Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits, #1)(68)

“Architecture?” I checked her eyes to see if she’d taken a recent hit.

“Architecture.” She smiled brightly.

I halfheartedly flipped through the mountain of brochures sitting on my lap. My father had been an architect. He designed the Habitat houses we’d built, even let me help him with it. I began to read the requirements for admission. What was I doing? I shut the folder.

“Echo trusts you,” I said. Not sure where that came from, but I needed to redirect myself from paths I couldn’t visit.

Her eyes softened, but she quickly put on her puppy game face. “Now, now, I already told you we won’t discuss Echo.” She swiveled back and forth in her chair. “I take that back. We can discuss anything that involves your relationship with Echo. I’ll be honest. I’m dying to know the details.”

I didn’t gossip, especially with my therapist. But Echo had looked exhausted today and I thought she may have fallen asleep during calculus. If her nightmares were that bad, what was life like for Jacob? “I’m not sure if I trust you. I have a shitty track record with adults.”

“Yes. You do. What’s troubling you, Noah?”

I ran a hand over my face and swallowed. What if I was wrong about her? She could destroy Jacob and also my chances of getting my family back together.

Mrs. Collins leaned her arms on the desk. “I swear to you, whatever you say will stay between us unless you tell me differently.”

“Do you believe in God?” I asked.

The question caught her off guard, but she answered, “I do.”

“Swear it to your God.”

“I swear to God that I’ll keep whatever you say private unless you direct me to do otherwise.”

Damn her to hell if she lied to me. “Jacob started the fire.”

She sucked in a breath and quickly regained her composure. “That’s not what the report from the fire marshal said. It was ruled an accident.”

“It was an accident. He didn’t mean to do it.” I kept eye contact. She had to believe me. Jacob would never intentionally hurt anyone.

She rubbed her eyes and shook her head as if trying to dispel what I had said. “Are you sure? Maybe he misunderstood something and only thinks he started it.”

“He started it. But it’s my fault.” The guilt of my decisions that night would hound me forever. “Instead of staying home to camp out with my brothers, I went to the county fair with some girl. At the time that date seemed so important, I …” The guilt I tried so hard to bury underneath layers and layers of avoidance rose to the surface in the form of nausea. I fought to keep myself from dry heaving.

I shoved the emotion back down. This wasn’t about me. “It doesn’t matter.” I wiped my nose as anger began to seep into my bloodstream. If I couldn’t make it through this session without crying, I didn’t deserve my brothers. I cleared my throat.

“Mom told Jacob we’d do the campout the next Friday instead, but Jacob was pissed. After Mom and Dad put them to bed, Jacob woke Tyler up to make s’mores. Mom had a candle in the hall bathroom. I guess she left the matches out. Jacob lit the candle, they roasted marshmallows and then they went downstairs to sleep in the living room. Dad had set up the tent there before he knew I was going out.”

Mrs. Collins held her hands to her face as if she was praying. Her eyes glistened. “The fire started in the hall bathroom. They assumed one of your parents lit the candle and forgot to blow it out. They had no idea it was your brother.”

She knew the rest. My parents died in their bedroom and I came home to a roaring fire. “Jacob told me in the hospital and I promised never to tell anyone.” A promise I’d now failed to keep.

“Why?” Her exasperation was clear. “Why didn’t you tell someone? A social worker could have helped him.”

I welcomed the familiar edge of betrayal and anger. “They separated us. Who would you have trusted?” Now to complete my own betrayal. “Help my brother.”

She wiped her eyes. “I will. I promise.” She checked the clock, our therapy session over.

Having nothing left to say, I stood, shoved my arms in my jacket and prepared myself to see Echo on the other side of that door.

“And Noah,” Mrs. Collins said. “I plan on helping you, too.” I didn’t want help. I didn’t need help, but I wasn’t going to argue with the woman who could save my brother. I opened the door to find Echo leaning against the counter and staring at the floor, her foot tapping uncontrollably.





Echo

Noah looked drained. His dark eyes were heavy and his shoulders slumped forward. He closed the door to Mrs. Collins’s office behind him and I met him halfway. “Are you okay?”

He gave me a halfhearted smile and pulled me into his body. “I hope I’m doing the right thing.” He clutched me tighter.

I rested my head on his shoulder and tried to reassure him by rubbing his back. “I’m sure you are.” He worried about Jacob and the possibility of trusting Mrs. Collins. “You’d never do anything to harm your brothers.”

“Thanks.” He kissed my hair and came close to squeezing the breath out of me. “I needed to hear that.”

We stood still for several seconds before he released his death grip. “I’m going to wander the hallway to give you time to set up in the sickroom, then I’ll sneak into her office.”