Volition (18 page)

I ran like Cinderella ran at 11:59 when her life was about to expire.

That was what was happening to me.

I tripped over a step I didn’t see through my tears as I frantically ran down the back entrance and around to the parking lot.

I came here with Colin and Catherine, so I had no way to run away.

I sank down into the grass, and my white dress was immediately soiled with mud and grass and tears.

I wasn’t upset because Jesse was here with Jasmine. Well, I was. But I was more upset because I’d just realized that although Jesse was my soul mate, I would never have him. Something inside me told me it wasn’t right. It was so right, but it was so, so wrong.

He was never going to love me the way I loved him. Our lives would never work together.

It was a horrifying gut feeling that I knew I would never be able to shake from that moment forward. I would only be able to learn to live with it.

I wiped my tears again and spotted his car out of the corner of my eye.

Salvation.

I picked up the hem of my dress and ran toward it. Both of my shoes came off in the grass, and I left them there.

I pulled the spare key from underneath his tire and shoved myself into the car and the key into the ignition. The car breathed to life. It smelled like him, and the tears came even more heavily down my cheeks.

I didn’t know what else to do, so I drove.

I just drove.

It was hours later when my tears had dried. I was with Denny and Maggie. I had cried all the tears that I had, and I wondered if I could ever cry again or if that was it. Maybe there was a certain amount of tears that you were allowed to cry in your lifetime, and I’d just used them all up crying over a boy who would never care about me. He would never tell me he loved me or hold me in his arms or kiss me. He wouldn’t do any of those things, and I didn’t want them from anyone else but him. I wouldn’t be happy with anyone else but him.

I wished I were like everyone else. I wished I felt like I had a choice, but I didn’t. He was given to me like a gift I didn’t ask for, but he didn’t want me back.

It was pitch-black outside, and the only lights in the night air came from the Hale Plantation, which was quite far off from the cemetery even though it was on the same property.

My only clue that someone was there with me was the clang of the gate.

No.

That wasn’t my only clue.

My other clue was that I felt panic and peace at the same time, and my head and my heart didn’t know what to do with it.

He was here.

I felt him lie down next to me, but I didn’t budge. I wanted to be right in between Denny and Maggie. He was more on Denny’s side, and he could stay there. I was sure Maggie would be mad at him with me, so I imagined that she was.

“How did you get back?” I asked him finally. My voice was so rough and scratchy from crying that I barely recognized it when it came out of me.

He sighed audibly. “Your friend Colin drove me back.”

I scoffed. Colin would never drive Jesse anywhere voluntarily.

“Catherine convinced him since my car was a victim of grand theft auto, courtesy of Tate McKenna.”

I wasn’t sorry, so I didn’t say I was.

He sat up and brushed the dirt off his hands and his clothes, and he wandered over to a tree stump across from Denny and Margaret.

As if my body was not controlled by my brain, it followed him.

“How long has this been here?” I asked, amazed that I hadn’t noticed it before.

He started tracing the rings in the trunk, and I felt dizzy looking at all the rings. I sat down on the edge of it and started following his finger.

Circles. Our fingers were going in circles just like we were.

“Imagine what these rings have seen,” Jesse said, his voice cutting through the silence. “Something happened, people happened, people died. And this tree saw it all—until it didn’t.”

The way he spoke was so poetic that my mouth dropped slightly. No person would ever get me the way he did.

Circles. The rings on this stump still went in circles.

I studied Jesse’s face, and I thought about our future. I thought about Jesse when he would be old and wrinkled, and his dark hair would have a touch of gray.

As if he read my mind, he reached out and touched my face almost like he was tracing the wrinkles that would be there when I was an old woman. Laughter lines. They would only be there if I smiled. If I lived long enough. If I had a happy life.

Would my life be happy without him?

The pieces of my heart would never go back together. That was clear to me.

All I knew was that I couldn’t have him right now. It was impossible. Could I have him in a year? Two years? Five years? Ten years? I didn’t know. All I knew was that although the universe was pushing us together, it was also pushing us apart.

It was pushing us in circles.

Jesse’s hand still rested on my face.

I gathered up my skirt and ran back to the house without another word.

I ran.

I just ran.

I didn’t look back.

Now

I’M STANDING OUTSIDE of my new building with Hayden. It hits me then, as I’m staring out at the cars in the street, that I’ve just put down roots.

I’ve never had roots.

Jesse was the only root I ever had, and I yanked him out and tried to be rid of him because no one could water.

I just put down roots.

I look at the man standing next to me, and he holds his hand up to his face to block the sun, so he can see me better.

“You know what’s tonight?” he asks me.

“What?”

“Manhattanhenge.”

“That’s a thing?”

“That’s a thing.”

“What is it?” I’m nervous, and I think my voice shakes, but I can’t stop it.

“Twice a year, the sun lines up perfectly with the buildings of Manhattan. It’s like Stonehenge or the temples in Central America where the sun lines up on the solstice, and you can see snake shadows running up and down the stones.”

“What time is it at?”

“Sunset.”

I need to learn how to speak again, but my brain is too busy trying to understand what I’ve just done with my life by buying an apartment before I have a job and why I’ve decided to stay here to begin with.

“Tate?”

Hayden is trying to get my attention, and I’m not sure how long I’ve been zoned out for.

“Tate? Do you want to watch it with me?”

Yes.

Say yes.

“Yes,” I say, doing my brain’s bidding.

“Good. But first, I’m going to show you the city.”

I already know the city pretty well, but if Hayden wants to take me somewhere, I’ll let him.

His hand laces through mine, and his other rises to a car that pulls up to the curb next to us. No doubt, it’s Al.

“Hayden,” I ask, pulling him back toward me and away from Al’s air-conditioning, “have you ever taken the subway?”

He shakes his head.

“Then, how do you know the city?”

He looks at me like I’ve just dumbfounded him, and he waves Al away.

“Only you, Tate McKenna.”

He smiles that kind of smile that comes deep from your soul, and no matter what you do, you can’t stop it. It’s that kind of smile that could get you in trouble in class. It gives you away like no other because it’s not just that something’s funny. It’s that you’ve been touched deep inside your being, and you just can’t help but outwardly express it.

“I’m all yours,” he says to my silence because I’m staring at him.

I think he means it in more ways than one.

“Good,” I say. I smile, too, as I squint back at him. “Because there’s someone I want you to meet.”

I make Hayden sort out the subway system himself, and he looks like an idiot, standing next to the subway map by the door to the station. People are actually bumping into him as he traces his fingers over the different lines, trying to determine the best way to get to the station I’ve told him to get us to.

He comes back with a mini map. “Is this the right one?”

I shrug evilly, knowing that it’s not, but I’m going to let him make some rookie mistakes today. I swipe my MetroCard into the reader and hold out my hand. He looks at me like I’m insane, and I tell him he’s paying for this adventure because he’s the one who can’t figure out the subway.

He hands over a black-and-gold credit card, and I dip it into the machine to fill my card. Then, I buy him his own. I hand him his credit card and his first MetroCard.

“Why won’t one work for both of us?” he asks.

“Because,” I tell him as I slide through one of the turnstiles, “it can’t be swiped again at the same station within a certain amount of time. That way you can’t cheat if you have a weekly card.”

“Doesn’t that cause a problem if you miss the swipe the first time?” He looks down at the turnstile and then up at me.

“Yes,” I say. “So, make sure you do it right the first time.”

Seeing Hayden Rockefeller as a fish out of water is hilarious and extremely endearing. Although he’s nervous, I think he’s enjoying his time as one of the people instead of as their king.

He swipes the card and hurries through, and I can’t help but laugh at him. It’s so clear he’s new to this that other people are staring at him. But this is New York, and half of them are so busy trying to get to where they’re going that they don’t realize who he is. The other half just keep their heads down in their books or newspapers or phones with their music playing that it doesn’t matter.

“So, we’re taking that line, right?” Hayden shows me on the mini map.

I shrug. “This is all on you. Rule number one: Always have the subway map saved on your phone so you don’t look like a tourist.”

He walks over to a trashcan and deposits the map. Then, he tries to pull it up on his phone to no avail because there’s no service in the subway.

When I feel smug enough, I hand him my phone, so he can look at the subway lines. I let him lead me to the wrong one. We’ll be going entirely in the wrong direction because we should be going downtown, not up.

I don’t really care because I’d let Hayden take me anywhere.

Two wrong stops later, we’re finally at one of the stops near Catherine’s apartment. We get out at Union Square and quickly pass my favorite restaurant in the world, The Grey Dog. Then, I show him my favorite bagel store, Bagel Bob’s. Once, during finals week, Catherine went twice in one day just to cope with the stress.

Finally, we reach Washington Square Park.

“Don’t walk underneath the arch,” I tell him. “You won’t graduate.”

“Tate, I’ve already graduated—twice. I don’t think that’ll be an issue.”

I look at him like I have no idea who he is. “You graduated?”

He looks back like I’m the crazy one here. “Yes. In May.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three. Twenty-four in December. How old are you?”

“Twenty-two,” I tell him, not feeling my age at all.

I feel like this conversation doesn’t match where we are in our relationship, but it also does. I assumed he was the same age as Catherine because he went to that graduate school party in Harlem. It never occurred to me that he wasn’t still in school. It’s impressive to me that he pursued higher education when he clearly would have had a job and been just fine because of his last name.