Breathe into Me by Sara Fawkes Page B

silence. “Your conduct here will be kept permanently in your file. Any potential employers will be given a full rundown as to why you were dismissed.”
    I just stared at her, keeping my gaze blank. The door behind me opened, and Elton, the old security guard, came inside the room. I cringed inwardly at having someone else witness this, but didn’t allow my frustration to show. Tears of frustration were threatening, and my lungs still burned from the asthma attack, but I held everything in. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of seeing me beg, or show any emotion that she could gloat over.
    Finally, Glenda gave an annoyed grunt and motioned for Elton. “Please escort her out, and make sure she doesn’t steal anything.” To me, she added, “Your grandmother will be so ashamed that you killed her great-grandchild so callously.”
    Elton accompanied me silently to the employee area while I packed up my things into a plastic grocery bag. Then I was escorted from the building, left alone only once I’d exited the front doors. Macon was nowhere in sight but I couldn’t care less at this point. I kept on going, walking straight through the large parking lot.
    “Lacey!”
    Clare’s voice sounded behind me but I didn’t turn, continuing forward toward the main street. Tears stung my eyes but I didn’t stop, even when she called my name a second time. I couldn’t let her see me cry, couldn’t bear for anyone to see my tears.
    Beside the shopping center was a six-foot cinderblock wall separating it from the nearby neighborhood. Nothing was on the other side except an alley nobody ever used. I turned up that narrow road, continuing down the dirt path until I was halfway between the two streets at either end and nobody could see me.
    Then I leaned back against that gray wall and slid to the ground, bawling my eyes out.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    “You seem distracted.”
    “Mmm.” It was true I had a lot on my mind. I hadn’t told anyone about my being fired. It was a conversation I was dreading, and I had hoped to replace the job quickly, but my plans on that front weren’t working out so well. The fight with my mother two days prior still weighed heavily on me as well. We hadn’t spoken of it, and the unresolved feelings made me edgy.
    I stared at the math problems before me, but my eyes were already starting to cross. Sighing, I leaned back in my chair. “Math has never been my strong suit.”
    “Well, you’re doing better than before. That’s a start at least.”
    Snorting, I leaned my head over to look at Everett. He was leaning over my latest test, his hair partially obscuring his face. I stared at his profile, the slightly-too-large-for-his-face nose that still fit, the square jaw that on anyone else might have been too much. The T-shirt he wore stretched across his hunched shoulders, setting off the thickness of his arms.
    I’d always been a chest-and-arm muscle kind of girl, and Everett had those to spare. I would catch myself staring and have to look away sometimes, struggling to focus on whatever we were studying. It’d been a long time since someone, a stranger to boot, had been this nice to me without expecting anything in return.
    Didn’t hurt that he was cute.
    “Oh, by the way, I’ve got some good news and bad news about the transmission. Trent said he’s too busy right now to rebuild another one, but he’d be willing to swap yours out with one he’s already got.”
    “That’s awesome! So what’s the bad news?”
    “Well, it’s only potentially bad. He needs to know what kind of vehicle you have to know whether it’ll work.”
    “Admit it, you just want to know what I drive.”
    He grinned. “The question has crossed my mind,” he teased, bumping my ribs with an elbow good-naturedly.
    Well, it wasn’t like it was a national secret. “It’s a 1973 Ford Bronco, stock manual transmission.”
    Everett blinked, and then gave a long whistle. “Now I feel woefully inadequate. Hang on,