Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits 1.50)

“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.”

“Just like you?” I ask, with a slight tease, and Echo blushes. I’m getting to her. I’m slowly sliding past the hurt to her heart. One step at a time. “Keep going.”

“A king took on a second wife.” The statement strangled with sarcasm. “And she hated the daughter and son that he had conceived from a previous marriage.”

I kick at a stone, and it bounces off the wall before it lands next to a protruding rock at the bottom. That’s a long way down. “Is that how you feel about Ashley?”

I expect a fast yes, but Echo winces. “No. It used to be, but no...I used to believe she hated me, but...anyhow...the stepmother devised this plan where the son was going to be sacrificed, and the son’s mother prayed to Zeus for him to stop it and Zeus sent Aires, the golden ram, to save them.”

“So this is one of the good stories.” Not like Echo’s name where the girl loses her voice then fades away into nothing.

“No...” Echo pauses. “It’s not. Aires saves the brother and the sister, but the girl still falls to her death, while the boy lived.” She trails off, and the wind whips through the trees, through Echo’s hair, and I hate that it pushes in the direction of over.

“Do you know what I used to think?” she asks.

I think I want her away from the edge. “What?”

“That the brother had to be mad at Aires.”

“Why?”

Echo’s eyes harden into stone. “Aires’s one job was to save both of them, and he only saved one.”

“I’m mad at my mom.” Damn me to hell, I said the words. I admitted it, and the guilt of feeling this way about someone I loved and who is dead destroys me. “I’m mad my mom didn’t tell me about her family. I’m mad at both of my parents for not having a will. For not figuring out their shit enough to secure a future for me and my brothers in case they died. I’m fucking pissed that they didn’t change the batteries in the fire detectors, and I’m even more fucking pissed that they died.”

My chest pumps rapidly, and I can’t control the intake of air. Echo seems to mimic the same ability to not breathe, and her hand goes to the nape of her neck as if she can wrench free the invisible noose. “I can’t be mad.”

“Why not?” I shout. “Because I am. And here’s the thing. It doesn’t change that I loved them.”

I dig deep, thinking of what my uncle said. It’s not my fault my parents died. My mother would be proud of me...even if I’m pissed. Especially that I’m pissed. “Being mad doesn’t change that they died. Not being mad, acting like they were perfect...it doesn’t bring them back.”

A sob racks Echo’s body, and she slams her hand over her mouth to prevent it, but it doesn’t stop. Her entire body shudders, and she wipes at the tears as if that one act will wipe away the pain she’s been harboring since her brother died.

“Then what will bring them back?” Echo begs. “Because I’m terrified to go forward thinking that this is what it feels like to lose, and going forward means that I’ll always lose something. I can’t lose like this again. I can’t.”

“You can!” I force myself to soften my voice. “You can.”

I reach out, the need to touch her overwhelming me, and this time when I move forward, she doesn’t step back. My fingers caress her sweet face. As Echo always does, she fits perfectly.

“You can,” I repeat. “Remember what I told you. We’ve been through too much for something like this to get us down. For anything to get us down.”

She rocks her head in a no, as if she doesn’t believe me.

“We’re going to lose again,” I tell her. “It doesn’t matter if we walk away from each other now or in seventy years after we’ve had ten kids and fifty grandkids. Someday, one of us is going to go. Either by choice or death. Everyone we love meets the same fate. You and I, we know this. We can either run from it and let it decide our future for us, or we can say fuck it and live for this moment now. I’m done permitting anything other than me to control my life.

“You told me that I wouldn’t be happy if I was changing for you. You’re right. But the changes you’ve seen, the changes that will be coming, they’re happening because I want them. I want to be an architect because I want to build you that house. I want to build a lot of houses. I want a lot of things out of life, Echo, and I want you with me when I do them. The question is...can you put up with me when I fuck up and go asshole?”

With tears cascading down her face, Echo laughs. “You are the only person who is capable of apologizing while using profanity and it still sounds sweet.”

Using my thumbs, I dry the tears from her face. “Damn straight, baby.”