Breaking the Rules

  I laugh, and the sound surprises me. “You broke in. I was saving your butt. Are you always going to rewrite history?”

  “Maybe.” There’s a click, and both Noah and I freeze as he opens the door. Holy crap, it worked. Noah freaking Hutchins broke into a place that he absolutely hates, after he got out of jail and did something illegal...for me...again. Just like he did last spring.

  Knots form in my throat, and I’m at a loss for words.

  He pushes open the door and scans the empty hallway. “If anyone asks, you had your key.”

  “Noah...” My mouth gapes. I close it and through the thunder of my heart, I ask, “How were you arrested for possession? Because I believe you, that you were innocent, so...how?”

  He slams his hands into his pockets and half shrugs. “Mia was in her car and had a bag of pills in her hands. Part of me was pissed because she wouldn’t answer me, and another part didn’t want to see her behind the wheel stoned. Either way, I took the bag from her, and that’s when the cops showed.”

  And Noah, being who he is, never would have ratted anyone out. Not even to save himself. Honorable. Loyal. Even to people who often don’t give him the same respect back. “I’m sorry I slapped you.”

  “I’m not. Let me walk you in.” Noah stalks in before I can respond. He’s slow going up the circular staircase, sort of like he expects...

  “I am allowed to be here,” I say, holding the canvas like a shield. “No one’s going to shoot.”

  “All the same,” he answers.

  Even though Hunter gave me the key, I creep up the circular staircase like I’m a burglar on the prowl. Reminiscent of how I had skulked against the lockers the night I went after Noah.

  “Have you told your dad you don’t need the bail money?” mutters Noah. “Because we might need it.”

  I shush him. Now that would be irony, me needing the money because I’m breaking in. I also like that Noah’s willing to go to jail with and for me.

  We reach the top of the stairs, and the hundreds of Christmas lights illuminate the room. On the far side of the room, Hunter directs his attention to us. Noah splays his arms in front of me like he’s willing to take the bullet.

  “Good morning, Echo,” Hunter says.

  I touch Noah’s back to let him know that it’s okay, and he eases to the side. My footsteps against the subflooring sound loud as I walk to my spot and place the canvas on the easel. With it in front of me, with everything I need within hands reach, my fingers actually twitch.

  This is it. Today I’m painting Aires.

  The world around me begins to tunnel, and there’s a familiar voice dancing in the periphery.

  “Take care of her,” says Noah. “Because I’ll know if you don’t.”

  “Understood,” says a voice that sounds like Hunter.

  But it could have belonged to a dream as everything else fades out except for the colors.

  Noah

  My mom raised us Catholic.

  I never considered attending church after my parents died. God and I—we stopped talking. Not that we had many conversations before that, but anything I would have had to say to Him after my parents’ deaths wouldn’t have been fit for divine ears. To be honest, I don’t think God exists. He’s one more make-believe story in the realm of fairy tales.

  Parked in the same lot as a few days before, I ignore the house that belongs to my mother’s biological parents. Instead, I lean against the hood of Echo’s car and stare at the church. Echo’s off painting black holes, and I’m trying not to get sucked into one. It’ll be a damned miracle if the two of us survive the next week.

  I love her, and she loves me, but I finally understand some of those old-school movies that make Echo cry. Sometimes love isn’t enough. I don’t know if she can wait four years for me to prove I want to be the man she dreams of. Plus, she could be right about me. Maybe I am doing all of this for the wrong reasons.

  The architect shit...

  Dad loved what he did. Had a smile on his face when he went to work and when he came home. He found beauty in things that other people took for granted. Like this church. He’d appreciate how it was more than it appeared. Except for the bell tower reaching for the sky, the outside is plain brick. Most basilica-style exteriors are simple. The insides are supposed to kick ass because in truth, we all should be shinier on the inside.

  At least that’s how Dad explained it.

  It’s like Dad understood the mysteries of life because he understood a building. Maybe I’m searching for the same knowledge.

  “You’re back.” The priest—fuck it, my uncle—carries reusable shopping bags in each hand. “In case you’re wondering, I’m hearing confession in a few minutes.”

  “I wasn’t wondering.”

  “Aw.” Looking more human in a white T-shirt and dark pants, he chuckles as he walks past. “But you are. If you come inside, I’ll tell you why your mother named you Noah.”

  My eyes flash to his, and he winks. “Figured she wouldn’t tell you. She was the stubborn sort. Give me at least two minutes and I have a feeling you’ll know where the confessional is.”

  Not happening. I’m not the one that needs to apologize to God. It’s the other way around.

  “It’s a great story!” he calls before he disappears behind the door. “By the way, your mother and I used to talk. Two phone calls a year!”

  My body twitches with the need to follow. It’s like I’m a fish caught on a hook. A story involving my mom. One I’ll never have the opportunity to hear from her. Because, as Echo pointed out this morning when she talked about her brother, Mom left, and she’s never returning.

  As I climb the concrete stairs for the two towering front wooden doors, I glance up, waiting for the fire and brimstone or good old-fashioned lightning to strike me dead.

  The skies remain calm, and I enter the house of the God.

  It’s pin-drop quiet and off to the side are rows of unattended votive candles flickering to stay alive. My dad sure as hell had one thing right: the inside of this place is immaculate. The light flowing from the stained-glass windows is like a multibeamed rainbow. Large white columns run on both sides of the center seating, and painted in the domed area over the sanctuary are pictures of the apostles.

  My uncle fixes his collar and appears spiritual again in black.

  “That’s a fire hazard.” I gesture to the prayer candle area.

  That brings him up short. “I can see where you’d feel that way. We’re considering moving to electric candles, but it wouldn’t have the same effect, would it? Now, if you don’t mind, I’m late for work.”

  Without another soul but the two of us, my uncle scurries into the confessional and shuts the wooden closet door.

  On the ceiling, a painting of Michael the Archangel peers down at me. He’s the warrior of God. The one who’s called when there’s a battle—a lot like the war that’s about to take place the moment I step inside that confessional. Not sure if Michael is on my side or the priest’s, but then I shake my head. Definitely the priest’s. For the past three years, the odds have never been in my favor.

  Echo

  My hand rushes over the canvas, and I hear a cough behind me. I’ve probably got an audience again, but I don’t care. Aires is missing. He’s gone, and he’s never coming back.

  He made a promise, and he broke it.

  The last thing my brother ever did was break a promise to me.

  As the blues fade into a blackish-blue and as that merges into dark as midnight, there’s this undercurrent of rage pushing me forward. My brother lied to me, and I’m mad.

  “Echo.” It’s a somewhat familiar voice, but I try to block it out. “Echo.”

  A hand touches my arm, and all the anger bubbling inside me shoots out. “What?” br />
  I glare at Hunter then take a step back. Oh, heck, I had shoved myself way too close into his personal territory, as in my face was a centimeter from his.

  “You don’t like getting pulled out of your trance,” he says. “I got it, and it’s filed away for future use.”

  There are giggles around the room, and one quick scan confirms that I’ve got fans. With a heavy sigh, I put my brush on the easel and stretch my back. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize, but since I disturbed you, do you mind if we talk?”

  “Sure.”

  With a wave and a few words from Hunter, everyone moves on. “I’m going to have to shut this audience thing down soon, otherwise no one but you will get any work done.”

  “I am sorry about snapping at you. I won’t lie—I can be hard to be pulled out, but I’m usually not so emotional, but...” I stare at the painting. “This one’s different.”

  “What makes this one different?”

  Because it’s my brother. “Just is.”

  “You chose to leave out the star. Why?”

  This thin veil that used to be a brick-and-mortar wall between me and any emotion connected with losing my brother wavers with the slightest breeze. If I wanted, the answers lie there behind the mist. All I have to do is reach for them and according to Mrs. Collins, those answers will help me keep Noah.

  But there’s pain behind that curtain. Pain I’m not sure I want to tackle. Pain that, hours ago in the hotel room, came close to surfacing.

  Like the canvas turned into poison, I slide back from it. The veil in my head fluctuates as I focus on the colors. “Just decided to go that way.”

  “You’re not a pushover for anyone, are you? Not even the man who can open doors for your future.”

  I’ve been wiping my hands on a towel and pause. “What did you say?”

  “You. Not a pushover. How I like getting answers when I ask questions, and you don’t give them. Me offering you a future and you not caring.”

  A smile spreads across my face. “I’m not a pushover.”

  “Is it because your name is Echo that you’re repeating things?”

  I laugh, not so much because he’s funny, but because the unthinkable happened. For years my parents, my therapists, my teachers, my friends...anyone...used my need to please to get whatever they desired. I lay down and died for anyone at any time and somewhere along the way, I found a backbone.

  I did change this summer. I am different.

  “I’m serious, Echo. When I ask questions, I want answers. It’s how this whole teacher/student relationship works.”

  I get it, but... “Not with this one. This one is personal, and you know it.”

  “They’re all personal,” he says.

  “Some more than others. If you push me, I’ll answer, but I can’t promise the answers I give you on this one will be true.”

  “Touché. We’re clear, then. Anything after this is on my terms.”

  “I understand.”

  “So the purpose of having this conversation...”

  I’m nodding for him to continue though it’s hard to concentrate because I’m still reeling from the I’ve-changed moment.

  “I like the idea of you taking business courses so I’m trying to work it out with your college to see if you can take them online while you study your art here. In fact, I like the idea so much I might implement the new plan for others next fall.”

  That’s an awesome surprise. “Great!”

  Hunter eyes me warily. “So that means you’re accepting?”

  I bite the inside of my mouth. Noah and I are walking a tightrope, and I have no idea what’s going to happen to us. Maybe we’d work if I stayed in Kentucky. Maybe we’d fall apart if I stay here. But Noah’s right. The advice I gave Noah about himself is right. I need to decide for me. Noah and I will last if we truly love each other, but we’ll collapse if I do everything to please him. “Yes. I’m accepting.”

  Hunter raises a brow. “Your boyfriend isn’t talking you out of it?”

  My spine goes rigid. “My boyfriend supports me.” Then my stomach drops. I slapped him and pushed him away last night, then Noah broke into the gallery for me. He does support me...more than I can comprehend.

  “Good,” he says. “By the way, for paperwork purposes, what’s your last name?”

  Oh, crap. Just when things were starting to go well... There’s no stopping the train wreck now. “Emerson. My name is Echo Emerson.”

  Noah

  After five minutes of glaring at a statue of St. Therese the Little Flower, I rub my eyes and push past the red curtain and squeeze onto the cramped wooden bench. The divider that covered the small window between us slides open. Because of how we both sit and the dim lighting from above, I can only catch a glimpse of my uncle’s profile.

  “In the name of the father, and the son and the holy spirit,” he says, and I cross myself out of a long ago ingrained habit and hear my mother tell me that I should kneel in the confessional.

  One second.

  Another.

  “Well,” he urges.

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been...” This is insane. “It’s been...” Four years since my last confession. Four years. My mother was pissed at me because I hadn’t been to confession. In middle school, I had already started to question my faith.

  Another way I failed my mother, and I continue the tradition by failing Echo. I scratch the spot over my eyebrow. “I don’t believe in God, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “Sorry to hear that, but for the record, He still believes in you.”

  Bullshit answer. “Give me the story about my name.”

  “Noah, I didn’t bring you in here to listen to your confession, though I would be more than happy to take it. I brought you in here because there’s another question you’re here to ask, and I made the assumption you’d like to have this discussion with an air of anonymity.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means the question you have is one that you might not want an audience for.”

  Uncomfortable, I bend forward and rest my hands on my knees. That tense rhythm that Echo continually harbors spreads into my veins. “Why did my mom leave?”

  “And why are we aware of your existence when you didn’t know about us?”

  Is there anyone who isn’t privy to the inner workings of my life besides me? “And that.”

  It’s a heavy pause. Weighted enough that I consider retracting the question. My mom smiled all the time. My mom laughed almost every night. My mom had a secret that she may or may not have ever told me.

  “Our father abused her.”

  I press both hands to my face as if I could erase his answer. “Abused her?”

  “The devil is in the details with this one. There are some things that are better off left with the dead.”

  But the imagination could be worse. My mom.

  My mom.

  Tears fill my eyes, and I think of all the times she’d stare at me from across the room and out of nowhere say, “I love you.” All the times I took for granted that I’d hear those words again. All the times that she might have craved a hug and I was too damn selfish with my life to comprehend she possessed her own demons.

  “How bad?”

  “Bad,” he says as a whisper.

  To think that someone hurt her. That someone that was supposed to love her hurt her—I slam my fist into the side wall, and when the ache slicing through my fingers doesn’t disperse the anger, I punch the wall again.

  “Was she in pain?” I ask, my voice breaking. “Did it haunt her?”

  “There are some things that happen in life that you never forget. A branding on your soul, if you will. Like losing your
parents. It’s there. It happened. And it will never be taken back.”

  That’s the insanity of the situation. The hurt that I face every morning. My foot bounces like Echo’s, and I try to wipe away the moisture causing the world to blur.

  “Do you want to know why she named you Noah?”

  What the hell is wrong with this guy? “I don’t give a...” House of God. My mother would be devastated if I cursed in a confessional in the house of God. “I don’t care. Not anymore.”

  I try to breathe through the thoughts...that my mother was a child. That my mother was in pain.

  “But this is the important part,” he says in a soothing tone. “The part your mother would want you to know. She found hope. Your mother found hope and love, which is important because without love—we are nothing.”

  “She found Dad.” And they married young. Out of college. Twenty-two. Starting out before most. Struggling for years. They had me before they could afford the rent on their first apartment, hence the gigantic gap between me and my brothers.

  “Yes, she found your father, but you are the one that saved that small part of her soul that even he couldn’t reach.”

  I freeze, no air entering my chest. “She died because of me.”

  He’s silent, and the bench on his end creaks as he shifts. His face occupies the small window, but I focus on the wooden floorboards beneath my feet.

  “I read the reports,” he says. “You had nothing to do with that fire. And before you say anything, I’ve read the updated reports. I’m aware of the candle in the bathroom and that Jacob meant no harm.”

  I shake my head as if to shake away the reality. To deny what really happened. “Mom wasn’t the type to stay up. My job was to be home on time for curfew.”

  I still remember the way my heart picked up speed when the car I was riding in turned the corner and I spotted the lick of flames shooting out of my younger brother’s window on the second floor. How the car hadn’t fully stopped when I bolted out of the backseat and ran up the front walk and kicked open the front door.