Breathe In

Chapter One

One year later.

Dear, No one,
I don't know why I'm sitting here, writing this... I guess it's just a way to get things out, you know? I can't tell April what happened, and even if I could, I don't know that I would want to, I don't know if she would want me too.

I have thought about it, about telling her, but then I think about that night, how silent everything was and I know, I know she isn't supposed to know, that I'm not supposed to know either. But I do, so that's the difference isn't it. I know, and she doesn't. I know and I'm miserable because of it, she's oblivious and happy. That's how it's supposed to be, right?

I walk down the halls of my middle school, today is our last day here, the next time we come to class we'll be freshman in high school. I don't know how I feel about that, about getting older, going to high school. I feel like I should already be there, even though I know I shouldn't. But getting older means more freedom, right? More freedom... like we don't already have that. I know we do, we could leave and never come back and I don't think she would notice. I know we have freedom, but I don't think April does yet, I don't think she sees it, and I'm glad. She would go crazy with freedom, she would do everything I know we shouldn't, because she thinks that might just get mom's attention, but it wouldn't. Nothing can, not since that night. The night that everything changed.

It's just April, mom, and me now, it has been for a long time, longer that April realizes. Dad may have been here but he wasn't really, and when he did what he did, nothing changed. It's been months now, and only April feels his absence. But I know, I know he did it because he couldn't live with the guilt of what happened. Of what he did, and mom was a reminder of his sins, or what was left of her anyway.

"May! Come on, I don't want to walk home from here, Suzy's mom is giving us a ride home." April said, rushing past me and out the main doors of the school to the pickup line.

Suzy was Aprils friend, she only put up with me because twins are a package deal, if you want one you get the other, but we have a mutual understanding, April is my sister, and if you want to be her friend than you put up with her perpetual shadow, and said shadow won't bother you in the slightest. Suzy was nice enough, she was peppy, and happy and everything my sister needed, everything I no longer was. Honestly I don't know why she and April were friends, Suzy's family had money and lived on the nice side of town. Where we used to live, now we live in a run down house, and we are barely hanging on to it.

For all of mom's depressiveness she at least remembers that she has to take care of us, in some way anyway. We live on lunch meat and bread, but at least we don't go hungry. It could be worse, I know that. Instead of having a leaky roof we could have no roof.

I follow April at a distance, giving her and Suzy space to talk about girly twelve-year-old things like how it was so gross when Mark Doeberry snorted his chocolate milk up is nose today at lunch, Or how much grosser it was that after words it shot out from his eye socket like a rocket launcher. They gagged when it happened, I laughed.

Mark Doeberry was a nice boy, shorter than me by an inch but I knew that wouldn't last, all of his older brothers where Super tall, so I wouldn't be surprised if we came back from summer break to see he grew a foot taller than me. He was also going to be an athlete, he was going to get a football scholarship and be gone from StoneyVille and never look back. Me, I was stuck, I was going to work at one of the local stores, scraping by. Because I didn't care about me, only April.

April was going to get out of here, she and Suzy had it all planned out. They were going to go off for college, become big timers somewhere and only come back for the holidays.

"Hey girls! Excited for summer break?" Suzy's mom Jeana asked as we all piled into her car. Me in the passenger seat up front and April and Suzy in the back so they could talk to each other without having to twist and look behind the seats at each other. This had also become a thing, when Suzy's mom first started giving us a ride home Suzy would sit up here with Jeana, and turn sideways in her seat to talk to April. But after an almost ticket from a cop that saw how Jeana was letting her sit in the car, we switched seats.

"Totally! April and I were just talking about having weekend sleepovers all summer, can we do that mom? One weekend they can come to our house and the other I can go to theirs?" Jeana went still, she hardly said no to Suzy, or April, but she knew that where we lived wasn't exactly safe, and that alone was why I knew she was going to say no. I jumped into the conversation before she could.

"Our mom doesn't really like us having people over. Maybe April can come to your house ever other weekend and we can meet at the park on the other days? Right Jeana?" Suzy's mom viably relaxed, she knew I was more mature than them, and I could see why having Suzy over wouldn't be a good idea, she gave me a grateful smile.

"I think May has the right idea, heck, you girls could come to ours every weekend, but Beth really doesn't need a house full of girls ever other weekend. So I think meeting at the park is a great compromise." Jeana told them. Both girls were quit for a minute before April spoke up.

"Yeah, your right May, besides our house is super boring. At least if we are at yours than we can go swimming in your pool." She was speaking to Suzy now, realizing what she didn't before. We can't have people over, what would we feed them, how would we entertain them. Suzy had plenty of stuff to keep them both busy over the summer, but we didn't even have cable, or a tv to watch movies on at all. Jeana knew this from the one time she had come by to talk to mom. To ask if she could give us a ride home from school every now and then. Mom didn't care and she said as much. I think she made it clear to Jeana that she didn't care what we did or were Jeana took us. She never asked mom again, but eventually she did start asking me. When she knew I knew, that I could see that mom didn't really care. But Jeana also knew that I did care.

"What about you May? Are you going to be coming with April?" She asked lightly as the two in the back started making plans for this summer.

"Maybe sometimes, but I have plans this summer too." I told her. I didn't go into detail, and she left it at that, giving me a 'well, good.' and turning some music on low to feel the ever present silence that was there wherever I went.

In truth, I was going to try to find a way to make a little extra money. April and I had been wearing the same clothes for two years now and they were starting to get small on us, and not in the cute crop top and shorts way, but the ' their to poor to afford it' way. April hasn't noticed yet but by the end of the summer she will, and then there will be nothing to do but beg mom to get us new clothes that she wasn't going to get us.