Volition (2 page)

Now

MY NAME IS Tate McKenna, and I am a coward. I like to think that I’m being brave by picking up my life and moving across the country, but the glass of scotch in my hand says otherwise.

I haven’t eaten yet today, except for the peanuts that the flight attendant handed me when she delivered my drink. Her eyes were filled with pity, but her electric-blue eye shadow made me think that this should be the other way around. She had eyeliner haphazardly smeared all over her lower lid, and I wasn’t sure she was aware of it.

I laugh to myself because I remember the days when my grandmother would accuse me of looking like a panda when I ran out of the house to drive around with Colin. My own eyeliner would melt in the summer heat, but I didn’t care. I wanted my eyes to be as dark as my soul.

I nurse my drink and swallow one of the ice cubes. I can’t help but wince.

“Everyone knows you don’t put ice in scotch,” a deep voice echoes my exact thoughts.

I don’t look up immediately because I’m not entirely sure that it’s real. My conscience may now be voiced by a man.

“Everyone, except for her.”

I look up now to see where the voice is coming from.

There’s a man sitting across the aisle from me, and I don’t know how I didn’t notice him before. I’m drunk though.

No, maybe not drunk. Tipsy, at least.

His face is half obscured by a fully unfolded newspaper. This must be why I didn’t see him—that, or a multitude of other reasons, including my drink and the life I’d left back in Charleston.

He doesn’t move the newspaper, so I can only see his green eyes and dark hair. It’s styled up and back, which makes him look sharp and sophisticated—almost European. Below the newspaper, I can see that he’s wearing black suit pants with beautiful shoes. I’m sure they’re Italian leather.

I almost don’t want him to put the paper down. I like this mystery of a man and what he represents. I haven’t seen the lips that spoke to me, but I could close my eyes and listen to the melodic sound forever.

I tip my drink back and finish it.

His graceful hands fold the paper down to reveal the rest of his face. As he does it, I notice he’s not wearing a wedding ring. I glance down at my own left hand. I’m not either.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but his classically handsome face does not disappoint.

I put my own visage in my hands and sigh.

He’s gay.

He has to be.

My best friend Catherine warned me that all the good men in New York are either taken or gay. This man isn’t officially taken, so I’m sure he’s the latter.

The seat next to me is empty, except for the glass of scotch I just finished. I let it plop down on the leather, and now, the last few drops are spilling out.

I try to forget this man. I’m going to a city where all the men are taken or gay on purpose because I don’t want to think about them at all.

That’s made impossible when he crosses the aisle and slides into the seat next to me. I want to warn him that he’s just gotten scotch all over his designer pants, but I don’t. There’s suddenly an apple-sized lump in my throat.

I don’t acknowledge him, and he doesn’t say anything. I look out my window and see the sun glinting off the Empire State Building. I take a deep breath and sit back against my seat once I can no longer see it.

My eyes are shut, and I’m breathless because I’m so close to my fresh start. The Empire State Building is my shining obelisk of hope.

“What’s your name?”

I feel his voice more than I hear it, and I don’t want to answer him. I don’t want to let him in, but there’s something seductive about that voice that seeps into every pore in my body.

I slowly open my eyes and look at him.

“Tate,” I say against my will. My Southern accent creeps in, and I want to bite my tongue off. I need to work on eliminating it completely. “Tate McKenna. And you are?”

“Hayden,” he says. His smile thrills through and through.

Stop
, I think.
Stop. I don’t want this. I don’t want to be sucked under his spell.
But I am.

He’s like a raging river, and I’m swirling in the rapids.

“Hayden Rockefeller.”

Then

I WAS IN second grade the first time I met Jesse Elliott.

My teacher had told us all to bring our favorite books to school that fateful Wednesday, and I’d brought
Bridge to Terabithia
. While other kids my age were still reading picture books, I felt snooty for bringing my chapter book.

My teacher, Miss Rhodes, asked me if I was sure I wanted to bring
that
particular tome to Reading Buddies.

I hugged it to my chest and nodded. I was unsure as to why her brow was knit together as she whispered to the student teacher about me.

I would later learn that my book wasn’t quite normal and didn’t consist of happy sunshine and rainbows like other books children should be reading. This one was about a girl who drowned.

I shrugged and walked single file down the hallway with the rest of my class. I was last in the line because I hated walking in the middle. I definitely didn’t want to be the line leader because everyone would make fun of how fast I walked. I had to walk at the end, so I could keep pace with everyone else.

I had to seem normal.

My grandmother had told me I was always in too much of a hurry. My grandfather would say I was just different. He was always more tolerant of me, but he never loved or nurtured me.

We walked through the library, so kids who had forgotten to bring books could pick one out. I stood in the middle of the large room and looked up. It was the atrium of the building with a glass ceiling, and light flooded every inch of it. It was like heaven itself telling me that this was where I belonged—in this place with all these books.

I was tempted to stay and not go to Reading Buddies, but when we’d had reading groups in the library last Wednesday, I refused to leave, and I’d been taken to the principal’s office. I didn’t want that again. It wasn’t that I was afraid of Mrs. Trumble. I was afraid of the disapproval on my grandmother’s face when she would get the call after school, explaining what I had done.

I was always letting her down.

“Why can’t you be more like your sister?” she would say, exasperated, as she poured herself a drink. Then, she would repeat it, “Why can’t you be more like Cece?”

Then Cece would give me a look like she wished she could help me, but our grandmother was a hurricane, and I was one little raindrop.

“Tate,” Miss Rhodes called, beckoning me, “it’s time to go.”

I was being dragged away from the only place I felt safe, but I hugged the book tighter to my chest and followed the rest of the class out the door.

Miss Rhodes led us to a first grade classroom and explained to us that we were going to start a new program where students from different grades would be reading buddies. Since we were older, we would choose the books and read to the younger students.

My heart sank into my stomach, and I bit my thumbnail nervously.

I would have to read to someone else? What if that person didn’t understand? What if my book bored them? What if they wanted to read
Sesame Street or The Muppets instead? I shuddered when I thought about The Muppets.

All the students in my class seemed to have immediately walked over and paired off with someone in the other class.

How was I supposed to know that it was up to me to find a partner?

I pulled my long blonde hair around my face like a curtain. It was too long for my small body, but I wanted it that way. My hair was just like my mom’s, and I wouldn’t let it go. Maybe I could just sit in a corner and read by myself until the hour was up.

I saw an empty corner and looked around. Miss Rhodes wasn’t paying any attention because she was chatting with another teacher.

I beelined for the corner like it was the last cone in the ice cream truck on a hot summer day.

There was a little house in this corner, and I decided it would be in my best interest to crawl inside in case anyone saw me sitting alone and tried to pair me off with someone—or worse, made me a third.

I climbed inside and started reading, happy as a clam.

Before I could even open my book, I saw a brown head of hair popping through the door of the playhouse.

I threw my book down. “This is my spot,” I told the intruder.

It was a boy.

He didn’t say a word as he looked up at me. He just stared.

“Fine,” I said. “You can stay as long as you don’t talk.”

His mouth was slightly open now, but he still didn’t say a word.

I opened my book and fell into Terabithia.

I sort of felt bad that I was making him sit in silence, so I started reading aloud.

When the hour was up, we both crawled out of the house, and I went back to my classroom like it had never happened.

Now

ROCKEFELLER.

I roll the name around in my mouth and visualize the building that carries the name.

I eye the man in front of me and wonder if his parents are wizards for naming their son so perfectly.

Hayden.

A beautiful name for a beautiful man. Dangerous but classic at the same time.

I laugh faintly because everyone always thinks I have a boy’s name, but his could be both also.

I’m too drunk for this, and my head is spinning. It doesn’t help that he is an intoxicating person. Maybe he’s not. Maybe I’m just attracted to him, and the alcohol is making me stupid. Maybe I’m just plain stupid even without plane cocktails. After all, I’m running from my past for reasons that many might deem insignificant. Most people just live with their mistakes, but I can’t.

Not this one at least. Not him.

Hayden brushes my long hair off my neck, and I’m shocked at his audacity, but I don’t move away like I should. He touches me like he knows me.
Does he know me?
I think I’d remember him.

I love it when people play with my hair, but it’s a shame no one ever does. No one ever gets that close to me. I can’t remember the last time someone was this close to me.

Something in the pit of my stomach tells me I shouldn’t be letting him do this, but the other part tells me to run straight from my past and into the arms of Hayden Rockefeller.

I breathe in, and he fills my senses.

I really hope he’s not gay.

Then

IT WAS A Saturday night that ruined my life.

Cece was staying the night at a friend’s house, and I went out to dinner with my parents.

Maggie and Denny McKenna were soul mates—of that, I had no doubt. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t believe that souls could be connected.

My parents were.

I thought that because they were connected inside, they were always connected on the outside, too.

They held hands everywhere—in the car, at the table, walking down the driveway to get the newspaper. It was normal to me because I’d grown up with them. I didn’t know that not everyone’s parents were like mine.