Pushing the Limits Read Free Page A

closing, the restaurant hadn’t let me go until after midnight, and then Beth and Isaiah kept me up.
    “Mrs. Marcos?” asked an angelic voice. “Can you please tell me the upcoming dates for the ACT and SAT?”
    The phone rang. “Wait one sec,” said Mrs. Marcos. Then the ringing ceased.
    A chair down the row from mine shifted and my mouth watered from the aroma of hot cinnamon rolls. I snuck a peek and noticed red, silky, curly hair. I knew her. Echo Emerson.
    Not a cinnamon roll in sight, but damn if she didn’t smell like one. We had several of our main courses together and last semester one of our free periods. I didn’t know much about herother than she kept to herself, she was smart, a redhead and she had big tits. She wore large, long-sleeved shirts that hung off her shoulders and tank tops underneath that revealed just enough to get the fantasies flowing.
    Like always, she stared straight ahead as if I didn’t exist. Hell, I probably didn’t exist in her mind. People like Echo Emerson irritated the crap out of me.
    “You’ve got a fucked-up name,” I mumbled. I didn’t know why I wanted to rattle her, I just did.
    “Shouldn’t you be getting high in the bathroom?”
    So she did know me. “They installed security cameras. We do it in the parking lot now.”
    “My bad.” Her foot rocked frantically back and forth.
    Good, I’d succeeded in getting under that perfect facade. “Echo … echo … echo …”
    Her foot stopped rocking and red curls bounced furiously as she turned to face me. “How original. I’ve never heard that before.” She swept up her backpack and left the office. Her tight ass swayed side to side as she marched down the hallway. That wasn’t nearly as fun as I’d thought it would be. In fact, I kind of felt like a dick.
    “Noah?” Mrs. Collins called me into her office.
    The last guidance counselor had major OCD issues. Everything in the office perfectly placed. I used to move his plaques just to mess with him. There’d be no such entertainment with Mrs. Collins. Her desk was a mess. I could bury a body in here and no one would ever find it.
    Taking the seat across from her, I waited for my ass-chewing.
    “How was your Christmas break?” She had that kind look again, sort of like a puppy.
    “Good.” That is if you considered your foster mom and dadgetting into a screaming match and throwing everyone’s gifts into the fireplace a good Christmas. I’d always dreamed of spending my Christmas in a hellhole basement watching my two best friends get stoned.
    “Wonderful. So things are working out with your new foster family.” She said it as a statement, but meant it as a question.
    “Yeah.” Compared to the last three families I had, they were the fucking Brady Bunch. This time around, the system had placed me with another kid. Either the people in charge were short on homes or they were finally starting to believe I wasn’t the menace they’d pegged me to be. People with my labels weren’t allowed to live with other minors. “Look, I already have a social worker and she’s enough of a pain in my ass. Tell your bosses you don’t need to waste your time on me.”
    “I’m not a social worker,” she said. “I’m a clinical social worker.”
    “Same thing.”
    “Actually, it’s not. I went to school for a lot longer.”
    “Good for you.”
    “And it means I can provide a different level of help for you.”
    “Do you get paid by the state?” I asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Then I don’t want your help.”
    Her lips flinched into an almost smile and I almost had an ounce of respect for her. “How about we shoot this straight?” she said. “According to your file you have a history of violence.”
    I stared at her. She stared at me. That file was full of shit, but I learned years ago the word of a teenager meant nothing against the word of an adult.
    “This file, Noah.” She tapped it three times with her finger. “I don’t think it tells the whole story. I