Breaking The Rules. Katie McGarry

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      But maybe Mom didn’t call. Maybe this woman is wrong. Maybe the curator is mean and she’s evil and before I can think it through, my thumb is over the button. The phone springs to life. Numbers dial. Little lines grow with the cell phone reception. The phone rings loudly once.

      Noah bolts forward. “What the fuck do you—”

      “Echo?” The desperate sound of my mother’s voice shatters past the confusion and slams the fear of God into my veins. The phone tumbles from my hands and crashes to the ground.

      The phone beeps—the call lost—and Noah stands openmouthed over the cell as if I murdered someone. “What the hell, Echo?”

      “I...” The rest of my statement, my train of thought, catches in my throat. I called her. I knot my fingers into my hair and pull, creating pain. Oh, my God, I called her. I initiated contact, and now the door is open...

      Cotton-mouthed, I whisper, “What have I done?”

      Noah scrubs both of his hands over his face. “I don’t know.”

      “This is bad.”

      He steps forward. “It’s not. You hung up. She’ll assume it was a mistake.”

      The phone rings. Each shrill into the night is like a knife slicing through me, and the panic building in my chest becomes this pressure that’s difficult to contain—a pulse that’s hard to resist. Answer, answer, answer!

      “Think about this, Echo.”

      My eyes snap to Noah’s. “I need to know.”

      “She’s not going to give you the answers you want.”

      “What if she did call the galleries? What if my success was a pity offering from her?”

      “Echo—”

      Closer than him, more desperate than him, I swipe the phone off the ground before he can move, but the phone stops ringing. My hands shake, and this desperation claws at me as I run a hand over my neck, searching for whatever is constricting my ability to breathe. “I could call her back.”

      With both hands in the air like he’s handling a kidnapping negotiation, Noah edges in my direction. “You could, but let’s discuss it first.”

      My fingers clutch the phone. “If she did this I need to know. I need to know if she asked people to buy those paintings from me.”

      “What if she did? Why does it matter?”

      “Because if she did, I’m a failure!”

      He halts, and his eyebrows furrow together. “That’s bullshit.”

      “But it’s true.”

      “It’s not. Nothing good happens when you talk to your mom. What makes this different? What she says to you, what she’s done—it fucks with you!”

      “She’s my mom!”

      “And I’m the one holding you in the middle of the night when you can’t decipher what’s real and what’s a dream. She’s not here. I am. Not her!”

      Anger explodes up from my toes and spirals out of my body. “You don’t understand! It’s more than the paintings. It’s more! She’s my mom. You don’t understand what it’s like to be torn between wanting to hate someone and wanting them in your life, then hating them all over again!”

      “Fuck that, because I do. My mom’s family contacted me. They want to meet me. The goddamned people she ran from want me in their fucked-up lives.”

       Noah

      Echo and I stare at each other, and I suck in air to get my breathing under control. Her eyes are too wide, and my heart’s pounding too fast. It’s not how I meant to tell her, but it’s out, and I can’t take it back. The edges of my sight are blurry. I’ve drunk too much, but I’m glad the truth is out.

      “What did you say?” she asks.

      I yank the folded email out of my back pocket and offer it to her. Echo reaches for the paper like she’s seconds from handling a ticking time bomb. She unfolds it, and I slump against her car. Rainwater pooled on the hood, and it soaks through the bottom of my jeans. Damn this entire week to hell.

      Too many emotions collide in my brain, and I rake both hands through my hair to ward off any spinning. The alcohol was supposed to help, not hurt.

      “It’s not that long, so quit stalling.” The email is short, to the point, and every misspelling informs me that the shit I’m in is deep.

      Ms. Peterson,

      We no the adoption is compleet, but we’d like to see the boys for a visit. My Sarah wood have wanted that. If not the younger ones, then Noah. He’d be a teen by now. Let him decide.

      Diana Perry

      The paper crackles as Echo folds it again, and her heels click against the blacktop. Her sweet scent surrounds me followed by the butterfly touch of her fingers on my wrist. “Noah.”

      She lowers her hand to my thigh and damn if fire doesn’t lick up my leg. Even when I’m drunk, my body responds to her. My legs automatically drop open, and the tension melts as she eases herself closer. Her fingers caress my face and with gentle pressure, she edges my chin up. I lose myself in those green eyes.

      “What are you going to do?” she asks.

      I wind my arms around her waist and slide one hand down her spine. Echo’s my solid, my base, my foundation. She has no idea that the single fear that keeps me up at night is knowing one day she’ll discover she doesn’t need me like I need her.

      “Noah,” she whispers again. Echo’s always been a siren, calling me to her even when I don’t want to be captured. “Please talk to me.”

      Her lips brush the corner of my mouth, and my fingers fist into her hair. Echo’s warm and soft. I shouldn’t kiss her now. I shouldn’t crave to kiss her now, but damn, she owns me.

      “Talk to me,” she murmurs. “I can’t help if you don’t talk to me.”

      As she sweeps my hair away from my eyes, I hear myself say, “They’re in Vail.”

      Her head nods against mine in understanding. “We’ve got time before we have to be back.”

      “Mom ran from them.”

      “You don’t know that.” She pulls back to look at me, but my grip on her hips keeps her near. “There could be a million reasons why your mom left.”

      “Carrie and Joe said that Mom’s family is bad news.”

      “Carrie and Joe said that you shouldn’t have been around your brothers. They were wrong then. They can be wrong now.”

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