Pushing the Limits (31 page)

To my horror, tears pricked my eyes and my throat swelled shut. “No, you’re not pulling this sacrificial bullshit on me. I love you and you love me and we’re supposed to be together.”

Echo pressed her body to mine and her fingers clung to my hair. Water glistened in her eyes. “I love you enough to never make you choose.”

She pushed off her toes toward me, guiding my head down,
and gently kissed my lips. No. This wouldn’t be goodbye. I’d fill her up and make her realize she’d always be empty without me.

I made Echo mine. My hands claimed her hair, her back. My lips claimed her mouth, her tongue. Her body shook against mine and I tasted salty wetness on her skin. She forced her lips away and I latched tighter to her. “No, baby, no,” I whispered into her hair.

She pushed her palms against my chest, then became a blur as she ran past. “I’m sorry.”

Echo

He loved me.

Noah Hutchins had told me he loved me, and that had made the past week at school absolute hell.

The bell rang. Everyone else snapped shut their books, zipped up their backpacks and left business technology for lunch. I stayed completely still.

My hand gripped my pencil as Noah walked past and left the room with his shoulders stiff and head high. He never acknowledged my presence. Isaiah, on the other hand, took his time and stared at me with sad eyes as he followed his best friend.

For seven days, this had been how Noah and I interacted. I waited for him to leave class. He bolted. I sucked in a breath, wishing the pain would stop as the room cleared out. Well, except for my best friend.

“Echo.” Lila stood in front of my desk with her books clutched to her chest. “Are you okay?”

No. Nothing would be okay ever again. “I accidentally overheard
in the bathroom this morning that Lauren Lewis is going to make a move on Noah.” Tears threatened the edges of my eyes. “I shouldn’t care. I mean, I broke up with him and he can …”
Sleep with whoever he wants …
But I couldn’t say that because a lump formed in my throat.

“Lila,” called Stephen from the hallway, “you coming to lunch or not?”

She started to shake her head no when I answered for her, “She’s going.”

“Echo,” Lila said in reprimand.

“I’m fine.” I faked the worst smile in the world. “Maybe I’ll stop by the cafeteria today.”

I didn’t mean it. She knew that, yet she patted my hand and said, “I’ll see you there,” before taking Stephen’s hand and heading to lunch.

Tossing my stuff into my backpack, I continued to fight the urge I’d fought for seven days—to run to Noah and beg him to take me back. I’d lost not only him, but the routine I’d come to depend on: studying, tutoring, plotting to get into our files, and Isaiah and Beth working on Aires’ car. Losing Noah meant losing a life. It also meant losing my chance for answers.

Noah had been the mastermind behind all of our plans and I’d drawn upon his courage to succeed. Or had I? I dropped my last book in my pack and an eyebrow rose with the thought. My mind began to churn as I left the room.
I
convinced Mrs. Collins and my father to change the appointment time—not Noah.
I
found his brothers’ foster parents’ last name. Maybe, just maybe, I could find my answers on my own.

I turned the corner of the empty hallway and froze. With her back against my locker, Grace inspected her nails.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Talking to you. If you’d stayed with Luke, we could have remained friends.” She wiped at her thumbnail before glancing at me.

“Shouldn’t you be at lunch proving to the world you’re perfect?” I asked. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like bowing down to her.

“He’ll take you back,” she said. “Luke. When he heard you broke it off with Noah, he about flipped. He’s ending it with Deanna. He wants you. Not her.”

No, he didn’t want me. It was a rumor even I had heard, but I knew what no one else did—Luke couldn’t handle my scars. My head fell back before I refocused on the issue blocking me from my locker. “Why do you even care? Last I heard you were making everyone laugh in the gym at my expense.”

Grace became insanely interested in her shoes. “So I’m not a saint, Echo. Shoot me. It’s not like you make anything easy.” She snapped her mouth shut and tilted her head, a sure sign she was trying to gain composure. “I still want to be your friend, and we can salvage everything—our friendship, what people think of you, everything. Now that you’ve dumped the loser, we’ll just say Noah was a brain fart. That he used you. Manipulated you. And then you saw him for the moron he is. Everyone will believe that.”

Anger snapped inside of me. How could she not understand? “I’m in love with Noah.”

She pushed off the lockers, her face twisted in rage. “And look where that got you. Boyfriendless. Friendless. Damn, Echo, you went through the social lynching of the year the moment you kissed that boy in public all in the name of love. All of that for nothing!

“
Nothing
about you has changed. You still hide your scars,
you still hide from lunch and you still hide from the world. You were better off before you met Noah Hutchins. What I wouldn’t give to have January back. At least then you came to lunch. At least then you tried.”

Her words became knives slashing against my skin, pricking and prodding more than I thought they should. “I’m not the one that put conditions on our friendship. I’m not the one terrified of what people will think of me if I’m friends with someone you think of as beneath you.”

Grace laughed and it wasn’t the happy kind. It was the type that said she was ticked beyond belief. “Yes, you did, Echo. You put conditions on our friendship the moment you slid those gloves on your arms and you asked me to lie to everyone on your behalf. I had to tell the world that I didn’t know what happened to one of my best friends. And as for pointing a finger at me and accusing me of being terrified of what people think, turn that finger back around, sister. If you’re so high and mighty, why the hell are you still hiding those scars?”

I swallowed and all of the anger I’d felt seconds before drained from my body and into the air. She was right. Grace was utterly right.

I STARED INTO MY OPEN LOCKER and drummed my fingers against the door. I could do this. I could definitely do this … tomorrow, or next month, or never…. No, no. I could do this. I could live life to please myself or everyone else. Me. I wanted to please me.

As far back as I could remember I’d lived to please everyone else: my mother, my father, teachers, therapists. Terrified if I stepped out of line I would lose their respect. And in the case of my parents—their love. But no more. I wanted answers about
my past and I was only going to discover them if I found some courage.

Yesterday, Grace completely called me out and today, I was calling her bluff.

For the first time in two years, I’d worn short sleeves to school, though I kept a sweater over my shirt. But I didn’t want to wear a sweater. I was hot and uncomfortable and the sweater itched. Reaching behind my shoulders, I yanked it over my head and took a refreshing breath the moment the cooler air hit my arms. The sensation reminded me of those summer commercials where obviously hot people jumped into the cool, inviting water. This was what freedom felt like.

I left my books and sweater in my locker and headed down the empty hallway toward the cafeteria. Funny, I felt naked, like I was only sporting my bra and underwear, not my favorite blue short-sleeved shirt and a pair of faded jeans.

To keep myself from turning back, I hitched my thumbs in my pockets and counted the floor tiles. The tile stopped at the edge of the cafeteria’s concrete floor. Laughter and loud conversation flowed from the room. I prayed for two things. One: I wouldn’t pass out. Two: Lila would still love me.

My throat swelled and my chest constricted when I lifted my foot and crossed the barrier from the hallway to the lunchroom. The immediate gasps of “Oh, my God” to my left stopped my progression forward. Note to self—this was probably my worst idea yet.

I surveyed the room and watched as people leaned over from lunch table to lunch table, informing the masses that the freak had entered the room.
Go ahead, stare. Maybe next time I’ll be smart enough to sell tickets
.

From across the room, a pair of warm brown eyes met mine.
Everything inside of me hurt—Noah. For a week, we’d each pretended the other one never existed. He strutted through school with his delicious dark looks and dangerous attitude like I’d never entered his life. Noah laughed and cut up at his lunch table and sat stoic in class.

But he wasn’t stoic now. Sitting between Isaiah and Beth, he slowly rose from his table, never once taking his eyes off me. I bit my lip and willed myself not to cry and him not to approach me. I couldn’t do both in one day. I couldn’t be strong enough to expose myself to the world and stay away from him.

When he took a step in my direction, I shook my head and pleaded with my eyes for him to sit back down. Noah stood still and ran his hand over his face, a curse word I’d heard him say more than once forming on his lips. Was this breakup killing him as much as it was killing me?

He closed his eyes for a second and when he reopened them, he slammed his hand into the door as he left the lunchroom. Isaiah bolted after him.

Laughter broke out in the direction of my old lunch table and when I glanced over, they were staring at me. Grace included, though she was the only one at the table not laughing. She gave a brief nod and looked away.

“Fuck them.”

I jumped when I noticed Beth standing so close that her arm touched mine. “Excuse me?”

She motioned to the rest of the cafeteria. “Fuck them. They aren’t worth it.”

“For once, I agree.” Lila linked her fingers with mine. “You could have told me you were planning on doing this. I would have come in with you.”

I turned my attention back to Beth, but she was already gone.
I caught her black hair trailing behind her as she left the cafeteria through the same door that Noah used.

“Are you hungry?” Lila asked.

More like I wanted to puke. “Not really.”

Lila gave me her Glinda the Good Witch radiant smile. “Good. Then we won’t feel guilty for eating only dessert.” She tugged on my hand. “Come on, they have fudge brownies.”

NOAH

My fist collided with my locker and the loud banging accompanied the curse flying from my mouth. Echo finally found the courage to expose her scars and she wouldn’t let me stand by her side.

“Nice dent, man.” Isaiah rested his hip against the corner of the hallway as he crossed his tattooed arms over his chest. “I appreciate you choosing my locker to beat the shit out of. I was looking for an excuse to never open it again.”

My head jerked as I did a double take. Damn, I hit the wrong one. The shock of my mistake zapped the anger out of me, leaving behind a dull throb in my knuckles. “Sorry.”

“Did it get out whatever it is you’ve had up your ass?”

I was wrong, some of the anger still simmered in my gut. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means the girl you love is in that cafeteria baring her soul and you’re out here punching lockers. I call that something up your ass.”

I ran a hand over my face. “She broke up with me. Not the other way around. Besides—” I pointed toward the cafeteria “—I wanted to be by her side. She waved me away.”

“When did you become a fucking sheep? Way I see it, she may have said the words, but you must have wanted to break up, too.”

My muscles flinched and my fist curled, causing Isaiah to push away from the wall. He stood with his feet apart, arms held stiff near his sides. Isaiah sensed a fight and he wasn’t wrong. My voice dropped. “What did you just say?” Because he knew how much I loved Echo and those words he’d just said bordered on betrayal.

Yet my brother continued, “That you must have had some doubt about the two of you because you seemed to easily walk away.”

The urge surged through me to hit something again, but the throb in my knuckles kept me grounded. “I love Echo. I love her so much I asked her to marry me. Does that sound like I wanted to walk away?”

His eyebrows rose toward his shaved hairline as his muscles relaxed. “Tell me you’re kidding about the marriage part.”

Collapsing against the locker, I let the back of my head hit the metal. I wished I was kidding. That one question became the domino that destroyed my relationship with her. “I’m not. I fucked it all up, bro, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

Isaiah’s combat boots thumped against the floor as he came closer to me. “All I’m saying is that I don’t see you fighting for your girl, man. If you want her, then stop punching lockers and start focusing on the prize.”

Echo

The smell of acrylic paint tickled my nose the moment I walked into the gallery. Landscapes filled the canvases on the wall. A painting of long blade grass bending with the wind caught my eye. Earlier today, I’d exposed my arms. This afternoon, I was finding answers.

Nerves caused my blood to skip in my veins. The last time I visited this place, Aires was still alive and my mother was on her meds. Mom had chuckled when Aires told her he didn’t understand one of her paintings and he’d pulled my hair when I called him an idiot. He’d laughed when I smacked him in return. A weight pressed down on my lungs. Aires laughed. I should have hugged him then. I should have hugged him and never let go.

“Can I help you?” asked a female voice.

I plastered a smile on my face and turned. “Hi, Bridget.”

Bridget’s blue eyes widened. Her sleek midnight-black hair hung to her shoulders and angled her face. At six feet tall, she
towered over me. As I always remembered her, she wore a chic black business suit. “Echo. My God, you’ve grown.”

“It happens.” I shifted from one foot to the next. “Do you have a few minutes?”

“For you, always. Would you like some water?”

“Sure.” She led the way to her office.

“What can I do for you?”

Now or never. “I’m hoping you can help me with two things.”