Breathe Read Online Free PDF Page A

sound like Mom.”
    Great. That was just what Jay needed. When she talked about McCaw she
    sounded crazy.
    “I doubt he"ll stick around here,” Todd added.
    “How do you mean?”

    Breathe

    17

    “The entire community knows what happened. No way a man is going to stick
    around for the abuse he"s in for.”
    The parents in the next room had finally quieted. The tirade over McCaw"s
    part in their turmoil had lasted longer than usual. A strange voice filtered into the
    kitchen.
    “… survived by husband Jacob Miller .”
    “What the hell?” Todd jumped up, the chair scraping the floor as the back of
    his legs smacked into it. “They"re watching it again?”
    “How?” That was all Jay could manage.
    “Mom gave them a copy when it first aired.”
    Jay rose and shifted a couple of shaky steps away from the sound of the TV.
    “I"m going to the bathroom.” He had never watched the news coverage of the
    sentencing. Hadn"t been there that day either.
    “Maybe you should go watch it,” Todd said. “He said stuff to us that day, and
    you"ve never heard it.”
    Jay paused at the doorway. “I don"t need to.” He left the room and waited
    several minutes after finishing in the bathroom before heading to the living room. A
    story on the local news couldn"t last that long. They"d only still have it on if they
    had replayed it several times. They weren"t that obsessed. Were they?
    The TV was on, but only a commercial filled the screen. Jay stood motionless
    as a can of dancing air freshener sang about spring while it squirted a spray made
    of flowers out its nose. He listened to his own breathing. It was slow and even.
    Maybe avoiding Lincoln McCaw was the best option.
    Jay"s parents and the Shaws still stared at the television and hadn"t so much
    as flinched since he entered the room. They didn"t appear to be breathing. They
    didn"t appear to be anything. Was he the only one alive?
    The air freshener can stopped singing. Stuart Shaw stood and walked heavily
    to the television set, turning it off with a slam. “Six fucking months.”
    “Stuart, please,” Emily said.
    His dad looked at Jay as if just noticing he had joined them. “At least they
    banned him from racing.”
    Was that supposed to comfort?
    “Like that"s enough,” his mom said. “Thank goodness we challenged the plea
    agreement, or they might not have made him serve any time at all.”
    Jay moved past his brother to the picture window. He took in a deep breath,
    let it out, and repeated the process, waiting for it to feel natural. Everyone was
    talking at once, voices raised. Anger invaded Emily Shaw"s sterile living room. Jay
    wasn"t sure who said what, but their comments filled his head.
    “Bastard probably always drove like that.”
    “He"ll kill somebody else someday. You wait and see.”

    18
    Sloan Parker

    “A fine and six months in jail. That"s it.”
    Wasn"t this part over? Guess they wanted to make the day special.
    He should leave, walk out the door and do anything else—be anywhere else.
    He clenched his hands into fists. He wanted them to stop talking about the accident,
    about McCaw, about all of it. Just to stop talking.
    If he could see one sign of their love for Katie, from either set of parents, then
    he would"ve cared about their grief more than he did, but it"d go the way it always
    did. They"d carry on about the unfairness of the legal system and that the penalties
    in these cases were never strong enough, all the while their voices rising, the rage
    building. All the while his heart aching and not one of them noticing.
    What were the stages of grief? And when would everyone move on to the next?
    “Someone should kill him!”
    Jay spun around. That was a new one.
    His mom was standing, her entire body shaking. She pushed her husband
    away from her. “He needs to suffer and die like she did. He shouldn"t be allowed to
    be getting his life back.”
    Had she lost her mind? Katie would hate her even thinking that.
    His dad reached