Breathe Me (A 'Me' Novel) Read Online Free

material every Wednesday. My love of reading coincided with my hatred of my mother. I’d been looking for an escape, and I’d found it in the shelves of my school library. From then on, I was never without a book. Reading was the one thing she let me have. The one thing she didn’t try to ruin. Books were my solace; they didn’t throw things at you or tell you that you were worthless. They loved you back as much as you loved them. They never hurt you purposely or because they could. I loved the smell of the pages and running my hand along all the book spines on my bookshelves at home. Books gave me hope to face another day with a smile.
    I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was quitting time for me, and if Tom wasn’t such a dick about overtime, I would’ve stayed until closing. Sighing, I made my way to the back to punch out, then grabbed my cellphone off the charger where I stuck it during break. Great, three missed calls from Ember and one from home. Just seeing the number caused me to break out in sweats. The message icon was blinking. I prayed the message was from Ember, but deep down I knew it wasn’t. I waited until I got outside the store to listen to it. I didn’t want people to act all concerned if they saw my face change from carefree to “my puppy died.”
    “Where the fuc—”
    I hit delete. I could hear this shit in person; I didn’t need to hear it in a voice mail. I knew what it said: the same thing it always said. I looked at the time. The message was sent two hours ago. Fuuuuck.
    Tonight was going to suck.
    Long ago, I deemed that my mother had two sides. When she was just being her normal albeit cruel self, she was my mother; it was what I was used to. When she wanted to be heartless and cause me years in therapy for the shit she put me through, she became a monster. My own personal monster that I couldn’t escape. This was who I saw more often than not.
    This was who I was guaranteed to see tonight.
    “You look like you got lost in the stacks,” boomed a voice from behind me.
    Turning around, I saw Dystopian Biker. But not on a bike. He was in a car—some restored muscle car, as far as I could tell. I quickly smoothed my face out to that of an off-the-clock employee and smiled his way.
    “Ha, good one,” I smiled politely. Customers always thought themselves witty when they made bookstore-related jokes.
    I turned to walk away, and he yelled, “Thanks for the recommendation, Harley.”
    Whoa. Dystopian Biker knew my name?
    He must have seen the bewildered look on my face even from across two rows of cars because he tapped the left side of his chest and looked at me pointedly. Oh, right. My name tag.
    He was apparently so hot he was making me stupid.
    “Anytime. Let me know how you like it,” I said.
    He nodded and drove away before I could gather why he even thought to thank me. At least someone would go home happy.
    I stopped at the local diner, Patty P’s, to grab some burgers and fries for dinner. It was my mother’s favorite, and by bringing some home for her, hopefully she would leave me alone.
    I apprehensively opened the door to our small, two-bedroom house. I hated not knowing what was going to happen. It was why sometimes in a particularly suspenseful part of a book, I’d skip ahead a few pages to see if everything turned out all right.
    I wished I could skip ahead now.
    The house was dark and quiet, like scary-movie quiet, and I found myself walking lightly across the living room to the kitchen with the food containers in hand.
    I never made it.
    Something heavy slammed into my back, knocking me off balance and causing one of the containers, the top one, to fall and spill onto the floor.
    “You are so fucking clumsy!” she screamed.
    Yeah, because that was my fault.
    She didn’t even give me a chance to reply. She never did. “I waited for you for almost two hours to eat, and now you have spilled it on the floor like the dumbass you are. Pick it up!”
    Ignoring the