Read Online As I Breathe (One Breath at a Time: Book 2) by Leilani Bennett - Free Book Online

he was not going to tell me what he really meant.
    “ Then, why can’t I see you?”
    “ It’s complicated.”
    “ I can understand complicated things. Jeez.”
    “ Like I told you earlier, I will tell you when it’s time.”
    “ When?”
    “ I don’t know yet.”
    “ Why?”
    “ Because I don’t.”
    “ Why?”
    “ Brielle, stop it.”
    “ Stop, what?”
    “ What you are doing,” he quipped.
    “ Why?”
    “ Because.”
    “ Because...why?”
    “ Because. I said so!”
    “ So, what should I sew for you?” I burst into maddening laughter and put my headset on before he could make a comeback. I loved having the last word. This made him crazy. I used to love making him lose his mind. It tickled me to no end.
     
    ***
     
    My trust in Storm swayed like a pendulum, back and forth. We had good days, and then we had the bad ones. At times I wanted to cut off my head and roll it like a bowling ball in hopes that he would fall out of the holes of my ears, nose or mouth. This was desperate thinking on my part. Then again, there were moments that I shuddered at the thought of what if —what if Storm had never come into my life—my head?
     
     
    -5-
    Puppy Love!
     
    Doctor Tagorski stared at me; the expression on his face unfathomable. I’m sure he was trying to hide the shock he must’ve been thinking. “You’re doing great, Miss Eden. I’m just going to give you a little more sodium pentothal.”
    Not again. My memories jumbled. The jolt in my mind came more powerful this time. The colorful lights in my eyes shifted to a gray area. The memories scattered, and I felt sick with nausea. Drugs never suited me well, even prescribed ones.
    It’s me, a vision of me—I’m seven years old. Good grief, talk about a mind fuck. Just as I’d gotten into remembering my life as a spoiled teenager, perhaps some things I wanted to forget, I was back to embracing my inner child again!
    I was with my family, spending a typical Sunday afternoon in Central Park. As usual, I was off playing by myself on the swing set when a man pulled up to the curb in a shiny red sports car. He waved to me to come over to his car.
    “ Hey little girl, do you want a puppy?” the man called out to me from the open window.
    My eyes lit up when I saw the little puppy jumping up and down in the passenger’s seat. I leapt off the swing seat into the air and quickly approached his vehicle.
    The man in the car had long wavy jet-black hair and a long mustache covering his upper lip that he licked with the tip of his tongue when he spoke. I noticed that he had the coolest tattoo on his bicep of a thick black cross. In my innocent mind, at the time, the tattoo advertised that he was a good man.
    He probably goes to church, I thought.
    “Sure,” I replied. The sun caused me to squint. Still, I stayed on the far side of the curb, my feet still in the grass, craning my neck forward to see into his car. My eyes honed in on the puppy. It was white with extra long floppy black ears.
    “ It’s a girl puppy. She’s pretty, huh? Just like you.” The man flashed me a hungry grin. At closer range, I couldn’t help but think he looked like the big, bad wolf.
    “ Yeah, what’s her name?”
    He was right the puppy was so adorable. My eyes flashed back to my parents. They were distracted and not paying attention to me, and instead tended to my little brother, Brett, who had just fallen off the monkey bars. I could hear him screaming his head off like he was dying. He was such a little crybaby, and it seemed like he was always getting hurt. I inched a tad closer to the car, in order to get a better look at the puppy.
    “If you want her, you can name her whatever you want.”
    “ Really? You’re really going to give me your puppy?”
    “ Yes.” The man smiled at me.
    My heart swelled with elation because I had been begging my parents for a puppy. They said if one magically landed in my lap that I could keep it. Of course, I didn’t know at the time