Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits #1.5)(76)

The door squeaks open. Laughing, Isaiah and Beth stumble in.

“Are you ready to go?” asks Beth.

I lift my head, and Echo stares at me. Tears pool in her eyes, and my heart is breaking. There’s a thickness in my throat I try to ignore. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I don’t want to think anymore.

“Yeah,” I say to Beth. “Let’s go.”

Echo

Following the instructions on the GPS that Noah had programmed in before I told him Hunter’s news, I take a right into a middle of nowhere driveway and sag with relief when I spot the lines of cars, the shadows of groups of people milling around and the bonfire in the back field. In the passenger seat beside me, Noah leans against the door. It’s like he can’t place enough space between us and if he had bricks, he would have already built a wall.

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 f*cked-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.”