by Lily Paradis
I take my drink down a hallway to look at the pictures and plaques because I can’t stand to sit still for one more second.
There’s a picture of a couple laughing, and I recognize Addison. Her hand has a giant diamond on it, and it’s resting on the chest of a man who looks so much like Hayden it makes my breath catch.
I reach out to touch the glass gently, and something chills me to the bone. Addison isn’t Hayden’s biological sister. This man in the photo is clearly his dead brother, John.
“Addison is my sister-in-law.” I hear his voice behind me. He steps forward and wraps his fingers around mine before leaning in to kiss the side of my head. “She and John were married in a court ceremony before their church ceremony. I gained a sister but lost a brother. She took control of all his holdings in the company when he died.”
My heart breaks for Addison. She married the love of her life, only to have him taken from her before it could even begin. I suddenly feel selfish for having Jesse and Hayden and all the drama I’ve created within myself over the two of them when Addison doesn’t have anyone like that to care for.
“I have something to show you,” he says, lightly tugging on my hand.
“What about your meeting?”
“You’re more important.”
“Your mother hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She’s very particular. She didn’t like Addy at first and look at her now.”
I sigh, and I let him lead me down a flight of stairs into what begins to look like a medieval castle. There are candles along the wall now instead of lights, and we’re in an underground tunnel. It’s at least ten degrees cooler, and he’s rushing me through because it’s freezing.
We come out on the other side and descend yet another staircase. It’s slightly warmer, and the airflow is improved, but it still looks and feels like we’re in Vlad the Impaler’s castle.
I feel something in the air that I’m not unaccustomed to, and it takes me a moment before I can place it. I start to see boxes and engravings in the wall, and I know exactly what that aroma is.
Death.
We’re in a mausoleum vault, and we’re surrounded by hundreds of boxes that presumably hold all the Rockefellers remains since they arrived in America.
He knows this fascinates me beyond belief and leads me over to one in particular.
I read his brother’s name and death date that I recognize from Hayden’s back. I can picture Addison standing here with her palms pressed against the stone, spending time with the husband she barely got to marry.
“Hi, John,” I whisper.
Hayden smiles. “I have one you’ll like even better.”
There’s a row next to John’s crypt where the vaults aren’t sealed like his is. Hayden pulls on the bottom of one, and the box slides out, revealing a casket. He opens the lid, and I look inside. I know it’s empty, but morbid curiosity makes me look anyway.
He’s still standing by the front of it, and I read the name engraved on the side.
I feel like I’ve been electrocuted.
Henry Hayden Rockefeller.
His birth year is supplied, but his death date is blank.
“Yours?” I ask as I run my fingers over the letters.
“Yes.”
This is where Hayden will be for all eternity once his heart stops beating. He’ll be in the halls of his forefathers, like I’ll be in mine with Denny and Maggie. Only this is the Rockefeller mausoleum, and it’s grander than our cemetery.
I notice that Hayden’s casket is larger than most because it’s meant to be luxurious. It’s not that high off the ground, so I decide to climb in. I want to know where he’ll be when he’s dead. It’s comforting in a way.
Hayden doesn’t bat an eyelash like a normal person would, but instead, he helps me in and then climbs in beside me. Both of us just barely fit, and every part of me is touching every part of him.
I start to cry, not because I’m afraid Hayden’s going to die, but because I feel sorry for John next door.
“He’s lonely,” I say.
Hayden’s wiping my tears.
“Addy will join him someday,” he says, “and so will the rest of us.”
It comforts me to know that they reserved one next to John for Addison, but that wouldn’t be enough for me. I don’t want to be next door like John and Addison or Denny and Maggie.
“I don’t want you to be lonely,” I say before my brain can stop my mouth.
He leans down and brushes his lips over mine.
“I won’t be,” he says gravely, and that’s all. He doesn’t say anything else, but he doesn’t have to.
Something inside me tells me he won’t be alone.
Because I’ll be in here with him.
Then
“BURY ME.”
“Tate, I am not going to bury you. That’s dangerous. Haven’t you ever seen that Ryan Reynolds movie where he runs out of air?”
I narrowed my eyes at Colin. “You just spoiled that for me.”
He stuck the shovel into the earth. “It was a shitty movie. I just saved you precious time in your life that you could spend doing other things, like not being buried alive.”
The new head groundskeeper, Jesse’s boss, had decided to rearrange the cemetery, which meant digging up some of the empty plots to prepare them for burial. This essentially meant he was making sure new plots were available for all the living Hales, which included me even though I didn’t like to be lumped into that category because Hale was not my last name.
“I said, bury me.”
One of the holes was left uncovered, and a mound of moved earth sat beside it.
Grave dirt. Or it would be.
I climbed down into the six-foot hole with Colin’s help, and now, I wanted him to bury me, so I would know what it felt like. I wanted to be prepared.
“You’re going to be dead when you’re buried, Tate. You’re not going to care what it feels like.”
“But I want to know what it feels like right now.”
He reached down and held out a hand to help me out of the hole.
“I may be fucked up, but I’m not going to bury you alive, only to have to dig you out. Congratulations. You’ve won the dark and twisty award for the day. Now, come up.”
“No,” I said as I crossed my arms over my chest. I was too stubborn to change my mind. “Leave me here.”
So, he did.
Now
FOR THE SECOND time today, I’m startled awake by Addison yelling for Hayden. This time, she’s added my name into the mix.
It takes me a moment to realize where we are because I’m not sure where I end and Hayden begins. I feel his breathing change when he awakes, and it’s then that I understand we’ve fallen asleep in his future final resting place.
I try to sit up, but I can’t unless he moves as well.
Addison’s heels click on the marble floors, and then her face is suspended above the coffin drawer.
“Get up, you sick freaks,” she hisses, and I know she’s angry because John really is dead in a drawer next door. She’s not awful like we are. “Hayden, your parents are coming.”
He makes absolutely no effort to move, and I start to panic. I don’t want Lane to know what a horrible person I am and what I’ve brought out in her son. Hayden seemed perfectly normal until last night when the undercurrent of darkness came out in full force. Now that I’ve encouraged it, I don’t think it’s going away. I like it, but I’m in the minority.
“It’s actually quite comfortable,” Hayden muses before he sees the look on Addison’s face.
That’s what spurs him up, and then we’re climbing out of the casket.
We haven’t cleared the drawer in time for Lane and John to come down the staircase. Hayden is out first, and then he helps me down, so my dress doesn’t come up.
I’m smoothing it down and patting my hair like a good Southern girl when Lane shoots daggers at me with her eyes. Hayden’s father looks amused, a
nd Addison just looks disturbed.
John clears his throat. “Hayden, Tate, we’re taking the helicopter out to the Hamptons house now. The rest of the family will be joining us there.”
By the rest, I assume he means their extended family, as Hayden mentioned before. The Kyler Place meetings no longer include everyone.
“Addison, we’ll give you a moment,” Lane adds.
I take that as our cue that we’re supposed to leave.
Addison nods gravely, and we leave her alone with her husband. Hayden takes my hand and wordlessly leads me out of the room.
Lane Rockefeller hates me.
I can’t help but think she has a vision of the kind of person she wants her son to marry, and it isn’t me. I think there’s even someone in particular that she’d like, not just a type.
“You’re sickening,” Addison tells us as she hands us both drinks. “Everyone’s excusing the lovebirds from the party, and I’m forced to field all of the conversations.”
“Sorry, Addy,” Hayden says before he takes a sip. “Now, you know how I felt at every family function when you and John got to be the lovebirds.”
“It didn’t have to be that way. You had your chance with my sister.”
She hits a nerve.
“Addison, that’s a nonissue. I never felt anything for her, and you know that.”
“Tell that to her,” she retorts before she downs half of her drink.
“I did. Many times.”
He weaves his fingers through mine, and I know we’re leaving this conversation. I’m grateful because I’ve never had to hear about any of his illustrious exes until now although Google and Wikipedia could supply me with endless information if I wanted it. It’s strange to think my boyfriend has an entire Wikipedia entry to himself.
Boyfriend.
I hate that term for Hayden.
He’s leading me down to the beach and away from the crowd. This isn’t a regular beach. It’s a Rockefeller exclusive beach, so it has its own cabana with wooden lawn chairs.
“You can take off your shirt, you know,” I tell him as I shed my cover-up. I might as well soak up some vitamin D while I can even though I hate the excessive light and heat.
“Actually, I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Well, unless you want my entire family to see the claw marks you left on my back last night, it’s staying on.”
Only Hayden could deliver that line with so much charm.
“Let’s keep it on then,” I agree. I’m one hundred percent sure Lane would kick me to the curb for good if she saw that.
He twines his fingers through mine.
“Thank you,” I say softly.
“For what?”
“For inviting me here even though I’m terrible at families.”
“You’re not terrible at families, Tate. Yours was just terrible to you.”
That description is beyond accurate, and I shudder to think what will happen when he meets them at Cece’s wedding.
“My grandmother is probably going to try to marry you,” I warn him. It’s not with an ounce of sarcasm.
“Let her try.”
“Are you sure you want to go? You can back out now.”
“Why do you want to go if you hate them so much?”
It’s a valid question.
“I don’t hate them I guess,” I admit. “At least I don’t hate Cece or Julian. I feel like I owe it to my sister to be there at her wedding, regardless of our past. If you don’t want to come, I’ll bring Colin or Catherine or both. I can’t face the icicles alone.”
He leans over to kiss me softly.
“I wouldn’t dream of letting them torture you without me there to watch,” he says with a smile. “So, I’ll be there. I’ve already informed the office that I’ll be out for a few days.”
“I guess I should book our plane tickets.”
“I hope we’re flying first class,” he says as he winks. He takes a sip of his drink.
I know he’s referring to the fact that we met on a plane when I wasn’t completely sober.
I smile to myself as I realize leaving my old life in Charleston was the best thing that ever happened to me. Now, I’m going back and bringing my new world with me.
I only hope they won’t destroy each other.
Then
I SAT THERE in the hole in the ground, contemplating my own mortality, until it started to rain. It was just little drops at first, ones that I wasn’t even sure were raindrops, and then fat ones the size of tears.
Panic started rising in my stomach because I knew I was alone. I’d told Colin to leave me, and he had. No one was going to help me.
I told myself to use this as a learning experience. It would be the way that I would finally be cured of my ombrophobia. I could work through it. I was Tate McKenna, and a little rain couldn’t hurt me.
Except that it could, and it had.
I breathed deep and shut my eyes while I tried to ignore the droplets falling on my face and over my eyes. My mascara was burning my eyes, and I knew it was all over my face.
My hair was plastered to my skin, and I was shaking like a leaf.
From fear, from anger. I wasn’t sure which was more dominant. I was afraid of this water falling from the sky because it had killed my parents and almost taken me with them. I was angry because I let it control me. Nothing controlled me, not even my maelstrom of a grandmother, yet I was letting rain turn me into a small child again.
No.
This rain wouldn’t have me.
Or if it did, if it drowned me in this hole, at least I would have stuck it out. I hadn’t run. I’d stayed.
I was brave.
I propped myself down in the hole and into one of the muddy dark corners. My jeans were ruined beyond repair, and I could feel the water seeping into my skin. Nothing could protect me. It was like it was trying to drown me from all angles, like a plant that you’d watered too much. It just soaked it up. It didn’t have a filter.
Skin was like that, too.
No one realized it, but skin soaked everything up. It was porous. That was why there were so many medications that came in patches that were just as effective, if not more so, than the kind that you swallowed.
Your skin was an organ.
And I was a sponge.
I was holding the panic at bay even though I wanted to give in—until it started raining harder. That was when I broke.
Everything inside me broke at once.
My body didn’t have to catch up with my mind as I bolted up and tried to claw my way out of the hole. I would have been happy to spend the night in here—in the ground with my family, in the home that I’d have for longer than I am on this earth. I would have been fine if not for the water.
My fingers were clawing, and the mud was underneath my fingernails so far that I was sure it would come out the other side and pop my nails off. I couldn’t get a grip because the sides were melting like some awful dream.
Instead of helping me, the mud was falling back down into the grave with me, and I thought that I might have to claw so much dirt off that I could climb on top of it and get out—except, I realized, that wouldn’t be the case. The more it rained, the more the consistency would change and the water would take over.
I would start drowning in a pit of mud-water that was more like quicksand than anything. This wasn’t regular dirt. It was old dirt from deep in the earth that hadn’t been disturbed for a long time. This dirt would kill me.
I started screaming then—not fake girl-in-horror-movie screams, but real gut-wrenching screams that came from somewhere I didn’t know I had in me. Colin was probably asleep in my room, and he was my best bet. Catherine had gone home hours ago, but Colin wouldn’t have. Colin had had too much to drink, and thanks to me and Jesse, he would never drive under the influence again.
I screamed until my throat started to give out, and I began come to terms with my panic. There was no more panic because my body accept
ed fate. The mud underneath my feet had turned into a sticky, disgusting, earthy-smelling mess that was making it harder for me to pull my feet out every time I wanted to jump or take a step. There was a strange amount of suction, and it was only getting worse.
The rain wasn’t letting up, and I regretted leaving my phone in my room. I didn’t carry it with me wherever I went because I was boycotting modern society with Colin, only he was better at it. I wasn’t quite as good at sticking it to the man because I lacked passion where he had it in spades.
My passion was elsewhere, like in trying to accidentally kill myself while I experimented in would-be grave holes.
I stood there, numb, holding my mud-covered hands out in front of me like a zombie, but palms up. I was going to die here. This was the end. Everything started to make sense, except that it didn’t.
A brown mop of head showed up in the darkness above the hole.
I felt like I was going to throw up, which meant I was still alive.
“Jesse, get me out. Get a ladder.”
“I’m not going to get a ladder.”
“Then, pull me up.”
It seemed like a reasonable request.
He didn’t move.
“Jesse, I’m serious. It’s cold and it’s dark and it’s raining. You know I hate the rain.”
I tried to reason with him, and I tried to keep the panic out of my voice even though I knew it was still there.
“I’m not going to pull you out.”
I did throw up then. When I was finished, he was gone.
Now, I was in this hole with too much water and dirt, and I would be here until Colin came looking for me in the morning—or until I died.
I wasn’t sure if you could die of shock, but I was fairly sure it was possible.
I’d heard stories of people’s hair turning white from it before they died. I hoped my hair turned white. Then, they would know I died afraid.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to die anymore. I felt like the same sad, scared little girl who watched as the water came over her parents in the car. They didn’t struggle because they knew it was coming.