Volition

by Lily Paradis

  The third is tomorrow. I wasn’t planning on being ready that fast. I also wasn’t planning on spending the night with him because that static electricity would have to go somewhere.

  “All right,” I agree. It’s like my brain and my mouth aren’t mine anymore. Who let me say that?

  It’s time to walk him out.

  I know what comes next.

  That elevator.

  I’m in a different mood than I was the last time we were in this position a few days ago, but I’m the same person.

  Right?

  We’re approaching the elevator, and Hayden’s fingers are trailing down my arm. They get to my hand, and his fingers thread through mine.

  He grips my hand like he’s gathering a sheet below his fingertips.

  They’re just hands.

  No, they’re not.

  They’re his hands.

  I reach out and press the elevator button because he hasn’t yet. I know he doesn’t want to go, and he’s intentionally prolonging it.

  The doors open quickly, and it’s time for him to go inside. He’s still holding my hand, so he pulls me toward the threshold. He’s on one side of it, and I’m on the other.

  If I’ve learned anything, it’s that these elevator doors don’t stay open very long. It’s a high-tech one, and it’s built for speed. Damn modern technology.

  He’s still got my hand, and he’s pulling me forward ever so slightly.

  If I let myself go, I’m going to fall into the elevator with him.

  If I don’t let go, I’m going to get my head crushed between two metal doors any second here.

  I hear the ding that means they’re closing, and before I can step back and out of his grasp, his lips are on mine.

  In two seconds, he’s letting go.

  Without a word, he steps back into the elevator and smirks at me, and then he’s gone.

  I exhale, but no air replenishes what comes out.

  I’m left breathless on floor seventy, and I think I’ve met my match.

  Now

  I HAVE A job interview at The New York Times today. They liked my short story so much that their editor-in-chief called me and asked me to come in.

  That’s a big deal.

  I know it’s a big deal.

  I can’t help but think that I’m going over to Hayden’s apartment tonight. Then, tomorrow, I’m going to meet his family. I can’t focus on this job interview.

  Colin would laugh if he were here.

  Tate McKenna, nervous over something like this.

  Over someone like this.

  I put on my favorite dress, take the subway there, and hope for the best.

  I take the elevator up to the floor that’s been provided to me, and I can’t help but think of Hayden’s good-bye last night. I haven’t spoken to him since, and that puts another knot in my stomach.

  The doors open and spit me out into a waiting room where a woman asks for my name.

  Before I can answer her, I hear a familiar voice behind me.

  “Tate McKenna,” she says.

  I feel as though someone’s stuck a samurai blade through my heart. My blood runs cold, and my eyes want to pop out of their sockets before I turn around and see her.

  The receptionist turns her attention to the woman behind me, who is now approaching me based on the sound of her heels on the marble floors.

  I turn as smoothly as I’m able, and I put on the face Lara taught me to have—the one she wanted me to have at cotillion, but my emotions got the best of me.

  I’m going to throw up even though I haven’t had breakfast.

  “Jasmine,” I say as she leans in to air kiss my cheeks.

  She smells vile, like cheap perfume, and I wonder how he puts up with this, why he would want this over me.

  She asks me how I am, and I’m forced to tell her. I try to keep it clipped. I can’t help but notice the smirk that’s been plastered on her face ever since I turned around.

  She remembers the last time I saw her.

  She knows how much I hate her and why I left Charleston.

  What I would like to know is why she followed me.

  “Well,” she says, “Daddy called me because they’re just swamped. He needs me to handle some of our productions while he acquires new clients.”

  Jasmine Saro, New York City bitch and publishing heiress.

  I think that’s what her business cards read anyway.

  Jasmine Saro won’t have to work for anything in her life because she’s not going to run away from her fortune like I did.

  I hate Jasmine Saro more than any human being on this planet.

  I hate her because Jasmine thinks her strings pull her to Jesse, but they don’t. Mine do, and mine alone. I wanted it to be Casper just like Jasmine wants it to be Jesse, but I am his, and he is mine whether we like it or not. We’re puppets of fate, and I wonder why Jasmine’s strings are free-floating.

  Did her soul mate die?

  Did she ever have one?

  Does she deserve a soul mate?

  Do I?

  I want to understand what got her to this point where she is so very clearly confused, but she’s blissfully unaware. Jesse doesn’t acknowledge any of the strings, and I’d like lessons in how he does it because I can’t do anything without feeling them pulling me all over.

  I can’t kiss Hayden because I think of Jesse. I can’t think of Hayden because my stomach is killing me from the separation from Jesse.

  I want him out. I want him gone.

  I want to give him to Jasmine, but I can’t.

  I can’t.

  I have no idea what she’s saying now, but I’ve caught her mid-sentence.

  “He asked about you, you know.”

  I shake my head to clear it. “I’m sorry. What?”

  She knows she’s flustered me, and her face shows small signs of triumph. “Jesse. He asked about you.”

  Do I have a heart anymore? It’s stopped beating if so.

  “Is he here?”

  “No, silly.” She waves her hands at me as if I’m a child. “He’s in Charleston.”

  They’re not traveling together. That’s good.

  Or bad?

  I don’t know anymore, but I’m going to fail my interview if she isn’t removed from my sight in the next ten seconds.

  “Good seeing you, Jasmine,” I say, giving her a Lara-approved smile.

  She looks startled, but she composes herself because we’re in public. She smooths her dress down and pats her hair. “You, too, Tate. Always a pleasure.”

  “It’s never a pleasure,” I whisper under my breath as she leaves.

  Her body might be gone, but her presence isn’t. She’s managed to ruin my whole day. I wonder if this is how she felt when she was out of her element in Charleston when I first met her.

  I have no sympathy for the way I treated her. She wanted Jesse from the start, but she went for Casper first. Then, she went for my jugular.

  And I bled.

  I bled out.

  Then, I died.

  And then, I flew to New York.

  “Tate McKenna.”

  My name is being called, but I don’t care.

  Suddenly, I don’t care at all.

  I have no idea if I got the job or not.

  He says he’ll call me.

  I don’t care though.

  I don’t care about anything.

  I’m walking around outside now, and I’m numb. It’s starting to drizzle, so I duck inside the nearest building.

  St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

  I’m standing outside the enormous regal doors, underneath the overhang of the building. I could go in, but I might also get struck down by God because I’m not a good person.

  Then again, I could get struck by lightning out here because it’s starting to storm.

  The rain.

  I can’t be in the rain.

  Then, I’ll have two reasons to be numb instead of just one.

  I w
alk in, and I’m immediately soothed. There’s scaffolding everywhere as if it’s trying to hold the whole building together before it falls apart and crushes all of us.

  There are candles everywhere, too. I can’t hear the rain from in here, only some soft organ music. There’s not a service, but people are reverently sitting in the pews.

  I decide to become one of them.

  Someone checks my bag to make sure I’m not a terrorist like in that Angelina Jolie movie, and I sit down in one of the back rows.

  I sit there.

  I just sit.

  I have no idea how long I sit there—feeling numb and thinking about nothing, but thinking about everything.

  I have to go home.

  The air is humid, so I know it’s still raining outside.

  New York rain smells putrid. It hits the pavement and brings out whatever has been on there since the last time it rained, and then it’s all in the air.

  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.