Breaking The Rules

He pushes off the wall and snags a belt loop on both sides of my hips, tugging me into him. “You didn’t say you’ve forgiven me.”

The heat of his body surrounding me in the midst of the cold room creates a fluttering in my bloodstream. It’s impossible to hold a steady thought when he’s this close. “So you agree that throwing people into walls isn’t okay?”

“It is when someone fucks with you.”

I attempt to step back, but Noah halts the escape. “I mean it. No one treats you like shit. At least when I’m around. That’s nonnegotiable.”

“You embarrassed me.”

“He hurt you.”

“You hurt me,” I snap, and this time he allows the release. I shake my head trying to expel the memory and the ache building in my chest. “When you told him to apologize and the way he looked at my arms...”

This pain, it was supposed to be over. None of this was supposed to carry out of high school and into normal life.

Noah brushes his fingers along my sweater-covered arm. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

I close my eyes at his intimate touch. It’s a slow movement, not one meant to seduce. It’s one to show how much he loves me, and I flatten my lips, fighting the urge to cry. Noah nudges me toward him and if it wasn’t for his hold, I’d drop like a house of cards.

I fall into him, and Noah wraps me in his arms. “It’s okay, baby. We’re okay.”

I cling tighter to him, because it doesn’t feel okay. For the past two months, life was good and easy and everything I dreamed it could be. Despite my efforts, the muscles at the corner of my mouth tremble. I wanted to be done with tears and with whispered comments thrown in my direction like knives and with this overwhelming sense that I’m less and that I’ll never belong.

“I thought I was past this.” Past caring what people thought. Past people caring about the scars on my arms. Like a diploma somehow gave the world and myself a magical maturity.

“You are.”

“I’m not.” I’ve been living in a delusional bubble. The world hasn’t changed, and neither have I.

“You are. It’s the day.” Meaning like everyone else, he blames my mom. “Just a bad day.”

Noah kisses the top of my head before cradling me to his chest. I love the sensation of my cheek against him, the protective shelter of his arm around my waist and the sound of his steady heart. If I could live here for the rest of my life, I could be happy. But at some point, he’ll have to let go, and then I’ll be back where I started: alone.

“What if this is all I’ll ever be? What if this is only a small taste of what’s waiting for me at home?” I whisper. Chilling adrenaline drips into my body at the rawness of the statement. This week we’ll no longer be heading away, but going back. “What if I’ll always be the person on the outside? The person who doesn’t belong.”

“You belong, Echo,” he says against my temple. “Right here with me.”

Noah (#ulink_04244b65-2976-5357-900d-ece0f8f789a7)

Rays of the late-evening’s summer sun stream through the crack of the curtains. I lay on the bed with Echo curled tight next to me and my arms locked around her. Our shoes are still on and so are our clothes. The roses are bunched together on top of the bedside table.

We’ve lain like this for an hour, maybe two. We’ve been quiet the whole time, but sometimes we both say more within a silence than we can in hours of words.

She needs me. I need her. I never knew what peace there was in being wanted, but I hate how today has gone. I hate how one phone call and one asshole’s comment have caused her to withdraw. I hate how I fear and long for one email.

The email. I should tell Echo about Vail and Isaiah and Beth. Denver. I’ll wait until after the gallery in Denver.

I sweep my fingers along Echo’s arm to the tip of her fingers to wake her in case she’s drifted to sleep. She swipes her thumb across my hand in response.

Parts of me stir with her touch. Echo has no idea how sexy she is and how I dream night after night of completely showing her how much I worship her body.

I tug at the ends of her sweater near her wrist, and her fingers twist up in defense. Nope. Not having it. First chance I get, I’m throwing every long-sleeved item in the trash and burning it with a single match and a gallon of gas. She’ll be pissed, but I won’t watch her backtrack.

Ignoring her hold, I pull at the material, easing the sleeve down.

“Noah,” she whispers in reprimand.

“You’ve never complained when I’ve tried to undress you before.”

Echo readjusts so she can see me, and for the first time since this morning, those eyes dance. “Yes, I have.”

“When?”

“The last day of school.”

“So you’ve complained once.” When I led her to the nook of the abandoned hallway in the basement near my locker. I only meant to sneak in for a kiss during lunch, but things got hot and heavy and well...sue me. “I didn’t buy a yearbook, so I was memory-making.”

Her mouth gapes. “They would have kept us from participating in graduation if we got caught.”

“Walking across stages is overrated.”

“Is not.” She lightly kicks my shin. “It was awesome, and you know it. Did you forget the dressing room at the mall?”

Forget? I have wet dreams involving that day. “That’s not my fault. You asked how you looked in those jeans.”

“Good would have sufficed. Attempting to take them off wasn’t necessary.”

“They did look good. Good enough that I wanted to touch, and then I wanted to touch more.”

Echo laughs, and the sound warms my heart. “They have security cameras. People go to jail over stuff like that.”

I roll onto my side and drape my leg over hers. “I had you covered from sight. Very covered.” Backed her up against the wall and covered her body with every inch of mine.

That siren smile that I love so much crosses her face. Her fingers reach up and trace the line of my jaw. “You are the most impossible person I know.”

“Damn straight.”

“That’s not always a good thing. Sometimes you make life more complicated than it needs to be.”

“Never said I was going to be easy.”

“I know,” she says as her smile fades. “I never said I was going to be easy, either. In fact, I promised the opposite.”

“I like you just the way you are.”

My fingers tease the end of her sweater again, but this time Echo doesn’t stop me as I edge the material off her arm. In fact, she leans forward so I can slip the entire sweater off and toss it to the floor where it belongs.

I skim the length of her arm, specifically the longest scar from top to bottom. “Why, Echo?”