Pushing the Limits (27 page)

I held up my brochures. “College planning.” Might as well rack up some brownie points.

“Good.” He glanced back into the main office. “Good for you.”

“I don’t want to die, Momma. Please, don’t let me die.” Echo’s distressed voice vibrated down the hallway. I could hear the underlying terror. Both Mr. Emerson and I took a step toward the sickroom. Our simultaneous movements caught each other’s attention. She screamed, “Oh, God, Daddy!”

Mr. Emerson turned a weird shade of gray. “I think you should go.”

My heart beat faster. Muscles tense, I glared at Mr. Emerson, waiting for him to give me some sort of explanation for why the girl I loved was screaming his name in panic and desperation.

He placed a hand on the wall and leaned into it. “Go on, Noah.”

Should I go or should I stay? If I stayed, I’d have to explain my presence, risking being caught, and losing the information on my brothers. I also risked an argument with her father.

If I left, I was a dick. Not the champion Echo needed me to be. I’d make it up to her. I’d find a way. I left the office and dialed Echo’s cell.

“It’s me. You know what to do,” said her sweet voice.

“Hey, baby. Call me when you can. I …” Love you. “I need to hear your voice.”

Echo

“You forgot to pick me up?” Everything inside of me became as hard as a rock and just as numb. “Like you forgot to pick up eggs at the store or clothes at the dry cleaners? Like you forgot to pick up a piece of cereal that fell on the floor or a can that fell out of the grocery bag? You forgot to pick me up.”

My father tugged his ear and kept his gaze on the floor. “I, uh …” He cleared his throat. “Ashley had her high school reunion that night and we were running late from the art show. I dropped you off at your mother’s so you could tell her about winning the Governor’s Cup and time got away from me.”

My eyes flickered between my father and Mrs. Collins. Dr. Reed shifted, but I ignored him. Mrs. Collins stood uncharacteristically still, her eyes glued on me.

“Which was it?” I demanded. “Time got away or you forgot to pick me up?”

His Adam’s apple bounced when he swallowed. The chaos in my head cleared for an instant as the lightbulb went on. “You
were supposed to drop her off at the reunion, then come and get me. It was supposed to be a short visit, but Ashley convinced you to stay.”

He barely nodded. “I’m sorry, Echo.”

I pushed against the black hole in my mind. There had to be more. “Obviously Mom wasn’t with it, so why did you leave me there?” Better question, why did I stay?

Mrs. Collins forced optimism into her tone and smiled. “Why don’t we go into my office and talk this new progress through. We can get a drink. You like Diet Coke, right?”

Anger gave me a boldness I’d only dreamed of having. “I’m not going anywhere until he answers. Why did you leave me there?”

“Mr. Emerson, let’s give Echo some time to collect herself while you and I have a chat.”

“No way.” I took a step toward my father. “He’s answering me.”

“Echo …” Mrs. Collins began to protest, but I put my hand up to stop her.

“You think he’s controlling now? You should have seen him after the divorce. I didn’t see my mom for two years. Do you know what middle school was like without a mom? Periods, training bras, boys. I had no one.”

“You had Ashley,” my father said. “I wasn’t keeping your mother from you. She knew what she had to do to get visitation. She chose not to do it.”

“No!” I bit. “You chose Ashley and ruined my mother. But Mom did get herself together, didn’t she? She got help. She took her meds and you know what my father did, Mrs. Collins? He treated her like a serial killer. She had to jump through hoops of fire in order to see us. He never once allowed visitation unless
he was a hundred percent sure she was stable. So tell me,
Dad
, why did you leave me there?”

“Because I was in a hurry and didn’t check on her when I dropped you off.” My father met my eyes for the first time and I saw the truth. “I was only supposed to be gone fifteen minutes. A half hour tops.”

“Did I call?” Because I would have. Living through sixteen years of my mother’s highs and lows had taught me that her on no meds equaled adult-supervised visitation.

He looked away again. “Yes.”

The heaviness of his words crushed my heart. “Did you answer?”

My father shoved his hands into his pockets and closed his eyes.

Idiot. I was an idiot. No one loved me. Nothing I could do or say would ever change that fact. My father merely mentioned jumping and I asked if I needed to buy a trampoline. That wasn’t love; that was control. Dad chose Ashley and Aires chose the Marines over me. Noah still hadn’t told me that he loved me even though I’d said the words to him.

I used to believe my father cared. After all, he cared enough to try to control every aspect of my life and I let him. I let him because I loved him and I wanted so desperately for him to love me back. But I’d been wrong, so wrong. He didn’t even care enough to answer the phone. I was unlovable before my mother ever touched me.

I brushed past him and grabbed my stuff out of Mrs. Collins’s office.

“I’m sorry.” My father blocked my path as I tried to leave. I ignored the hoarseness of his voice, stepped around him and bolted down the hallway. I was done being controlled.

NOAH

I should have stayed. If the roles had been reversed, she would have waited for me, but I needed to see my brothers. When she called me back, I’d run by and see her.

Newly built large, spacious houses formed a circle around a large park. The full deal—walking paths, trees, bushes, benches and the largest playground on the planet.

Two children flew out of a blue three-story house. My dad would have loved it—Second Empire architecture: mansard roof, dormer windows, square tower, decorative brackets and molded cornice. I remembered my dad laughing while showing me pictures. “Think
Lady and the Tramp
, Noah,” he’d said.

As the children raced closer, I recognized Mom’s smile. The two of them scrambled up the stairs of the play gym and flipped to the tallest slide. Jacob stopped repeatedly to help the struggling Tyler up several of the lifts.

I got out of the car and sat on a bench far from the playground and watched my brothers laugh and play. Everything inside me
hurt. They were so close and all I wanted was to be with them. I pulled out my phone, reminding myself of my purpose—to prove that their foster parents were unfit.

Speaking of, where the hell was either Carrie or Joe? Jacob was only eight. Tyler wasn’t even five yet. Shouldn’t they be supervised? I raised my phone to take a picture of the situation when a voice caught me off guard. “A little to the right. She’s sitting on the bench under the maple.”

Mrs. Collins took a seat on the bench beside me. Sure enough, from a bench under the tree, Carrie watched my brothers’ every movement. I shoved my phone back into my pocket.

“They like to slide—your brothers, that is. The two of them could spend hours flipping up and sliding down.”

We sat next to each other in silence and listened to my brothers giggle from afar. I had no clue how to get out of this one. Silence: the defense of the guilty.

“So, were the two of you working together this entire time or did you jump at the opportunity when it presented itself?”

Might as well try denial. “I think you’ve lost your mind.”

“I’m a slob, but I’m an organized slob. You put your file back in the wrong spot. Do you have any idea how much trouble you could be in for this?”

Dammit. “What do you want to know?” Maybe if I played, she’d cut me some slack.

“Were you and Echo working together?”

I would never sell Echo out. “Next.”

Mrs. Collins sighed. “I promised Echo privacy and she trusted me. You shouldn’t have been anywhere near that office today.”

I swallowed down the guilt over leaving her. “Is she okay?”

Tyler squealed when Carrie pushed him on the swing. Mrs. Collins smoothed back her hair. “You should probably call her.”

I clasped my hands loosely between my knees as I leaned forward. “What happened to never discussing Echo with me?”

“What can I say? It’s been a bad day all around.”

We sat in silence again. Joe pulled into the driveway and ran across the street to the park. Tyler leapt off the swing and jumped into his open arms. I felt like someone punched me in the gut.

“They’re happy here, Noah. Are you that excited to rip them away from all of this?”

I had to admit, it was nice here. Guess financial gurus really did do well.

“What will you have to offer them? A two-bedroom apartment in a less-than-desirable end of town? I’m assuming you read the file. They go to the best private school in the county. In the state, actually. Both of your brothers have multiple extracurricular activities. How are you going to balance a full-time job and two little boys? How will you find the time to juggle their current schedule? Even better, how can you afford it?”

Joe covered his eyes with one hand and began to play hide-and-seek with my brothers. Jacob hid at the top of the slide while Tyler hid behind Carrie on the bench. When Joe stopped counting, he saw Tyler immediately but pretended he didn’t, to Tyler’s delight.

Mrs. Collins leaned into my line of sight. “There are other options. You can go to college. Continue your relationship with Echo. Become the man your parents intended you to be.”

My muscles tightened. “What does Echo have to do with this?”

“Have you ever asked her what her plans for the future are? Do you think she’s ready to date a single dad?”

I met Mrs. Collins’s eyes for the first time. Sincerity screamed from them. I swore under my breath and returned to watching my brothers. Echo. In all of my imagined scenarios involving
my brothers or Echo, I’d never once thought of them in the same future. Separate—yes. Together—no. How the hell did the two combine—or could they?

Carrie and Joe called out to the boys, informing them that it was time to go inside. Jacob and Tyler ran ahead. I watched as a black Suburban pulled out of a spot a few feet down from my brothers.

Everything in my world slowed. I jumped to my feet and began to run toward them as Jacob and Tyler bolted in front of the moving car
. No. Please, no. Not them, too
. Brakes squealed, a horn blared and Jacob wrapped himself around our younger brother.

My heart beat once when the car stopped inches from Jacob and Tyler. Carrie and Joe swooped them up and hurried into the house. My blood pulsed nervously through my entire body and I could only take shallow breaths.

Mrs. Collins placed a hand on my arm. “They are okay, Noah. They’re safe.”

Fuck that. “They’ll be safer with me.”

Echo

My father followed me home, running two red lights in order to keep up. His tires screamed when he flung his car into Park, door open before he turned off the engine. “Echo!”

Oh, there’s the man I knew. Drill sergeant tone, fast as a rabbit. He could bark orders at me as much as he wanted. I’d discharged myself from his military. He grabbed my arm the moment he caught up with me in the kitchen.

He slammed the door behind him, causing Ashley to jump from the table. Her tabloid magazine fell to the floor. “What’s happened?”

I jerked my arm away. “I’ll tell you what happened. I was born. A couple of years later my genius parents figured out that my mother was bipolar. While she struggled to understand her condition you weaseled your way into our lives and tossed her out right when she finally accepted that she needed the meds.”

Ashley blinked rapidly and looked to my father for reassurance. “Owen, what happened?”

She hurt me. Ashley may have not have dug the cuts into my arms, but she was every bit as responsible. My blood dripped from her manicured hands. “How many times did he start to answer his phone and you stopped him? Did you seduce him into staying later at your stupid reunion or did you remind him that I wasn’t worth the effort?”

Her evil mouth fell into the shape of a round little O and her bloodred lipstick glowed against her now pale face. Disgust weaved through me. “Tell me, Ashley, when they brought my bloodless, lifeless body into the hospital, were you relieved when they told you that I may not make it? Did you celebrate that I was finally out of your life? After all, Aires was dead, my mom cast out for good. I was the only thing left standing in your way.”

She shook her head repeatedly and a single fake tear ran down her cheek. “No. I have always loved you. You, Aires and your father. All I ever wanted to do is to be your mother.”

The thin thread holding back any control snapped so loudly I blinked once. My eyes widened to the point of threatening to fall out of their sockets. “You are such a …”

“Stop it, Echo,” my father bellowed while forcing himself between me and Ashley. “You’re mad at me, not her. Leave Ashley out of this.”

I screamed at him, “Leave her out of this? She’s in this. She’s all over this. Tell me she told you to accept the phone call. Tell me she explained that whatever pathetic thing you were doing wasn’t more important than your own daughter!”

He said nothing, but a single muscle in his jaw jumped. I’d found it. The truth. The truth neither of them ever wanted me to know. My mother always told me that the truth shall set me free. I didn’t feel free. Betrayal poisoned my bloodstream like a black sludge, taking over everything in its path. The two of
them could no longer hide their sins. I’d remembered and I demanded penance.

My father stood stoically still. He’d killed my soul and I wanted his in return. “Mom fell apart after you left her for the nanny. And then you stole custody of us. You left her with nothing. You were her whole world. She had nothing left to live for, no reason to take the meds. You left her right when she was getting her act together!”

His eyes narrowed. “Are those words yours, Echo, or your mother’s? You’re right on one count. I did everything I could to make sure I got custody of you and your brother. I hired the best lawyers weeks before I served your mother to guarantee she’d never share custody with me. My only regret is that I allowed visitation, to give her time to spew those lies and to hurt you.”