Free Breathless by Cole Gibsen Page B

on either side scratched along my bare feet and ankles until we emerged from the trees. A sun-bleached dock rocked on the water before us, a dozen crab traps roped off its side. I wrinkled my nose as a breeze carried the smel of rotted fish from the shore. Why had the boy brought me here?
    He climbed on the dock, which swayed lightly under his weight. Before he could pul me beside him, I dug my toe under the edge of the dock and ripped my hand from his grip.
    He turned, frowning. “Is something wrong?”
    The closest house was nothing more than a pinprick of light down the shore. There was no boat, and as far as I could tel , no one else around.
    Ribbons of fear tightened around my chest. I shouldn’t have come.
    The boy cocked his head to the side. It was too dark to see his eyelids close, but I could tel he blinked by the disappearance and reappearance of the moon in his eyes. “You think I’m going to hurt you?” he asked.
    My fingers brushed the edge of my bandage. “Your friend did. Maybe you’re here to finish the job?”
    “Why would you think that?”
    I shrugged. Death was always on my mind. After it devoured my brother, it consumed me—grinding me against its razor teeth, and yet, always refusing to swal ow. I was obsessed. I wrote poems about it. I listened to music about it. I read the obituaries to see if there was a way to die I hadn’t discovered. No wonder being taken to a remote location by a stranger didn’t exactly give me the warm fuzzies.
    Bastin’s lips pressed into a straight line. “I understand,” he said. “You have every right to not trust me. I just wanted to talk with you and . . . I feel better by the water. It’s soothing.” When I stil didn’t move, he nodded to the shore. “We can sit on the grass if you’d like.”
    “I’d like,” I answered. Land seemed a safer bet, even though my other decisions tonight hadn’t exactly had caution in mind.
    He hopped off the dock and I fol owed him to the edge of the beach. I sat down on a patch of grass that had folded under its own weight. He sat beside me, his long legs crossed at the ankles.
    I’m not sure how long we sat that way, staring at each other. Seconds? Minutes? An hour? His eyes hypnotized me with their disappearing, reappearing moons.
    Final y, he spoke. “I’ve never talked with a girl before.”
    That made me sad. But I had to admit, the freaky wig and contacts were a little off-putting. I wondered if he wore them to hide an il ness, or if he just had a bizarre sense of fashion. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t talk to boys much, either.”
    He smiled. “My name is Bastin. What’s yours?”
    “Edith.”
    Bastin sounded out my name in two long syl ables as if drinking it from a straw. “Eeeeh-Dith.” He smiled again, this time flashing deep dimples in both cheeks, which brought about a strange tickling sensation in the pit of my stomach. “Very unusual name.”
    “Old-fashioned, you mean.”
    Bastin frowned. “I don’t understand.”
    I shrugged. “Only little old ladies are named Edith.”
    He blinked.
    “You can blink real y fast.”
    His laugh wrapped around me, clinging to my skin like taffy. “I guess I can.”
    I waited but he didn’t elaborate. We sat in silence for another minute before I prodded, “So you wanted to talk to me?”
    He picked a piece of grass from the sand and wrapped it around his finger. “I wanted to make sure you received my gift.”
    It took me a minute before I remembered the oyster shel outside my room. “Oh, you mean the green stone!”
    His pul ed the piece of grass from his finger and snapped it in two. “Yes. I feel bad that Luna took your necklace and wanted to give you something in turn.”
    The blue-haired girl again. “Why did she attack me?”
    He snorted. “She wasn’t supposed to, but as captain of the guard she takes certain . . . liberties.” His jaw flexed as if he had trouble getting the last word off of his tongue.
    “The guard? Like the