Breaking The Rules. Katie McGarry

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СКАЧАТЬ the damned memory of the night my parents died.

      “Oh, thank God!” A woman appears at the boy’s side. He sits up at her touch and begins to weep. Jacob wept like that after I dragged him out the house. So did Tyler. I couldn’t cry. No matter how I felt like I’d been torn open again and again, I couldn’t cry.

      “What happened?” she asks.

      “His plane fell in the fire.” Echo points to the melting toy in the thick of the fire. “We didn’t see it, but he must have tried to get it. Noah yanked him out and put out the flames.”

      “Thank you,” says a voice beside me. It’s a man. Black hair. Black eyes. The damn bastard is probably his dad. “We walked over to say hi to friends camping with us. My son knows better than to play near the fire—”

      I’m on my feet and in his face before he can finish. “He’s a child! What the fuck is wrong with you that you’d leave him alone near an open flame? People get hurt this way! They die!”

      “Noah!” Echo shoves an arm in front of me and uses her body as a shield between me and the bastard who should have his parental rights revoked. “It’s okay.”

      “Okay!” I explode. “It’s not fucking okay. That kid could have died!”

      Echo pushes at my chest, attempting to walk me backward. “You’re scaring him!”

      “Good!” The bastard needs a kick in the ass.

      “The child!” she chides. “You’re scaring the child!”

      It’s as if she dumped a bucket of cold water over my face. The child is clinging plastic-wrap tight to his mom, his body shaking. A park ranger is applying something to the wound. Another one is talking into a cell phone, and I hear words like ambulance not needed.

      The undertone of voices and movement from the campground has come to a lull as everyone scrutinizes the boy. Echo scans the area then links her fingers with mine. “You did great, Noah, but let’s leave them alone, okay?”

      “Is everything fine here?” The park ranger moves the phone away from his mouth and jerks his chin from me to the dad, who’s continually combing his trembling hands over his head.

      “Yeah,” I say, and secure my grip on Echo. Without another word, I lead her back to our tent and unzip it, motioning for her to get inside. I join her and in a second, zip the door up, wishing it could block out the entire world.

      Echo clicks on a lantern and makes herself smaller as she tucks her legs beneath her. “Are you okay?” She drums her fingers to that silent rhythm.

      Fuck me. Wasn’t that the question I asked her a few minutes ago? I rub my eyes. No. I’m not okay. I’m the furthest thing from it.

      Three months ago, I held Echo’s hand in a hospital and watched her battle for her sanity. I promised her and myself that I’d become the man she deserves. The man who’d be strong enough to get past my shit in order to take care of her. I let Echo down once, just like I let my parents down the night of the fire.

      The guilt of that night, of how I failed, has left a deep, dark stain on my soul. Echo’s dealt with enough of my crap since we met, and she’s had a hard time sorting through her stuff since she retrieved her memories.

      I can’t unload my fucked-up problems onto her. The truth would drive her to realize that she shouldn’t be with a punk like me, and she’d finally walk. “I’m tired.”

      Her fingers tap faster on her thigh. “It’s still early. Maybe we should go do something—”

      “I’m tired,” I cut her off. I’m being rough, I know it, but I can’t deal with anything right now. I lie down and turn away from her. “And you said you wanted to get into Denver early so you can prepare for the show.”

      Echo’s silent, and after a few strained minutes, she clicks off the lantern and settles beside me. Because the girl has always been a damned miracle, she slowly edges near me and places a cool hand on my shoulder.

      “I know what it’s like to lose someone,” she whispers.

      Her words cut deep. She may get the loss, but she doesn’t understand feeling responsible for them dying.

      Echo presses her lips to my shoulder blade, and I close my eyes.

      “Aires...” She falters. “Aires was a ram sent by Zeus to save someone.”

      My eyebrows furrow together as I move to face her. Her body is nothing more than a shadow in the night. I can’t see her features, but I can hear the pain.

      “I...” she continues in a taut voice that rips out my heart. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

      She doesn’t have to. I find Echo’s hand and guide her until she tangles her body with mine.

      “We’re okay,” I lie. It feels like it did when they lowered my parents’ caskets into the ground. It feels like it did when Echo broke up with me a few months back. It feels like it did when I decided that my brothers were better off without me.

      Echo slides an arm around my chest and holds on like I’m preventing her from falling off a cliff. My girl sometimes mentions God. Some days she believes in him. Other days she’s not sure he exists. I don’t think much one way or another because if there is one, he doesn’t believe in me.

      With that said, I toss up a silent prayer that all this hurt, all this guilt, will be gone in the morning. Not for my sake, but for Echo’s.

      She deserves happiness.

       Echo

      “I’m two hours late calling my father, my boyfriend looks like he’s ready to step in front of an oncoming freight train to cure his boredom, I’m terrified someone will mention my mother and no, I don’t like the use of the gold against the greens in the painting.”

      It’s how I’d love to respond to the curator tipping her empty champagne glass at the floor-to-ceiling painting in front of us, but admitting such things will hurt the fragile reputation I’ve established for myself this summer in the art community. Instead, I blink three times and say, “It’s beautiful.”

      I glance over at Noah to see if he caught my tell of lying. He bet me that I couldn’t keep from either lying or blinking if I did lie for the entire night. Thankfully, he’s absorbed in a six foot carving of an upright prairie dog that has headphones stuck to his ears. If I lose, I’ll be listening to his music for the entire car ride home from Colorado. There’s only so much heavy metal a girl can take before sticking nails into her ears.

      In a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, jeans and black combat boots, Noah shakes his head to himself before downing the champagne in his hand. Absorbed was an overstatement. Prisoners being water tortured are possibly having a better time.

      Noah stops the waiter with a glare and switches his empty glass for a full one. He’s been scaring the crap out of this guy all night and at this rate, Noah may get us both kicked out, which may not be bad.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ