Breaking The Rules

“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 (#ulink_b2fee97d-b16e-53ea-a913-a6b0c3677356)

“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.”