Текст книги "Pushing the Limits"
Автор книги: Katie McGarry
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
Echo
If only I could wear gloves every moment of the day, I’d feel more secure, but the stupid dress code wouldn’t let me. Because of this, my wardrobe consisted of anything with long sleeves– the longer the better.
I clutched the ends of my sleeves and pulled them over my fingers, causing my blue cotton shirt to hang off my right shoulder. My freshman year, I would have freaked if people stared at my white skin and the occasional orange freckle. Now, I preferred for people to look at my bare shoulder instead of trying to catch a glimpse of the scars on my arms.
“Did she say who it was? I bet you it’s Jackson Coleman. I heard he’s failing math and if he doesn’t get his grades up he’ll lose his scholarship to college. God, I hope it is. He is so hot.” My best friend, Lila McCormick, took her first breath since I’d given her the rundown on my counseling session and the tutoring job Mrs. Collins spontaneously created. With her nonstop mouth and tight clothes, Lila was Eastwick High’s own version of Glinda the Good Witch. She floated in her own beautiful bubble spreading happiness and cheer.
As Lila moved her tray down the lunch line, the smell of pizza and French fries made my mouth water, but the nausea roiling in my stomach kept me from buying food. My heart thundered and I hugged my sketch pad closer to my chest. I couldn’t believe I was actually in the lunchroom. Lila and I had been best friends since preschool and the one thing she’d asked of me for Christmas was that I ditch the library and reclaim my old spot at our lunch table.
It may have sounded like an easy request, but it wasn’t. The last time I’d eaten lunch in the cafeteria was at the beginning of May during my sophomore year: the day before my entire world fell apart. Back then, no one stared at me or whispered.
“Who’s hot?” Natalie cut the line by sliding her tray between me and Lila. A group of guys behind us groaned at her boldness. As usual, she ignored them. Natalie was the second of two people who refused to treat me like a social pariah because of the gossip flying about me at school.
Lila pulled her sleek golden hair into a ponytail before paying the cashier. “Jackson Coleman. Echo is going to tutor some lucky guy and I’m guessing it might be him. Who would you like to add to our list of hot yet stupid boys?”
I followed them to the lunch table as Natalie’s eyes roamed the cafeteria, searching for the right combination. “Nicholas Green. He’s dumber than dirt, but I could eat him for dessert. If you’re tutoring him, Echo, think you could introduce me?”
“Introduce who to who?” asked Grace. Natalie and Lila took their seats and I hesitated.
Grace’s smile fell when she spotted me. She was the main reason why I didn’t want to return to the lunchroom. We were total best friends before the incident and, I guess, even after. She visited me every day in the hospital and at home during the summer, but when our junior year began and my social status took a nosedive, so did our friendship … in public that is. In private she claimed to love me like a sister. Everyone else at school treated me like I didn’t exist.
“Natalie to Nicholas Green.” Lila patted the seat between her and Natalie. Attempting to hide, I dropped into the chair, slouched and propped my sketch pad against the edge of the table.
The other girls whispered to each other as they glimpsed me. One giggled. From the time I’d come back to school, I never had a social shot. The rumors about why I was absent for the last month of my sophomore year ranged from pregnancy to rehab to attempted suicide. My gloves became the kindling and my memory loss the match. When I returned that fall, the rumors exploded into a firestorm.
Lila continued her explanation. “Echo’s going to be tutoring some dumb hottie. We’re trying to guess who it will be.”
“Well, don’t hold out on us, Lila. Who is Echo tutoring?” Grace’s eyes flickered from Lila to the girls on her squad sitting at the table. When we’d returned for junior year, Grace had found out she had a shot at making head cheerleader—a difficult feat since she’d always hovered in the periphery of popular in that crowd. I’d assumed things between us would go back to normal once she was voted in. I’d been mistaken.
“Ask Echo.” Lila’s teeth crunched into the apple, her hardened gaze locked on Grace. Our table became eerily silent as the most beautiful girl at school openly defied the most popular girl at school. A lull fell over the cafeteria as the student body prepared to watch the showdown in progress. I would have sworn a tumbleweed blew past the table and that weird Western whistle song played on the loudspeaker.
I gave Lila’s foot a nudge, begging her in my mind to answer for me, instead of forcing Grace to acknowledge me in front of other people. Seconds ticked by as neither flinched in the stare-down.
I couldn’t take it. “I don’t know. I meet him this afternoon.” Mrs. Collins didn’t want to say who I’d be tutoring. She’d mumbled something about smoothing over a few details with him before we met.
Movement and chatter resumed in the cafeteria. The muscles in Grace’s face relaxed and she took a relieved breath before taking stock of the reaction of her public friends. “I’ll play guess the stupid hunk.” She sent me a private wink. For the billionth time, I wished my life could go back to normal.
When Grace threw out a name the rest of the group also decided to play. I sketched Grace as they talked. Her new short blond haircut framed her face perfectly. I listened to their name-dropping and the new school gossip that accompanied their guesses.
“Maybe Echo’s tutoring Luke Manning,” Lila said with a not-so-gentle nudge of my arm. “He fits hunk and less-than-bright.”
I rolled my eyes and did my best to fix the dark line her nudge had created on my drawing. Lila held on to the false hope that Luke, my boyfriend from my life before, still harbored feelings for me. She substantiated her claim with made-up stories of how he watched me when I wasn’t paying attention.
“Luke and Deanna broke up over the winter break,” said Grace. “Deanna says she broke up with him. Luke says he broke up with her. Who knows if we’ll ever find out the truth?”
“Who would you believe, Echo?” Natalie asked. Gotta give her credit. She wanted me to participate in the conversation, regardless of whether I wanted to be included.
I focused on shading the shadow Grace’s hair created against her ear. After meeting Luke in freshman English, I’d dated him for a year and a half. This made me the table’s Luke expert. Since our breakup, every table with a female contained a Luke expert. “Hard to say. I broke up with Luke and he didn’t claim any differently, but he’s changed a lot since then.”
“Noah Hutchins,” Natalie said.
I stopped sketching, confused about what Noah had to do with Luke. “What?”
“Guess the hunk, remember? Noah Hutchins is definitely hot. I’d tutor him.” Lila stared over at the stoner table, practically drooling. How could she swoon over the guy who’d made fun of me?
Grace’s mouth gaped. “And take the social hit? No way.”
“I said I’d tutor him, not take him to prom. Besides, from what I’ve heard, quite a few girls have ridden that train and loved every second of it.”
Grace glanced at Noah, eyes wandering up, then down. “You’re right. He’s hot, and rumor has it he’s only into one-nighters. Though Bella Monahan tried to force a relationship. She followed him around like a pathetic puppy dog. He wanted nothing to do with her if it didn’t involve the backseat of his car.”
Lila loved dirt. “She lost her boyfriend, her virginity, her reputation and her self-respect in less than a month. That’s why she transferred to another school.”
Guys like Noah Hutchins ticked me off. He used girls, used drugs and had made me feel like crap this morning. Not that I should be surprised. I’d had a couple of classes with him last semester. He’d stride into the room like he owned the earth and smirk when girls fell all over themselves in his presence. “What a jerk.”
As if he heard me from across the room, his dark eyes met mine. His shaggy brown hair fell over them, but I could tell he was looking at me. The stubble on his face moved as he smiled. Noah had muscles, looks and trouble stalking him. Somehow, he made jeans and a T-shirt look dangerous. Not that I was into girl-using stoners. Yet, I took another peek at him while sipping my drink.
“Harsh words, Echo. You’re not talking about me, are you?” A chair scraped the floor. Luke flipped it around so he could straddle it between Natalie and Grace. Come freaking on. Luke and I had barely spoken a word to each other since we broke up sophomore year. Why was everyone pushing me into social mode today?
“No,” said Lila. “We talked about you earlier. Echo was calling Noah Hutchins a jerk.” I kicked her under the table. She sent me a glare in return.
“Hutchins?” Luke Manning: six foot two, built like a freight train with black hair, blue eyes, captain of the basketball team, hot and full of himself. To my horror, he sized Noah up. “What’s stoner boy done to deserve your wrath?”
“Nothing.” I returned to my sketch pad. My cheeks burned when one of Grace’s public friends mumbled something about my weirdness. Why couldn’t Lila, Natalie and Luke just leave me alone? The gossip only became worse when I crept out of my shell.
Unfortunately, Lila chose to ignore my red cheeks and my warning kick. “He made fun of Echo this morning, but don’t worry, she told him off.”
The pencil in my hand bowed from my tighter grip as I fought the urge to yank Lila’s gorgeous hair out of her head. My teachers and Mrs. Collins were so wrong. Interacting with my peers stunk.
Luke’s eyes narrowed. “What did he say to you?”
I stomped on Lila’s toes and stared straight at her. “Nothing.”
“He told her that she had an effed-up name and then did the stupid ‘echo’ thing people did in elementary school,” said Lila. Oh, God, I wanted to murder my best friend.
“You want me to talk to him?” Luke stared at me with a familiar hint of possessiveness. Both Grace and Natalie smiled like Cheshire cats. I refused to look at Lila, who bounced in her seat. Now I would never hear the end of her fantasies about Luke and me getting back together.
“No. He’s a stupid guy who said a stupid thing. He probably doesn’t even remember saying it.”
Luke chuckled. “True. That whole table’s screwed up. Did you know that Hutchins is a foster kid?”
The girls at my table gasped at the new gossip. I checked out Noah again. He appeared deep in conversation with some girl with long black hair.
“Yep,” Luke continued. “Heard Mrs. Rogers and Mr. Norris discussing it in the hallway.” The bell rang, ending Luke’s spotlight on the forbidden information on Noah Hutchins.
While I threw away the remains of my lunch, Grace sidled up beside me and whispered, “This was huge, Echo. If Luke’s into you again, life will change. Who he talks to and dates changes everyone’s opinion. Maybe things will finally get back to normal.”
One of Grace’s public friends called out to her and she left my side without a second glance. I sighed as I pulled my sleeves over my fingers. What I wouldn’t give for normal.
NOAH
I’d told Mrs. Collins the truth. I didn’t have time for tutoring or counseling. In June, I would turn eighteen and graduate from foster care. That meant I’d need a place of my own, and rent meant a job. But Mrs. Collins had played me like a street hustler. An occasional supervised visit with my brothers wasn’t enough. She dangled them in front of me like a damn needle to a heroin addict.
My shift at the Malt and Burger started at five. I glanced at the clock hanging over the reference librarian’s desk. What part of “meet the guy you’re tutoring directly after school at the public library” did my know-it-all misunderstand? Mrs. Collins might have mentioned who would be tutoring me, but I’d stopped listening after a few minutes. The lady talked too much.
I focused on the double doors. Five more minutes and I could happily call this session a failure, a fact I would be thrilled to throw in Mrs. Collins’s face.
One door opened and cold air swept in, causing goose bumps to rise on my arms. Ah, hell. I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms across my chest. Echo Emerson glided into the library.
Her eyes swept the room while her gloved hands rubbed her arms. Like the cold could penetrate that fancy-ass brown leather coat. A light, sunshine smile rested on her face. It appeared Mrs. Collins had kept us both in the dark. The moment she saw me, her smile faded and her green eyes erupted with thunderclouds. Join the fucking club.
From under the table, I kicked out the chair opposite me. “You’re late.”
She set her book bag on the table and scooted the chair in as she sat. “I had to go to the office and find out testing dates. I could have gotten the information this morning, but some jerk got in my way.”
Advantage Echo, but I smiled at her like I had the upper hand. “You could have stayed. I never asked you to leave.”
“And let you harass me some more? No, thanks.” She shrugged off her jacket, but kept on her knitted gloves. She smelled of cold and leather. Her blue cotton shirt dipped below her beige tank, exposing the top of her cleavage. Girls like her enjoyed teasing guys. Little did she know, I didn’t mind looking.
Catching me staring, she readjusted her shirt and her cleavage disappeared from view. Well, that was fun. She glared at me, possibly waiting for an apology. She’d be waiting a long time.
“What subject are you failing? All of them?” Those green eyes danced. It appeared Echo also enjoyed dishing out shit.
All right, I’d screwed with her this morning for no reason. She deserved to get a couple blows in. “None. Mrs. Collins is calling the shots on this.”
Echo opened her backpack and withdrew a notebook. A shadow crossed her face when she slid off the gloves and immediately pulled her long sleeves over her hands. “What subject do you want to start with? We have calculus and physics together, so we could start there. You’ve got to be a complete moron if you need help with business technology.” She paused. “And weren’t you in my Spanish class last term?”
I lowered my head so my hair fell into my eyes. For a girl who didn’t know I existed, she sure knew a lot about me. “Yeah.” And this term, too. She barely beat the bell walking into class and took the first seat available without giving anyone a second look.
“Qué tan bien hablas español?” she asked.
How well could I speak Spanish? Pretty damn decent. I shoved away from the table. “I gotta go.”
“What?” Her forehead crinkled in disbelief.
“Unlike you, I don’t have parents to pay for everything. I’ve got a job, Princess, and if I don’t leave now, I’ll be late. See you around.”
Grabbing my books and jacket, I left the table and immediately exited the library. The cold January air smacked me in the face. Ice covered several spots on the pavement.
“Hey!”
I glanced over my shoulder. Echo bounded after me, leather jacket on one arm and pack slung over her back.
“Get your damn jacket on. It’s cold outside.” I didn’t stop for her, but I slowed my pace, curious as to why she followed me out.
She caught up quickly and kept step beside me. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I told you, to work. I thought you were smart.” I’d never met anyone so fun to mess with.
“Fine. Then when are we going to make this session up?”
I slammed my books on the piece of crap I called a car, causing rust to scatter to the ground. “We’re not. I’ll make you a deal. You tell Mrs. Collins that we’re meeting as many days after school as you want, collect whatever volunteer hours you need for whatever little club you belong to, and I’ll back you up. I won’t have to see you and you won’t have to look at me. I get to continue with my screwed up life and you get to go home and play dress-up with your friends. Deal?”
Echo winced and backed away as if I’d slapped her. She lost her footing when she hit a patch of ice. My right hand swept out and snatched her wrist before her body could smack the ground.
I kept hold of her while she steadied herself using the trunk of my car. Embarrassment or cold flushed her white cheeks. Either way, I found it funny. But before I had a chance to make fun of her, her eyes widened and she stared down at the wrist I held.
Her long blue sleeve was hiked past her elbow and I followed her gaze to the exposed skin. She attempted to yank her hand away, but I tightened my grip and swallowed my disgust. In all the horror-show homes I’d lived in, I never once saw mutilation like that. White and pale red, raised scars zigzagged up her arm. “What the fuck is that?”
I tore my eyes away from the scars and searched her face for answers. She sucked in several shallow gasps before yanking a second time and successfully jerking out of my grasp. “Nothing.”
“That ain’t nothing.” And that something had to hurt like hell when it happened.
Echo stretched her sleeve past her wrist to her fingertips. She resembled a corpse. The blood rushed out of her cheeks and her body quaked with silent tremors. “Leave me alone.”
She turned away and stumbled back to the library.
Echo
“Nothing,” said Lila. “Not a word, not a peep, not a sound. Natalie, Grace and I even put a few feelers out to the juniors, but there is absolutely no gossip flying about you. Well, at least nothing involving Noah Hutchins.”
Lila sat in the passenger seat and I sat in the driver’s side of Aires’ 1965 Corvette. She’d come home with me to act as my barrier for Family Friday—or as I liked to refer to it, Dinner for the Damned.
In the garage, the radio played from my 1998 forest-green Dodge Neon. Aires’ Corvette still had its original radio. Translation: a piece of crap, but the rest of the car was totally beast. Flashy bloodred with black pinstriping running horizontally– Aires typically lost me at this point, but he would still continue talking even though my eyes glazed over—three functional, vertical front, slanting louvers on the sides of the front fenders; a blacked-out, horizontal-bars grille and different rocker panel moldings.
I had no idea what that meant, but Aires said it enough that I had the description memorized. The car looked awesome, but it didn’t run. Thanks to Noah Hutchins, my chances of it ever running lessened each day. I tightened my hands on the steering wheel and remembered Aires’ promise to me. Days before he left, he had hovered over the open hood as I sat on the workbench.
“It’s going to be okay, Echo.” Aires’ eyes had flicked to my rocking foot. “It’s only a six-month deployment.”
“I’m fine,” I’d said as I blinked three times. I didn’t want him to leave. Aires was the only person in the world who understood the craziness of our family, plus he was the only one capable of keeping the peace between me, Ashley and our father. He wasn’t Ashley’s biggest fan, but regardless of his feelings, he always encouraged me to give her a break.
He chuckled. “Next time at least try to stop your telltale sign of lying. One of these days Dad will pick up on it.”
“Will you write?” I asked, changing the subject. He’d talked a lot about our father before he left.
“And email and Skype.” He wiped his hands on an already greasy rag and stretched to his full six feet. “I’ll tell you what. When I get home and finish the car, you can be first to drive it. After me, of course.”
My foot stopped rocking and I was flooded with the first real feeling of hope since Aires told me of his deployment. Aires would return home as long as his car waited for him. He’d given me a dream and I held on to it after he left. My dreams died with him on a desolate road in Afghanistan.
“Whatcha thinking about?” asked Lila now.
“Noah Hutchins,” I lied. “He’s had all week to tell the whole school about my scars. What do you think he’s waiting for?”
“Maybe Noah doesn’t have anyone to tell. He’s a stoner foster kid who needs tutoring.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I answered. Or maybe he was waiting for the perfect moment to make my life a living hell.
Lila played with the rings on her fingers, signaling nerves.
“What?” I asked.
I had to strain to hear her mumbled answer. “We told Luke.”
Every single muscle in my neck tightened and I released my grip on the steering wheel, terrified I’d rip the plastic to shreds. “You what?”
Lila turned in her seat, wringing her hands in her lap. “He’s in our English class. Instead of proofreading each others’ papers, Natalie, Grace and I were discussing the Noah situation and your scars and … Luke overheard a few things.”
My heart pounded in my ears. For almost two years, I’d kept this horrible secret and in one week two people had forced their way into my personal nightmare.
When I didn’t say anything she continued, “Those scars are not your fault. You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Your mom definitely does and possibly your dad, but you? Nothing. Luke already knew your mom was freaking psychotic and he never told anyone. He’s a moron, but even he could figure out your mom hurt you.”
Should I be mad? Relieved? I settled for numb. “She’s not psychotic,” I murmured, knowing that anything I said regarding my mother fell on deaf ears. “She has issues.”
In a slow, deliberate movement, Lila placed her hand over mine, giving my fingers a reassuring squeeze. A reminder she’d love me regardless. “We think you should tell people. You know, take the offensive instead of the defensive. That way if Noah tells everybody, people will already know the real story and think he’s a jerk for making fun of you.”
I stared at Aires’ workbench. My father never tinkered with tools. If something broke, he called someone to fix it. Aires had loved to tinker. He spent every moment here in this garage. God, I needed him. I needed him to tell me what to do.
“Please say something, Echo.” The heartbreak in Lila’s voice broke mine.
“Whose idea was it?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. “Grace?” She’d wanted me to tell the whole school what’d happened immediately.
“That’s not fair.” Lila exhaled. “Not that Grace has been fair to you either. She swore this whole public versus private thing would end after the head cheerleader vote, but here’s the thing, Echo. She wants what we all want—everything back to normal. As long as everyone thinks you’re a cutter or tried to commit suicide you’ll always be on the outs. Maybe this whole Noah thing is a blessing in disguise.”
I looked at Lila for the first time since she’d broken the news. “My mom is off-limits.”
“We’ll back you.” Lila rushed out the words. “Luke said he’d tell his friends about the crazy mom episodes he witnessed when the two of you were dating. You know, to add legitimacy to your story. And when Grace heard that, she agreed to tell everyone what she, Natalie and I saw in the hospital. We saw the cops. We heard your father yelling at your mother. Grace wants this so badly—we all do.”
“Because having a crazy mom and no memory of the night she tried to kill me is so much better than people guessing I’m a cutter or tried to commit suicide.”
Lila spoke softly. “People will feel bad for you. Being a victim … it makes it different. That’s what Grace has been trying to tell you all along.”
Anger snapped my frail patience. “I don’t want their sympathy and I don’t want the worst night of my life up for discussion for the whole school. If I ever tell anyone what happened, I want to be able to tell them the truth, not that I’m some pathetic moron who remembers nothing.” I rapped the back of my head against the seat and stared at the ceiling of the car. Deep breaths, Echo. Deep breaths.
I remembered absolutely nothing about that night. My father, Ashley and my mom knew the truth. But I was forbidden to speak to my mom, and Dad and Ashley believed what the therapists said. That when my mind could handle the truth, I’d remember.
Whatever. They weren’t the ones who lay in bed at night trying to figure out what happened. They weren’t the ones who woke up screaming. They weren’t the ones wondering if they were losing their minds.
They weren’t the ones who felt hopeless.
“Echo …” Lila faltered, took a deep breath, and stared out the windshield. This had to be bad. Lila always could make eye contact. “Have you ever thought that maybe you’ve brought some of this on yourself?”
I flinched and fought to control the anger shaking my insides. “Excuse me?”
“I know it was rough coming back after what happened between you and your mom, but have you ever wondered if maybe you’d come back in September and continued life as normal, people would have eventually moved on? I mean, you sort of became a recluse.”
The anger gave way to a hurt that shoved my heart into my throat. Was this how my best friend saw me? As a coward? A failure? “Yeah, I did think of that.” And I waited before speaking again to keep my voice from cracking. “But the more I put myself out there, the more people talked. Remember last year’s dance team tryouts? People tend to gossip about what they see.”
Her head lowered. “I remember.”
“Why?” I asked her. “Why bring this all up now?”
“Because you’re trying, Echo. You actually came to lunch. You’re talking to people. It’s the first time since our sophomore year that I’ve seen you try and I’m terrified you’re going to go back into your shell.” She turned to face me with a strange spring in her movements. “Don’t let what Noah saw scare you off. Come to Michael Blair’s party with me tomorrow night.”
Had she lost her mind? “No way.”
“Come on,” she pleaded. “It’s your birthday tomorrow. We have to go out for your birthday.”
“No.” I wanted to forget that the day even existed. Mom and Aires used to make a holiday out of my birthday. Without them….
She clasped her hands together and placed them under her chin. “Please? Pretty please? Pretty please with hot fudge? Try it my way and if it doesn’t work I swear I’ll never bring it up again. And did I mention I overheard Ashley tell your dad that she wanted to take you out to dinner? At a restaurant. A fancy one. With five courses. One little yes to me and I can get you out of it.”
Dinner for the Damned on Fridays was bad enough. Dinner for the Damned in public would be inhumane. I took another deep breath. Lila had stuck with me through it all: my mother’s insanity, my parents’ divorce, Aires’ death and now this. She may not know it yet, but Lila was about to receive her birthday present. “Fine.”
She squealed and clapped her hands together. In one long, continuous sentence, she described her plans for the next night. Maybe Lila and Grace were right. Maybe life could go back to normal. I could hide my scars and go to parties and just lie low. Noah hadn’t told anybody and maybe he wouldn’t.
Besides, only four more months till graduation and after that I could wear gloves every day for the rest of my life.
