I’d made a lot. But being in that bathroom with him, I felt more like myself than I had in a while. He was part of who I was. I just hoped he agreed that I was part of him too. I wasn’t sure if we could have the friendship we had before, but I wanted to talk to him, figure it out. “I’m ready to try.”

Chapter 36

Then

Mrs. Dulaney placed a brand-newcalculus book on my desk. The spine had zero creasing on it, which meant it had been opened very little, if at all. I met her eyes in confusion. Had she heard I’d lost mine? Had the librarian decided to let me check one out after all, even though I never did pay the fee to get a new one? I’d been getting by on class notes and online searches for the past two months. I studied the book on my desk. There wasn’t the typical library barcode on the side, like on my other textbooks.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“For this class,” she said, as if it was apparent. What I really should’ve asked wasWhy now, after two months?

“Okay, cool,” I said, and she walked back to the whiteboard, where she began the day’s review.

I felt Beau staring at me. We’d moved as far away from each other as possible in this class. He now sat in the front right corner, and I sat in the back left one. We avoided all eye contact. Usually.

I looked over at him. His eyes darted between me and thebook. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to convey. Was he reminding me that this book was one of the reasons I’d cheated? Was it wrong that I wanted to chuck it at his head? I averted my gaze so I didn’t give in to those intrusive thoughts and played with the strip of black hair I’d dyed the night before. I’d needed a visual representation of how different I felt lately. I wasn’t sure if it helped, but it was something I could control.

After class, Beau stayed in his seat and then timed his exit with mine. Or maybe that was just my imagination.

“New book?” he asked.

His acknowledgment surprised me. We hadn’t talked to each other since the day I told him off at lunch.

I raised an eyebrow his way. “Now I can start beating you again.” I didn’t wait for him to say anything else, just doubled my speed and rushed out of the building. When I got outside, my heart was racing and my hands were shaking. I ignored them and whatever they meant and went to find Cody.

He was in his normal lunch spot, which had become my normal lunch spot—the asphalt outside of the football field.

Ironically enough, he and his friends were on their boards and taking turns jumping over a textbook that one of them had put on the ground.

“Jones!” he said when he saw me, and skated over.

“Hey,” I said.

“Can I see that?” he asked, pointing to the calculus book I still held. Before waiting for an answer, he plucked it from my hands. Then he was skating away. When he reached the other book, he placed mine on top. His friend was already heading toward the stack by the time I registered what was happening.

Before I could propel myself forward, his friend jumped the books. Cody was right behind him, and the wheels of his skateboard dragged along the cover, toppling the book to the ground. Cody laughed.

I picked it up and ran my hand along the new track marks on the cover. I rolled my eyes in his direction.

“Put it back,” he said. “I didn’t clear it right.”