As I Breathe (One Breath at a Time: Book 2) (12 page)

“
Come back for the tour later,” he called out to me, half-laughing.

-9-

Hey Jude!

Saved by a cute guy named Jude (I’d noticed his name tag) and touched by a ghost—these events certainly added some excitement to the trip. Needless to say, my ghost encounter became the biggest topic of conversation for the rest of our vacation. Of course, my mother wasn’t comfortable with all of the ghost stories, but I was. I enjoyed being center stage for a change.

As always, my brother Brett had to try and top my genuine ghost story. When we visited the oldest house, the tour guide announced to the crowd that the house was known to have been haunted. The tour guide was an older man and very cheesy; the tour would have been much more entertaining if Jude had been there instead.

Nonetheless, right in front of the entire crowd, Brett said he had seen a ghost. He crossed his heart and hoped to die that he was telling the truth. For a second it freaked me out, until I noticed the sly little smile that crept across his lips when Mom and Dad weren’t looking. He went as far as saying that the ghost was a man with black hair and scary piercing eyes. Apparently, at least according to Brett’s opinion, the ghost hovered over me. What a laugh that was. My parents knew Brett was fibbing and that he was just trying to steal my limelight. However, the crowd egged him on. They probably thought he was part of the tacky tour.

After I met Jude it seemed as if my parents were giving me a lot of attention, more so than Brett, which was unusual. They were definitely keeping a closer eye on me. Surely, they had noticed how I laced Jude’s name into most of my banter.

Dad’s choice to visit St. Augustine turned out to be a great idea after all. The old things from the past intrigued me, which marked a pivotal point in my life. Vacationing in St. Augustine incubated new interests within me—my love for vintage furniture, history and ghost stories. Not to mention that the trip,
both trips
, in fact, provided me with my first taste of romance, at least, as much as I would dare to experience at the time. I actually fell for that quaint little town by the water and falling for a much older boy, definitely set the stage for my future and then some.

That spring I blossomed from an awkward fifteen-year old girl into a young woman, and as my image changed, so did my feelings about many things. With all of this, I began to enjoy my time in St. Augustine and stopped making everyone else so miserable.

Surely, my parents espied that my attitude had warped one hundred and eighty degrees overnight when they noticed the elaborate effort I put into my grooming habits. Rather than my typical pattern of sleeping in past noon, every morning I woke up with the sun. I took a bath and blow dried my hair straight. I also snuck into my mother’s makeup and dabbed on a dollop of her pink blush and some lip gloss. Less is more, I thought. Nothing too overly done or too noticeable; no more European baths for me on this trip, and no more hobo or rumpled up outfits.

It was so apparent that I was experiencing my first crush. Surely, it showed on my face, in my eyes and in the new bounce in my step. I tried to keep my feelings hidden, but my hormones were slam-dancing inside me were bursting out of my seams. I even tried to add a new sexy mature swing in my hips.

It didn’t go unnoticed. “Brielle, you are going to slip a disc if you keep walking like that,” my mother said.

“
Do you think it’s too much?” I asked.

“
Not if you are practicing to be stripper.”
Ouch, nothing like your mother being blunt.
Thank God, she noticed before I took my va-va-voom walk into public; that would have been disastrous.

I picked up an iron for the first time in my life in St. Augustine, and ironed every stitch of clothing I wore, down to my panties. Afterwards, I sprayed on probably too much perfume and then made my way toward the old schoolhouse. With one goal in mind, I had a mission to complete, to win the heart of Jude Garrett the hunky tour guide that worked at the schoolhouse. As much as I wanted him to notice me, I hoped he didn’t recognize me from our first encounter when I looked like someone out of the
Blair Witch Project
. That day was the first day of the rest of my spring break.

How ironic—on spring break, I was spending half my vacation at the old schoolhouse. Although I made sure to see Jude everyday, I never stepped inside the haunted place ever again. I wasn’t going to risk another encounter with a ghost. Rather than going inside, I would listen to Jude’s spiel from the porch as he gave the tours to crowd after crowd.

His voice was music to my ears. I floated on air every time I heard him speak; he was so well spoken. I actually suffered from physical reactions when he was close to me. When he would approach me, lumps in my throat stifled my words, knots twisted in my stomach, and my palms would sweat profusely. Dang, it felt like I had the flu. He took my breath away. I was in love.

Between each tour, he would sit with me on the steps outside the old schoolhouse. I would fetch us old fashioned cream sodas from the nearby gift shop, and we would talk for hours. During our conversations, I learned that he was attending college and studying to be a teacher.

“What a coincidence, my father Mitchell, is a professor at NYU,” I told him. I was careful not to refer to him as my dad and instead used formal terminology and called him by his first name. I felt as if this made me sound older and more mature.

Jude was a linguist; he spoke five languages. I absolutely loved it when he used a French accent. It was very romantic. It was his dream to teach English abroad one day.

As I had originally estimated, I discovered he was more than five years my senior. On his next birthday, he would be twenty-two years old, March twenty-second—I told him it would be his luckiest birthday. He just smiled. It was my secret wish that we would spend his birthday together.

I also learned that Jude had a twin sister. Unfortunately, she had passed away from a terrible illness when they were very young. He told me that I reminded him of her and with that it settled in my mind that he saw me as a mature young woman because she would be the same age as he. Therefore, I did my best to talk about my future plans to write and topics from world news—intelligent topics—around him. I wanted to prove to him that I was old enough to be his girl one day. He shared that he had a tattoo of his sister’s name, Jacquie, on the back of his neck. How sweet was that? He said that he could feel her spirit sometimes with him still. This gave me chills. What if the ghost I felt was her spirit? Perhaps she was trying to tell me something. Maybe it was a warning or a sign. I kept these thoughts to myself and from Jude. I didn’t want to upset him. They were very close. They say twins are very connected in this way. I felt I knew everything about Jude, or so I thought.

-10-

Invisible Moments

On the last day of our vacation, I skipped breakfast and ran all the way to the schoolhouse to say goodbye to Jude. He was just opening up for the day, and I had spent all morning working up the nerve to ask him to take a photo with me in front of the schoolhouse. I wanted a keepsake of where he saved my life from the ghost and of course, of him—my first love.

It turned out to be a perfect afternoon until it was time to say our goodbyes that was when my heart sank. When he wrapped his arm around my shoulder for the photo, my knees wobbled in perfect rhythm with my rapid pulse. After his boss took the picture of us, he left us alone and retreated back inside the schoolhouse. He obviously knew that we wanted some privacy. This was the moment, the
pivotal
moment where my love grew even stronger for Jude. My stomach began to hurt. How was I going to survive without seeing him everyday?

We were face to face, and I held my breath, waiting for him to ask if he could come to Manhattan to visit me. I just assumed that he would make the next trip.

When he took my hand into his, I almost fainted. Then it happened…he kissed me. My entire body shivered down deep inside from just the touch of his lips. Jude was the first man that had ever kissed me, besides my father, and even though it was just on my hand, to me it counted as my first kiss. The wind encircled us, and I felt as if I was being lifted to Heaven. It was very powerful.

Jude waved the Polaroid picture into the air as it developed. I could hardly wait to see us immortalized on film. I couldn’t help but think that my grandmother’s tarot card predictions were in motion. She had seen someone taking pictures. Here I was with the man that I thought I would love forever. I could hardly contain my feelings.

“Thanks, Jude. I will treasure this forever,” I said as I felt heat rise to my cheeks.

“
You’re welcome Brie-Brie,” he said with a smile.

Please, don’t call me that...look at me, Jude. I’m not a girl; I am a woman.

“Good morning Jude,” a female’s voice called out.

I whipped around, and there she was—a beautiful blonde with big boobs bouncing to the beat of the band, and she was headed in our direction.

As she walked toward us, her hair tousled around and behind her face in slow motion. It looked like she was stepping out of one of those Budweiser commercials. Time seemed to stop. Jude’s eyes were glued to her, all of her, if you know what I mean. So were mine. Where were the Budweiser Clydesdale horses? I wanted them to trot in and stampede her over.

“
Hey Amanda,” Jude’s voice shifted into low gear. She looked vaguely familiar to me.

I glared up at Jude, stunned. His smile appeared devilish and smeared across his face like smooth chocolate syrup.
What is happening to him?
His glistening green eyes pierced into her, throwing cupid’s arrows into her heart—his target.

“
Would you like to spend time with me after you get off work tonight?” Amanda said, nearly singing her words. A gentle wind carried her question on its wings and straight into my Jude’s ears.

“
Yes. I’d love to,” he practically sang back; I felt like throwing up.

Love...did he say love?
I heard Jude’s breath draw into his lungs deeply and pick up its pace. He panted. His smile was abnormally huge. Suddenly, he looked like an alligator to me. All of his teeth were beaming like a full moon at midnight. How could this be happening? His lips stretched from ear to ear like a tightrope. I wanted to reach up and snap them back into their natural position. Jude looked carelessly distracted and possessed...perhaps she was a ghost taking over him. If only she was, I would have damned her back to the grave!

When Amanda reached us, I noticed she was even more beautiful up close.

I
know her,
I thought.

Her skin was a smooth golden color and evenly tanned. I was ten shades lighter, almost invisible next to her. I instantly did not like her. I felt like vapor in the wind next to her.

She looked like the beautiful swan, and I felt like an ugly duckling in her presence. Her hair was thick, wavy with blunt ends and not a strand out of place. Natural, light golden blonde hues glimmered in the sunlight that broke through the Cypress trees. How did she get her hair so smooth?

Meanwhile, I could feel the humidity causing my hair to rise like a lopsided loaf of bread. I was clearly a hot mess.

My inside wrenched and my legs and arms felt foreign as if they weren’t mine. I had no idea how to recover. I stood there like a zombie. I wished I were dead.

“
What would you like to do?” Amanda beamed. When she spoke the soft edge of her tongue sensuously caressed her full lips.

Did she just lick her lips?
I despised her flirtatious nature. Who did she think she was? That was want I wanted to know.

“
Anything—would you like to drive over to the beach?” Jude suggested excitingly.

You never asked me to go to the beach, I cried out in my head to him.

“That would be lovely...I love watching the tide roll in at dusk and feeling the night air on my face and the wind blowing through my hair...it’s so peaceful.”

Then make a date with the wind instead of my Jude! She made me almost throw-up in my mouth.

“I can’t wait,” Jude exclaimed, and they embraced.

Let go of my boyfriend! Hello. What am I, invisible?

I felt as if I was their audience, no more like a weed that begged from sunlight beneath their feet. Unnoticeable! I held my breath, wishing that the ground would erupt and swallow this Amanda chick whole; she’d make great fertilizer for the earth.

Still in their lingering embrace, she peered over Jude’s shoulder and fluttered her lashes before zoning in on me. If my looks could kill, she would be dead.

“Jude,” she whispered in his ear. “There’s someone here...a little girl.” Amanda disengaged their embrace.

Yeah. His girlfriend, bimbo! I screamed silently.

Where was Storm? My angel. I wanted him to make this man-eating, lip-licking, possessed evil witch disappear.

“
Oh, this is my friend.” Jude scantily glanced in my direction. My heart stopped.