Echoes of Us

by S. H. Timmins

  Echoes of Us by S.H. Timmins

  Copyright © 2019 S.H. Timmins

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner of the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Books by S.H. Timmins

  Destinations Series - Romantic Comedies

  Bent

  Buffed

  Bound

  Darkest Needs Novels - Erotic Thrillers

  Sins in the Night

  Fears in the Dark

  Lies in the Shadows

  Dragon in the Midst - Coming Fall 2019

  Other Works

  A Perfect Pair - Coming 2019

  Dedication

  For my daughter.

  Bethany, I’m proud of you and believe you can reach the stars.

  Description

  What happens if your life begins on the wrong side of right? What will you sacrifice when secrets and money are the weapons of choice? How do you combine memories and dreams to reshape the future?

  You place your trust in the innocence of love, embrace the passion it offers, and never let it go.

  These are the Echoes of Us.

  Jolene and Cruz are childhood friends who were ripped apart by tragedy, tearing Jolene from her home and everything she knew. Now, in their senior year of high school, Cruz finds Jolene in her new life - a life she never wanted and will do anything to escape from. Together, they need to discover the secrets that forced them apart, to save Jolene from the dangers of her new family. Along the way, they find that a friendship born in childhood can become the love of a lifetime.

  This is a Mature Young Adult/New Adult novel. The book contains strong language, sexual intimacy, and mature themes. Intended for an older audience of 18 years and up.

  Moments that define our lives are like sounds; they leave an echo behind if they’re powerful, and we feel the reverberations in our hearts. These moments are always with us, a constant reminder that something profoundly impacted our lives. Even if we can’t recall the exact details with clarity, the emotional link to them never fades.

  They say life develops and grows in three stages: the beginning, the middle, and the end. But what about the heart? Does it not develop and grow? Our souls are eternal, yet our bodies are finite, but I believe we grant our hearts the capacity for the greatest growth of all; love. Love comes in three stages as well: the innocent, the passionate, and the endless. A heart is the shape of our love, and we feel its echoes the strongest.

  This is the story of two hearts, two souls, and one love.

  These are the Echoes of Us.

  The Wrong Side on the Right

  In the beginning…

  I live in a small town in the middle of America. There is nothing special about it, but there is one defining feature that makes our town unique. We have a set of railroad tracks that bisect it right down the center. These tracks influence everything about our town. It’s like the people who settled here laid down laws that would govern us for years to come, dictating on which side of the tracks you belonged - they designated the poor, the unwanted, and the lonely to the wither on the right, while the wealthy, the adored, and the accepted were welcome to flourish on the left. These aren’t actual laws, but they may as well be. Generations later, and these unspoken laws still hold true.

  I lived on the right side of the tracks.

  The only time my young mind remotely knew of this divide was when we traveled across the tracks for anything. My mom usually went alone when we needed something from the other side of town, but the few times my grandma couldn’t mind me, she brought me along. It felt like stepping into another town when you crossed those tracks. The air felt crisper; the roads were cleaner, people smiled brighter, laughed louder, and everything was bigger and better. At least, that is how my younger self saw it.

  We lived close to those tracks, but it didn’t matter how far from them you lived. If you were from the right side of the tracks, you were dirt. That is just the way it was, and sadly it still is.

  We lived on a quiet street in a big house with my grandma. My grandpa died when I was just four, but I still remember his whiskey and tobacco smell and the way he would twirl me around in the backyard with his big, booming laugh until I was dizzy, giggling, and breathless. There are pictures of him on the mantle, but those are the ways I remember him best - the memories I associate with smell and sound. He died from a massive heart attack. My grandma didn’t smile so much after his death, and her heart longed to stop so she could be with him again. We weren’t religious, so there was not a lot of mention of heaven, but she would tell me that there was a forever place where Grampy was waiting for her, and she would meet him there.

  My mom worked nights at a diner close to the tracks and cared for me and Grammy during the day. The nights were always my favorite time because my grandma would have her brandy hidden under the blanket covering her legs, and she would wink at me once my mom left. Our special time together. Grammy was different when she had the brandy; she would smile bigger and tell me the most wonderful stories. It was the time of day when I felt closest to her and it was our secret.

  Besides my evenings with Grammy, my favorite memories include my best friend, Cruz. We had been best friends since the first day in kindergarten.

  That first day, I was crying at the door as my mom pulled away in Grammy’s old car, and all I wanted to do was chase after her. I had never been away from my family before and I felt abandoned and alone. I didn’t want this new adventure - as Momma kept referring to it as - and I didn’t care about making new friends. I had my grandma as my friend. I didn't need anyone else.

  I was just about ready to bolt when I felt a small hand touch my shoulder. Feeling angry and panicked, I spun around… and saw a pair of shining blue eyes staring back at me. My anger fled in the face of his pain; a pain that matched my own. I felt an instant connection to this boy, and whispered, “You wanna run too?”

  He lifted his little shoulder in a shrug, then gave me a serious look, too serious for a boy of five. He matched my whispered voice when he said, “They’ll just bring us back. My daddy said I would be fine if I could make a friend. Would you like to be my friend?”

  I suddenly didn’t feel so panicked, and with a small smile on my face, I nodded my head and reached out my hand. “I’m Jolene Hamilton, but my grammy calls me Jo, and she’s my best friend. I’d like to be your friend too.”

  His face lit up as he grabbed my hand and shook it. “My name’s Cruz Santiago.” I scrunched up my nose at his weird name. I’d never heard one like it before and told him as much. He shrugged his skinny shoulder again and said, “My mommy named me.”

  I nodded my head like that made perfect sense, which it really didn’t, but I was five, so what did I know? I would find out later that his mother was Spanish, which explained his name better. And much later in my life, his name would sound anything but weird.

  From that day forward, we were inseparable.

  The summer I turned eleven, my perfect life exploded, and I felt the echo in my heart for years to come.

  Cruz ha
d become more than just my best friend; he was the brother of my heart. He was my constant companion and my favorite person in the entire world, next to my grandma.

  The kids at school didn’t understand our friendship, but we didn’t care. The boys teased Cruz and called him a girl for being my friend. Cruz was tall for his age and wore his black hair longer than the other boys. They constantly made fun of him for it, but he never showed them it bothered him. The girls were horrible and so much worse about what they said. They didn't call me a boy because my best friend was one, they used other mean words. Girls, even at that age, are far crueler. I understood most of the names, but others I wouldn’t learn the meaning of until I was older. I knew enough to know they were jealous. because even at eleven, Cruz was beautiful. I was only eleven myself, but I knew his blue eyes and black hair made him far prettier than the other boys, and even most of the girls. I never saw him as anything other than my friend, and his looks were just another part of him.

  Cruz heard the words and told me to ignore them, claiming they were jealous of how pretty I was. I never believed him. I knew I wasn’t like them. I didn’t wear dresses or have Momma put my hair in braids or pigtails. I was what you call a tomboy. My best friend was a boy, and I grew up playing with him. I never played with dolls, I didn’t care if I got dirt on my clothes and I loved to spend my time exploring nature with Cruz. We spent most of our time outdoors in the small forest behind my grandma’s big house. We pretended to be great explorers and every new stone, rock, or leaf was a new discovery. We made our very own fort out of some of the old skids Cruz’s dad had set up for us and covered it with a tarp. It wasn’t much, but it was ours and we loved it.

  Cruz’s mom died just after he was born. She was driving to the store to get diapers when a drunk driver ran a red light and smashed into the car. She died instantly and Cruz never got the chance to get to know her. He didn’t know his grandparents because they had thrown his mom out when she got pregnant, then cut all ties. I couldn't imagine people that cold. Later, I would meet a few of my own.

  His dad reminded me of a cowboy. He was big and strong, always wore a flannel shirt, and he gave the best hugs. He became one of my favorite people too. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, like me. His dad let me call him Mr. C. It wasn’t proper to call grown-ups by their first names, but Jake Cameron didn’t enjoy being called the same name as his father. He said it made him feel old. I gave no thought to the fact that his last name differed from Cruz’s. His parents hadn’t married, like a lot of couples on the wrong side of the tracks. Weddings cost money, and we weren’t just dirt on this side, most were dirt-poor. We had better things to spend our money on. My mom hadn’t married my dad either. Cruz must have gotten his blue eyes from his dad, but his were a few shades darker. His eyes were the color of blue velvet. At least, that's what I thought whenever I looked at them for too long.

  My mom was beautiful. She had the longest, palest shade of blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. She reminded me of a fairy princess. People would stop and stare when they saw her. She was ethereal. I wasn’t like my mom. My hair is a darker shade of blonde and my eyes don’t sparkle like hers. My blue eyes are so pale, they look like the color of an icy lake. She told me I looked like my dad, but I never knew him so I couldn’t say if it was true. My mom never talked about my dad. There are no pictures of him. My grandma told me once he was the most handsome man to visit this side of the tracks and every girl wanted him, but he only had eyes for Mom. She told me he was waiting in the forever place with Grampy. If I asked how he got there, she would just tell me it was my mom’s story to tell, one day when she was ready. I doubted that day would ever come.

  Cruz’s dad wasn’t immune to my mom's beauty. No one was. Cruz and I would giggle at how he'd “swoon” around her - my grandma’s word, not mine. He would look at her with such hunger, as well as longing, in his light blue eyes. Mom would just smile and shake her head, but then I noticed he was more than just friendly around her, and her eyes would linger on him and sparkle in a way I'd never seen before. My grandma would say they were “smitten” with each other. Then when she thought we couldn’t hear her, she would whisper under her breath, “That man has bedroom eyes, and a body made for sin.” I didn't understand what that meant at the time, and it didn’t sound nice, but Grammy would always smile when she whispered it, so I didn’t think she meant it to be mean. I would discover as I got older that she was quite the dirty old bird, and a lot of things she said were not what I had assumed when I was young. My grandma was the best.

  It was during this summer, on a typical day for us, and we had just emerged from our little fort and were heading back to the house for some snacks. Upon our emergence into the yard, we both stopped dead in our tracks. There, on the back porch, was my mom and Cruz’s dad. He wasn’t being friendly with her, and she wasn’t smiling and shaking her head. No, they were kissing! Something froze me to the spot as I watched Cruz’s dad holding my mom in his big, strong arms and kissing her lips harder than I had ever seen someone kiss another person. I couldn’t move, and the longer I stood there, the faster my breath came. Even at my young age, I could feel the passion between them. It made me feel funny.

  I felt a tug on my hand. Cruz hissed at me, “Come on!”

  I let him tug me around and lead me back into the forest. I stumbled after him as we found our way to the fort. I felt dizzy and confused, dragged back by Cruz’s firm grip on my arm.

  Once I was standing still, I yanked my hand out of his and yelled at him, “Why did you do that?” I don’t know why I was so mad at him. I knew we couldn’t let them see us, but I was feeling all mixed up about what we had witnessed.

  Cruz spun around and placed his hands on his hips. He pursed his lips at me, lips I suddenly realized looked soft and pillowy, like the ones that were just kissing my mamma. I felt even more confused when I felt my cheeks heat. Cruz sighed and then pointed to our sleeping bags on the floor. “You should sit down, Jo.”

  I suddenly thought it sounded like a great idea. After I dropped myself onto my sleeping bag, Cruz folded his body down next to me and sat on his. He took a deep breath, then whispered, “I did that because I didn’t know what else to do.”

  I stared at his profile. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. His cheeks were pink, and he kept chewing on his lip. I felt my own cheeks heat. I asked him, “But you saw, right? Did you see your daddy kissing Momma?”

  He nodded his head but still wouldn’t look at me when he replied, “I saw.”

  “What do we do?” I asked in an even smaller whisper.

  His eyes finally met mine and he squinted them in confusion at me. “What do you mean?”

  I took a deep breath and decided I had to be the one to state the obvious. “Do we pretend we didn’t see it?”

  Cruz shook his head. “No, but we can’t tell them we saw, either.”

  I was getting angry again, and I heard it in my voice when I snapped at him, “Why not? We need to know why!”

  Cruz ran his hand through his black hair and tipped his head back before answering me, but when he did, there was anger in his eyes now too. “We can’t just ask them! We don’t even know what we saw!”

  I felt my cheeks heat even as I shouted, “You know what we saw! Your daddy was kissing the heck out of my momma and he even had one of his big hands on her butt!”

  Cruz’s whole face went red at my observation, but it was from more than just anger. “I know! I was there too!”

  My head was spinning so fast with all the jumbled thoughts racing through it, but I slammed the breaks on one and felt my heart give a giant leap. A huge smile spread across my lips and I reached forward and grabbed Cruz’s hands in my excitement. “You know what this could mean?”

  He shook his head at me, but a small smile was inching across his mouth from my obvious excitement. “What do you think it could mean?”

  I felt my smile stretch and then I squealed, “They could fall in love and get married! We would get t
o be a brother and sister for real, Cruz. We’d get to live together and see each other when we go to bed and when we wake up. Just think of how amazing that would be.”

  Cruz smiled big with me, but then his smile slipped a little and his dark eyebrows came down over his troubled blue eyes. “We’d be a brother and sister, for real,” he repeated quietly, but more to himself.

  I was bouncing on the spot and nodding my head. His smile was gone by this point and his eyes looked sad and shiny, just like the first day I met him. I quickly smothered my excitement, and whispered, “What’s wrong? Don’t you want that?”

  He looked deep into my eyes, and it reminded me again how serious Cruz could be and how much older he seemed for his years. It made my heart skip a beat to see him look at me this way. He swallowed hard and then said in a hushed voice, “I don’t want to be your brother, Jo.”

  My young heart felt like it was being squeezed and I couldn’t draw enough air into my lungs. My hands felt numb in Cruz’s strong grasp. I could barely get words past the lump in my throat. “Why not?”