Just Remember to Breathe (Thompson Sisters)

what he was talking about. In the meantime, just take it a day at a time, an hour at a time, one minute at a time. This moment. Just get through now. Then the next now. I took out a book, a beat-up, nearly shredded paperback Roberts loaned me before he got blown away. The Stand by Stephen King.
    It’s the best fucking book ever, Roberts had said.
    I’m not so sure it was all that, but I had to agree it was pretty good. I was buried in the midst of reading about the outbreak of the super-flu when I heard footsteps coming up the hall. They were clicking. A girl, wearing heels or wedges or something. I forced myself not to look up. I didn’t want to talk to anyone anyway. I wasn’t feeling very friendly. And besides, my instinct was to watch everyone, to keep my eyes on pockets and loose clothes and mounds of trash beside the road and anything else that might represent danger. The challenge was to not look. The challenge was to live my life just like everyone else. And everyone else didn’t look at approaching girls as a source of danger.
    What can I say? I was wrong.
    “Oh, my God,” I heard a murmur. Something inside me recognized the tone and timbre of that voice, and I looked up, my face suddenly flushing as I felt my pulse in my forehead.
    Forgetting about the gimp leg, I tried to jump to my feet. Instead, I ended getting halfway up, then the leg gave out. As if it was cut off, not there. I fell down, hard on my right side, and let out a shout when the sharp, tearing pain shot up my right leg, straight up my spine.
    “Son of a bitch!” I muttered.
    I pushed myself more or less upright, then put a hand to the wall and the other hand on my cane and tried to lift myself.
    The girl of my nightmares darted forward and tried to help me get up.
    “Don’t touch me,” I said.
    She jerked back as if I’d slapped her.
    Finally, I was in a standing position. The pain didn’t go down, and I was sweating, hard. I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t.
    “Dylan,” she said, her voice quavering.
    I grunted something. Not sure what, but it wasn’t terribly civilized.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked.
    I finally looked up. Oh shit, that was a mistake. Her green eyes, which had always caught me like a fucking whirlpool, were huge, like pools. The faintest scent of strawberry drifted from her, making me lightheaded, and her body still arrested attention: petite, curved hips and breasts; as always, she was like a fantasy.
    “I’m waiting for an appointment,” I said.
    “Here?” she asked.
    I nodded. “Work-study assignment,” I said.
    She started to laugh, a bitter, sad laugh. I’d heard that laugh before. “You have got to be kidding me,” she said.

Nothing significant at all (Alex)
    I was late when I got to the Arts and Sciences building, and ran up the six flights of steps to the third floor, knowing the elevator would take forever. I checked my phone. It was three o’clock. I needed to get there right now.
    I counted down the room numbers, finally reaching a dark hall. The light was out at the end of the hall, casting the area in not quite darkness. There it was, room 301. Next to the door, a student sat, his head resting on his fist, face turned away from me. He was reading a book.
    I took a breath. His hair reminded me of Dylan’s, but shorter, of course. That, and his arms were… well, very muscular, and he was tanned. This guy looked like someone out of a catalog. Not that I went fainting over guys with big biceps, but seriously, a girl can look, right?
    As I approached though, I felt my heart begin to thump in my chest. Because the closer I got, the more he looked like Dylan. But what would he be doing here? Dylan, who had broken my heart, then disappeared as if he’d never existed, his email deleted, Facebook page closed, Skype account gone. Dylan, who had erased himself from my life all because of a stupid conversation that shouldn’t have happened.
    I slowed down. It couldn’t be. It just… couldn’t be.
    He took a breath and shifted position slightly, and I gasped. Because sitting in front of me was the boy who’d broken my heart. Quietly, I said, “Oh, my God.”
    He jumped to his feet. Or rather tried to. He got about halfway up, and a look of excruciating pain swept across his face and he fell down, hard. I almost cried out, as he tried to force his way back up. I started forward to help, and he said his first words to me in six months: “Don’t touch me.”
    Typical. I had