Breaking The Rules

Because he’ll fall and then the one person I desperately need will die...like Aires. “I’m serious. Just step back. Okay?”

“Know what I see?” Noah says as if I hadn’t spoken.

You continuing this sick, twisted replay of my life? I love and trust someone, then they die a horrible, violent death? “I’ll sleep in the field. That’s risk-taking. As in there are probably venomous spiders and snakes and rabid raccoons. That’s a lot more death-defying than this.”

“Water. I see water, Echo. A large pool of water.”

Our gazes meet, and his dark brown eyes are so soft that my belly tightens and flips. But there’s also an ache there. Something I don’t quite comprehend. “What else do you see?”

Noah breaks our connection and stares out into the glorious ravine. “A missed opportunity.”

I lower my head as the nausea strikes hard and fast. “I can’t do it.” But I want to. I wish to be a risk-taker, but this overpowering fear has me rooted to the ground.

Because God can occasionally be merciful, Noah steps away from the cliff. “All right. We’ll leave suicide off the to-do list for the night. Instead of jumping off cliffs, how about we sleep in the open?”

I want to be a risk-taker. I want to change. A silent mantra said over and over again. Sucking in a deep breath, I accept the death sentence if only because I stupidly offered it earlier. “Okay. We’ll sleep in the field.”

Noah chuckles. “Are you sure?”

“Nope, but I’m willing to do it anyway.” Forced smile. Very, very forced.

Noah yells down a goodbye, and they shout goodbyes back. We stroll back in comfortable silence, and I discover another con of wearing sandals when the leather strap rubs the skin beneath it raw. Returning to the field where Noah caught me a while ago, I pause and pull the sandal off my foot.

Noah narrows his eyes at it then surveys me. “Why don’t you stay here and I’ll bring what we need back.”

“I’ll be okay. It’s not even a blister yet.”

“Let me do this,” says Noah. “Sit down and relax.”

Noah wades through the field toward the path. He has swagger when he walks and powerful shoulders. With him, I’m hardly ever afraid. Noah possesses the ability to scare my monsters away, at least the ones that haunt me while I’m awake. For a brief few days, he’s also scared away the demons that torture me in my sleep.

It’s not until Noah reaches the path that I notice how fast we’ve lost light. There are more shadows in the forest than there is light from above. While night isn’t my favorite, I’ve never really been spooked by the dark, but there’s a nagging sensation pricking at me. An unease in the way this feels like a memory in slow motion.

Aires left this way—in the shadows. When his leave from the Marines ended, my brother said his goodbyes to everyone the night before and asked us to sleep in since he had an early-morning flight. He requested that we let him depart without a fuss. My father and Ashley agreed to it, but I never did.

I woke earlier than Aires. With a light jacket and in my pajama pants and shirt, I sat on the front porch steps waiting for that last moment with my older brother, my best friend. The sole person in the universe who kept me sane in a house full of chaos.

The humidity of the night left a dew on the ground and on the bushes. The curls I had straightened the night before reappeared within minutes. The porch light flipped on, the front door opened and, dressed in fatigues, Aires paused when he saw me.

With his lips thinned out, he closed the door behind him and motioned for me to stand. I did, and I was still small next to his massive frame. He resembled our father with his brown hair and height. I favored our mother.

“You don’t listen,” he said.

“I don’t like it,” I answered. “That you’re leaving when the sun’s not even up. It feels...” Unlucky. Wrong. “Early.”

He offered a sympathetic half smile. “It’s a Marine thing.”

“Are you happy?” I asked. “Being a Marine?”

“I love the traveling,” he admits, and I hear what he doesn’t say. Aires couldn’t live here anymore. Because Mom and Dad couldn’t speak to each other without raising the decibel level to earsplitting, Aires became the go-between as he always tried to bring peace. That part of his personality sentenced him to a life of presenting each of their arguments to the other like a courier pigeon.

Before he had signed the papers to join the Marines, he confessed to me that he felt trapped.

Aires peered over my shoulder and down the street. Like he had asked, the cab waited at the corner. He didn’t want the headlights or the idling car to wake any of us. “I’ve got to go.”

I threw myself at him. So hard and fast that he rocked on his feet. He dropped his duffel bag and hugged me in return. “I’ll be back soon.”

Hot wetness burned my eyes and I swallowed, hoping it would help me form a sentence or a word, but all I could do was squeeze him tighter.

“I’m coming back home,” he said. “I promise. There are too many important things here for me not to.”

Because I was pathetic, I craved to hear him say the words. “Like what?”

“Well...my car’s here.” His 1965 Corvette. He found it in a scrap yard, and it had become the love of his life as he pieced it back together. “I’m not going anywhere until my baby is working.”

I released him and rolled my eyes, even though I heard the tease in his voice. “Of course. Love the car more than your sister.”

He grinned. “Priorities. Be good, Echo.”

Aires started down the driveway and into the shadows. My heart beat faster as he merged into one more dark image in the unforgiving night.

“I love you,” I yelled out.

“Back at you.” His voice seemed too distant, too far away. Then the night became too black and my brother was gone.

Gone.

And Noah is fading into a shadow. It’s like a steel knife lodges into my throat. I can’t lose him. Not the person that I love. Not again. I jump to my feet and run through the field as if my life, as if Noah’s life depends on it. “Noah!”

He keeps going, and this frantic panic pummels my bloodstream. Don’t lose sight of him.Don’t. “Noah!”

On the edge of light, Noah stops and pivots to me. His face falls as he notices my arms pumping, the air puffing out of my mouth.

“What’s wrong?”

He grabs on to me when I skid to a halt, and I try to bend over to breathe again.

“You’re trembling.” Noah rubs his fingers over my hands. “Damn it, tell me what happened.”

My mouth dries out, and I shake my head because the words solidify into concrete. I search for a way past the block. The last time I saw Aires was three years ago this month. Goose bumps rise on my arms, and a shiver snakes up my spine. Three years. Oh, God, I’ve been without him for three years.

“Echo,” he urges.

I could tell him. He’d probably understand. Noah lost his parents.

“I...just...” Huge, shaky breath. “I need to go with you.”

Noah’s eyes narrow with worry, but he nods as he tucks me under his shoulder. “Okay.”