Breathless

lt;b>Jennifer Niven is the New York Times bestselling author of All the Bright Places and Holding Up the Universe, as well as the popular Velva Jean series. She is also the author of several non-fiction books, including Ada Blackjack, The Aqua-Net Diaries, and The Ice Master, which was named a top non-fiction book by Entertainment Weekly. Her New York Times bestseller All the Bright Places is soon to be a major motion picture starring Elle Fanning. Although she grew up in Indiana, she now lives with her fiancé and literary cats in Los Angeles, which remains her favorite place to wander.

8 days till graduation
I open my eyes and I am tangled in the sheets, books upside down on the floor. I know without looking at the time that I m late. I leap out of bed, one foot still wrapped in the sheet, and land flat on my face. I lie there a minute. Close my eyes. Wonder if I can pretend I ve fainted and convince Mom to let me blow off today and stay home.

It s peaceful on the floor.

But it also smells a bit. I open an eye and there s something ground into the rug. One of Dandelion s cat treats, maybe. I turn my head to the other side and it s better over here, but then from outside I hear a horn blast, and this is my dad.

So now I m up and on my feet because he will just keep honking and honking the stupid horn until I m in the car. I can t find one of my books and one of my shoes, and my hair is wrong and my outfit is wrong, and basically I am wrong in my own skin. I should have been born French. If I were French, everything would be right. I would be chic and cool and ride a bike to school, one with a basket. I would be able to ride a bike in the first place. If I were living in Paris instead of Mary Grove, Ohio, these flats would look better with this skirt, my hair would be less orange red--the color of an heirloom tomato--and I would somehow make more sense.

I scramble into my parents room dressed in my skirt and bikini top, the black one I bought with Saz last month, the one I plan to live in this summer. All my bras are in the wash. My mom s closet is neat and tidy, but lacking the order of my dad s, which is all black, gray, navy, everything organized by color because he s colorblind and this way he doesn t have to ask all the time, Is this green or brown? I rummage through the shelf above and then his dresser drawers, searching for the shirt I want: vintage 1993 Nirvana. I am always stealing this shirt and he is always stealing it back, but now it s nowhere.

I stand in the doorway and shout down the hall, toward the stairs, toward my mom. Where s Dad s Nirvana shirt? I ve decided that this and only this is the thing I want to wear today.

I wait two, three, four, five seconds, and my only answer is another blast of the horn. I run to my room and grab the first shirt I see and throw it on, even though I haven t worn it to school since freshman year. Miss Piggy with sparkles.

At the front door, my mom says, I ll come get you if Saz can t bring you home. My mom is a busy, well-known writer--historical novels, nonfiction, anything to do with history--but she always has time for me. When we moved into this house, we turned the guest room into her office and my dad spent two days building floor-to-ceiling bookcases to hold her hundreds of research books.

Something must show on my face because she rests her hands on my shoulders and goes, Hey. It s going to be okay. And she means my best friend, Suzanne Bakshi (better known as Saz), and me, that we ll always be friends in spite of graduation and college and all the life to come. I feel some of her calm, bright energy settling itself, like a bird in a tree, onto my shoulders, melting down my arms, into my limbs, into my blood. This is one of the many things my mom does best. She makes everyone feel better.

In the car, my dad is wearing his Radiohead T-shirt under a suit jacket, which means the Nirvana shirt is in the wash. I make a mental note to snag it when I get home so I can wear it to the party tonight.

For the first three or four minutes, we don t talk, but this is also normal. Unlike my mom, my dad and I are not morning people, and on the drive to school we like to maintain what he calls companionab