Pausing in thought, I absently rolled the oak leaf I was holding between my fingers.
“I don’t know who my father is, well, my biological one anyway. The man I call dad is really my uncle. He was four years older than my mother and took me in when I came home from the hospital after I spent a couple of weeks in an incubator. My mom was barely sixteen when she died, and no one knew who she’d been seeing or who the father of her baby was. She never told a soul. So, my paternity will likely remain a mystery forever—a mystery you must swear to keep a secret, by the way. Very few people know that my uncle isn’t really my father. You see, my dad is super paranoid, and says it is important that everyone thinks I died when Echo did. He believes that whoever killed Echo more than likely wanted me dead as well, so as long as they believe I was never born, they won’t try to come back and finish what they started.”
I fell silent, not wanting to talk about it anymore. The whole situation was daunting. I’d asked Echo countless times if she knew who shot her, but every time I asked, I got the same answer… It was dark, she didn’t see their face. I’d always gotten the feeling she wasn’t telling me everything, and if so, then there had to be a reason why. The same proved to be true whenever I asked about my biological father. She was like a classified government file, reluctant to release even the tiniest detail. She was nerve-wracking good at keeping her secrets under a mental lock and key. With Drew sitting silently beside me, processing what I’d told him, I turned my thoughts inward to try and talk about my Daddy issues with Echo. Her emotions of aggravation rolled through me like a bad storm. Her response carried notes of annoyance, anger, and attitude.
You have a good life with my brother Daryl and trust me when I say you wouldn’t be welcomed with open arms by your father’s family. They don’t see—our kind—as equals, Eden. As far as they were concerned, I would have been beneath him. Had I lived, things might have been different, I'm sure he would have taken care of us, but things don’t always work out the way we plan.
Feeling like it wasn’t the time or the place to get full-blown into it with Echo, I reached over and touched Drew’s arm.
“You gonna be alright? You look like someone just ran over your dog.”
The metaphor made him crack a smile and lightened the mood.
“Nah, I’ll be fine, I just never knew all this about you. There is definitely more to you than meets the eye, Eden Garrows. So, Echo, huh—that’s an interesting name.”
“Yeah, well, Echo is what everyone called her anyway. It’s short for Echora.”
He glanced at me, looking more confused than I’d ever seen him. I understood why, yet I couldn’t help but laugh.
“The ‘h’ is silent, Drew.”
He hiked a skeptical brow and slid off the hood of his car before saying, “I knew that.”
Of course, he did, I thought to myself and earned a giggle from Echo.
Walking around the hood, he offered me a hand down. Taking it, I slid off the side, landing between him and the small, green Volkswagen. Standing so close to him made me realize how much taller than me he was, and him bending to kiss me drove that point home. Alarms started going off in my head. No matter how much my body screamed yes, my moralistic standpoint was still a resounding no. Damn my conscious! I’d love to say I just wasn’t ready, and I suppose that was part of it, but it went deeper than that. Letting him kiss me would mean letting him in. I didn’t want to be vulnerable, to give him that kind of power over me. What if being with him was too good to be true. I lowered my gaze to the ground, and there was a moment’s hesitation before he resolved to kiss my hair instead.
Rocking back on his heels, I heard him sigh and craned my neck to see what his face would reveal about his feelings and saw the last traces of disappointment. I’d always been short, and being of average height for a guy our age, he was five to six inches taller than me. I don't know how thinking about our height difference in one moment tunneled into the thought I started thinking in the next, but it tumbled out of my mouth before I could think better of it.
“How will your mom feel about you dating someone like me, Drew? You know—someone who isn’t white?”
Leaning back slightly, he stared down at me and smiled the sexiest smile I’d ever seen. The amused chuckle told me I’d caught him off guard as he gave a disbelieving shake of his head.
“Someone like you? Eden, what’s this all about? So what if you’re not white, who cares?” He wrapped his arms around my waist. “You about ready for me to take you home yet?” Just like that, he dropped the subject and moved on. He wasn’t even the least bit concerned, which made me want to kiss him that much more.
“No, but I suppose we’d better be heading back before my dad decides to start checking in. If he knew I was out with you—good lord, it’d be World War Three at the Garrow’s house.”
A wave of relief washed through me over something I wasn’t even aware had been weighing on me in the first place. I guess it must have always been in the back of my mind because of how my father’s family would have viewed Echo had they known she’d
