Chapter 4She Stole My Last Breath

The air in the living room thinned out instantly.

Jordan leaned back on the sofa, tossing the crumpled napkin onto the table. "Where have you been? The training staff called my phone twice saying you disappeared from the clinic. Everyone’s looking for you."

There wasn't a trace of relief in his voice. Just irritation that his afternoon had been interrupted.

Bryce stood up, stepping across the rug toward me with an open hand. "Hallie, come on. If you’re done with the theatrics, come sit down. Savannah saved you some of that stuffed focaccia you like."

"Saved for me."

The grease-stained cardboard box sat crushed beneath three empty San Pellegrino cans, the crust cold and soaked in spilled balsamic glaze.

I stepped back, keeping my hands at my sides. "I'm not hungry."

Savannah nibbled on a breadstick, gazing at me with wide, damp eyes. "Hallie... are you still mad at me for not running over to help you on the track? I swear I wanted to, but I was so shocked my knees gave out..."

"Save it," I said flatly.

I walked past them to my bedroom door, pushed it wide, and grabbed my heavy canvas duffel from the closet floor.

Without pausing, I began pulling my clothes off the hangers and shoving them inside. Textbooks. Sketchpads. My laptop charger.

Jordan marched into the doorway, his voice rising. "What do you think you're doing? Where are you taking that stuff?"

"I’m moving," I said, not bothering to turn around.

"Moving?" Bryce stepped up beside him, his hand darting out to pin down the fleece jacket I was folding. "Hallie, stop this. What kind of tantrum is this now? Over a training session? Are you seriously doing all this over a little field drill?"

"A little field drill."

To them, my near-death was just another item on the list of things I was overreacting to.

"Take your hand off my clothes," I said.

My voice wasn't loud, but the frost in it made Bryce freeze. He had never heard that tone from me before. He instinctively pulled his fingers back.

I zipped the duffel with a sharp tug.

Then, I walked to the desk, pulled open the center drawer, and scooped out the contents in one clean sweep.

A silver Tiffany pendant—the one Jordan had tossed onto my bed last Christmas like an afterthought.

A worn leather cardholder Bryce had bought me during our freshman year.

I threw them onto the coffee table. The metal clattered against the takeout containers.

"Everything you gave me," I said. "Keep it."

Jordan bolted up from the sofa. "Hallie, have you lost your goddamn mind?!"

"No," I replied, pulling the folded photocopy from my back pocket and slapping it down hard on the glass table. "Savannah, care to explain whose signature is under the white-out on this exemption form?"

Savannah’s face drained of color the second her eyes landed on the paper.

She shrank back, instinctively ducking behind Jordan’s shoulder. "I... I don't know what you mean... that’s what the registrar gave me..."

"You don't know?" I let out a dry, humorless laugh. "The athletic director confirmed it ten minutes ago. That exemption was coded to my student ID. It had my full legal name on it until you stole it from my drawer and doctored it."

Jordan stepped in front of Savannah like a shield. "I told her to use it. So what?"

He glared at me, his chest puffed out with arrogant authority. "Savannah’s frail. Your paper was just sitting there collecting dust. What kind of petty monster runs to the administration to file a formal complaint over a sheet of paper?"

"A sheet of paper."

"Jordan," I looked directly into his eyes, "do you know why I hit the turf today?"

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

"I went into severe anaphylactoid bronchospasm," I said, each word landing like a lead weight. "The attending physician told the director that if the medics had arrived five minutes later, you would have been identifying my body in the university morgue."

Jordan’s pupils contracted.

He parted his lips, a sudden flicker of shock breaking through his anger.

Before he could speak, Savannah’s fingers caught the sleeve of his polo shirt. A fat tear rolled down her cheek.

"Jordan, I’m so sorry... it’s all my fault. I never should have touched Hallie's paperwork. I’ll go to the dean right now. I’ll take the disciplinary strike... I don't want to ruin everything..."

She made a dramatic move toward the hallway, as if she were marching to the gallows.

Bryce caught her elbow instantly. "Savvy, stop! Don't be reckless."

He spun back toward me, his face twisted in profound disgust. "Hallie, look at what you’ve become. Completely vindictive. She apologized! Do you really have to destroy her life just to satisfy your own ego?"

"Vindictive."

I was the one who had nearly suffocated, and I was the one destroying lives.

"Think whatever you want," I said, hoisting the duffel onto my shoulder and dragging my hard-shell suitcase behind me. "Starting right now, I don't know any of you."

"Hallie Dominic!" Jordan roared down the corridor as I crossed the threshold. "If you walk out that door, don't you ever dare call me your brother again!"

He thought that would break me. He thought the threat of his rejection would make me crawl back on my hands and knees, just like it always had.

I paused at the door, but I didn't look back.

"Deal," I said.

I pulled the door shut behind me.

The late-afternoon breeze sweeping down the open breezeway was hot and sticky, but as it hit my face, my chest felt lighter than it had in three years.