Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits, #1.5)(92)

Hunter raises a brow. “Your boyfriend isn’t talking you out of it?”

My spine goes rigid. “My boyfriend supports me.” Then my stomach drops. I slapped him and pushed him away last night, then Noah broke into the gallery for me. He does support me...more than I can comprehend.

“Good,” he says. “By the way, for paperwork purposes, what’s your last name?”

Oh, crap. Just when things were starting to go well... There’s no stopping the train wreck now. “Emerson. My name is Echo Emerson.”





Noah

After five minutes of glaring at a statue of St. Therese the Little Flower, I rub my eyes and push past the red curtain and squeeze onto the cramped wooden bench. The divider that covered the small window between us slides open. Because of how we both sit and the dim lighting from above, I can only catch a glimpse of my uncle’s profile.

“In the name of the father, and the son and the holy spirit,” he says, and I cross myself out of a long ago ingrained habit and hear my mother tell me that I should kneel in the confessional.

One second.

Another.

“Well,” he urges.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been...” This is insane. “It’s been...” Four years since my last confession. Four years. My mother was pissed at me because I hadn’t been to confession. In middle school, I had already started to question my faith.

Another way I failed my mother, and I continue the tradition by failing Echo. I scratch the spot over my eyebrow. “I don’t believe in God, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Sorry to hear that, but for the record, He still believes in you.”

Bullshit answer. “Give me the story about my name.”

“Noah, I didn’t bring you in here to listen to your confession, though I would be more than happy to take it. I brought you in here because there’s another question you’re here to ask, and I made the assumption you’d like to have this discussion with an air of anonymity.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means the question you have is one that you might not want an audience for.”

Uncomfortable, I bend forward and rest my hands on my knees. That tense rhythm that Echo continually harbors spreads into my veins. “Why did my mom leave?”

“And why are we aware of your existence when you didn’t know about us?”

Is there anyone who isn’t privy to the inner workings of my life besides me? “And that.”

It’s a heavy pause. Weighted enough that I consider retracting the question. My mom smiled all the time. My mom laughed almost every night. My mom had a secret that she may or may not have ever told me.

“Our father abused her.”

I press both hands to my face as if I could erase his answer. “Abused her?”

“The devil is in the details with this one. There are some things that are better off left with the dead.”

But the imagination could be worse. My mom.

My mom.

Tears fill my eyes, and I think of all the times she’d stare at me from across the room and out of nowhere say, “I love you.” All the times I took for granted that I’d hear those words again. All the times that she might have craved a hug and I was too damn selfish with my life to comprehend she possessed her own demons.

“How bad?”

“Bad,” he says as a whisper.

To think that someone hurt her. That someone that was supposed to love her hurt her—I slam my fist into the side wall, and when the ache slicing through my fingers doesn’t disperse the anger, I punch the wall again.

“Was she in pain?” I ask, my voice breaking. “Did it haunt her?”

“There are some things that happen in life that you never forget. A branding on your soul, if you will. Like losing your parents. It’s there. It happened. And it will never be taken back.”

That’s the insanity of the situation. The hurt that I face every morning. My foot bounces like Echo’s, and I try to wipe away the moisture causing the world to blur.

“Do you want to know why she named you Noah?”

What the hell is wrong with this guy? “I don’t give a...” House of God. My mother would be devastated if I cursed in a confessional in the house of God. “I don’t care. Not anymore.”

I try to breathe through the thoughts...that my mother was a child. That my mother was in pain.

“But this is the important part,” he says in a soothing tone. “The part your mother would want you to know. She found hope. Your mother found hope and love, which is important because without love—we are nothing.”

“She found Dad.” And they married young. Out of college. Twenty-two. Starting out before most. Struggling for years. They had me before they could afford the rent on their first apartment, hence the gigantic gap between me and my brothers.

“Yes, she found your father, but you are the one that saved that small part of her soul that even he couldn’t reach.”

I freeze, no air entering my chest. “She died because of me.”

He’s silent, and the bench on his end creaks as he shifts. His face occupies the small window, but I focus on the wooden floorboards beneath my feet.

“I read the reports,” he says. “You had nothing to do with that fire. And before you say anything, I’ve read the updated reports. I’m aware of the candle in the bathroom and that Jacob meant no harm.”