Breaking the Rules by Katie McGarry
It’s a lonely, pit-in-my-stomach sensation sitting next to someone I love and having him ignore that I exist. Hurting Noah—it cuts me deep. It somehow feels like he’s asking me to choose between him and my dreams, and that causes near amputation.
I ease alongside a gray Jeep, and the moment I shift into Park, Noah’s out of the car. It’s like he sucked my heart from my chest, and he’s dragging it on sharp rocks.
“Well, that was fun,” announces Beth from the backseat. The overhead light casts dim shadows when she opens her door.
“Beth,” says Isaiah.
A moment of silence.
“You wait for me.”
An overly long sigh. “Yes, Dad.”
“I mean it.”
“I know you do.” A slam of the door and Beth trails behind Noah, who’s already been absorbed by the dark night.
“Let’s at least get out of the car, Echo,” Isaiah says.
I do and so does he. I slouch against the hood and wrap my arms around myself as if my insides will fall out if I don’t. That’s because they will. Everything twists out of position and tangles. I’m dying. I swear to God I’m dying.
Isaiah leaves a foot between us when he sinks beside me with his legs kicked out. “What crawled up Noah’s ass and laid eggs?”
The burst of bitter laughter surprises me, but the burn in my eyes doesn’t. “Hunter—the art guy I’ve been working with here?”
“The fucked-up stalker? Noah mentioned him.”
Of course Noah informed his friends of his side of the story alone. “He’s not a stalker. He’s this awesome art guy who everyone admires, and he likes my paintings.”
Isaiah tilts his head for the and-what-else part because it’s not enough to redeem Hunter in his eyes. My hand slams to my chest. “My paintings. Mine. He sees my talent.”
Nothing from Isaiah.
“Imagine you spend weeks on a car and the best car person in the world walks up to you and says, ‘Isaiah, that’s awesome. Come work at my shop, and you’ll have the possibility to do this for life and make a lot of money doing it.’”
Isaiah pulls on the bottom hoop earring of his double row. “How much money?”
I toss my hands in the air. “Why do I try?”
“Chill. I get what you’re saying. So this Hunter guy offered you a position?”
“He offered to let me study with him for the year...here in Colorado.”
Isaiah scrubs both of his hands over his face, and the tiger tattooed on his arm ripples with the motion. “Noah sees you as his family, you know?”
“His brothers are his family. As are you and Beth. I’m just his girlfriend.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“Is it?” I ask, as anger, in the form of tiny daggers, floods my bloodstream. “Because if I was his family I highly doubt he’d be walking away from me like he just did. He’d want to talk to me, fight with me, tell me we’ll figure it out or beg me to go home with him.”
“Is that what you want?” Isaiah slowly studies me, and it’s like how a panther must stalk an enemy from the bushes. I shiver with the gaze. “Him to decide for you?”
What pinches is my internal pause. “No.” I want to decide...I think.
“Are you looking for Noah’s approval?”
Yes. Even though I don’t verbalize an answer, Isaiah shakes his head in disgust as if I had spoken. “You think Noah’s going to leave you because you chase your dreams?”
At the very center of my being, the answer is a firm no, but there’s this doubt, this lingering doubt... “I’ve been left before.”
“He’s not like that,” Isaiah snaps.
“You thought he was when you found out he was searching for his mother’s family.”
A muscle ticks near Isaiah’s eye. “I told you that was my shit. Not his and not yours.”
I shrug. I should say I’m sorry for throwing it in his face, but I’m not because it’s true.
“You’ve gotta admit,” continues Isaiah, as though the last few sentences were never uttered, “what you threw at him is a lot to swallow.”
He has a point.
“Give Noah space tonight. Let him blow off some steam, and I’m sure he’ll get his shit straight. This relationship thing, it’s new to him. Don’t leave him behind because he’s human.”
In the distance people yell as if encouraging someone to do something. I nod in agreement with Isaiah’s words, but it leaves an emptiness in my stomach. A car parks beside us, and we remain quiet as five people pile out of a four-door sedan.
One girl stops laughing the moment she notices Isaiah, and then she smiles again when she surveys me like I’m about to flirt with her boyfriend, and she knows I don’t have a shot.
Isaiah stiffens. Crap, he senses a threat.
The group continues to the party and when they’re far enough away I say, “What was that?”
“What?”
I gesture to the group. “That. She looked at us strange, and then you got all tight.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He does, but he’s not spilling. “You should go find Beth.”
Isaiah hooks an arm around my neck, reminding me a lot of how Aires used to treat me. “You’re hanging with me and Beth tonight.”
“You said I should give Noah space.”
Isaiah leads me away from the crowd. “He knows some people from work. Besides, Noah’s always found someone to hang with at parties. Me and you, we’ll have a couple of beers and babysit Beth after she gets high. It’ll be fun.”
I snort. “Lots of fun.”
“Two beers in, and you’ll find a happy place. Besides, Noah will be shit-faced drunk in an hour and will be pathetic and will grovel on his knees because he was an ass.”
A part of me aches because he won’t. Another part of me wishes with all my soul that it happens.
Noah
I raise the plastic cup to my mouth and glance at Echo from the corner of my eye. She cradles a matching red cup in her hands, and it’s the same one she’s nursed since she settled near the bonfire. If she’s concerned about me, she sure as hell keeps it locked tight.
Occasionally, Isaiah makes her laugh. Beth causes her to drop her head, but she stays interested in that damn fire.
We’ve been here an hour, and I should be trashed. I should be numb, carried away by alcohol or the pot offered to me multiple times. Instead, nausea eats at my gut. No matter how many times I consider slinking back into my old life, my eyes drift to Echo, and I can’t cross the line. She deserves better than me, but I guess she knows it.
She’s going to leave me.
For a year.
Then forever.
Echo finally looks up and inches her gaze my way. Angling away from her, I return my attention to the group of people I work with at the Malt and Burger. Someone tells the punch line to their dirty joke, and I’m the only one who doesn’t laugh. My insides shred into nothing.
Echo once said that it was easier to go back than to go forward. She’s right. Anger is a hell of a lot better than pain.
“The redhead. That’s your good girl, isn’t it?” Mia slides up beside me like a snake in tall grass.
“She came.”
“And she’s not hanging out with you.” Mia’s eyes are glazed over, and she stumbles into me with a gust of wind. “I remembered your tattooed friend. I almost told her that we fucked each other’s brains out last summer because I bet you didn’t. Twenty dollars the truth would end this doomed relationship.”
A rush of adrenaline and anger pushes into my veins. “What did you do, Mia?”
“Nothing, but I should have. My boy—” she points at Echo and I lower her hand to keep Echo f
Tears dot Mia’s eyelashes, and her lower lip trembles. Damn. She’s one of those emotional drunks. “He was disgusted with me.”
I check on Echo again, and she pours the remains of her drink to the ground. Echo then stands and brushes the grass off her ass. She starts for the cars, and my heart stops. Beth jerks to life, and she calls Echo’s name. Echo hesitates then crouches next to Beth. There’s at least fifty high guys here and my girl doesn’t need to be alone.
“Now you’re interested in Echo?” Isaiah says beside me.
“Go away,” slurs Mia. “That girl is no good for him. It’s ending between them, and neither one of them wants to admit it. But it’s there. The last sign is there.”
“What sign?” I stare at her like she possesses the most important answer in the world, and Isaiah glares at her like she’s a threat.
“Remember me?” she says with a sly smile to Isaiah, ignoring my question.
“Private conversation going on between me and him,” Isaiah replies.
Mia snort-laughs and points to the tree line. “I’ll be over there having a good time being bad. Come find me, Noah, if you want the answer to that question.”
Mia rams and shoulders her way through a group of people talking and disappears. I glance back at Echo, and she’s still talking to Beth.
“She shouldn’t be alone,” I growl.
“No, she shouldn’t. Your ass should be over there next to her doing that smooth wooing shit you’re supposed to be so good at. And while we’re on the topic of what you should and should not be doing, you sure as hell shouldn’t be chatting it up with one of the girls you screwed last year.”
Isaiah’s shoulders circle back, and he lifts his chin. Damn if he’s not willing to take a swing in Echo’s honor.
“Does Echo know about Mia?” I ask.
“That’s what you’re concerned about? Whether or not she knows you’re spending time with a past fuck?”
“Mia’s hounding me, not the other way around. I’m asking because I don’t want Echo hurt. She thinks every damned mistake I made is over a thousand miles away. For one short period of her life, Echo didn’t have to walk down the street wondering if I hit the next girl she passed.”
“Real noble, Noah, but she’s bleeding without the past-mistake checklist. Get your ass over there and fix whatever the hell is going on.”
“She’s leaving me!”
“Leaving? She’s been waiting for you to get your shit together.”
I step into him. “That Hunter bastard is offering her the world! What do I got to give? Nothing. I’ve got nothing.”
Isaiah slams his finger into my biceps. “She looks at you like you’re the whole universe! I’d kill to have a sliver with Beth of what you have with Echo. Wake the fuck up!”
I pound my hand to my chest, mimicking the pain slicing it. “Echo’s leaving me.”
“No, man. You’re the one leaving her,” he seethes. “Get it together or she will walk.”
Isaiah turns away, toward Beth, toward my girl. Echo lifts her head when Isaiah approaches. Her eyes wander past him and meet mine. The pain Isaiah referred to, it’s there as a shadow on her face.
Three months ago, I held Echo in an ER and promised her that I’d never let her down. Two nights ago, I made that promise again. The question I never imagined her asking me is out on the table and the truth is, I don’t know if I can choose living here for a year with Echo...giving up a scholarship to school...giving up a possible relationship with my brothers.
Fuck it...I do know the answer. I can’t. If she chooses Colorado, I’ll choose Kentucky, and then we’ll both choose a long-distance relationship. That would be tough enough without this doubt weighing over me of whether Echo’s moving past us as a couple.
I wouldn’t put it past Echo to choose Kentucky to please me, and I can’t allow that—especially if Mia is right. Echo and I could be on the downhill slide, fighting the inevitable. By dragging her up a slick mountain of mud, I could be costing Echo her career.
Running a hand through my hair, I break the connection with Echo and search for Mia.
Echo
Noah tears his gaze away from mine, and it’s like he’s torn my heart in two. I press my hand over my chest as if that could stop the pain. What’s worse than the dizzying nausea shooting through me is that he’s heading in the direction of the girl that he talked to, the one that he touched.
Disoriented and fighting a dry heave, I spin in the direction of the car. Isaiah moves in front of me. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t want to be here anymore.” My thoughts bounce as I try to think of a way to leave for the hotel without abandoning Isaiah, Beth and Noah. “I don’t want to be here. I can’t be here. I just...need to go.”
A long walk can do me good, even though it will be dark and I’ll be completely alone, but if I stand here any longer I’ll lose my mind. I giggle, a bit of hysteria bubbling up. My mind broke once before, and Noah was the one who helped me put it back together. Funny how life changes.
I step, and Isaiah steps with me. “Let me get Noah, and we’ll leave together.”
One beer. I’ve had one beer, but I feel crazy and out of control. “He wants this party, and I want to go so I’ll walk or call a cab or something, but Isaiah, I can’t stay here.” I jerk my keys out of my pocket and dangle them. “Take this and let me go.”
Because I’m a stupid moth drawn to destructive flames, I look over my shoulder, and Noah fades into the darkness.
I shiver. From the dread forming into a lead ball in my stomach, to how the way he walks reminds me way too much of Aires leaving me. The last time I watched Noah walk away like this, I ran after him, but this time...the ache inside me slashes further, creating a hole.
“He went after her,” I snap. Like Mom chose her art, like Dad chose Ashley, like...
Isaiah forms a T with his hands. “It’s not what you think.”
“Then what is it?” I yell. He made love to me. Noah made love to me, and now he’s chasing after some other girl.
Isaiah pops his neck to the side. “Promise me you’ll stay right here. Keep an eye on Beth, I’ll get him, and we’ll go.”
I cross my arms over my chest, but my nonverbal obviously isn’t enough for him.
“Promise, Echo.”
Fine... “I promise.”
“Here. Wait right here.” He points to the ground at my feet. “Don’t make my life complicated.”
When I say nothing else, Isaiah stalks off to search for Noah. The fine hair on my arms rises as if I’m on the verge of something horrible. Please let Noah be the man I believe him to be, because I love him, and it would crush me if I’m wrong.
Beth wanders over to me, and the last thing I need is the Jiminy Cricket from hell yapping on my shoulder. “Not now.”
“He loves you,” she says.
My head whips to her. “What?”
“Noah. He loves you.” In the firelight, I do my best to gauge her eyes, and they aren’t bloodshot. She’s not wavering and to be honest, I only saw her drink one and a half beers. She may be buzzing, but she’s not drunk.
“I know,” I say.
She shrugs. “Yeah, that was my best at acting girly.”
I crouch to the ground and lower my face to my hands. If Beth’s being nice to me, everything must be on the brink of explosion.
Noah
I cross over the hill after Mia and pause when I notice a bunch of cars parked off to the side. A dirt road leads off into the distance. For the amount of people here, it mak
Mia holds out keys and lights flash on a Mercedes. A Mercedes. What the hell is Mia doing driving a Mercedes? She staggers to the right and rams her thigh into the hood of the car. She’s blitzed, and the last thing she needs is to be behind the wheel.
“I thought you came here with other people.” I clutch her door to prevent her from shutting it.
“Noah!” In the driver’s seat, she glides her hand along the material of her chair. “Leather interior. For us, it’ll be a brand-new experience.”
“Not happening.”
She shields her eyes as cars pull up from the back road and park. “When are you going to get it through your thick skull that you and that girl aren’t going to work? And to answer your earlier question, I drove here myself then left with people to buuuuy—”
Mia pops open her glove compartment and produces a bag of pills “—this!”
“What’s the last sign?” I demand.
Mia slides out of the car and closes the door with her hip. Other car doors also shut, and an itch in my neck whispers at me to investigate my surroundings, to search for a threat, but I can’t. Not when she knows something about me and Echo that can prevent this downward spiral.
She leans against the car, and she blatantly ogles my chest then lowers her eyes to my crotch. “Crawl with me into the backseat and I’ll tell you.”
“The sign. What was the last sign before it ended between you and your guy?”
She steps into me, and her clothes brush mine. The sweet scent of pot and the bitterness of alcohol waft off her. “Get high with me.”
I snatch the bag from her hand. “Echo is my life. My life. I love her. If there’s a chance I can make her happy...if I can save what’s between us...I’ll do it, so fucking tell me!”
A blaring light hits both me and Mia, and I throw up my arm as I try to spot who the hell is shining a flashlight in our eyes. “What do you got in your hands there, son?”