Breathing Read Online Free Page A

got headphones in his ears, the music turned up so loud I can hear it all the way over to here. Maybe he won’t notice me. Okay, the grass ain’t that tall. But then all the sudden I get a feeling that something just ain’t right. I haven’t a clue what it’s about. I just feel edgy is all. I’m thinking real hard on what it might could mean, when, holy swear word, there is an honest-to-God train coming up behind him. I swear there ain’t been a train on these tracks my entire life, and there is one racing up behind him faster than hell on wheels.
    “Jackson! Jackson!” I yell, imagining that train plowing into him and his body flying off the tracks in a million bits. But he ain’t hearing me with them headphones plugged in. I’ve got no choice but to hurl myself at him like a crazy person. I run as fast as I can and literally throw myself at him, knocking him down to the grass as the three-car train whistles on by.
    You can see he’s all confused and trying to make sense of what just happened. I can’t speak at all, I’m so choked up by the whole thing. And he’s sitting there looking at me like I’m Jesus himself.
    “You saved my life,” he says all addled-like.
    I shrug—what else could I have done? “I reckon I owed you one,” I say, finding my voice.
    And then, glory hallelujah, that smile comes over his face that like to set me on fire.
    “Sump’n tells me I may as well make a point of knowing you, Savannah as in Georgia,” he says, which sends a shiver right up my spine.
    “I hurt you a-tall?” I ask, noting how he’s rubbing his neck.
    He looks off after the train. “Not so bad as that woulda. I thought there weren’t no trains on these tracks.”
    “There ain’t.”
    “How’d you get here, anyways?” he asks.
    Ruther than get into all the specifics of what I was doing sitting out in the grass practically stalking him, I just say, “I had a feeling is all.”
    “That I was about to get run down by a train that ain’t s’posed to exist?” he asks.
    I shake my head, not sure how to explain myself.
    “You had a feeling, huh?” he says, staring at me. “I had a sense there was sump’n unusual about you.”
    I like to fall out the way he’s looking at me. Is it possible he may actually think I’m cute? Is it too much to hope for? I mean, I know I ain’t ugly or nothing, but I ain’t exactly model material neither. I guess most folks would call me about average—that goes for my weight, my height, and pretty much everything else—just sort of plain, although I have been told my eyes are the color of cornflowers. (Does it count if my own mama said it?)
    Junior and Billy Jo stroll out of the house, and I fear our moment has ended.
    But Jackson goes, “Shh. Let’s get outta here,” and points at his kin as if to tell me he doesn’t want them to see us. We creep over into the bushes on the far side of the tracks, then take off running.
    I don’t know if it’s the high from saving Jackson like that, the nearness we came to seeing heaven’s gates, or just being so close to the guy I’ve been crushing on that makes me so giddy, but before I know what I’m doing I find myself squealing like a toddler while we run. Now I am just as embarrassed as a pig at a picking (naked as a jaybird and a roasting spit up his backside). Jackson busts up laughing, not like he’s funning me or nothing, just like he understands how durn-all happy I am. He takes my hand and tears on down the hill toward the beach, running so fast I’m all but flying.
    Why is it whenever you find everything feeling right, it’s all the time got to go and turn wrong? Soon as we hit the sand, Dog starts to yelling at Jackson, “You best watch out for her, dude. She’s a handful! She’ll wear you out!” He’s playing baseball with Dave and some other kids. And now they’ve all turned to look at me.
    “Shut up!” I call. Damn, my brother has got to be the most annoying human being on the face of this