Breaking The Rules

“I assume Noah’s treating you well,” Dad says, like he’s one hundred percent on board with me being on this road trip with—how did he refer to Noah before I left Louisville? Oh, yeah, as a guy I barely knew, that is if I really paused and thought this through. Which, according to him, he doesn’t believe I did, but hey, I’m here and Dad’s in Louisville. I won this round.

“He’s treating me great.” My dad and Noah have an unsteady relationship. Dad respects Noah for seeing beyond my scars and for being there for me during an awful period this past spring, but he’s still wary.

On the outside, Noah can still come across as the rough foster-care kid, and what parent would be thrilled with his daughter taking off for an entire summer with a guy half her school is terrified of? The day before Noah and I left, Dad sat me down and talked to me for a long time about how “this is a phase in your life” and not to do anything I would “regret” and that if I ever needed him, to call.

“Echo...”

Warning flags. The use of my name along with any dramatic pause by my father means bad, bad—very bad—news. I accidentally forgot your favorite stuffed animal at the hotel...your mother is bipolar...your brother, Aires, is being deployed to Afghanistan. Bad news.

“I’m considering selling the house.”

“Oh.” I slump back in my seat, half relieved to discover that the plague hasn’t been intentionally released into the world, but then a sickening sensation strikes. “Oh.”

“I’ve considered it for years,” he continues. “But it was your home, and I didn’t want to take something else away from you after you’d lost so much.”

Like how I’d lost Aires when he died in Afghanistan, or how I’d lost my mind after a visit with my mother went horribly wrong at the end of my sophomore year of high school.

That type of lost.

“But now that you’ve graduated and are moving on, I thought Ashley and I could start somewhere...” He cuts himself off.

“New,” I finish for him.

There’s a crackling silence on the line, and Dad releases a heavy sigh. “Yes.”

He’s not replacing me. He’s not shoving me away. Yes, Dad has a new wife and a new baby, but I’m not being thrown out of this family. I’m part of it. I’ve talked this over with my therapist, Mrs. Collins, again and again, but the nagging doubt still slices through me like a ragged knife.

“What are your thoughts on my selling the house?” he asks.

I’ll miss sitting in the garage and watching Aires’s ghost work on his car as he counseled me through my high school life crises. I’ll miss staring at the constellations my mother painted on the ceiling of my room. I’ll miss the happy memories. That house has been one of the few constants in my life.

A knot in my throat keeps me from saying those things. My world’s changing again, and sometimes I hate change. “Mom called this morning.”

The hydrogen bomb I dropped alters the entire conversation.

* * *

I ram my thumb on the icon for Off and toss my cell onto the table. Blood swooshes in my veins, and each throb in my temple ticks me off more. Obviously, Dad and I were never meant to see eye to eye.

With his legs kicked out onto the sidewalk and his fingers laced across his stomach, Noah regards me from across the table. “Vexed?”

“Vexed? Did we enter medieval times?”

“It means mad,” he says.

“I know what it means. Why are you using it?”

He shrugs casually. “It was an ACT word. Figured if I had to learn the shit I might as well use it.”

I giggle in spite of myself then stop when dread weighs down my entire body. “Yeah, I’m vexed.”

Noah edges my ignored latte toward me. I pick it up and attempt to disappear by pulling my legs along with me onto the seat. “Dad doesn’t get it.”

He says nothing and glowers at the mountains in the distance. Noah overheard most of the conversation between me and Dad, at least my side of it. I drink, and the latte is like little shards of heaven in my mouth. A part of me relaxes with the introduction of caffeine into my system.

“What if I told you I don’t get it, either?”

With the coffee still poised at my mouth, I have to force the swallow. “What?”

“I don’t get why you’re interested in talking to your mom. What she did...it’s not forgivable.”

My forehead wrinkles as I set the cup on the table. “I never said I’ve forgiven her. I told Dad that maybe I should answer if she calls again. Maybe I should listen to the voice mail instead of deleting it. She’s my mom.”

“You talked to her before and didn’t get anywhere.”

“But maybe I should talk to her because...because...” Because...I don’t know, but I do know that there’s a hollowness inside me. This dull ache that screams that something’s missing. I felt this before—after I lost Aires and before I recovered my memories.

I believed that the cure would be this summer. That leaving home and spending time with Noah would heal the wound.

“I did get someplace the last time Mom and I talked. I remembered what happened that night, and I learned that she’s on her meds again, and that she’s being responsible about her condition. You don’t understand what life’s been like for her.”

“She tried to kill you.” He says it as if he’s telling me something new—something I don’t agonize over every single time I look in the mirror.

“Really?” I thrust my scarred arms into the air. “Guess I forgot.”

Noah swears and glances away. Two guys our age walk past, gawk at my scars then stare at each other. Ashamed, I lower my arms to my lap and close my eyes when I hear the whispered “freak.”

The table slams into my knees, and metal cracks against the sidewalk. My eyes flash open to find Noah’s chair flipped backward. I’m trapped by the table, and I press my hands against it, desperate for escape.

Noah grabs the nearest guy, twists the material of his shirt near his neck and pounds him into the wall. “Say it again, asshole. Say it to my fucking face.”

The table screeches against the sidewalk as I push it away and scramble to my feet. “Noah! No!”

The guy trembles in Noah’s grasp and his friend, thankfully, isn’t much help as he gapes at a distance. If this had happened to Noah and Noah’s best friend, Isaiah, had been here, it would have been a bloodbath. But then again, Noah would never disrespect a girl.

I place my hand on Noah’s biceps. His eyes flicker to mine and soften the moment our gazes connect.

“Let him go.”

It takes a second, but Noah releases his white-knuckle grip, though not without an extra shove. He refocuses on the guy then jerks his head in my direction. “Apologize.”

My lips flatten, and I wish I could disappear. One minute here. Another gone. Into thin air. No longer freaking existing.

The guy’s eyes linger on my arms, and it’s not too different from the way Noah stared at me the first time he saw my scars this past January when I’d fallen on the ice. Except back then, I was hiding them from the world. This spring, I gave up trying to care what the world thought, but moments like this...I have to admit I care.

“I’m sorry,” the guy whispers.

“It’s okay.” But it’s not. He called me a freak. I heard it, and so did Noah. Once an insult like that has been released, there’s no way to take it back. It becomes one more cut on my soul.