Remember To Breathe

After spending a wonderful weekend with my friends, I was actually semi-excited to be back in school. I wasn't looking forward to talking to Dane's friends, though. I had apologized to Nate and Andrew for freaking out at them, but the only reason they actually accepted the apology was because Dane was right near them. Although the most they would do to actually acknowledge that I was in their presence was a grunt or some kind of mumble. I didn't really mind, though. The least amount of actually communicating with them was the best thing that could happen.

I waited for Dane to pick me up, but his car never showed up. I simply shrugged it off and I had my dad drive me in. I'd give him a chance to explain himself when I got to school. Normally, if somebody didn't call me, then made me wait for them, and then be late for school, I'd be angry at them. Somehow though, I knew it would be a good day for me today.

You don't deserve a good day.

I was also being consecutive with not acting like an insomniac.

It would definitely be a good day.

People can be wrong sometimes.

Unfortunately, I'm wrong most of the time.

When I had arrived at school, everybody was looking at me and talking about me. I had gotten used to it happening, however, it was an entirely different reason from before. I didn't even know what it was, but I could tell from the moment it all started.

I was walking down to my first class when one of my not-so-favorite people came running up to me.

"I need to talk to you."

"He speaks." I said with a mock gasp.

"Funny, let's go." he said as he grabbed my arm and started running again.

Frankly, I didn't know why we were running throughout different halls. It didn't make any difference; we were still in the school. I was getting tired of being dragged around, too. After running through about five different hallways, I was fed up with it. I stopped in my tracks causing him to do so also and I did my best to give him a threatening glare. "What do you want?"

Obviously my glare wasn't too threatening; he looked uninterested still, but I could tell he had a distinct look of fear in his eyes. "Dane's suspended for a few days."

Interesting, yes. But was it really worth getting dragged around all the hallways to here it?

"Can I ask you why we had to go through five different halls for you to tell me this?" I asked while trying to brush off all the questions I had for him from my mind.

The fear automatically left his eyes and a new, unnamed feeling took its place. "There are spies everywhere around the halls. If Andrew and Nate knew anything-"

"About you actually speaking to me?" I finished his sentence in disgust.

He looked nervous but still unmoved. His dark hair was covering the top half of his face, but he quickly brushed it away. "I couldn't have said it better."

This confused me more than before. Anger was in there, too. If he was going to be an ass, he could at least be a little less blunt about it. I shrugged off my sudden hatred for him and focused on the thing I was actually interested in. "Why was he suspended?"

"He got in a fight with a sophomore on the lacrosse team." he seemed to have shrugged off his enmity towards me also.

"For what?"

He simply shrugged but I could already tell he knew why. This was making me even more confused and angry. If he was going to be a jerk, I certainly wouldn't deal with it. I didn't need his information, either. There were tons of gossipers residing here, I was sure that I would hear rumors flying everywhere I went. I didn't even bother to look back at him as I felt my feet taking me as far away from him I could get. I never would understand why Dane praised them so much and was friends with them. I was pretty sure that I didn't even want to know the answer.

When I got to my class, Jillian was sitting down in her seat and I walked up to her and sat down as well. I was sure that she heard something, she must have. "So, did you hear about Dane?"

"Phoebe and Audrey were talking about it this morning, but I didn't hear anything."

She was lying; I could tell by the way she was avoiding actual eye contact with me. I was pretty amazed by how many people weren't telling me the truth. It was also evident that it wasn't ending now. No matter what I did, I was going to find out why he wasn't here.

Give up, now. The only reason you're not informed is because nobody wants to hear you nag.

That wasn't going to get any less annoying either.

"Oh, okay."

She relaxed back into her seat while the class filled up with eager talking and shouting.

"Well I heard that he insulted her."

"No, that sophomore was going after the captain's position."

"Isn't that's Forrest's position?"

"Dane is such a good friend."

That was it? It was over lacrosse?

"Unbelievable." I muttered, laying my head on the desk, trying to figure this out.

"I guess you have your answer." Jillian leaned over nest to me and whispered.

Apparently so.

I sighed and focused on getting through the day without screaming at anyone. Mr. Fields was congratulating us all on our excellent effort on our projects. He gave out the grades and Jillian went up to go retrieve our paper. When she came back with a look of relief and joy on her face, I noticed on the paper there was red ink that spelt out "98, Great Job!" I nodded my head in happiness, but then soon continued to contemplate other things that were happening. I still had this thought in the back of my head that this just wasn't about lacrosse. If it were, Jillian wouldn't lie to me about something so stupid.

I shrugged it off and waited out the remainder of the class so I could be one class closer to finishing the day. When I left the class in a haze of different thoughts, I didn't even notice I was being pulled off in a different direction to my class. I looked over to the person and noticed that Audrey was talking to me about something, and I hadn't heard a word of it. I continued to let her drag me off to the library while I was hearing snippets of what she was talking about.

"I didn't hear any of that." I told her as she crinkled her small nose and then smiled.

"I'll tell you again," she began as she started talking about how she liked this boy in her art class. He was also in her physics class. He seemed like a nice person, but she wouldn't tell me what his name was.

"What's his name?" I pressured her to tell me for the umpteenth time.

She bit her lip in hesitation and then frowned. "Andrew Paulson."

My eyes widened and I nearly choked on just the air surrounding us. "Audrey, you can do so much better than him."

She laughed and we kept on walking to an unknown destination.

"I don't know, around me he's the sweetest guy ever." she said.

"I'm sure." I said to her, trying not to sound too cruel.

"Did you know that he goes to the soup kitchen on the weekends and holidays?"

"That didn't come up in our conversation."

She smiled and stopped in front of a door that read Advanced Health. "What'd you guys talk about?"

My smiled faded as I remembered telling them off. I was so vulnerable yesterday. I really couldn't stand it, or them. "Nothing really, just talking to them about the book we were reading in English."

"Oh, well I have to get to class," she said right as the warning bell rang. "I'll see you in lunch."

As she shut the door to her classroom, I rushed off to my English class. When I arrived there I sat in the empty desk I occupied yesterday and I felt myself get tense as Nate, Forrest, and Andrew walking into the room. Andrew and Nate didn't even look at me and sat down in their seats. Forrest strode over and looked down at me looking annoyed.

"You don't sit there," he told me and I scoffed.

"Are you the king of the seating chart?" I mocked him and he frowned.

"I told the teacher what happened yesterday and I got her to let you sit next to me." he said as he smirked and motioned to the desk behind the one Andrew and Nate were sitting at. So far, this day really couldn't get any worse.

Pretty soon you'll just be insane.

"Unbelievable." I muttered to myself again and walked over to the desk. I sat down unwillingly and I tried my best to ignore their conversations. That plan really didn't work after I heard Nate start talking.

"Did you see the way Dane started wailing on that sophomore yesterday? It was fucking awesome."

Andrew laughed and Forrest hit them both on the arm. Nate looked over at me and then back at Andrew and Forrest. "It wasn't even that important. I don't know why Dane got so mad about it."

"Shut up, Nate." Forrest said in a warning tone.

This interested me. Why was Forrest getting so touchy about the subject?

Andrew looked over at me and smirked. "Mariana, are you still a crazy bitch?"

Nate let out a howl and I smiled right back at Andrew.

"Are you still a little girl that can't stand up for herself?"

Now both Nate and Forrest let out a small laugh and Andrew looked away.

"Seriously man, grow a pair." I said as I got out my copy of Hamlet and started reading it.

Nate was still laughing as the teacher walked in and began her lesson. I honestly couldn't understand why Audrey had liked him so much. She was sweet, nice, and funny. While Andrew was a complete jerk. Maybe she was telling the truth about him.

For now I banished the thought out of my mind and focused for the next hour and a half. When that class was over I went to my third class which was calculus, and to my dismay Forrest was in there. On the bright side I had one friend of mine there. I would've gone to sit next to Dylan, but my assigned seat was between Dane and Forrest. And since Dane was suspended for today and tomorrow, I had to sit next to Forrest. We sat in silence for a good ten minutes until the first bell rang signaling us to go to first lunch. When we arrived at the picnic table by the old tree we talked until the bell rang a while later.

After paying no attention to what my teacher was saying, the bell rang after this class was over and I sulked to my next class. Luckily Jillian and Phoebe were both in this class. We banded into a group of three to do a lab in chemistry and when it was time to finally leave, Jillian gave me a ride home and when I got inside my house I ran upstairs and quickly dialed the number to Dane's phone.

On the fourth ring Dane picked up. "Hey, Mari. What's up?"

"Nothing really, just found out you were suspended. Nothing out of the ordinary."

His laugh echoed in my ear and then coughed. "I don't think you want to know the reason why."

"Well I didn't before, but now I do."

He was silent for a while and then started to talk again. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Yes Mr. Dramatic. Tell me."

"A sophomore was talking about you."

This was very confusing, on account that I don't know any sophomore.

"He said that you were psychotic, and that you were talking to yourself, because everyone said that you were going insane."