Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits 1.50)

I busy myself by cleaning my brushes. “Just feels blue to me.” Like a bruise. A big, fat, swelling bruise that’s so raw and painful that it’s close to black, but it’s still smack-a-baseball-bat-on-the-baby-toe blue.

“I like it. It has a soulful aura.” His eyes dart around the canvas. “You continue to surprise me.”

At his feet, like if he moved a fraction of an inch he’d kick it, is the sample of my paintings and drawings he asked to see. My foot taps the floor. I don’t want to be all...please, please, please look at my paintings and love them. I’d rather he remember and me be all...oh, I totally forgot that you agreed to see a sample of my work. Silly me. I’m so happy to be in this moment that I forgot.

His attention strays from me when someone says his name, which means my fantasy isn’t going to happen so it’s time to step outside of my shell again and be forceful. “I brought the samples of my work.”

That drew back Hunter’s focus. “Let’s see it.”

I grab my bag and that would be when Noah’s ringtone sings from my cell. Part of me relaxes with relief. Another part arches my back like a cat about to attack a dog twice its size. He left this morning without a word, and has been AWOL for hours. Hours. And the moment Hunter shows interest in my work, Noah finally calls.

Hunter glances at the phone, and of course, Noah’s face and name blare from the screen. “Should you answer so that he doesn’t assume I’ve forced you drink the Kool-Aid?”

Ah, talk about seriously awkward and uncomfortable to the point I wish I would disappear. The ringtone enters supersonic. I did promise Noah I’d answer, and he did promise to go ape insane if I didn’t while I was with Hunter, but in theory that was for the first day. Besides, Noah doesn’t know that I’m here since he left.

“No, Noah’s cool with everything.” I’m willing Noah to be cool. “So what do you want to see first, the paintings or the drawings?”

The phone thankfully stops ringing.

“Paintings.”

“Echo,” says Meredith. “Do you want to grab some coffee?”

I blink, repeatedly, like I lied, but I’m not having the reaction over me. She has to be lying. Besides Lila, a failed few dates with an ex and then Noah, I can’t think of the last person who asked to go anywhere or do anything with me in public in years, and now she’s done it twice.

Asking me out twice...I’ve made a friend. I open my mouth to scream yes, but Hunter shifts beside me.

I point at Hunter, who’s moved past patient and has opened my portfolio. Don’t freak—just because he’s currently appraising my work, and my entire art career is on the line, is no reason to panic. Oh, the emotion spectrum. Pure joy to utter fear. “Can I have a rain check?”

Mere

dith’s cheeks pale as her gaze falls to Hunter then jumps back to me. She mouths, “Sorry,” realizing what she wandered into.

Portfolio viewing. It’s like waiting to hear the verdict in a death sentence trial.

“Rain check,” she whispers, and her friend Brigit snatches Meredith’s arm and pulls her across the attic. Both of them give me a thumbs-up before they disappear down the stairs.

Wow. Freaking wow.

In slow motion, I pivot toward Hunter and flinch when I notice him assessing me and not my work. Crap. I missed his expression. The important one. Not the words—the obligatory “It’s good.” The facial one. The one Hunter spotted in me when I first saw his painting. Eyes never lie.

“You fit in here, Echo.”

The smile that I didn’t even know was on my face fades. A weird heaviness rolls into me like a fog. It’s not a bad sensation, but the type I experience when Noah rests an arm around my shoulder when we’re walking down the street, or when he places a hand on the small of my back when he guides me through a crowded room. It’s like a large cape drawn around me, making me feel safe and wanted. Making me feel included.

I stagger back. My legs hit the stool, and I lower myself down onto it. Scanning the room, I see people from every walk of life. All of them different, all of them their own unique palette of paint.

What’s amazing is that I belong.

Me.

Echo Emerson.

The girl who didn’t belong anywhere. The girl nobody wanted.

A wetness burns my eyes, and I have to quickly rub them to hide my emotional meltdown, but my hands tremble.

I belong—scars and all.