Breathless by Jessica Warman Page A

that he never wears. It might keep her teeth safe, but the noise is still awful. When I get a closer look at the mouth guard, I see that the plastic is worn so thin from the grinding of her teeth that it’s almost translucent.
    “What’s the matter?” She looks at the clock. “Katie, it’s practically the middle of the night. What the hell are you doing waking—”
    “You were having a nightmare. You were talking in your sleep.” I keep my voice low. “You were loud.”
    For a few seconds, it seems like she doesn’t believe me. “I was talking in my sleep.”
    “Yes.”
    “What was I saying?”
    I shrug. Without asking, I climb all the way up the ladder and sit across from her in bed. Her sheets are damp with sweat. “You were speaking Korean.”
    She’s relieved to hear it, I can tell. “Oh. It was nothing, Katie. I have nightmares sometimes.”
    “You have to tell me what’s wrong,” I say.
    “I do, do I?” She picks up the mouth guard, studying it. “Why would I tell you anything?”
    “Because I told you everything about my family.” I hesitate. “And because you’ve been doing this every night since you got here.”
    She blinks a few times. I peer at her—are those tears I see? Is Mazzie going to cry?
    “Mazzie, you should tell someone what’s wrong. I mean, you have to want to tell someone, don’t you?”
    She stares at her sheets. “I don’t know.”
    “I felt better when I told you about Will.”
    She shakes her head. “That’s different.”
    “Why did you come here? Why do you hide under the sink?”
    She studies my face. “If you tell anyone, I swear to God I’ll tell everyone about your brother.”
    I nod. “Okay. I won’t say anything.” I pretend to zip my lips shut and lock them with my fingers, tossing the invisible key over the side of the bed.
    She shuts her eyes again. “I’m a freak, just like you.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “My mom died.”
    Oh God. What am I supposed to say? “Oh, Mazzie . . .”
    “She always called me Madeline.” She shakes her head. “So don’t ever call me Madeline again.”
    I nod. “Okay, I won’t. When did—”
    “Seven weeks ago.”
    I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. I can’t breathe. Her mother died seven weeks ago, and she’s here ? Alone?
    “Why are you here? Why aren’t you with your family?”
    She shakes her head. “It was just me and my parents.” Her eyes are closed, tiny tears falling one right after the other down her porcelain cheeks. “My dad isn’t . . . he’s not an emotional kind of guy.”
    I sit there, stunned, waiting for her to continue. I want to reach out to her and touch her hand or put my arms around her, but I’m afraid she’d clam up and push me away. So I just listen.
    “I’m a first-generation American. So my parents wanted to send me to the best schools. My mom wanted me to be a doctor.” She hesitates. “That’s what she was.”
    “What happened to her?”
    Mazzie ignores the question. “After she died, all I wanted was to go back to school and see my old friends. My dad didn’t talk to me for almost a month. He just worked all the time.” She shrugs. “It’s not his fault, I guess. He doesn’t know what to say to me.”
    “But how did you end up here?”
    She wipes her eyes hard with closed fists, as though she’s willing the tears to stop. “Without my mom’s income, there wasn’t enough money to send me back to my old school. So here I am.” Her tone is bitter. “West Virginia is a lot cheaper than Connecticut.”
    The air around me feels suffocating. “Oh, Mazzie.”
    “I didn’t even know I was coming here, Katie. Not until we were in the car, on the way to the airport. I haven’t talked to my father since then.”
    And here I am, mopey and broken-hearted over Will, who’s alive and as well as he’ll ever be. No wonder Mazzie acts like she can’t stand me.
    “I miss my friends,” she says.
    “I’ll be your friend.”
    She smirks. “Gee,