Crossing the Line (Pushing the Limits #1.1)(6)

Cluttering isn’t the right word. Nothing about me is cluttered. Each stack represents the month the letter was sent, and each letter is arranged by the date on the postmark. My favorite letters have a pink highlight marking the side.

My entire life is systemized like this. My books alphabetized by author on my cherry bookcase. Within the matching glass hutch, my Precious Moments figurines are organized by date received. My scrapbooking materials are boxed in color-coordinated Tupperware. I like plans and organization and not boys who promise to attend the University of Florida with me and then screw it all up by not graduating from high school.

“Lila?” says Echo. She pauses for way too long. “Did you give him a chance to explain?”

The envelope crunches in my hand. “He didn’t graduate from high school, Echo, and he didn’t tell me about it. Do you have any idea how I felt when I had to find out on my own that he lied?”

I found out only by accident, when I searched online at his local newspaper to print out the list of graduates to complete the scrapbook page I made for Lincoln’s present. His name was not listed among the one hundred and fifty graduates. I should know. I checked—three times.

She sighs through the phone. “Maybe you should talk to him.”

“You’re biased,” I snap. “You’re on Lincoln’s side because of Aires.” Lincoln’s older brother, Josh, and Echo’s older brother, Aires, were part of the same military unit. No one knows the whole story, but they died two and a half years ago in Afghanistan, in a roadside bombing. I met Lincoln at Aires’s funeral.

“If I remember correctly,” Echo says with an attitude that has very rarely emerged over the past two years, “I’m the one who said you shouldn’t be writing a stranger and I’m the one who said you needed to stop writing him because you were falling for him.”

And I’m overwhelmed with the urge to punch something—hard, because... “I know. Sorry. That wasn’t fair.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

We’re silent for a few moments. I crossed a line with her by throwing Aires into a fight. I pick at my thumbnail. We’ve been best friends since birth and we never stay mad for long, but I don’t want to get off the phone with her angry at me. At least not tonight.

“Hotel, motel or tent?” I slur the last word as a curse. More silence, then a rustle of sheets. Please, please, please play along, Echo. I need my best friend.

“Motel. We slept in the tent for the past few nights,” she says in a light tone that causes me to smile. Yeah, I hate happy people, but Echo deserves happy. “Noah’s in the shower.”

“So...” I draw out the word. “Have you had sex?”

“No.” She chokes. Hand to God, she chokes. I giggle as she coughs.

“Well, if you do,” I say when she recovers from her hacking fit, “don’t let your first time be in a tent. That would be awful.”

“I think a tent could be romantic.”

“Traitor,” I say. Echo used to be in the only-if-there-is-room-service camp, like me, but then she permitted the hot and mysterious Noah to sway her to the dark side. “Dirt and bugs and snakes, Echo. Just saying.”

In the background, I hear Hot and Mysterious’s deep voice. Echo fumbles with the phone while she answers him. I check out the clock on my nightstand. Midnight. My mouth dries out as I smooth back my hair. Another night by myself.

No moon tonight so the entire world beyond my window is pitch-black. I don’t want Echo to let me go because then I’ll be alone again in this big, empty house.

Part of me hates Noah. If it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t be in Iowa or Kansas or where the hell ever and would instead be staying the night with me. She wouldn’t be spending all of her time with him and his friends: that scary guy with all the tattoos and Biker Chick Beth. Tattoo Boy and Biker Chick Beth also live with Noah’s foster parents, and they were a year behind me and Echo at school. Echo says they aren’t a couple, but I’d bet the new heels I received for graduation they are.

If it wasn’t for Noah, she would need me more...she would still be insecure, she would still be obsessing over the scars on her arms. She possibly wouldn’t have recovered her memory of the night she got them. If it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t be moving on with her life. Damn him for being a great guy.

“Guess I should let you go.” Yep, I said it in a way that indicated that is so not what I want to do.

“I’ll stay on,” she says. “We could keep our phones on all night. Just like we did in elementary school.” Only then it was landlines. She would, because that’s what best friends do.

I swear I hear Noah groan in agony. Guess he doesn’t like BFF breaking in on make-out time.

“No. I’ll be fine.” It’s a lie. I stare at the scrapbook page that I lugged back to my room earlier and wonder where Lincoln’s sleeping tonight. I should think I could sleep tonight, but the exhaustion only increases my terror...and deepens my sadness over Lincoln. I should have heard him out. Why didn’t I listen?

“I think you should talk to Lincoln,” Echo says, reading my mind like always. “Maybe wait until you’ll know he’s back home, like tomorrow evening, and DM him again.”

My thumbnail clicks as I mess with it. “I thought you wanted me to stay away from him.”