Free Breathe Into Me by Amanda Stone

“Believe me, I wouldn’t lie to you. The woman is a softy and she really does care about helping you further your education. Unlike some of the other no-nonsense professors, she gets that sometimes things happen in life that you have no control over, and she will work with you on getting extensions and sometimes a little extra credit if you’re behind. The woman is a godsend. She helped me out big time when I had her. I wasn’t having the best year when I had taken her class. In all honesty, she probably should have failed my punk ass but she never gave up on me.’
    He sat his cup down on the table and stared at the cardboard sleeve around it. I could tell he was lost in his own thoughts. Maybe about whatever had been going on with him that year that would cause him to fall so far behind like he had—but I wasn’t going to press it. I had my own secrets that I wasn’t willing to share just yet, so I was in no position to ask about his.
    “So, anyway,” I started. Might as well get this over with. Just like ripping off a Band-Aid. “You have quite the rep around here, ya know.” I tried to make my tone light so that I wouldn’t come off as a judgmental bitch.
    “Is that so?” He leaned back in his chair and casually draped one arm over the back.
    I cleared my throat before I began again, “Seems to be. I hear you are quite popular with the ladies.”
    He rolled his eyes and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table as he stared straight into my eyes.
    “I could only guess the person you might have heard that from; but yes, I can’t lie, I have done some pretty terrible things in my past. I used a lot of innocent girls and treated them a hell of a lot worse than they deserved. But I can assure you that I have grown a lot in the past year or so. I’m not the same person I used to be. But none of these assholes around here believe it.”
    His stare was so intense. As if he wanted more than anything for me to believe him.
    Looking back down at my cup, I shrugged. “It’s not really of my business, Kane.”
    “Then why even ask?”
    His statement made me look up at him. I wanted to be honest with him because he’d been honest with me. Letting me know that in his past he wasn’t a real stand-up guy, and may have used some girls in the process, couldn’t have been easy. But I couldn’t be one hundred percent truthful with him. I couldn’t tell him that I have zero experience with guys and the pull I felt toward him scared the living daylight out of me. That his abundant amount of experience with women had me ready to run scared for the hills. So instead, I settled for as close to the truth as I could get and prayed that it was enough.
    “I just didn’t understand why. If you can get all these other girls, why would you even be wasting any time with me? Why bother taking me out for coffee? Because I can tell you right now, I’m so different from your average girl that is my age. I’m not ready to go into detail about anything just yet, but I’m not the type to hook up.” There. I said it. Now let’s see how he reacts to the fact that he’s not going to be getting any extras from me.
    He took a minute to respond, though that minute seemed like an eternity. “Kelsey, I can promise you now that I have no ill-intentions toward you. There is something about you that I can’t shake and I honestly just feel the need to be close to you. I know that sounds completely creepy, but it’s the only way I know how to explain it.” He shrugged.
    I knew all too well what he was trying to explain. It was the same pull I had felt toward him from the moment I saw him in the café.
    “Well, I am looking for new friends.” I glanced back down at my coffee because the way he was staring at me was a little intense. “Can you do that, Kane? Can you be my friend?”
    I’m so embarrassed that I let all that fall out of my mouth like that. Could I have sounded anymore babyish? Can you be my friend? I felt the need