Volition (24 page)

I have to brave it. I pull my sweater closer to my body and run as fast as I can, not even checking to see if there’s a walk sign when I cross the streets. Most New Yorkers don’t anyway. Who cares if a car hits me? Maybe then I’d feel something.

The storm gets worse, and I’m still running, but the rain is in my hair, in my face, in my eyes, and seeping into my soul. Instead of nothing, I start to feel the panic that grips me every time it rains, and I watch the raindrops chase each other as they fall.

I feel the night I lost my parents, and I feel the impending doom that it’s going to be me next.

For someone so preoccupied with death, the rain elicits a response I can’t control, a fear that creeps into my being. I can’t get it out until every drop has dried from the streets, and the water is no longer dripping from the leaves of the trees.

I turn around just as a bolt of lightning hits one of the spires of St. Patrick’s, and that’s it for me. I have an outer body experience as I watch the lightning reflect in my eyes, momentarily obscuring the horror that I feel.

I run to the nearest building and hide underneath the eaves, unsure of what to do. I just stand there, praying this will pass quickly. There’s no way I’m going to brave stepping out and hailing a cab or getting to the subway station. I’m frozen to the spot, and I can’t move.

The numbness is creeping up from my extremities into the core of my body, and I start shaking. I lean back into the building behind me for support, and the door opens next to me. I know it’s going to be someone asking me not to loiter, but it’s not.

Standing there, looking at me, is a face I’ve only seen a handful of times, but I know what he means
, who
he means.

“Miss McKenna?” he says, staring at my face.

I try to wipe it. I only succeed in sticking my hair to the sides of my face, and I know I look like I should be committed.

“Al?”

“Would you like to come inside? We have chairs here.”

Thank God. Seriously, I wanted to thank him for one, not striking me down in St. Patrick’s, and two, sending Al to get me out of the disgusting freezing rain that’s giving me PTSD.

Al puts a hand on my back as he guides me through the building because I’m clearly not doing a very good job of it by myself. I’m stumbling everywhere because I’m shaking, and I barely have control of my body.

I hear a familiar voice echoing down the hallway, and that’s it. That’s the end. My legs give out beneath me, and then I’m sitting on the beautiful floor of the Rockefeller terminal. I can’t even process how we got here from that entrance because I never knew it was all connected underground until now.

I’m sitting here on the floor with his name on it when he sees me. He’s talking to a colleague when his head turns, and he stops mid-sentence to watch Al as he supports me on the floor.

Hayden is carrying a black suit jacket and wearing the rest of it, and he finally looks the part of the man whose name is everywhere in this city.

I watch as it looks like he’s running over to me in slow motion before shoving his jacket at Al to put his hands on either side of my face. They’re burning hot.

No, it’s just because I’m freezing.

I think.

“Tate, what’s wrong?”

I can’t tell where there’s more panic—in his voice or his eyes.

I can’t speak because I’m shaking so hard, so I just start to cry. Then, there’s more water everywhere because it’s coming from my eyes, too.

I wish that my body would just let me pass out, so I could skip this part, but I know it won’t. I’m just going to be numb.

“Get the car.”

Hayden’s lifting me up, and I’m drenching his expensive suit. There’s not a single part of me that isn’t waterlogged, and it’s going everywhere. I lean my head on his shoulder, but then there’s mascara all over his white shirt.

I try to rub it off, but he stops me.

“Tate,” he says just my name because he doesn’t have to say anything else.

I’m suddenly grateful that I have someone carrying me. Jesse would never carry me. He might call for help, but he wouldn’t physically carry me. I don’t know why. He just wouldn’t.

I’m suddenly so incredibly angry with him over this stupid little fact. If we were soul mates, why wouldn’t he carry me if I were in this state? Did he really love me at all?

No, he didn’t.

Hayden’s running up a set of stairs, and through the revolving glass doors, I see Al pulling a car up to the curb.

“It’s just going to be a second, okay? One second of rain, and then we’ll be in the car.”

He’s warning me because he knows there’s something I don’t like about it, but I haven’t told him why. I grip the sides of his arms and bury my head in his chest.

The second those raindrops hit me when we go through the door, I feel like daggers are pelting my skin. Like where each raindrop falls, I should have searing cuts. Sound hits me like a rush because other people are trying to get out of the rain, too. Cars are splashing water everywhere.

Then, everything is quiet.

I smell the soft leather seats, and Al’s helping Hayden shut the door because I’m on his lap.

He’s running his hands through my hair and whispering in my ear, and I don’t know what I’ve done in my life to deserve this. Nothing. I’ve done nothing to deserve the kindness of the man who’s holding me.

Just for a second, I can’t hate myself, and I can’t push him away because I don’t have enough energy.

So, I just sit there.

I try to let the heat from his body transfer to my soaking wet one, and I try to pretend that I deserve this.

But I don’t.

Deep down, I won’t let myself forget that I don’t, and I never will.

Now

I DON’T REMEMBER the car ride to Hayden’s apartment.

I think Al flew the car because all I remember was breathing in Hayden while he stroked my hair. Then, we were here. The car is stationary, and Hayden is once again scooping me into his arms. I let him because my legs are Jell-O. I’m grateful his arms aren’t Jell-O, too, or else I’d be on the floor.

I’m heavier than normal because he’s carrying me and my sopping wet clothes and hair.

Ugh, my hair.

It’s everywhere, and I continuously have to peel it off Hayden and me, so it doesn’t strangle us.

The doorman who disapproved of me before pushes the elevator button that will take us up to the penthouse, and I wish I could smirk at him, but I don’t have the energy.

The elevator takes longer than the one to get you up to the observation deck of the Empire State Building, and I feel myself start to shake again from the cold. I was warm in the car, but now that we’ve left that cocoon and it’s just the two of us, I’m freezing from shock and water.

Hayden’s watching the numbers on the top of the door, and he’s saying something under his breath. When he feels me start to shake, his gaze turns to me instead.

“We’re almost there,” he tells me, but his voice has an edge to it.

The last time I was here, I was telling him how I already had a soul mate. He asked me if it was possible to have more than one, and I told him I didn’t know.

I thought I did know.

Now, I don’t.

He’s completely flipped everything upside down. Even though I still feel Jesse, there’s something about Hayden that numbs it. It’s like when you’re at the dentist. The novocaine makes sure you can’t feel the pain through your nerves, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still feel the vibration of the drill. Then, the medication wears off slowly at first and then quickly before you feel everything plus the filling they’ve just put in.

I don’t want Hayden to be the novocaine. I just want the universe to swap their places.

We’re finally at the penthouse, and Hayden carries me straight through his bedroom and into the master bathroom. I don’t even have time to look at the decor because he’s helping me take off my shoes, and we’re sitting in the shower.

It’s not really a shower. It’s more like a room. Even with both of us sitting down against the wall, we could easily fit six linebackers in here with us.

“I’m going to turn it on to warm you up,” he tells me, but his voice sounds far away. “Is that okay?”

I’m not sure why he’s asking me until I follow his eyes up to the ceiling. There’s not a showerhead. There are holes in the ceiling, and I think water is going to come out of them. It’s going to be like rain.

I nod slowly, and then he moves from a crouching position to a standing one, and he’s configuring the temperature of the shower rain.

It begins, and I try to tell myself it isn’t real. I’m not outside. I can’t drown in here. I’m not trapped. I’m not alone.

My clothes are already soaked, and I feel the cold before I start to feel the warmth because all the cold water that’s been sitting in them has to be overruled by the warm water. Hayden is sitting down next to me, and then he’s pulling me onto his lap because somehow he’s warm. Maybe it’s because he still has a soul.

He didn’t bother to take any of his clothes off either, so his white shirt is completely plastered to his body, and my mascara stains are running down where I left them. The rest of his suit is probably ruined, save for the jacket that I assume is still in the car with Al.

His chin is on the top of the back of my head, and I know he can feel every single tremor that runs through my body as I continue to shiver.

The shock starts to wear off, and I feel like I should explain what just happened, but I’m not sure how.

“I always wanted to be Eva Green,” I say softly.

“How so?”

When he speaks, I can feel his jaw moving against my head and his voice reverberating through my back.

“
Casino Royale
. Vesper Lynd.”

“Only
slightly
different from this situation,” he says with mild sarcasm.

I can feel him smiling.

I sigh deeply and try to think of where to begin. “I hate the rain.”

“I gathered that. Are you okay?”

“As okay as I’ll ever be.”

I turn to face him, so I can see his reactions, and I’m slightly distracted by the state of his shirt.

“My parents died during a rainstorm. We were in the car, and the road collapsed in front of us. I watched both of them die.”

He doesn’t say he’s sorry, but his expression changes to what looks like anger laced with concern.

My heart hurts because this man is upset at the world for doing this to me.

I don’t deserve for him to feel this way, or any way, about me.

“I made it. My grandparents raised me. But now, when it rains, all I can see is my view from the passenger seat as they were pulled under by the current and how I wasn’t. They weren’t sucked out of the car. They were just trapped. They died two feet away from me, holding hands.”

He reaches out and removes a piece of my hair plastered to my face, so it’s not inching toward my mouth every time I talk.

“I tried to drown myself in that car,” I tell him.

I realize I haven’t said this to anyone before—not Catherine, Colin, or Jesse. I think Colin knows because it’s what he would have done, too—only Colin would have succeeded.

“I put my head under the water, and I tried, but I failed. There’s a mechanism in your body that won’t let you drown yourself if it’s possible to get air. It’s impossible without outside forces holding you down. The back end of the car was up only inches higher than the front. Death was so close but so far…” I trail off.

Just like that, Hayden knows how awful I am, how there’s a volatile darkness that lives inside me. Although it’s been muted as of late, it’s still there. It’ll always be there. He deserves someone who is full of light, like Catherine—not someone like me who could drag him down into the abyss.

“Okay.”

That’s all he says.

Just one complacent word, and he’s accepted one of my worst flaws.

Old Tate would have lashed out and tried everything possible to drive him away. I simply stare at him for what feels like forever because I’m dumbfounded that he’s not pushing
me
away.

Hayden sits in the shower with me until my skin has come to life again. I no longer feel like one of the marble statues in the Met.