Breaking the Rules

  But in the light of the neighboring campfire, Echo’s green eyes possess the life of a dollar-store plastic doll, and she’s paler than normal, making her freckles stick out.

  In the span of a minute, something flipped in Echo’s brain. Only her brother and her mother have the power to haunt her. I’d like to serve them both with eviction notices from her mind.

  I drop the milk jugs I filled with water harder than I meant, and Echo switches her focus from the pine needles on the ground to me. Her brother’s ghost doesn’t bother me as much as her mother’s. Aires died, and I understand that type of pain, but I still hate to see Echo anything but happy.

  A breeze blows through the thick forest surrounding the campground, and a group of children runs past us on their way to the bathrooms. A few feet over, a boy around my youngest brother’s age plays with a toy fighter jet. Complete with the appropriate noises for war.

  I wish he’d shut the hell up. Echo’s brother died in Afghanistan.

  Since I entered foster care at the end of my freshman year, I’ve never been the boyfriend type, but Echo deserves the best. I scratch the back of my neck and try to do that making her feel better shit. “You okay?”

  She nods. “Just thinking about Aires.”

  Good. I still don’t handle her mother baggage well and after our fight at the Sand Dunes, I’m not eager to revisit those issues. “Want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  Echo never does, and because she respects my privacy when it comes to the loss of my parents, I back off. She returns her attention to the ground near her feet, and I pop my neck to the side. We’ve only got a few days left on the trip, and this isn’t how I want it to end. “Tell me Aires’s myth.”

  Echo’s psychotic mother named them both after Greek myths. Last winter, Echo told me the myth associated with her name while she kicked my ass in pool. Maybe sharing a happy story will brighten her mood.

  Her forehead wrinkles. “I’ve told you that story.”

  I crouch and pile two logs then thread smaller sticks for kindling under them. “No, you haven’t.”

  “Yes,” she says with a bite. “I have.”

  That was out of left field. I check Echo from the corner of my eye, and my girl is glaring at me like she caught me groping a gaggle of cheerleaders. “You haven’t.”

  “I would tell you that story. You don’t remember me telling you. That would mean that I don’t discuss Aires, and I do!”

  That’s it right there—she doesn’t. “You hardly mention Aires. And before you say something smart back, think who you’re talking to. I mean what I say at all times. Don’t mess with my word. If I say you haven’t told the story, then you haven’t.”

  “Like you’re Mr. I-Share-Everything when it comes to your family?”

  “Mind retracting the claws?” I say in a low tone. “Because I don’t feel like bleeding.” Or feeling threatened.

  Echo blinks, and the anger drains from her face. “I am so sorry—”

  A high-pitched shriek cuts her off and pierces my soul. I heard that type of scream before, and it’s not one I’ve wanted to hear again. My entire body whips toward the sound, and I convulse at the sight of the toy airplane in the bonfire in front of the neighboring tent. The kid that was shooting down pretend targets seconds before is now crying and shaking as a small flame licks up his pants.

  Tyler.

  Jacob.

  My brothers.

  I snatch a blanket off the ground and in six strides I tackle the child. My heart pounds as I smack at the flame. The smell of burned flesh rushes through my mind, and the roar of flames lapping against walls fills my ears.

  “Noah!” a voice that’s familiar, but doesn’t belong in this nightmare, calls to me. “Noah, you put out the flame!”

  Soft fingers grasp my biceps, and it’s as if I’m yanked from a long, dark tunnel. I turn my head, and the girl I love, the girl that owns my heart, stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind.

  “Let him go,” she says. “The flames are out.”

  I look down, and a small child with black hair and blacker eyes gapes at me. My hands hold his blanket-covered leg. I lift my arms, and Echo removes the blanket, revealing singed, now threadbare, jeans. The skin beneath is only slightly red. Not even a real burn.

  I suck in air and smell smoke. No burned flesh. I fall back onto my ass and run my clammy hand over my forehead to catch the small beads of sweat. The sights. The smells. I’d been reliving the damned memory of the night my parents died.

  “Oh, thank God!” A woman appears at the boy’s side. He sits up at her touch and begins to weep. Jacob wept like that after I dragged him out the house. So did Tyler. I couldn’t cry. No matter how I felt like I’d been torn open again and again, I couldn’t cry.

  “What happened?” she asks.

  “His plane fell in the fire.” Echo points to the melting toy in the thick of the fire. “We didn’t see it, but he must have tried to get it. Noah yanked him out and put out the flames.”

  “Thank you,” says a voice beside me. It’s a man. Black hair. Black eyes. The damn bastard is probably his dad. “We walked over to say hi to friends camping with us. My son knows better than to play near the fire—”

  I’m on my feet and in his face before he can finish. “He’s a child! What the fuck is wrong with you that you’d leave him alone near an open flame? People get hurt this way! They die!”

  “Noah!” Echo shoves an arm in front of me and uses her body as a shield between me and the bastard who should have his parental rights revoked. “It’s okay.”

  “Okay!” I explode. “It’s not fucking okay. That kid could have died!”

  Echo pushes at my chest, attempting to walk me backward. “You’re scaring him!”

  “Good!” The bastard needs a kick in the ass.

  “The child!” she chides. “You’re scaring the child!”

  It’s as if she dumped a bucket of cold water over my face. The child is clinging plastic-wrap tight to his mom, his body shaking. A park ranger is applying something to the wound. Another one is talking into a cell phone, and I hear words like ambulance not needed.

  The undertone of voices and movement from the campground has come to a lull as everyone scrutinizes the boy. Echo scans the area then links her fingers with mine. “You did great, Noah, but let’s leave them alone, okay?”

  “Is everything fine here?” The park ranger moves the phone away from his mouth and jerks his chin from me to the dad, who’s continually combing his trembling hands over his head.

  “Yeah,” I say, and secure my grip on Echo. Without another word, I lead her back to our tent and unzip it, motioning for her to get inside. I join her and in a second, zip the door up, wishing it could block out the entire world.

  Echo clicks on a lantern and makes herself smaller as she tucks her legs beneath her. “Are you okay?” She drums her fingers to that silent rhythm.

  Fuck me. Wasn’t that the question I asked her a few minutes ago? I rub my eyes. No. I’m not okay. I’m the furthest thing from it.

  Three months ago, I held Echo’s hand in a hospital and watched her battle for her sanity. I promised her and myself that I’d become the man she deserves. The man who’d be strong enough to get past my shit in order to take care of her. I let Echo down once, just like I let my parents down the night of the fire.

  The guilt of that night, of how I failed, has left a deep, dark stain on my soul. Echo’s dealt with enough of my crap since we met, and she’s had a hard time sorting through her stuff since she retrieved her memories.

  I can’t unload my fucked-up problems onto her. The truth would drive her to realize that she shouldn’t be with a punk like me, and she’d finally walk. “I’m tired.”

  Her fingers tap faster on her thigh. “It’
s still early. Maybe we should go do something—”

  “I’m tired,” I cut her off. I’m being rough, I know it, but I can’t deal with anything right now. I lie down and turn away from her. “And you said you wanted to get into Denver early so you can prepare for the show.”

  Echo’s silent, and after a few strained minutes, she clicks off the lantern and settles beside me. Because the girl has always been a damned miracle, she slowly edges near me and places a cool hand on my shoulder.

  “I know what it’s like to lose someone,” she whispers.

  Her words cut deep. She may get the loss, but she doesn’t understand feeling responsible for them dying.

  Echo presses her lips to my shoulder blade, and I close my eyes.

  “Aires...” She falters. “Aires was a ram sent by Zeus to save someone.”

  My eyebrows furrow together as I move to face her. Her body is nothing more than a shadow in the night. I can’t see her features, but I can hear the pain.

  “I...” she continues in a taut voice that rips out my heart. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  She doesn’t have to. I find Echo’s hand and guide her until she tangles her body with mine.

  “We’re okay,” I lie. It feels like it did when they lowered my parents’ caskets into the ground. It feels like it did when Echo broke up with me a few months back. It feels like it did when I decided that my brothers were better off without me.

  Echo slides an arm around my chest and holds on like I’m preventing her from falling off a cliff. My girl sometimes mentions God. Some days she believes in him. Other days she’s not sure he exists. I don’t think much one way or another because if there is one, he doesn’t believe in me.

  With that said, I toss up a silent prayer that all this hurt, all this guilt, will be gone in the morning. Not for my sake, but for Echo’s.

  She deserves happiness.

  Echo

  “I’m two hours late calling my father, my boyfriend looks like he’s ready to step in front of an oncoming freight train to cure his boredom, I’m terrified someone will mention my mother and no, I don’t like the use of the gold against the greens in the painting.”

  It’s how I’d love to respond to the curator tipping her empty champagne glass at the floor-to-ceiling painting in front of us, but admitting such things will hurt the fragile reputation I’ve established for myself this summer in the art community. Instead, I blink three times and say, “It’s beautiful.”

  I glance over at Noah to see if he caught my tell of lying. He bet me that I couldn’t keep from either lying or blinking if I did lie for the entire night. Thankfully, he’s absorbed in a six foot carving of an upright prairie dog that has headphones stuck to his ears. If I lose, I’ll be listening to his music for the entire car ride home from Colorado. There’s only so much heavy metal a girl can take before sticking nails into her ears.

  In a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, jeans and black combat boots, Noah shakes his head to himself before downing the champagne in his hand. Absorbed was an overstatement. Prisoners being water tortured are possibly having a better time.

  Noah stops the waiter with a glare and switches his empty glass for a full one. He’s been scaring the crap out of this guy all night and at this rate, Noah may get us both kicked out, which may not be bad.

  “I heard you tried to secure an appointment with Clayton Teal so he could see your paintings.” The curator’s hair is black, just like I imagine her soul must be, yet I force the fake grin higher on my face.

  “I did.” And he rejected me, or rather the assistant to his assistant rejected me. I can’t sneeze this summer without someone gossiping about it. I swear this is worse than high school. It’s been months since graduating from what I thought was the worst place on earth, and I’ve descended into a new type of hell.

  “Little lofty, don’t you believe?”

  “I sold several paintings this spring and—”

  She actually tsks me. Tsks. Who does that? “And you don’t think your mother had anything to do with those sales?”

  My head flinches back like I’ve been slapped, and the wicked witch across from me sips her champagne in a poor attempt to mask her glee.

  “Well?” she prods.

  I tuck my red curls behind my ear. “My work speaks for itself.”

  “I’m sure it does.” She gives me the judgmental once-over, and her eyes linger on the scars on my forearms. The black sleeveless dress shrinks against my skin. I’ve only had the courage to show my arms since last April, and sometimes, as in now, that courage dwindles.

  In high school, no one knew how the white, red and raised marks had come to be on my arms, and for a long period of time, neither did I. My mind repressed the night of the accident between me and my mother. But with the help of my therapist, Mrs. Collins, I remember that night.

  As I’ve traveled west this summer, visiting art galleries, I’ve discovered a few people in my mother’s circle are aware of how I had fallen through her stained-glass window when I had tried to prevent her from committing suicide.

  Unfortunately, I’ve also met a few people who loathe my mother and prefer to slather their displeasure with her like a poisoned moisturizer onto my face.

  “She contacted people, you know?” she says. “Telling them that you were traveling this summer like a poor peddler and that she’d be grateful if they showed you some support.”

  It appears this woman belongs to the I-hate-your-mother camp, and the sole reason I’ve been asked to this art showing is for retribution for some unknown crime committed by my mother. A person, by the way, I no longer have contact with. “Would you have been one of those people she called?”

  She smiles in the I-drown-kittens-for-fun sort of way. “Your mother knows better than to call me.”

  “That’s nice to know.” I half hope my mother dropped a house on her sister and that she’s next.

  The curator angles away from me as if our conversation is already done, yet she continues to speak. “A piece of advice, if I may?”

  If it’ll encourage her to pour water over herself so that she’ll melt, I’m all for advice. “Sure.”

  “There’s no skipping ahead. Everyone has to pay their dues and you, my dear, the daughter of the great Cassie Emerson, are no exception. Using your mother’s name, no matter how many people are misguided into believing her work is brilliant, is no substitute for actual talent. I’m taking this meeting with you tomorrow because I promised a friend of mine from Missouri that I would if he agreed to feature some of my paintings. Do us both a favor and don’t show.”

  I know the man she refers to. He was one of the last to buy a painting from me and since that day in June, I’ve hit a dry spell. The smile I’ve faked most of the night finally wanes, and Noah notices as he sets his glass on the outstretched prairie dog’s hand.

  I had two goals for this summer. Number one: to explore my relationship with Noah, and that has proven more complicated than I would have ever imagined. Number two was to affirm to myself and the art world that I’m a force of nature—someone separate from my mother. Regardless of what my father believes, that I’m capable of making a living with canvas and paint and that I have enough talent to survive in an unforgiving world.

  The curator turns to walk away, but my question stops her. “If you detest me so much, then why invite me tonight?”

  “Because,” she says, and her eyes flicker to my scars again. “I wanted to see for myself if the rumors were true. If Cassie really did try to kill her daughter.”

  Wetness stings my eyes, and I stiffen. I wish for Noah’s indifferent attitude or one of his non-blood sister Beth’s witty comebacks. Instead, I have nothing, but this witch didn’t completely break me. She was the first to look away then leave.

  T
he corners of my mouth tremble as I attempt to smile. Realizing that faking happiness is completely out of the realm of reality, I let the frown win. But I’ll go to hell before I cry in front of this woman. I release a shaky breath and will the tears away.

  A waiter passes and in one smooth motion I grab a glass of champagne off his tray and hurry for the door. My heart picks up pace, and my throat constricts. This isn’t how the summer was supposed to go. I was supposed to evolve into someone else...someone better.

  I slide past a couple gesturing at a painting, and the glass nearly slips from my hand when I ram into a wall of solid flesh. “What’s going on, Echo?”

  “Nothing.” Something. Everything. I pivot away from Noah, not wanting him to see how each seam of my fragile sanity is unraveling one excruciating thread at a time in rapid succession.

  Noah’s hand cups my waist, and his chest heats my back as he steps into me. “Doesn’t look like nothing.”

  I briefly close my eyes when his warm breath fans over my neck, and his voice purrs against my skin. It’s a pleasing tickle. Peace in the middle of torture.

  “Look at me, baby.” When I look up, Noah’s beside me, and his chocolate-brown eyes search mine. “Tell me what you need.”

  “To get out of here.” The words are so honest that they rub my soul raw.

  Noah places a hand on the small of my back and in seconds we’re out the front door and into the damp night. Drops of water cling to the branches and leaves of the trees. Moisture hangs in the air. Each intake of oxygen is full of the scent of wet grass. While inside experiencing my own hurricane, it rained outside.

  She contacted people, you know? I didn’t know. I had no idea, and the thought that any of my success belongs to Mom kills me. A literal stabbing of my heart, shredding it to pieces.

  Resting the champagne glass I’ve now stolen onto the hood of the car, I tear into the small purse dangling from my wrist and power on my phone. The same words greet me: one new message.