Page 43 of One Breath After Another

Baby Cross—Roz did settle on that for a name—had the same shaped nose and face as his father. The dark hair on top of his head was clearly visible. She bet when he was born and finally opened his eyes to say hello to the world, they would be the same dark brown-black as his dad’s, too.

I said that, too, Roz replied fast. And he was sucking his thumb. I’ll show you those pictures later. How’s classes today?

Boring, Penny thought. Which was absolutely nothing new. Teachers who encouraged her to join her classmates in group work that she had no plans on doing. Classes that made her want to sleep, but the credits were required to graduate. And she had gym after her next class which was always a special kind of hell because she refused to wear the same shorts and t-shirt that everyone else did.

Like these asshole teenagers needed another reason to stare at Penny and whisper behind her back. They did that enough without her showing off all her scars and giving them even more reasons to be a bunch of pricks.

Instead of saying the truth, she simply wrote back, Fine. Roz didn’t need to worry. Not today. She was handling baby stuff, and that’s all she should be thinking about. Certainly not Penny.

Was that growth?

To know ... people had lives that didn’t—or shouldn’t, rather—revolve around constantly making sure Penny was doing what she should be when she was more than capable?

She wasn’t sure.

Did it even matter?

The ringing bell overhead took Penny’s attention away from the screen of her phone just long enough for her to roll her eyes. Great. Now she was going to be late to her next class because it was in the next wing over.

Oh, well.

She texted a quick goodbye to Roz, grabbed the last book she needed from her locker, and then stepped back to slam the metal door shut. She was just reaching for the lock to close it when she noticed the guy who had come to lean against the row of lockers. Maybe, had she not been so distracted with her conversation, then she might have noticed him slipping in beside her and could have done something before he surprised her.

Penny hated that.

Specifically, right beside hers.

Caleb was his name.

Caleb Knight.

A stupid, rich, popular fuck that messed with the same girls who made it their first and only job to piss Penny off every chance they could for a straight month after she started attending the private high school. With a spot on the baseball team, the guy earned his ranking in the upper of who was who in the school.

Except she didn’t care.

“Hey, Penny,” Caleb said, grinning. “You busy?”

She arched a brow, not bothering with his attempt at small talk. Because why? It was a waste of her time and his. There was only one reason why this guy approached her, and it was not because he wanted to make friends. The group of kids watching them from twenty feet down the hall like they were waiting for the circus to start said she wasn’t wrong in her assumption, either.

“What do you want?” she asked, locking the locker. “I have a class to get to.”

“We can’t talk? You’ve been here like—”

“What do you want?”

Caleb stuck a hand in his pocket as he turned to lean his shoulder against the lockers instead of his back like before. Now, he was facing her and that grin of his felt ... untrue. Sinister, even. It bothered her that she recognized those expressions in other people before they even proved themselves to be out for their own agenda.

Life taught her how.

“Don’t be a bitch,” he said. “I’m just trying to talk.”

“Right,” Penny scoffed, grabbing her book bag from the floor. “Well, I’m not in the mood to talk. So, see you lat—”

“Wait a sec.”

Penny turned to ice as everything moved in slow motion around her when Caleb reached over to grab the tail end of her braided hair. Flipped over her shoulder, the white braid was more than she usually did with her hair when even running a brush through it some mornings felt like a chore. She was getting better about that, too—taking care of herself.

Someone touching her, though?