Just Remember to Breathe (Thompson Sisters)

problem,” I said.
    “No, sir,” Dylan responded, his voice cool.
    “Well then,” Forrester said. “That’s good. So, let me tell you what you’ll be doing. I’m here for a year, and I’m working on a novel. Historical fiction, centered around the draft riots here in New York during the Civil War. Are you familiar with them?”
    I shook my head, but Dylan said, “Yes. Sad story… some of it turned to lynch mobs.”
    Forrester nodded, enthusiastically. “That’s right. Miss Thompson… the story is this. In July 1863, there was a series of riots here in the city. Mostly poor and working-class Irish, protesting because the rich could buy exemption from the draft. The protests turned ugly, then violent. A lot of people were killed.”
    “They burned down the orphanage,” Dylan said. What a brown-noser.
    “That’s right, Dylan! The colored orphanage burned to the ground. A dozen or more black men were lynched during the riots.”
    “So…” I said. “What exactly will we be doing to help?”
    “Well, you see, Columbia has a mass of historical material about the riots. Much of it primary sources. As I work on my outline and the actual manuscript, your job will be to help me with the details. The historical context, the source material, all of the information I’ll need to get the story just right.”
    “That’s… incredible,” Dylan said. “No offense, Doctor Forrester, but this is way better than I expected as a work-study assignment.”
    Oh, God. This was going to be one long year.

CHAPTER TWO

    I felt like an impostor (Dylan)

    The last time I saw Alex… or at least her image on Skype… I took my laptop and smashed it. When that didn’t do sufficient damage, I took it outside the tent, out to the edge of the camp, and fired a thirty-round magazine through it. Needless to say, that attracted some unwanted attention.
    Sergeant Colton convinced the old man not to court-martial me. I did, however, get confined to the barracks for thirty days, a moot point since we were in the middle of the boonies in Afghanistan, and extra duty, which was most definitely not moot, since that mostly meant filling sandbags.
    In any event, it didn’t matter much, because the next day I was in the passenger seat of our hummer when we rode over a bomb, and I didn’t need a computer much for a while after that. I got smashed up pretty bad, and got my best friend killed.
    Point is, Alex always evoked, um, strong emotions, from the very first time I laid eyes on her.
    We met almost three years ago: my senior year in high school and her junior year. And to be blunt: it changed my life, in ways I can’t really measure.
    But to understand that, you have to understand how we got there in the first place. For me, it’s kind of a backup problem. As in, for each part of the story, you have to back up to an earlier part. I was at Columbia because I got blown up, and I got blown up because I volunteered for the Infantry when I enlisted in the Army, and that happened because of the first time she broke up with me, which was… you get the point. So to have this make any sense at all to you, I have to work my way back to high school.
    I was a lousy student, but I’m not stupid. I can add, and when my mom kicked me out of the house, I had to add minimum wage to minimum wage, and it didn’t come up to nearly enough to pay rent on an apartment, much less rent and something crazy like food. Plus, the guys I was hanging out with… let’s just say, they weren’t shining lights of humanity.
    So I cleaned up my act. I quit drinking. Quit smoking dope. I still smoke cigarettes, but everybody’s gotta have one vice. And I went back to high school. Problem was, I was behind, way behind. When I registered for school again, I went to see the principal of my high school and explained my situation.
    The first question he asked me was, “Where are your parents?”
    I sighed. “I’m sort of homeless at the moment,” I replied. “But that’s not permanent. Look… I don’t want to involve them in me going back to school. I guess I need to prove to my mom that I can do this on my own. Maybe I need to prove it to myself, too.”
    He understood. And backed me, all the way. And much to my surprise (and my mother’s) I got nearly straight As .
    At the end of the year, he called me into his office.
    “Listen,” he said. “I want to tell you about a program we’ve got. Every year, the city sends half a dozen students as part of a