A rush of anger causes me to rise off the bed and mirror her position. “Do you think this is funny?”
Her lips turn up in that evil smirk that I’ve come to detest with the same fervor as people who kick puppies. “You’re mad at me now, right?”
“Yes!” I scream. “I’m mad at you. You hate me. I hate you. You treat me like crap, and I forever take it. You and I can’t stand the sight of one another! Are you happy now?”
“Not really.” Beth appears to shrink as if my words were razor blades. “But you don’t hurt now, do you?”
A painful slice at my soul as my breath catches. For a brief few seconds, I didn’t hurt. I wasn’t replaying tonight or any other night for the past week with Noah. I wasn’t reviewing every disappointed and sarcastic comment from my father when I asked for Noah’s bail. I wasn’t thinking that while Noah made love to me, he had been hanging out with a girl he had previously slept with.
Especially when I told him my fear—that I wouldn’t measure up to any of the girls he had left behind...or I thought he had left behind.
“Anger’s better,” says Beth quietly. “Anger is like a fortified wall no one can penetrate. Hurt—it’s a doormat—and it lets everyone walk all over you.”
“I don’t hate you,” I whisper. “That was mean to say.”
“But it’s true.”
“It’s not.”
“I’m a bitch to you. Why would you like me?”
Because she loves Isaiah and Noah, and they love her back. “Why don’t you like me?”
Beth stares at the multicolored industrial carpeting. “Because it’s all changed since you came into the picture. I don’t have much, Echo. Never have and never will.”
“So...” My insides literally wilt with the idea. “...if this is it between me...and...” Noah. “You’d be happy?”
“I love him. He loves you. I don’t want to see him hurt. Besides...” The evil smirk returns though it appears forced. “I’m the queen of displaced anger.”
“So does this mean you like me?” I ask.
“It means I’m a bitch. The rest of it—” Beth shrugs and resembles seventeen for the first time ever “—it can mean whatever you want.”
Closest I’ll get to a yes from her, and I’ll take it. We lapse into silence, and my foot taps the floor. “My father says Noah’s using me.”
He said that and a few more colorful things. No matter how many times I told Dad that the arrest was a mistake, my father pointed out something that struck deep: But he’s trouble. He’ll always be trouble. It doesn’t matter if he did it or didn’t do it. He was in the scenario. You can’t be arrested for something you didn’t do unless you put yourself in the position of possibly doing it. Tell me, Echo, what was he even doing there?
I don’t know, and my hand presses to my heart to prevent the ache. I don’t know why any of us were there. I didn’t want to be there. Beth and Isaiah could have cared less. The only person who pushed for it was Noah, and I can’t visit any possible reason as to why he went after that girl or how we ended up in such pain.
“I don’t know what the fuck Noah was thinking tonight or even what the hell is going on between the two of you, but he loves you. I know it looked like shit when that girl walked out beside him, but I’ve been lying here rehashing what happened. He wouldn’t cheat on you. Noah’s been a dick plenty of times, but he’s never been a liar.”
No, he’s never been a liar.
Noah has always been dark and mysterious and belonging to this world that seemed so appealing, but with the reality setting in of seeing Noah in handcuffs and the light of day beginning to creep in through the windows, I’m not sure it’s the world I desire.
I’m eighteen. About to start college. I could study under one of the most brilliant artistic minds of this decade. I have a future.
A future.
I haven’t slept in close to twenty-four hours, but somehow, I’m wide-awake.
Noah
With his hands white-knuckling the armrest and his glare burning a hole through the floor, Isaiah waits for me as the guy at the counter returns my shit. Living together for over a year, Isaiah and I have annoyed the hell out of each other but until now, I’ve never seen my brother pissed with me.
I sign the last release form then shove my wallet into my pocket. After Echo and Beth bolted, Mia did, too. Not sure how I feel about that.
The moment I turn, Isaiah’s out the door, and I follow. Cigarette smoke greets me when I step out. Mia stands under a streetlight and takes a long draw off the cigarette. The red ashes glow bright in the night. “Can we talk?”
Isaiah arches his back like a ticked-off jungle cat. “Five minutes, then I’m heading back with or without you.”
He stalks toward the main road. I incline my head for Mia to talk.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “That you got arrested.”
“Mind telling me how you got me out?”
“Didn’t I tell you? My daddy’s filthy rich. Emphasis on filthy. I do the Malt and Burger travel thing just to piss him off and guess what? It does.” Her entire body twitches—either the come-down from the drugs or nerves.
“News to me.”
“Well...then that.” She sucks the cigarette to the filter and drops it to the ground. The exhale billows out into a cloud. “There must never have been a break in the conversation for it to come up how I’ve made it my life’s goal to be the disappointment he constantly tells me I am.”
“Why’d you spring me?”
“I got you in it. It was on me to get you out.”
“If we see each other again, I’m walking in the opposite direction.”
She snorts. “You don’t need to worry about seeing me for a while. I agreed to another stint in rehab for this bail.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Fourth time’s a charm, right? So I’m assuming you want to know the last sign.”
“Not anymore.” I didn’t need tips on the downward spiral of my relationship with Echo. I annihilated it fine on my own.
“Tough. You’re hearing it.”
No, I’m not. I pivot, choosing Isaiah’s path.
“It’s you,” she calls out. “We destroy it all because we’re so fucked up thinking that they’re going to leave us that we make it happen. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that shit. If they don’t walk away then we give them a reason to leave.”