“We were here a few nights ago. Some guys were jumping off a cliff into a pool of water. I wanted to. Echo wouldn’t. She’s trying to prove something.”
Isaiah raises an eyebrow. “Why didn’t she wait for you?”
“She’s not proving something to me.” I knead my eyes as the images of the hundred things that could have gone wrong torture me in slow motion. “She’s proving something to herself.”
Echo finally understands it’s not about pleasing Hunter or her dad or me, and when she figures it out, she takes a risk that could kill her.
“There.” I point to the entrance to the campsite. “Park there.”
My heart pounds hard when I see Echo’s car. Barely placing it in park, all three of us fall out, and I’m already on the path. “This is on me. Stay here.”
“Her engine’s still hot, Noah,” yells out Isaiah. “She’s not far ahead.”
With that, I run. Down the path, through the trees, praying she’s over a bend, past a clearing. Hoping she’ll be there right before my eyes, but she never is. She’s out of reach. Just like my parents were.
“What do you see when you look down?” I asked.
“You sound way too much like Mrs. Collins.” That sexy irritation leaked into Echo’s voice. “And that’s not a compliment.”
“Answer the question.”
“Rocks. Lots of sharp, kill-me-by-impaling rocks.”
I’m through the woods, and sweat breaks out along my hairline as I spot Echo teetering on the rock wall.
“You can call it uptight all you want, but I call it not being suicidal. I have a four-inch—thick file in my therapist’s office, and I can guarantee not once does the word suicidal appear. Depressed? Withdrawn? Freak of nature? Sure. But not suicidal.”
I made love to her. I made love to her, and I made a promise. One that I broke the moment I walked away from her at the party. Echo’s been dealt a tough hand, and she’s always been strong. She has a fighter’s heart, but this week could have been the final push over the edge.
“S’up, baby.” My body practically quakes with the urge to grab her, but with her toes dangling off the cliff, I’m frightened I’ll spook her, and she’ll accidentally go over.
As if she’s in a dream, Echo slowly assesses me from over her shoulder. “You found my note?”
Jesus Christ, the thought of a note sends chills along my spine. “What type of note?”
“The one in our room? The one telling you I was coming here?”
“Nope.” Though I wish I would have thought of checking the room before we left. Maybe it would have saved a few years off my life. Or it could have fucked with me harder. “What are you doing here?”
“I want to jump.” Echo returns her gaze to the pool below. I ease up to the edge but still three feet from her. One slow inch at a time, and I’ll hold on to her and never let go.
“Why didn’t you wait for me? You know I like a good rush.” Not anymore. I’ve never been so sick at the thought of a high in my life.
“I was scared I’d lose my nerve.” Echo inhales deeply, and her fingers close tight then release several times, as if she’s considering jumping then not jumping then considering it again.
“You don’t need to do this, Echo.”
“I do,” she says plainly but then sucks in a quivering breath. “My mom is going to be in Denver.”
“I know.”
This forces her focus in my direction, and I’ll do anything to keep those gorgeous emerald eyes on me.
“How?” she asks.
“Hunter came looking for you. He said you left upset.”
Her forehead wrinkles, and I lose her to the water again. “He probably thinks I’m nuts.”
“Doesn’t matter what he thinks.”
Echo’s shoulders roll forward, and she appears to shrink. “That’s it, Noah. That’s why I’m here. I spent an entire summer searching for someone who’d tell me that I was good. To tell me that I had talent, and do you know where it got me?”
Me eating out of the palm of her hand? “Where?”
“Nowhere. I’m in the same exact place as I was before. Aires is still dead. The scars are still on my arms, and this big fat gaping wound in my chest is still there. I’ve tried everything to fill the void. I’ve tried art, and I’ve tried regaining the memories. I’ve tried pretending that I’m okay and that going forward is better.
“But nothing can replace Aires. Not you. Not the memories I fought so hard to recover. Not a relationship with my mother or father. Nothing. And to realize that he’s gone and that there’s nothing I can do about it...”
Echo’s voice breaks, and my soul cracks along with it. “It hurts, Noah. It hurts, and it’s here, and it’s becoming overwhelming, and Mrs. Collins is wrong because this whole talking-about-it crap hurts like hell!”
The word hell vibrates off the rock walls and repeats in the wind. We both jerk our heads to the sound.
“It’s an echo,” I tell her. Echo manically giggles, and I grab hold of that one thread. “Remember when you told me what your name meant?”
“I beat you at pool, and you stared at my chest.”
And her ass. “I let you win.”
“I handed your manhood to you on a platter.”
Yes, she did. “Echo was the girl who lost her voice, right?”
She nods.
“Then tell me who Aires was.”
Her forehead crumples. “Did you not hear me? This hurts. This whole Aires thing hurts. It doesn’t feel better to remember him. It doesn’t feel better to talk about him. It feels like someone is torturing me.”
“I know.” I press a hand over my chest, over my heart, understanding the exact location of the ache she’s referring to. “I get it. It’s like a pain you can’t stop suffering through. You think it has to stop at some point, but it doesn’t. I get it, Echo, and I’m telling you to tell me about Aires. Tell me the story.”
Echo’s lower lip trembles, and I don’t dare advance in her direction again because she keeps edging away the closer I try to get. I swear she wavers with the breeze. “Aires...”
“Come on, Echo. You can do it.”
“Aires...Aires was a ram.” She sadly smiles. “Which is fitting because he was so stubborn.”