Try Not to Breathe Read Online Free PDF Page B

we’d stood together in the hall and she’d circled my wrist with her hand. I put my hand on my wrist, trying to feel what she’d felt, to call up the weight of her touch. A hot thread traveled from that spot up my arm, into my chest, down to my stomach, downward, spreading warmth the whole way.
    I sat up. I would’ve opened my window, but the A/C was on. I sat for a few minutes, backing away from the inner heat I’d raised. When my skin had cooled, I went downstairs.
    • • • • •

    I hiked out to the waterfall and stayed in it until the chill of the water made me shake. I came out positive I was turning purple. At least I’d brought a towel this time.
    Nicki showed up while I was rubbing my skin, trying to warm it.
    “Oh, hey,” I said. I stopped drying myself, startled at the sight of her, fumbling for the right thing to say.
    “I wanted to tell you—” she began, but my words stumbled over hers.
    “I’m sorry about your dad,” I said.
    Her mouth puckered; her face went pink. “I’m sorry about the message I sent you. I’m sorry if it was pushy.”
    “No, it’s . . .” I watched her balance on one leg, like a flamingo; she kept her eyes on the dirt. “It’s okay,” I said.
    “I shouldn’t have bothered you.”
    “It wasn’t—”
    “It’s just that I never had anyone to ask before. I was seven when my dad died, and everyone thought I was too young to talk about it. But then, later on, they all wanted to leave it alone and not drag up the past. So I read a couple of books and stuff, but they never told me what I wanted to know.” She raised her eyes, frost gray, to meet mine. “Anyway, I’ve figured out another way to find out about him.”
    I tugged on my wet shirt. “What’s that?”
    “I made an appointment down in Seaton.”
    “An appointment for what?”
    She stepped closer, close enough for me to catch the scent of oranges. She lowered her voice, as if the squirrels might be taking notes on us. “I found a psychic who talks to the dead. I’m going to see her tomorrow.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    Nicki shook her head.
    “But you know that stuff’s all crap, right?”
    “No, it isn’t.”
    “Come on.” I almost snapped my towel at her. “Don’t go. It’s a waste.”
    “She’s supposed to be really good. My friend Angie went to see her last spring. Angie’s grandfather spoke through the psychic and talked about this dog they used to have that played Frisbee. There was no way the psychic could have known that.”
    Anybody could guess that a person had a dog. It wasn’t like the psychic had seen a three-headed unicorn. “Bull,” I said.
    “How can you say that? There has to be something to it.”
    “Why—just because people want there to be?”
    She frowned and pinched her lower lip. It was then I noticed she’d painted her nails royal purple. “So you only believe in what you can see, what’s right here, and that’s it?”
    “I believe in plenty of things I haven’t seen. I believe I have a liver and I’ve never seen that.”
    She waved a hand, her nails a grape-colored blur. “I don’t mean that. Haven’t you ever had a dream that came true, or thought of someone the second before they called you, or—”
    “That’s coincidence.”
    She frowned, and I could almost see her brain searching, straining for another argument. “You already admitted there are things we can’t explain, right?”
    “Right, but you have to think about what makes the most sense. The simplest thing, the most likely explanation.” I twisted my towel. I was about to mention Occam’s razor when she cut me off.
    “But you don’t know for sure.”
    “I know that if dead people could speak, they’d talk about something a lot more important than dogs playing Frisbee.”
    “Says who? Maybe they can’t describe the afterlife in words we can understand. Maybe they’re caught between worlds when they talk to people who are still alive.”
    A week ago, I hadn’t even known