Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits #1)(71)

“No way.” I took a step toward my father. “He’s answering me.”

“Echo …” Mrs. Collins began to protest, but I put my hand up to stop her.

“You think he’s controlling now? You should have seen him after the divorce. I didn’t see my mom for two years. Do you know what middle school was like without a mom? Periods, training bras, boys. I had no one.”

“You had Ashley,” my father said. “I wasn’t keeping your mother from you. She knew what she had to do to get visitation. She chose not to do it.”

“No!” I bit. “You chose Ashley and ruined my mother. But Mom did get herself together, didn’t she? She got help. She took her meds and you know what my father did, Mrs. Collins? He treated her like a serial killer. She had to jump through hoops of fire in order to see us. He never once allowed visitation unless he was a hundred percent sure she was stable. So tell me, Dad, why did you leave me there?”

“Because I was in a hurry and didn’t check on her when I dropped you off.” My father met my eyes for the first time and I saw the truth. “I was only supposed to be gone fifteen minutes. A half hour tops.”

“Did I call?” Because I would have. Living through sixteen years of my mother’s highs and lows had taught me that her on no meds equaled adult-supervised visitation.

He looked away again. “Yes.”

The heaviness of his words crushed my heart. “Did you answer?”

My father shoved his hands into his pockets and closed his eyes.

Idiot. I was an idiot. No one loved me. Nothing I could do or say would ever change that fact. My father merely mentioned jumping and I asked if I needed to buy a trampoline. That wasn’t love; that was control. Dad chose Ashley and Aires chose the Marines over me. Noah still hadn’t told me that he loved me even though I’d said the words to him.

I used to believe my father cared. After all, he cared enough to try to control every aspect of my life and I let him. I let him because I loved him and I wanted so desperately for him to love me back. But I’d been wrong, so wrong. He didn’t even care enough to answer the phone. I was unlovable before my mother ever touched me.

I brushed past him and grabbed my stuff out of Mrs. Collins’s office.

“I’m sorry.” My father blocked my path as I tried to leave. I ignored the hoarseness of his voice, stepped around him and bolted down the hallway. I was done being controlled.

NOAH

I should have stayed. If the roles had been reversed, she would have waited for me, but I needed to see my brothers. When she called me back, I’d run by and see her.

Newly built large, spacious houses formed a circle around a large park. The full deal—walking paths, trees, bushes, benches and the largest playground on the planet.

Two children flew out of a blue three-story house. My dad would have loved it—Second Empire architecture: mansard roof, dormer windows, square tower, decorative brackets and molded cornice. I remembered my dad laughing while showing me pictures. “Think Lady and the Tramp, Noah,” he’d said.

As the children raced closer, I recognized Mom’s smile. The two of them scrambled up the stairs of the play gym and flipped to the tallest slide. Jacob stopped repeatedly to help the struggling Tyler up several of the lifts.

I got out of the car and sat on a bench far from the playground and watched my brothers laugh and play. Everything inside me hurt. They were so close and all I wanted was to be with them. I pulled out my phone, reminding myself of my purpose—to prove that their foster parents were unfit.

Speaking of, where the hell was either Carrie or Joe? Jacob was only eight. Tyler wasn’t even five yet. Shouldn’t they be supervised? I raised my phone to take a picture of the situation when a voice caught me off guard. “A little to the right. She’s sitting on the bench under the maple.”

Mrs. Collins took a seat on the bench beside me. Sure enough, from a bench under the tree, Carrie watched my brothers’ every movement. I shoved my phone back into my pocket.

“They like to slide—your brothers, that is. The two of them could spend hours flipping up and sliding down.”

We sat next to each other in silence and listened to my brothers giggle from afar. I had no clue how to get out of this one. Silence: the defense of the guilty.

“So, were the two of you working together this entire time or did you jump at the opportunity when it presented itself?”

Might as well try denial. “I think you’ve lost your mind.”

“I’m a slob, but I’m an organized slob. You put your file back in the wrong spot. Do you have any idea how much trouble you could be in for this?”

Dammit. “What do you want to know?” Maybe if I played, she’d cut me some slack.

“Were you and Echo working together?”

I would never sell Echo out. “Next.”

Mrs. Collins sighed. “I promised Echo privacy and she trusted me. You shouldn’t have been anywhere near that office today.”

I swallowed down the guilt over leaving her. “Is she okay?”

Tyler squealed when Carrie pushed him on the swing. Mrs. Collins smoothed back her hair. “You should probably call her.”

I clasped my hands loosely between my knees as I leaned forward. “What happened to never discussing Echo with me?”