Breathless 3 (Breathless #3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

owe it to him to give Johnny just a little bit of the benefit of
the doubt. Just a little bit. He’s always been good to you. He deserves a fair
trial, not a Google conviction.” I smiled weakly. “Just ask him more about the
Claire White thing and see what he says.” Georgia hugged me tightly and then we
shifted onto the topic of her date the night before; it had been a big success,
and she was looking forward to maybe seeing the guy again. I was able to put my
misgivings aside, for a little while at least, to think about something other
than Johnny and whether he might be a homicidal maniac.
    We talked until I was completely calm once more, but
in the back of my mind, I kept thinking about what she had said and about what
I had read. She was right; if Johnny really did have some kind of antisocial
tendencies, it would definitely show — wouldn’t it? He would probably come up
with some way to justify driving his girlfriend to kill herself. If nothing
else, I had to hope that he would be willing to tell me a little bit more about
the situation. I had to hope that he would be a little more open. Of course, I
would have to be careful about how I asked. I couldn’t just flat out go “Hey,
so Johnny, are you a sociopath?”
    Gigi and I went to the dining hall and grabbed some
dinner. She was compassionate enough to go along with my lingering uncertainty
about the risk of running into Johnny before I was ready to talk to him. She
agreed to go along with my cover story of being sick. We joked about it a
little bit before going down for our dinner, with Georgia coming up with absurd
expressions of shock and dismay, over-the-top descriptions of how I had been
draped over the toilet, puking my guts out. At
least , I thought, if any of my
professors asked Georgia about it she’d be able to cover for the classes I’d skipped
earlier in the day . I was still tired, still anxious, and still confused
about the whole situation, but I had to admit to myself that Gigi was right. I
wasn’t going to get the answers to the questions I had from the Internet. I
would have to get them from Johnny himself. I would have to trust that he cared
about me and that he was willing to tell me the truth.
    The problem was I didn’t know if I could trust him at
all.

 
    Chapter
Five
    After dinner, I gave more thought to what Georgia had
said. We had talked a little bit more about it when we came back with our food.
“It’s pretty obvious to me that he has, like, really strong feelings for you. I
think he’ll tell you what’s going on,” she said. I wasn’t sure I could trust to
his feelings as much as Georgia thought I should, but I didn’t really have much
choice.
    I felt weird — skin-crawly, jittery, nervous — as I
walked across campus. I had managed to get a quick shower at Georgia’s
insistence and had pulled my long blonde hair back into a sloppy ponytail. I
certainly wouldn’t be in any shape or condition to go out, but I wasn’t
planning on going anywhere I would need to look impressive. My stomach
flip-flopped inside of me as I walked along the pathway, looking around. There
was some kind of deep-down paranoia that I’d run into the nasty girl who had
poisoned the well of my mind against Johnny. But if she’s right about him, then shouldn’t you be grateful that she
told you? But then , I thought, that same girl was obviously into Johnny .
She had flashed him, she had flirted with him. Obviously, she was only
interested in getting me out of the way so that she might have a chance with
him.
    The security lights came on across campus one by one,
illuminating little blue-white circles on the pavement. In between, darkness
was descending, and I went between not being able to see at all and being able
to see my own figure far too clearly. It wasn’t cold yet; it was still late
summer. But I could feel the tinge of approaching autumn in the air. I was
hyper-aware of everything around me — the sound of some girls laughing on