Clinging to Rapture

by Megan D. Martin

  He covered my hand with his. I stared down at it; the sweeping lines of the word them took my breath away, though in reality it was probably the panic over flying that caused my reaction.

  “Don’t worry. Why should birds be the only ones who get to fly?”

  “That’s how God made them. God didn’t give us wings for a reason.” I still stared down at his hand, so big, dwarfing mine. I still clutched the buttery leather, but he kept his hand there, his warmth seeping into my skin.

  “You don’t think we started out as birds?”

  I glanced up and him and snorted. “What kind of weird evolution did they teach you in school?”

  “I don’t think you could call it impossible. How long were those seven days God spent creating everything? Who’s to say each day didn’t last millions of years? Maybe we were birds in the beginning. Maybe we all had wings.”

  The plane picked up speed.

  “If that’s so, then why did we lose them? Why did we evolve out of them?” I studied his lips as he pursed them in thought. They were so full, so kissable. My limbs heated further, my body readying for him. “Why do we have hair and no feathers, noses instead of beaks?” I quirked an eyebrow at him.

  His gaze swept up and down my face like a physical caress. My skin tingled, my breathing quickened. He was still touching me, surrounding me with himself. How does he consume me so? How does he turn me into this pathetic puddle of desires?

  “I think you would look a little funny with a beak.”

  The complete seriousness of his tone had me sputtering in surprise, and it took me a moment to recall what we’d been talking about. “I would look funny? What about you?”

  He rubbed his nose with his free hand. “I think I have the bone structure for it.” He winked.

  “You are something else.” I shook my head, laughing.

  “I’m okay with that. Being simple isn’t something I’ve ever strived for.”

  “I believe that.”

  Cole was far from a simple man, that was for certain. I thought back to the first time I remember meeting him. How he took control of my body, made me orgasm in front of hundreds of people without touching me with his hands. Complicated was the tip of the iceberg.

  His face turned brooding for a moment, as if he was having some sort of internal war with himself. He stared at me the whole time, his gaze never leaving me. I started to feel self-conscious. I’d put makeup on this morning, but suddenly I had the urge to check it. I turned away from him and reached for my purse.

  “You would have pretty feathers.”

  I glanced over to see him twirling a piece of my faded blue hair around his finger, and I immediately wished I’d re-dyed it. It was badly grown out and my white blond roots were exposed. “You think I would have dyed my feathers?” I smirked.

  “No.” He reached up and touched my roots with the hand not holding mine. His fingers against my scalp further sensitized me, sending a wave of pleasure racketing through my body. “Your hair is so white. I didn’t expect that. Your dad has dark hair.”

  I sat completely still as his hand moved back and forth. “I got it from my mom. Her hair was just like mine. Very light, practically un-pigmented.”

  He dropped his hand back to his lap. “Where is she now?”

  I stared at him. Had I really just brought up my mom? I didn’t talk about her with anyone, ever. She was a bad memory I could hardly recall. “You should know. You know more about me than I know about myself, right?” I jabbed at him and looked away. Who was he to ask me something like that, something he probably already knew. I bit down on my lips.

  If I expected him to have some sort of quick reply I was sadly mistaken. He was quiet beside me. I couldn’t see his face because I turned forward, my hair serving as a curtain separating us.

  “I don’t really think we started out as birds,” he said after several silent moments.

  I glanced at him. “You don’t?”

  “No.” He rubbed his chin. “We’ve always been a species who wanted freedom to fly. God didn’t give us wings, but he gave us minds, and even without wings, we fly.” He glanced over to the window on his right. I followed his eyes and gasped at the sight of shrinking buildings in the distance.

  “We took off?” Panic seized my insides. I glanced around the spacious, empty cabin, and went back to squeezing the arm rests, which I hadn’t realized I loosened my hold on.

  “You didn’t feel it?”

  I glanced up to find him smiling, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He seemed pleased with himself.

  “So you said all that stuff about birds just to distract me?” I took a deep breath and let it out slow.

  “Not entirely.” He paused, considering something. “We’re birds right now. Don’t you think?”

  I shook my head and closed my eyes. “I don’t want to think about it.” The idea we were soaring hundreds—soon to be thousands—of feet above ground threatened to make me pass out.

  Cole tightened his hand around mine and leaned in. Even with my eyes closed I was acutely aware of him. His musky aftershave made me want to press my face against his throat.

  “Don’t worry.” His nose brushed against my earlobe. “If you’re a bird, I’m a bird,” he whispered.

  My eyes popped open, my skin feeling suddenly too small for all the bubbling emotions inside. “You watched The Notebook?” The reference wasn’t lost on me. Like any girl I had watched that movie numerous times and used far too many boxes of tissues.

  He looked sheepish and I wanted to balk at the use of a line like that to woo me. But he wasn’t trying to woo me. I could tell by the look in his eyes. He wasn’t like the men in my past, using corny lines to try to take me home. This was Cole Maddon. Cole. My Cole. Sitting next to me. Even if that was what he was doing, it was him, which changed everything.

  “I have.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But, ah…” He trailed off and quickly moved his hand off mine. I stared at my hand, confused.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t mean to say that.” He looked nervous, staring at the seat across from us, no longer looking at me. Disappointment threatened to sweep through me. What did you expect, Julia? That he would say something like that to you and actually mean it?

  “I like that movie,” I offered to end the awkwardness.

  He nodded. “You okay?”

  I glanced around me, careful not to look out the window again, and realized that I was okay. Nervous, but all right. “Yes.”

  “Good.” He gave me a quick smile before unbuckling and moving back across from me. I frowned at the distance, perplexed as to what just happened between us, like most of our more recent encounters. “Won’t be a long flight.”

  I frowned before realizing I still didn’t know where we were going.

  SIXTEEN.

  “So you’ve never been to New Orleans?”

  I glanced over at Cole, who sat in the driver’s seat of a Jeep we had climbed into about fifteen minutes earlier at the airstrip.

  “I haven’t.” I’d been a little surprised at first that a limo with some all-expensive fancy driver hadn’t picked us up. Instead my hair was blowing in the wind as I sat passenger in a Jeep Wrangler with no doors. “You grew up here, right?”

  “I did.” He didn’t elaborate and I didn’t push it. I was too enamored with just being there. I was living in the strangest, most effed up year of my life. My hair was blowing in the hot Louisiana wind while I sat next to a sexy billionaire. In any other context this would have been a perfect world, so I let myself pretend for a moment. Pretend someone hadn’t tried to murder me. That Cole hadn’t stalked me for two years. That he wasn’t getting married to a stuck-up bitch.

  I was good at pretending. Sometimes.

  We exited and came into downtown. “Will we go to Bourbon Street?”

  Cole guffawed. “Of course! I wouldn’t bring you to NOLA without taking you to Bourbon. That would be a crime!”

  “So where a
re we staying?” I asked when we stopped at a traffic light. The sign said we were on Canal Street and big buildings comprised of shops, fancy restaurants, and other businesses flanked both sides. Tons of people were walking, most of them in tourist attire, sporting I Heart NOLA shirts. I am SO gonna get one of those!

  “Just a small hotel in the French Quarter.”

  “Do you own it?” I watched a woman push twins in a stroller on the crosswalk in front of us.

  Cole burst out laughing.

  “What?” I looked at him, confused.

  “No,” he shook his head, still chucking. “I don’t own it, Julia.”

  “I don’t see why that’s funny. You seem to buy everything that isn’t yours,” I said the words jokingly, but I was far from kidding.

  “Not everything can be bought, Julia.”

  “You learned that the hard way, didn’t you?” I quipped.

  His face went slack, the smile leaving his lips as quickly as it came. He punched the gas when the light turned green. “I did.”

  At the next stoplight, he put on his blinker and cut in front of several cars to make a jaunty left.

  “Forget your way around?” I said loudly.

  “No. Going somewhere else first.” He didn’t look at me, but I had clearly made him mad with my comment. I almost felt bad. Almost.

  Before I knew it, we were heading away from the fancier Canal Street, and farther away from the French Quarter. I was surprised to find a lot of New Orleans still in ruins from Hurricane Katrina. I knew Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it seemed like the tragedy had occurred a long time ago. Many buildings were destroyed, windows boarded up, roofs caved in. Spray paint tattered the houses. Some beautiful, with artistic grace. Others lewd, with half-finished phallic images, and misshapen hands flipping the world off.

  We entered an older neighborhood, one that seemed to have fared the worst. Most of the houses were dilapidated and condemned. Yellow tape covered broken-down fences and rotted wooden porches, warning people to stay away.

  “This neighborhood didn’t handle the hurricane very well,” I commented.

  “It looked like this before the hurricane, believe it or not,” Cole said. He parked the car on the street.

  “What are we doing?” I looked around, nervousness creeping into my bones. I didn’t feel comfortable here. The neighborhood was run-down, everything in shambles. People weren’t supposed to live in these houses, but that didn’t mean they didn’t. The homeless didn’t care about stuff like that. Gangs didn’t either.

  “I want to show you something.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and hopped out of the car.

  “Do I need to get out?” I clutched my seatbelt with two hands defensively.

  “Yes.” He came around to my side of the Jeep, looking strange yet beautiful in his pressed pants and button-up shirt against the backdrop of spray paint and disheveled homes. I took a mental picture of him, not wanting to forget.

  I expected him to make a joke or something to lighten the mood and make me feel better, but he didn’t. He just stood there, patiently waiting for me to unbuckle. So I did, reluctantly.

  “Have you been here before?” It was a stupid question. I knew it was when I said it, but my nerves were getting the best of me as I followed him to the house we parked in front of.

  “Yes.” He walked a few feet in front of me and pushed a small chain-link gate open. The yard was overgrown and he had to push hard to get it to budge. Tattered yellow caution tape was wrapped around the handle, but Cole tore it away easily. I followed him along a barely noticeable, lumpy, brick path which led to the steps of the porch. They were blue, or had been at one time. A lot of the light colored painted had been chipped away by weather and time. Worn, dark brown board was revealed below it.

  “Watch your step.” He turned and wrapped his hand gently around my arm and helped guide me up the stairs. I didn’t mind. I was far too nervous and needed to be as close to him as possible.

  The porch boards creaked beneath my feet and I watched them, certain I was about to fall through. The ink was faded on the laminated sheet of paper attached to the screen door, condemning the house. Cole opened the torn door with a squeak. He walked into the darkness first, and I followed him as I thought of the many horror movies that began this way.

  Cole stopped after taking several steps inside. I paused next to him and looked around. An old, tattered couch sat in front of an empty card table. Trash was all over the floor. A shattered lamp lay on its side. I looked at Cole, expecting him to explain, but instead he looked terrified. His gaze darted back and forth surveying the room as if it were a gruesome murder scene.

  “Why are we here, Cole?” I asked quietly. But I already knew the answer.

  He glanced at me and plastered a cruel smile on his face. I took a step back, fighting the urge to cringe at the sight of it. “Welcome to my home. Beauty isn’t she?” He waved his hand through the air like he was the host introducing the elephant at the circus.

  I glanced around again, taking in the ruins, breathing in the dust and mold. “This is where you grew up?” I sucked on my bottom lip.

  “It is.”

  I couldn’t contain my shock. I just assumed that Cole, with all his money and pompous attitude, was a man who had money long before he made it big in the Spirits world. Hell, if anything, I expected he came from some decent middle class family. The pride and joy. The handsome son who dominated in sports and had all the girls drooling over him. I had built this image of him in my head. The man who took what he wanted and asked questions later. That man couldn’t have grown up here in this run-down neighborhood.

  “It was nicer, though. Before. When it was your home,” I said.

  “Not much. We had electricity some of the time, when mom made enough tips to keep it on. When she wasn’t spending it on her newest boyfriend.” Cole shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “I’m sorry.” The words sounded feeble and pathetic, but I didn’t know what else to say. I was sorry, though. No one should have to live like that.

  He turned and walked down a hallway to our left, passing in front of me as if I hadn’t said anything.

  “We all had different dads. My siblings and I. None of them stuck around. Not that I blame them. She probably didn’t know who the dad was, they might not have known she got pregnant. Probably didn’t even know her name.” The door was missing on the first room we came to. A bare bed sat in the middle of the space. Tufts of cotton were scattered across the floor. No doubt the result of a rat making its home inside the old mattress. He didn’t say anything, just stared inside the room for a moment before moving on.

  “The house belonged to my grandparents. They built it in the early 1900s. They kept it up and took good care of it. They gave it to my mom when they got older and moved into a retirement village. She was the one who destroyed it.” Cole pressed his hand against the decaying frame next to a closed door at the end of the hall before pushing it open, revealing another bedroom. This one with a bunk bed. “This was mine and…” he paused, “Garrett’s room.”

  “Who is Garrett?”

  “My brother,” he said the words like they repulsed him.

  He has a brother? He never mentioned him before, only his sister. Suddenly, something Elaine had said the day before jumped into my head. “Murder me like you did all your siblings?” I hadn’t thought about it at the time, I was too overwhelmed with Cole’s presence and waking up in a different place.

  What really happened to Cole’s sister and brother?

  “And this room.” He pushed open the door adjacent to his. “Was Sandy’s room.” A small twin-size bed sat in the corner. Posters from one of those teen girl magazines covered the walls. Pictures of NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys, and 98 Degrees were everywhere.

  “Your sister,” I said quietly, remembering the beautiful girl tattooed on his arm, her hair blowing around a sad face.

  He let out a deep breath. “Yes.” He slammed the door, turned and stalk
ed off down the hall. I followed him quickly, though he didn’t stop in the living room. He went right back outside. The screen door screeched in protest when he threw it open.

  I sucked in a gulp of fresh air when I stepped outside, happy to be out of the musky, depressing house. Cole sat on the bottom step of the porch, his head in his hands. I sat down next him and waited a minute, mulling over my thoughts. Why did he bring me here? It didn’t make sense.

  “Cole—”

  “Don’t.” He cut me off.

  “I just—”

  “You needed to see.” He lifted his head out of his hands. His eyes were red, though there were no tears on his face. He looked scared, terrified. Though of what, I had no idea. What did he see when he looked inside this house? What haunted him?

  “Why?” The word emerged barely above a whisper.

  I thought he would close up, push me away, but he didn’t. He placed his hands on either side of my face. His eyes spoke a million words, but I couldn’t read them. They fluttered across his irises too fast for me to understand. “You needed to know.” He nodded, like what he said answered every question in the world. He brushed his fingers up and down my cheeks, with longing on his face. “I will always look in the mirror and see the little boy who went to school because I knew that was the only meal I would get. I will always see the poor teenager who never had new shoes.” His hands trembled against my cheeks. “I will always see the little boy who loved the people who hurt him over and over. It doesn’t matter how much I have now, how much money I’ll ever have. I’ll always see that kid, who believed his mom when she said she would be home early with dinner for me, Garrett, and Sandy—a happy meal for each of us—the boy who was disappointed when three days would pass before she came back, empty-handed.”

  My breathing grew shallow as I watched Cole and the utter despair on his face. His touch was gentle as he stroked my cheeks.

  “I will always see those things, no matter how much money I make. Or how expensive my suit is. I’ll always see that poor boy.” He dropped his hands lower, caressing my throat. “You will always see this scar when you look in the mirror. Other people will see it. It’s different from the scars I see in myself everyday. It’s these things that happen to us that shape us, that make us who we are.” His hands moved tentatively. “But it doesn’t characterize you, Julia. It shows the world you’re strong. That you lived even when someone wanted you to die.” He let out a sad laugh. “Sorry, I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, but it’s true. You had the courage to live, when all odds pointed against you.” He leaned in closer. “You should be proud of that.”