Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits, #1.5)(4)

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, *. Say it to my f*cking 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.

Noah slides away and the guy runs off, his friend trailing close behind. Around us, people have stopped what they were doing to focus on me and Noah. What’s worse is that when they reanimate, they lower their voices and talk to one another as their eyes zero in on my scars.

My foot taps the sidewalk. Somehow I thought graduation was going to be the end of this torment. That the moment I walked across the stage, all the demons that haunted me during high school would somehow be exorcised.

I can handle the questioning looks and sometimes the appalled shock, but the words still hurt. Even if they’re whispered. Especially if they’re whispered. I wonder if I’ll ever fit in.

Noah reaches over and touches my cheek, but I lean back, not allowing him the opportunity to seek redemption. Noah should have let the taunt go, but he didn’t. He drew more attention to my scars. He made more people stare, made me more of a spectacle than I already am. Instead of two guys thinking I’m a freak, an entire crowd of people thinks the same thing. For the first time since we left Kentucky, Noah did something that made me feel worse.





Noah

My younger brother Jacob inherited my father’s eyes and my mother’s smile. I normally love the familiar sight on the computer screen, but today it slowly strangles me from the inside out. If my parents had survived the fire that claimed their lives three years ago, today, July twenty-seventh, would have been their nineteenth wedding anniversary.