Текст книги "Pushing the Limits"

Автор книги: Katie McGarry

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

NOAH

I leaned against my locker, scanning the students heading to lunch. Isaiah and Beth stood across from me near the side doors, waiting for the hallway to clear. If Echo stopped by her locker before lunch, she had to walk this desolate area to reach the cafeteria. I needed to know if she’d pushed back her appointment. That’s what I told myself. Our plan wouldn’t work if she failed.

Honestly, she put me on edge. She’d refused to make eye contact with me during calculus and fled the room the minute the bell rang. After her admission yesterday, she left the office. One moment, she’d relaxed her warm body next to mine, taking my comfort and strength. Seconds later—gone.

“Are you even listening to me, man?” Isaiah asked. Two blondes walked past us, huddled together. One sneered as she stared at the sleeve of tattoos on Isaiah’s arms. He smirked while appraising their chests.

“Yeah.” No. Something about cars and his jacked-up job at the local auto shop.

“No, you’re not,” said Beth. “You’re looking for Echo Emerson.” She waggled her eyebrows. Part of me regretted asking her for Echo’s background. “Screwed her yet?”

“No.” The look I gave her made football players shit their pants. Beth simply shrugged and rolled her eyes.

She flicked the unlit cigarette she held in her hand, anxiously waiting for the teachers to go into the lunchroom so she could sneak open the side door. “What’s your obsession with her anyhow? Every time that girl comes around you stare at her like you’re the Coyote and she’s the Road Runner. Either fuck her or move on. You and the ex-popular chick will never be homecoming court material.”

We could have been. If life was different, if my parents had never died, if I’d never gotten screwed by the system, if … I shut down the ifs. “She’s my tutor, and she’s helping me out with some stuff. Leave it—and her—alone.”

“Don’t say you haven’t thought about it, man. She’s … How did Beth put it? Oh, she has a rocking body,” Isaiah said.

Beth slid her left hand underneath Isaiah’s elbow and flicked the lighter. Isaiah jumped out of the way, smacking the flames lapping his shirt. “You’re crazy.”

“Damn straight,” she replied.

The hallway finally emptied of students and teachers. Beth opened the side door, poked her head out and lit the cigarette. She took a long draw and blew the smoke out the door. “Maybe you’ve been alone for too long. Whatever happened to that Bella chick?”

“We ain’t living through Bella again. Remember how clingy she got?” said Isaiah.

She flicked the ashes. “Yeah, I forgot. Bella’s off the list. What about Roseanna? She basically ran out the door anytime Isaiah and I came downstairs.”

“I screwed Roseanna, not Noah. He had Rose.”

Our stroll down memory lane reeked like a garbage dump. “I’m not lonely and I don’t need a girl. Drop it, Beth.”

“I don’t mind if you hook up with Echo. Have at it. In fact, I’ll stay the night at my mom’s house and let Isaiah have the bedroom if you need an all-nighter with privacy. But here’s the truth, Noah. Echo might be on the outs since she became a cutter and all, but she’s still a popular chick. She’ll bail on you and treat you like shit in the end.” She took another draw. “There’s only so many times people like us can have our hearts ripped out. She’s a ripper.”

The muscles in the back of my neck knotted. “For the last time, I’m not screwing her or anyone else. But call her a cutter again and I’ll set fire to every single pack of cigarettes you buy.”

Beth laughed. “Jesus, Noah. You’ve got it bad. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“If you two are done, I’d like to get some lunch. Only thing left in the fridge this morning was a slice of bologna and mustard,” Isaiah said.

Beth flicked her cigarette out the door and shut it. “Mustard. I ate the bologna for breakfast.”

SHE NEVER CAME TO LUNCH. Her entire table full of porcelain doll rejects did, but not Echo. I didn’t sweat it, at first. I waited patiently for her to show in physics and then business technology. No show in either class. Echo’s favorite gal pals went out of their way to snub me, though. Each stuck their little china noses in the air while staring in my direction. I simply smiled, aggravating the shit out of them.

“‘Sup, man,” said Rico Vega, joining me in the back of Spanish class.

“‘Sup,” I answered. “How can they let you take Spanish when that’s what you speak half the damn time?”

“Why they let a bunch of gueros take English? You gringos gotta be stupid if you ain’t got it down in eighteen years.”

Before I could hand crap back to Rico, Echo entered the room. She had that bunny-locked-in-a-pet-store-cage look, but at least she made eye contact this time. Until her stuck-up friend breezed in and redirected Echo to a seat in front.

“Why Lila glaring at you, hombre?” asked Rico. “Though I wouldn’t mind a hot piece of culo like that acknowledging my existence.” Rico puckered his lips, sending a mock kiss in Lila’s direction. I laughed when she flipped her golden hair over her shoulder and stared at the dry-erase board.

Mrs. Bates, a real-life condom ad, waddled through the doorway. She was knocked up with triplets. “Hola. Today we are going to work on our conversational Spanish.”

Excitement rippled through the room. Conversational Spanish meant picking a partner and doing nothing for the rest of the period. Rico and I bumped fists. I needed some sleep.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get too excited. I’ve already picked your partners. I expect to hear Spanish flowing in my room.”

She eased back into her chair and it squeaked when her ass hit the seat. “Lila McCormick—you’re partnered with Rico Vega.”

Lila groaned, “No,” while Rico pumped his fist twice to his heart and then raised a finger to the sky. “Gracias a dios.”

Lila approached the desk. “Please, Mrs. Bates. I’ll do anything. Let me and Echo partner.”

Mrs. Bates winced and rubbed a hand over her stomach. “Miss McCormick, do I look sympathetic to your plight? Go find a seat next to Rico. Noah Hutchins, you’re paired with Echo Emerson.”

Lila clutched her hair as her voice dropped. “No.”

Mrs. Bates continued with her list of assigned partners while Lila knelt next to her, begging for a change of heart.

Rico chuckled. “I’m off to peel my partner off the floor.” He yelled to Lila as he walked toward her, “Casate conmigo, diosa.”

Echo gathered her books and made the long trip down the aisle to me. The universe had a strange sense of humor. Last semester, Echo and I barely made eye contact. Now, we were thrown together at every turn. Not that I minded. She sat in Rico’s seat and stared at the fake wood desktop.

“First trip to the back?” I asked. Everyone partnered out, most moving their desks together so others couldn’t hear their screwed up Spanish. When she didn’t say anything back, I continued, “I’m impressed. The rule-follower skipped a few classes today.”

“No, not skipped. Mrs. Collins excused me so I could prep for the ACT this weekend.” She inhaled deeply, causing her cleavage to expand. Lines worried her forehead. “Noah, about yesterday …”

Echo had permitted me a peek into her world yesterday. The least I could do was let her into mine. Even if the thought made me nervous as hell. “Mi primer padre adoptivo me pegaba.” My first foster father hit me.

Her wide eyes met my gaze. “Lo siento.” I’m sorry.

I tapped my pencil against the desk and continued to speak in Spanish. “We’re even now. You’ve got dirt on me and I know something about you. No need to avoid me anymore.”

She bit her lip, translating in her head, before she replied, “Tú hablas bien el español.” You speak Spanish well. Echo sent me a soft, shy smile that told me we were beyond good.

“Mi madre era una profesora de español.” My mother was a Spanish professor. I’d never told anyone that before. Images of my mother laughing and speaking to me in Spanish filled my head.

“Mi madre era una artista. Muy brillante.” My mother was an artist. Very brilliant. Echo’s foot began to bounce under the desk.

We sat in silence. Murmurs of broken Spanish and English hummed in the room. Soon the pen she held in her hand drummed in time with her foot. I understood her rhythm. That feeling of everything inside twisting to the point that if you didn’t find a release you’d explode. I craved to grant her peace.

I placed my hand over hers. My own heart rested when I rubbed my thumb over her smooth skin. She dropped the pen and grasped her sleeve in her palm, her constant defense mechanism. No. If she grasped anything, it would be me. My thumb worked its way between her fingers and her sleeve and released her death grip on the material. I wrapped my fingers around her fragile hand. Touching Echo felt like home.

Her ring finger slid against mine, causing electricity to move through my bloodstream. She moved it again. Only this time the movement was slow, deliberate and the most seductive touch in the whole world. Everything inside of me ached to touch her more.

Beth had been both wrong and right. Echo couldn’t hurt anyone, especially when she seemed so breakable herself. But the need I felt to be the one to keep the world from shattering her only confirmed Beth’s theory. I was falling for her and I was fucked.

The PA system in the classroom beeped. Echo pulled her hand away from mine, ending perhaps the most erotic moment of my life. I shifted in my seat, trying to find my damn mind.

“Mrs. Bates?” called Mrs. Marcos through the loudspeaker. “I need Noah Hutchins to report to Mrs. Collins’s office.”

“You heard her, Mr. Hutchins. Get going.”

I had no doubt the head shrinker was ticked at me. I hadn’t waited around long enough yesterday to find out why I’d been summoned. When Echo left the office, I’d followed. Partly to make sure she made it to her car okay and partly because I was shaken from what I’d overheard. Dealing with Mrs. Collins required me to be one hundred percent and after learning about Echo, I hadn’t even been close to fifty.

I stood to leave, half relieved, half disappointed. I’d connected with the girl, but not in the way I intended. Echo placed her sleeve-covered fingers on my wrist. Her neck and cheeks flushed red. “I moved the appointment time. I meet with her at three forty-five on Tuesday afternoons instead of at two-thirty.”

Searching for a brief reminder of the moment we had lost, I brushed my thumb across her sleeved hand. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

WHEN I WALKED INTO THE MAIN office, Mrs. Collins stepped out of hers with her coat and purse in hand. “Great timing. I’m glad to see you have your coat—you’re going to need it.”

“What?”

She locked her office door. “We’re taking a field trip. Let’s go.”

Mrs. Collins brushed past me. My mind remained blank as I watched her walk down the hallway. For the first time, I missed the brain cells I’d fried.

“Come on, Noah.”

I caught up to her right as she walked out to the teacher parking lot. “Where are we going?”

“You didn’t show for your appointment yesterday morning, nor did you come when I requested.” She held out a remote and pushed a button. Lights flashed on a black Mercedes. Figured. “Irresponsible. Get in.”

I opened the door and was greeted by the smell of leather. My gut twisted. I’ve been down this road before. “I’ve got four months to graduation, they can’t move me again.” The mistake of becoming attached to Beth and Isaiah roared to life. Anger and hurt pricked my chest with needles. And Echo …

Mrs. Collins shut her door and leaned over the middle console. “Unless your current foster home has become a dangerous situation, you’re not being moved. Get in or you’ll miss the fun.”

Fun? I slid into the seat. The engine purred to life. She floored the accelerator and the car jerked forward. She took a hard right and the tires screeched when she pulled out onto the main road. I gripped the armrest. “Who the fuck gave you your license?”

“Watch your language, Noah, and the state of Kentucky. Why did you miss your appointment?”

I loved fast driving. Isaiah and I had drag raced all last summer. What I didn’t love was a middle-aged nut job who couldn’t steer straight. “You want to pull over and let me drive?”

Mrs. Collins laughed and cut off a tractor trailer merging onto the freeway. “You’re a riot. Focus, Noah. The appointment.”

Oh—yeah. Echo had gone through hell to move her appointment. I could, at least, change mine before I became part of a fireball when we hit that tanker. “I work most evenings and close the place. It’s hard to get up in the mornings. I was wondering if we could move our session to right after school.”

She cut over three lanes and took the next exit ramp. “It’s your lucky day. I happen to have an opening at two-thirty on Tuesday. But I expect you to make it to your first period class on time. I won’t accept that excuse for anything else.”

“Yellow light. Yellow light!” And she ran right through the red. “Jesus Christ, you can’t drive.”

“I’m afraid we’re going to be late.” She pulled into a crammed parking lot and found the first spot available. “We’ve got to book it.”

She sprang out of her car and ran toward the town’s convention center. Unable to imagine one thing Mrs. Collins could offer me worth running for, I lazily followed. I breezed into the building a few seconds behind her and saw her enter an auditorium.

I grabbed the door before it closed and blinked when the crowd applauded around me. Row upon row of chairs faced a large, wooden stage. The room was crushed with people. Mrs. Collins waved me over to the side and the two of us leaned against the wall. She whispered, “Good, we’re just in time.”

A stout man in a shirt and tie propped his arms on the podium. “I have the privilege of introducing the Young Authors first-place winner in the second grade division, Jacob Hutchins.”

My heart slammed past my rib cage as I searched wildly for my brother. There he was, speed-walking down the middle aisle from the back of the room to the stage. I took a step to follow him, but Mrs. Collins placed a hand on my arm and shook her head. “This is his moment.”

I peeled my eyes off him to browse where he’d been sitting. Carrie and Joe sat next to his empty seat. Sitting on Carrie’s lap, Tyler rested his head on her shoulder and glanced around. Everything inside me twisted in pain and relief. My brothers. I was in the same room as my brothers.

My eyes met Tyler’s and a smile tugged at his lips. I sucked in a breath in order to pull back the millions of emotions eating at me. Tyler remembered me. “Thank you,” I breathed, not sure who I was thanking or why—Mrs. Collins for bringing me here, Tyler for remembering me, or God for both of those.

Mrs. Collins watched my reaction, but I didn’t care. I waved at Tyler and, to continue the miracle, he waved back.

Joe caught the movement, glanced behind him and spotted me. His face paled and he shook his head at Tyler in reprimand while pointing at the stage. Tyler turned away.

“He remembered you,” said Mrs. Collins.

“If that dickhead had his way, he’d forget me.” I wanted to rip Tyler from their evil paws.

Mrs. Collins sighed. “Language, Noah.”

Jacob smiled from ear to ear when he shook the man’s hand on stage. The man then handed him a trophy. “Tell the audience about your book.”

My little brother confidently walked up to a microphone his height and beamed to the crowd. “I wrote about the person I love the most, my older brother, Noah. We don’t live together so I wrote what I imagine he does when we’re not together.”

“And what is that?” prodded the stout man.

“He’s a superhero who saves people in danger, because he saved me and my brother from dying in a fire a couple of years ago. Noah is better than Batman.” The crowd chuckled.

“I love you, too, lil’ bro.” I couldn’t help it. To see him standing there, still worshipping me like he did when he was five … it was too much.

Jacob’s smile reached a whole new level of excitement. “Noah!” He pointed right to me. “That’s Noah. That’s my brother, Noah!” Ignoring his foster parents, Jacob flew off the stage and ran down the middle aisle.

Joe lowered his head and Carrie rubbed her eyes. Jacob raced into my arms and the crowd erupted into applause.

“I’ve missed you, Noah.” Jacob’s voice broke, bringing tears to my eyes. I couldn’t cry. Not in front of Jacob and not in front of Mrs. Collins. I needed to be a man and stay strong.

“I’ve missed you, too, bro. I’m so proud of you.”

I continued to hug Jacob as I searched for Tyler. He clung to Carrie and the sight dampened what should have been a joyous moment. Jacob was mine and the faster I could get Tyler away and help him remember his real family, the better.

Echo

I stood outside of the girls’ locker room, palms sweating and my foot tapping uncontrollably on the floor. Why had I told Dad I’d rejoined the dance team?

My file. I wanted, no, needed, no, was totally obsessed with seeing my file. Today, Noah had passed me in the hallway, given me his wicked grin and mumbled, “Done deal.” He’d successfully changed his appointment time to the slot before mine. Now, we needed to hatch our half-baked plan. He somehow believed that combined, we could distract Mrs. Collins. Noah exuded confidence. Me? Not so much, but it was definitely worth a try.

The door to the locker room opened and Natalie came out with two other senior girls. The two girls stopped laughing when they spotted me and forced smiles back on their faces. Natalie, on the other hand, shined at me like I’d hung the sun. “Get your butt in there and dress out, girl. Warm-up in five.”

“I was just walking in.” Into a Stephen King novel. Young girl, tragically scarred, attempts to return to her normal life, only to find out her normal life doesn’t want her back. I entered the locker room, where all the lowerclassmen on the team gossiped and laughed.

“Hi,” came a faint voice from the back of the room. Every single girl in the room froze and stared at me as if laser beams were going to shoot out of my eyes or even worse—I’d roll up my sleeves and show them my demon scars.

“Hey,” I replied.

I’d rather have watched reruns of bad seventies sitcoms than weave through this room to dress out, but standing there like an idiot didn’t seem like a great option either. Why couldn’t I have Noah’s confidence? He didn’t care what anybody thought.

I lacked confidence, but I could pretend. I chanted in my mind, Pretend you’re Noah. Even better, biker chick Beth, held my head high and crossed the crowded locker room toward the bathroom where I intended to change in a private stall. Biker chick Beth confidence or not, there was no way I could change in front of them.

Shaking off the tension that runway walk created, I shut the stall door and changed. If entering a locker room resembled the opening of a Stephen King novel, dance practice ought to be like starring in a horror movie.

Thankfully, the locker room had emptied by the time I hurried to join warm-ups. In the hallway, two juniors giggled by the water fountain. “Can you believe that Echo Emerson is rejoining the dance team? What a nightmare.”

“Like, because Luke is all over her it gives her an excuse to pretend she’s not a freak.”

I ducked back into the bathroom. My heart in my gut, my stomach in my throat, my pretend confidence in tatters.

WITH MY JEANS, BROWN COTTON shirt and tank top back on, I roamed the hallways. I had an hour to kill for five days a week until graduation. Maybe only four. I could move Noah’s tutoring session back to right after school on Mondays.

I turned a corner and a part of my soul took a deep breath when I noticed the artwork littering the walls. I followed the trail of paintings and drawings to what used to be my favorite room—art. Several canvases rested on easels, waiting for their masters to return. A bowl of plastic fruit sat on a table in the middle of the easel circle.

I assessed each painting in turn. I admired the way the first one used shadowing. The second one paid nice attention to detail. The third one?

“Good to see you, Echo.” My old art teacher, Nancy, exited the connecting darkroom and weaved through the easels and tables toward me. She insisted that her students call her by her first name. She despised rules and formalities. Her hair, bleached blond with black streaks, was a testament to her attitude.

I gestured to the third painting. “Abstract expressionist?”

Her boisterous laughter vibrated in the room. She adjusted her black horn-rimmed glasses. “Lazy student who thought art would be an easy A. She claims to be an impressionist.”

“What an insult.”

“I know. I asked if she knew what an impressionist was and when she shook her head, I showed her your paintings.” Nancy stared at the mess in front of her as if trying to find something redeemable in it. “I’ve missed you.”

Familiar guilt tiptoed through my insides. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, kid. It’s not your fault. Your father informed me you were no longer allowed to take an art class. I took that to mean I’d never see you.”

I walked to the fourth picture. “Nice lines.”

“Are you still painting?”

Hoping to make it look like I was extremely interested in the color chosen for the banana, I tilted my head, but I wasn’t. The black hole in my mind widened, interrupting any thought of painting. “No, but I still sketch. Mostly in pencil. Some with charcoal at home.”

“I’d love to see them.”

Nancy snatched the sketchbook I pulled from my backpack. She sat on the table with the fruit and flipped it open. “Oh, Echo. Simply amazing.”

I shrugged, but she missed it, too infatuated with my sketchbook. “We won.”

She tore her eyes away from the sketches and stared at me in silence. I continued to busy myself with the other artists’ work. After a few seconds, she returned to studying my drawing of Grace. “No, you won. I was merely along for the ride.” She paused. “You remember?”

“No.” Surely Nancy would take pity on me and fill in some of the gaps. “Were you there?”

“Mmm, girlfriend. You’re itching to get me in trouble with your father and Mrs. Collins. Your father I could take, but Mrs. Collins?” She shuddered. “Between you and me, she scares me. It’s the friendly ones that’ll get you in the end.”

I snickered, missing Nancy’s honesty. “I wish I could remember.” The fifth canvas was completely blank. The oil paints and brushes sat unused. “Do you mind?”

In her classic deep-in-thought stance, Nancy rubbed the bottom of her chin. “He only said you couldn’t take an art class, not that you couldn’t paint.”

I picked up a flat brush, dipped it into the black paint and made circles on the canvas. “It’s like I have this large black hole in my brain and it’s sucking the life out of me. The answers are in there so I sit for hours and stare. No matter how hard and long I look, I only see darkness.”

I chose a fan brush and mixed black and white paint together to create different shades of gray. “There are edges around the black and every now and then a flash of color streaks out of the gray. But I can never really grasp any of the slivers of memories that emerge.”

Clutching the paintbrush, I stared at the canvas that now represented my brain. “I wish someone would just tell me the truth and end the madness.”

A warm hand pressed hard against my shoulder, causing me to blink out of my zone. Wow, five o’clock. Dad would kill me if I didn’t get home soon. Nancy kept her hand on my shoulder and her eyes locked on the canvas. “If this is madness, then madness is brilliant. Are you going to finish this?”

For the first time in two years I felt like I could breathe. “You mind me hanging out after school?”

IN THE FIGURE BELOW, RAY AB was constructed starting from rays AC and AD. By using a compass, C and D were marked equidistant from A on rays AC and AD. The compass was then used to locate a Point Q, distinct from A, so that Q is equidistant from C and D. For all constructions defined by the above steps, find the measures of BAC and BAD.

If Aires was here, he would know what to do.

I mean, come freaking on—was there even a question in there? If so, simple English required a question mark. Was the triangle-looking drawing below supposed to help? Did I need a compass? And why did the answers below have numbers? There weren’t any freaking numbers in the story problem.

“Breathe, Echo,” Aires would tell me. “You’re psyching yourself out. Take a break and come back to it later.”

And he was right. Aires was always right. God, I missed him.

I tossed the ACT study book to the floor and rested my head on the back of the couch. I hated this room. Tacky pink flowered wallpaper hung on the walls to match the tedious curtains and upholstery. The moment she kicked my mother out the door, Ashley traumatized all interior designers of the world with her redecorating. She may have glued paper on the wall to wipe out my mother’s influence, but I knew what remained underneath—the mural of Greece my mother had painted.

I typically studied in Aires’ car, but Ashley had nagged at me until I lugged my books back into the house. I must have killed a lot of cows in a past life for Karma to hate me this much. Maybe I’d died two years ago and unknowingly entered hell. Doomed to spend the rest of eternity living with my father and stepmother and retaking the ACT over and over again.

“How was dance team practice today?” Ashley asked. The Wicked Witch and my father walked into the living room hand in hand. Good God, I must have died, because I’d hate to see the real thing if this wasn’t hell.

“Good.” I blinked several times. Crap—I always blinked when I lied. Worried they’d catch on, I lowered my head. Wait. Dad had attention issues and Ms. Scarecrow Brain wouldn’t notice a flying monkey if it smacked her in the face.

My father eased into his recliner and Ashley sat on his lap. Dear God, I am so sorry for whatever I did, but honestly, was my sin that bad? Dad kissed her hand. Swallowing bile, I turned my attention to the fireplace.

“Are you ready to take the ACT on Saturday?” my father asked.

Did chickens enjoy being put on trucks labeled KFC? “Sure.”

“You studied word lists earlier. Focus purely on math. That’s where you have problems.”

Problems? My math scores were way above average, but of course that wasn’t good enough.

Dad continued, “Did Mrs. Collins excuse you from some of your classes so you could prepare?”

“Yes.”

“I noticed fliers for the Valentine’s Day Dance in the office. Are you and Luke going?” When Ashley fished for information her irritating voice entered a higher pitch of annoying. Dogs in Oklahoma winced.

“Luke asked me today. Don’t worry. Our family’s precious reputation will stay intact. Mrs. Collins will never know that you lied to make yourself look better.”

“Echo!”

Crap. I cringed at the disappointment in my father’s voice. The automatic apology fell out of my mouth. “Sorry, Ashley.” Though it was true.

“It’s okay. When do you want to go dress shopping?”

Do what? I tore my eyes away from the fire and stared at her. My father rubbed her baby belly while she caressed his cheek. Gross. “I don’t need a new dress.”

“Yes, you do. Everything you own is either strapless or spaghetti-strapped. You can’t go to a dance with those scars showing.”

“Ashley,” my father whispered. His hand froze on her belly.

My throat swelled as if someone had rammed it with a two-by-four and my stomach cramped as if someone had whacked it. I sat up and my head swayed with the room. Disorientation in full force, I pulled down my sleeves. “I’m going … to go … upstairs.”

Ashley slid off my father. “Echo, wait. I didn’t mean it like that. I just want you to have a good night. A night you can look back at pictures of and remember how much fun you had.”

I brushed past her to the stairs. I needed my room. The one place Ashley’s bad decorating hadn’t completely ruined. The place where my mother’s colorful paintings hung, where pictures of me and Aires cluttered my desk, the only place I felt comfortable.

My heart ached. I wanted more than my room, but that was all I had. I wanted my mom. She may have been nuts, but she never put me down. I wanted Aires. I wanted the one person who’d loved me.

Ashley called to me from the bottom of the stairs. “Please, let me explain.”

I paused in my door frame. If she had never entered our lives, my mother and Aires would still be here, I wouldn’t be a scarred monster, and I would know love, not the hate currently boiling in my veins. “I liked you better when you were my babysitter. I hope when I graduate from high school I don’t turn into a royal witch like you.” I slammed the door behind me.

AFTER THAT LOVELY EXCHANGE with Ashley, I spent the rest of the night in my room hiding. I lay in bed and stared at the one part of my room Ashley had gotten to—my ceiling. She’d painted over my mother’s hand-painted constellations. The witch had done it while I recovered in the hospital. My mother used to lie in bed with me for hours staring at the ceiling, telling me Greek myths. Having few good memories of my mother, I despised Ashley more for stealing the one I had.

The knock on my door at 11:30 surprised me. The rule of thumb in the house required me to apologize first. Ashley probably wanted to show me in person why my current dresses wouldn’t work. No need to prolong the inevitable. “Come in.”

I bolted upright the moment my father walked in. He never came to my room. The first two buttons of his dress shirt were unbuttoned and his tie hung loose. Worry lines were carved around his tired eyes. He looked old. Too old to be married to a twenty-some-odd bimbo and too old to be having another baby. “She’s sorry, Echo.”

Of course he’d come on Ashley’s behalf. God forbid anything in this house not revolve around Ashley. “Okay. My apology will have to wait until morning. I’m a little beat.” We both knew what a cop-out that was. I’d be lucky if I slept for an hour.

Surprising me even more, my dad did something he hadn’t done since I came home from the hospital—he sat on my bed. “I’m going to contact your social worker. I don’t think this new therapist is working out.”

“No.” I said it too quickly and my dad caught on. “I already told you, I like her. She’s easy to talk to. Plus you said that you’d give her another try.”