Just Remember to Breathe (Thompson Sisters)

it!”
    Oh, God, why wouldn’t they all just shut up and go away!
    “Please, Mom? I think I need to lay down for a while.”
    “Of course, dear.”
    “Thanks,” I said, then put the phone back to my ear. “Sorry. What was that you were saying?”
    Carrie’s voice came through loud and clear. “Alex, don’t freak out. All right? Whatever you do, I want you to stay calm.”
    “Of course,” I said, the fake smile still plastered on my face. My cheeks were starting to hurt.
    “Okay. Listen… this morning, Randy Brewer was arrested.”
    I closed my eyes, and felt my knees draw up involuntarily. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hear what she was going to say next.
    “He followed a girl home from a bar last night and raped her.”
    I gasped, and my hand flew to my mouth.
    “Alexandra, are you all right?”
    “I think I’m going to be sick,” I whispered. My stomach was cramping, hard, and I couldn’t stop the tears that started to run down my face.
    “Alexandra, put down the phone. What did you eat on the plane, do you have food poisoning?”
    “Kelly,” I whispered to my sister. “I’ll send you that email. So sorry, I gotta run, not feeling well.”
    She replied right away. “I’ll be here waiting for you, Alex. I’m so sorry.”
    I hung up the phone and laid it on seat next to me. I leaned forward in my seat, arms crossed over my chest, trying to hold in the emotions that were threatening to overpower me.
    “Alexandra, do you need to go to the doctor? I think we need to take you to the doctor.”
    “No!” I shouted.
    The silence following my shout was deafening.
    My mother screeched to a stop a second later, after almost missing a red light. She looked up at me, her mouth open, eyes wide. I’d never yelled at her before.
    “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just… need to lay down for a little while, okay? Please?”
    I pulled my legs up in my seat and lay my face against them, wrapping my arms around my legs and trying to shut everything out.
    All I could think about was those minutes last spring, when I’d been unable to get up, unable to defend myself, as he ripped my shirt, before his roommates intervened. And then it happened again, only this time it was Dylan who’d protected me.
    I hadn’t been able to protect myself. What Randy had done made me feel worthless. Less than worthless. Like a piece of meat, to be touched and poked and prodded, pushed into position. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to vomit.
    Because if I had reported it last spring, he’d have been in jail a long time ago. That girl wouldn’t have been raped. Dylan wouldn’t have been arrested.
    It was my fault.
    After a couple minutes of dead silence in the car, I felt a poke in my left side. I looked up, and it was Jessica, one eyebrow raised, looking suspicious.
    She was holding my iPhone, with the call history displayed. The last call, of course, was to Carrie’s cell phone. When I’d been pretending to be talking to Kelly. A couple of calls to Kelly below that, and fourth on the list in my call history: Dylan. The contact picture next to his name was a picture taken two weeks ago, of the two of us.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

    Mistakes happen (Dylan)

    I was sitting in my room, writing, when the knock on the door came. I was in limbo: going to trial for aggravated assault in a few weeks, unsure where my future was going, rejected by Alex. For hours, I’d been sitting here in the dark, listening to quiet music, occasionally writing thoughts in a new journal.
    I was trying to make sense of my life. Trying to make sense of what had happened with Alex. Trying to make sense of us.
    The only conclusion I could come to was this: Alex was absolutely right. I’d spent three years avoiding telling her how I really felt. I’d spent three years not opening up, not telling her I loved her, not telling her that I wanted to spend my life with her.
    No wonder she wasn’t willing to take me back.
    I was so deep in thought that at first I didn’t hear the knocking. I had a pen in the corner of my mouth, chewing on it, a habit I’d tried to break for years, but came back when I was tense.
    The knock came again, and I looked up, focusing outside myself for the first time in hours.
    I stood up, shouted, “Coming!” and padded across the carpet in my bare feet.
    When I opened the front door, I sighed in frustration.
    It was two police officers, the same two officers who had arrested me.
    “Can we