Pushing the Limits (38 page)

Her forehead furrowed. “For what?”

I forced myself to look at her. “For always blaming you.” Ashley’s eyes watered. I swallowed my pride and continued, “My mom isn’t who I thought she was, so maybe you’re not the person I’ve made you out to be either.”

At first, I meant the apology as a truce in order to start fresh with Alexander, but as I said the words, my heart became lighter. I really was sorry and forgiveness felt … enlightening.

Ashley placed a hand over her heart while the tears streamed down. “I’m sorry, too. So sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Never. Sometimes I say things and the words just fall out, and I can see by the look on your face that I said it wrong. But you have to know—I have always loved you. I’ll do better, Echo. I promise.”

I glanced at my bouncing foot. Guilt ate at me. She wanted a clean slate. If we were starting off on a new foot, we needed to begin with honesty. “And I’m going to really try with you. Not fake try. Really try.”

Ashley smiled through her tears and nodded, accepting my treaty.

“Mrs. Emerson, I’m here to examine you,” said a nurse in purple scrubs. “Would the two of you mind stepping out?”

My father stood. “No problem.”

The appropriate thing to do would be to hug her. Yeah … I should. But I couldn’t. I’d save that for when I really felt it. Repairing my relationship with Ashley was going to require baby steps. I held my hand out to her and she squeezed it.

“I’ll see you at home,” she said.

“Okay.”

Almost shocking the red out of my hair, my father placed an arm around my shoulder and escorted me out of the room. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?”

A floor-to-ceiling window ended the hall next to Ashley’s room. My father closed the door behind him and the two of us looked out on the busy parking lot.
Do you realize that you haven’t touched me like this in years?
“No.”

He pulled me closer to him and kept his eyes locked on the outside world. “I love you more than you could ever know.”

“I love you, too,” I whispered. “I wish …” That Aires had never died. That my mother wasn’t so selfish. “I wish things didn’t have to be so difficult between us.”

“I didn’t know how to talk to you, Echo. Not that I ever did before, but after what happened with your mother … I had a hard time facing you. Every time I looked at you, I saw how I failed—and how could I ask for your forgiveness if you didn’t even remember what I did?”

“What happened?” I glanced up to him. “On your side?”

The gray that shadowed his face made him appear way older than a man in his forties. “Fifteen minutes. That’s how long your message sat in voice mail. I called 911 as soon as I heard the panic in your voice. I begged them to check on you and your mother. Ashley and I left immediately, but I knew we wouldn’t be fast enough.

“If only I’d answered my phone when you called, I would have told you to lock yourself in the bathroom. You never would have fallen through that glass. If I’d checked my voice mail earlier, you would have been conscious when EMS found you.” He
closed his eyes. Pure torture weighed his features. “You almost died.”

I pressed my face into his chest and squeezed him tighter. “I’m alive, Daddy.”
And say it, Echo
. “And it’s okay. I don’t blame you.”

My father hugged me back as he whispered, over and over, “I’m so sorry.”

I turned my head, listening to his heart as I looked out the window. Just like always, the world continued. People left and entered the hospital. Cars scurried to their destination points. And as glad as I was to have gotten through to my father, I knew my destination wasn’t here.

“You know those times I left town to sell my paintings?” I pulled back, but my father kept his arm around me even as he turned his head and glanced away. The quiet, painful recognition that he’d lost control of me several weeks ago was still evident on his face.

“Yes.”

How exactly should I explain this? “I slept through the night while I was gone.”

“Echo, that’s great!”

And he didn’t understand. “It made me realize I need to find a space of my own. When I graduate from high school, I’m moving out.”

It had to be said, but I regretted the heaviness that returned to my father. He rubbed my shoulder. “I know I’ve made mistakes. I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve sat up and watched those brief precious hours that you actually slept and wondered how I could make all of your problems disappear. I know it wasn’t good enough, but I did the best I could by you. No matter how hard I tried, I could never find a way to fix you.”

The image in my head made sense. I was a broken vase and my father’s tight reign was the glue. He thought if he pressed hard enough, I’d go back to normal.

“You really tried with Mom, didn’t you?” My conversation with her had made me rethink everything she raised me to believe.

His tone grew hoarse. “I loved her, Echo. She was that someone that tilted my universe. But I loved you and Aires more. I tried everything possible to minimize the effects of her behavior on the two of you. I became what they call an enabler until I finally realized that the only person who could help your mother was herself.”

My father wiped at his face and I pretended that maybe he had dust on it. “I came home one night and found you and Aires in your bedroom closet, hiding from her. It wasn’t the first time, but I swore to myself it would be the last. I couldn’t change your mom, but I could take care of the two of you. I hired Ashley full-time and told your mother that if she didn’t get it together I’d file for divorce.

“You were too young to remember, but your mother did try and there were periods where she stayed on her medication and did fine. When she got really bad, I’d admit her to a psychiatric hospital. The cycle never ended. From good to okay, from okay to bad, from bad to the hospital and then back to good. One night I came home from visiting her at the hospital and I found Ashley reading to you in your room. You sat on her lap, played with her hair and looked at her like she hung the moon. She helped Aires with his science project and recorded his basketball game. She even cooked you guys dinner and warmed me up leftovers.

“Ashley brought a sense of normal into a house where normal
was hard to come by. I swear, Echo, neither of us meant to fall in love. Sometimes life happens.”

Maybe my father and I were more alike than I’d ever imagined. We both craved normal. Nerves swelled inside. “Am I like Mom?”

He looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Is this a trick question?”

My eyes pleaded, hoping he wouldn’t make me spell it out. He rubbed my shoulder again. “You have her beauty, her artistic talent and her tenacity if that’s what you mean.”

Was he saying I was stubborn? Wait until he got to know Noah. “Anything else?”

“Your mother never would have uttered to anyone those words you just said to Ashley … or to me. You’re your own person, Echo, and I’m proud to be your father.”

The nerves went away and I rested my head on him. “Thanks, Daddy.”

“Give me another chance. I promise to let you run your own life. Anyhow, I think Ashley is going to be overwhelmed with Alexander. She didn’t start babysitting you until well after you were potty-trained.”

What a crazy, crazy world I lived in. My teenage babysitter, turned nanny, turned stepmother, had given birth to my new brother. I wanted so badly to give my dad the answer he wanted and make him happy, but then I wouldn’t be true to the person I was beginning to believe I was. “Honestly, Daddy, it has nothing to do with chances. That house is full of memories. Some of them are wonderful and some … aren’t. I spent years hoping and praying and plotting for a life I never really had to begin with. I’m scared if I stay, I’ll keep looking back and never look forward.”

“Funny.” But he didn’t laugh. “Aires said the same thing when he enlisted. Promise me you’ll come home and visit. You’re my baby, too.”

I wrapped both of my arms around him and he hugged me. “I promise.”

NOAH

In a tent set up in Shirley and Dale’s backyard, Echo lay on her stomach studying a huge map of the United States. Because of the warm April night, she’d pulled her shirt up a few inches to expose her skin. At least that was the reason she gave when her fingers inched the material of her blue tank away from the small of her back. Personally, I think she did it to drive me insane.

“Sorry,” Echo said. “I’m not an ocean kind of girl. Birds and sand and seaweed.” She shivered and stuck out her tongue. “Not my scene, but we can go there if you want.”

A week ago, I’d held her hand in the hospital and wondered if she’d ever come back to me. Tonight, I watched her in complete awe. Echo was here and she was mine. Sitting beside her, I traced patterns on the exposed skin of her back. “I’ll go wherever you want, baby.”

The light from the old camping lantern the two of us bought flickered and she raised an I-told-you-so eyebrow. Echo was not a fan of the treasures that could be found at Goodwill, nor
was she a fan of sleeping outdoors. But she’d promised to give camping a shot on our trip this summer.

“The tent’s in good shape,” I said to prove my point. “It would have cost us a hell of a lot more at a real store.”

“If you say so.” She moved her finger west of Kentucky. “I want to see snow-capped mountains.”

I brushed her curls away, bent down and kissed the nape of her neck, loving how her muscles relaxed as she leaned into me. I whispered into her ear, “Then that’s what we’ll see.”

“Noah,” she moaned in equal parts pleasure and reprimand. “How am I supposed to schedule appointments with art galleries if I never plan where we’re going?”

Her sweet smell drove my body higher as I nibbled on the edge of her earlobe. “I’m not stopping you. You plan. I’ll kiss.”

Echo turned her head to look at me over her shoulder. My siren became a temptress with that seductive smile on her lips. A mistake on her part. I caressed her cheek and kissed those soft lips.

I expected her to shy away. We’d been playing this game for over an hour: she plotted while I teased. Leaving for the summer was important to her and she was important to me. But instead of the quick peck I’d anticipated, she moved her lips against mine. A burning heat warmed my blood.

It was a slow kiss at first—all I meant it to be, but then Echo touched me. Her hands on my face, in my hair. And then she angled her body to mine. Warmth, enticing pressure on all the right parts, and Echo’s lips on mine—fireworks.

She became my world. Filling my senses so that all I felt and saw and tasted was her. Kisses and touches and whispered words of love and when my hand skimmed down the curve of
her waist and paused on the hem of her jeans my body screamed to continue, but my mind knew it was time to stop.

With a sigh, I moved my lips once more against hers before shifting and pulling her body to my side. “I’m in love with you.”

Echo settled her head in the crook of my arm as her fingertips lazily touched my face. “I know. I love you, too.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner.” If I had, then maybe we never would have been apart.

“It’s okay,” she murmured. “We’re together now and that’s all that matters.”

I kissed her forehead and she snuggled closer to me. The world felt strange. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t fighting someone or something. My brothers were safe. Echo knew the truth. Soon, I’d be free from high school and foster care. Hopefully, I’d be admitted on late acceptance to college. Contentment and happiness were unfamiliar emotions, but ones I could learn to live with.

“Do you mind?” she asked in a small voice that indicated nerves. “That we’re taking it slow?”

“No.” And it was the truth. Happiness and contentment were going to be a little harder for her than for me. Echo, Ashley and her dad had reached a new understanding, but old habits were tough to break, especially when they all lived in the same house. A new baby didn’t help the stress level. Echo’s therapy sessions had increased instead of decreased. Regaining the memory and the confrontation with her mom had created a whole new set of issues, but ones Echo felt she could deal with as long as she had Mrs. Collins.

Everything in her life was in flux and she needed strong, steady and stable. Oddly, she found those three things in me.
Who would ever have guessed I’d be the reliable sort? “Besides, taking it slow creates buildup. I like anticipation.”

Her body rocked with silent giggles and my lips turned up. I loved making her happy.

“And you’re sure you want to leave your brothers and you swear you won’t lose your job?”

She’d asked those two questions a million times this past week, but I understood her fear. She didn’t want me to end up full of regret. “They’re closing the Malt and Burger for a month in July for renovations and my boss thinks a vacation would be good for me. As for my brothers …” I paused. “I need the space. It’s hard flipping off the switch. Maybe if I go away for a while I won’t feel like they’re my sole responsibility.”

She propped herself up on her elbows and tilted her head. Those beautiful green eyes searched mine. “You’re sure?”

“One thousand percent.”

The smile I loved so much graced her face. “Then we’re going west.”

NOAH

“When are you coming back?” Jacob asked. We sat in the tree house in Carrie and Joe’s backyard the day after graduation. Carrie and Joe had made a large dinner in celebration and told me to invite my friends. I’d brought Echo, Isaiah and a very sober Beth.

Echo was currently helping hide Tyler in a very bad game of hide-and-seek with Isaiah and Beth. “Latest? September. I start school after Labor Day.”

His little legs dangled from the edge. “Our mom’s school?”

“Our mom’s school.” With a major in architecture. The deal for foster kids covered my college costs and housing, but I planned on living off-campus with Isaiah and Beth once Echo and I returned. Beth and Isaiah would only be seniors next year, but Shirley and Dale didn’t care where they lived. As for Echo, she had accepted her scholarship to “our mom’s school” and planned on living in the dorms.