Free Breathe Into Me by Amanda Stone Page A

to bang my head on the table in front of me, but I refrained.
    Kane surprised me by reaching across the table to gently lay his hand on my wrist. I looked up at his face and am confused that he seems upset.
    “Kelsey, I would never try to coerce you into sleeping with me. That was never my style anyway. And why would I not want to spend time with you? I won’t lie about it, your beauty is the first thing that attracted me to you. But in just the short time that we have got to talk, I have enjoyed our conversations and can’t help but feel I want to know you better. I would never pressure you into anything, and when I say anything, I mean it. Even about your past. When you feel comfortable with talking to me about it, know that I will be here to listen. Friendship is something I need at the moment too. So I should be asking you the same question. Can you be my friend, Kelsey?”
    His lips turned up into a tiny smile and I smiled back. I’m glad he didn’t think I was a complete dork for asking for friendship. Things like that used to come so easy to me before. I never had to ask someone to be my friend. If it weren’t for the incident that changed my life forever, I would like to think that I would still have the same group of friends. But things change … people change, and life doesn’t always work out the way you think it will.
    Taking my free hand, I laid it on top of his. “Friends it is.”
    While I was so happy to have finally made a new friend—deep down in my gut, I found it hard to actually believe that one could stay just friends with someone who looks like Kane. I could be setting myself up for disaster, but at the moment, I’ll take friendship with him over nothing at all.
     

 

    The first week of classes had gone by as smoothly as one would expect college to. I was comfortable with my classes and the work that each professor assigned … and Kane had been right about Professor Hanson. After that first class, more than half the people in attendance dropped her class and she was a lot friendlier and less stern than she had presented herself to be originally.
    Jessi and Landon were still spending every ounce of free time they had together, which in turn, left me spending a lot more of my time with Kane. Every day we ate lunch at the same table, and every day after lunch, Jessi and Landon would run off to steal a few minutes of alone time before the next class began. Leaving Kane and I alone. And Kane, being the good guy he was, refused to ever let me walk to class alone.
    I was beginning to form a friendship with Nate, also. We usually only had short chats inside the class while we waited for Professor Hanson to come in, because he seemed to always avoid walking out of the class with me like he’d done that first day. I think it was because Kane was now always waiting for me outside the door and Nate wanted to avoid another confrontation. But I was finding out that Nate was quite enjoyable to be around. Though his family probably had more money than God, Nate never seemed entitled to me.
    His future involved following a plan that his father had picked out for him. He was to graduate med school and become a physician’s assistant in his father’s practice. The way he talked about it, he had no say in the matter, but he seemed to be okay with the general idea of how his life was already planned out for him. I wouldn’t be able to follow a set idea that someone had made for me, but to each his own. If he was happy following his father’s perfectly laid plan, then so be it.
    It was finally Friday and as I was packing my things up, I saw a shadow fall over me. I looked up to find Nate standing there. His million dollar smile beaming at me.
    “So she said we could pair up in groups for this next project. I thought I might see if I could work with you and your friend. Everyone else seems to have already teamed up.”
    I glanced around the room, and sure enough, you could see little groups clustering and