Volition (4 page)

Fuck.

Except that I’m not entirely panicked about it. I am apathetic.

I just stand here, and I have no idea how long he’s away. I contemplate getting in the taxi line now because I don’t know where he went, but he’s already put my suitcase in the back of his car, so unless I want to abandon everything I own at this point, I don’t have a choice but to go with him.

Over a suitcase. A Calvin Klein suitcase. Lara would laugh if she could see me now.

He finally comes back with two random women, and they appear to be mother and daughter.

All I know is that these women are going to be my salvation. They have apparently been given the same deal I was because they are going to the Marriott in Times Square, and this guy is trying to load up his car with tourists.

They look skeptical of our situation, but I think the fact that they know I would be alone with him otherwise is what seals the deal. Good thing they have a shred of common sense because I don’t, not right now.

He loads up their suitcases in next to mine, and I get in the front with his McDonald’s trash while they sit in the back. I feel strange, sitting in the front of this random man’s black sedan, while he rattles off about the best things to do in the city.

“So, ever seen the show
Cake Boss
?”

“What?”

“
Cake Boss
—youse seen it?”

“Yeah, a couple of times,” the Canadians answer from the back, saving me again.

“Well, Buddy is my cousin. Actually, he’s a cousin of a cousin. You just tell him Tony sent youse.”

I decide I’ll give the cake to Catherine as a housewarming present to thank her for letting me stay with her after running from my life in Charleston.

“Okay.”

He starts talking to the Canadians, who have never been to New York until this moment when we’re crossing the bridge, so I text Catherine.

I’m in a car. I’ll be there soon.

Catherine:
A car? Like a taxi?

No, a car. I might die.

Catherine:
Where are you?

I don’t know.

I don’t fully understand the logistics, but Tony manages to get us from Newark, New Jersey, to the middle of Manhattan in ten minutes. Not only is this geographically impossible, but it makes no sense. This man is a Jersey genie.

“What’s your job, kid?”

“I’m a writer.”

Maybe.

“Oh, Carrie Bradshaw, eh?”

Why is it that she’s the only female writer in pop culture that people can come up with?

I don’t have the energy to argue with him.

“Sure.”

He pulls up to Catherine’s building, which is only distinguishable to the others by the enormous white-and-purple NYU flag hanging off the side.

He hands me a business card, slaps me on the back, and tells me to call him when I’m going back home. Incidentally, that might be never. I trade him eighty dollars, grab my bag, and say good-bye to the Canadians.

I’m relieved to see Catherine is coming through the revolving door waving frantically.

Catherine is my best friend from high school, and she is like an extension of me. Or I am an extension of her. We come as a pair, and the separation of college and life has been difficult on us.

Then she’s running down the curb to greet me, and I’m immediately engulfed by her black hair. She smells like sandalwood and vanilla, and to me, that smells like home.

“I’m so happy you’re finally here!” she says as she takes the suitcase out of my hands.

“How was your flight?”

I laugh to myself, and she gives me a knowing look.

“Oh, there’s definitely a story. Tell me everything!”

She pulls me through the revolving door, and we go through the same slice even though we barely fit.

She waves to the doorman quickly, and we jump into an antiquated elevator. She presses the button to her floor without looking and nudges me.

“Seriously, spill.”

Catherine is the light to my dark and the yin to my yang. She’s effervescent and effortlessly beautiful. Everyone who meets her immediately falls in love because she is an angel in the flesh. It’s a wonder we’re friends, but I don’t know what I would do without her.

“I met a Rockefeller.”

She gasps.

“Like the building?”

“I think so.”

“Which one?”

I didn’t think that he might be Google-able, but if he’s New York royalty, he very well may be.

“His name is Hayden,” I tell her.

She stops in her tracks before we reach her doorway.

“Oh. My. God.” She nearly drops her key as she flings her hand around in the air.

“What?”

“He’s only the most eligible bachelor in New York City,” she squeals as she turns her key in the lock. “Only you, Tate. Only you would meet Hayden Rockefeller on the plane here.”

She flops herself onto her bed and sighs.

“I know him from school. He’s actually a nice person. He’s not a snobby asshole like the rest of the New York royals. This is like a romance novel or something.”

I take off my jacket and lie down beside her as we both stare up at the ceiling.

My life is most definitely not a romance novel. I don’t know what genre it would be, but it’s definitely not that.

She turns on her side and props herself up on her elbow.

“So,” she says excitedly, bouncing me up and down on the mattress, “did you give him your phone number?”

I shake my head slowly. “No.”

She smacks my arm. “Tate! I should have known!”

She groans in protest, and I shrug.

“I was drunk. I came here for a fresh start, not to meet someone. I need to spread my wings.”

“So?” she says, hopping off her bed to pull a soda from the fridge. She pops the tab. “Spread your wings. But spread them with Hayden Rockefeller. If you don’t, I’m going to fling you two together and call it a chance encounter, that sort of thing.” She emphasizes the last part with air quotes.

“How are you ever going to find him?” I raise my eyebrows at her.

“I still have his phone number. He doesn’t really date, but I happen to know for a fact he’d make an exception for you.”

I cross my arms. “And you know that how?”

“Remember when you came to my ethics class two years ago when you visited? He was there. He saw you. He asked about you then, but you had already left. So, now, I’ll just casually lock you in a linen closet or push you out to sea in a boat until you live happily ever after.”

“You’re terrible,” I tell her.

“I know.” She smiles. “Now, tell me all about it.”

Then

A FEW WEEKS after the accident, Denny and Maggie were buried.

The funeral was a blur.

Cece opted to live with my grandparents, and I went to boarding school. I was glad in some ways because I knew there was no way that Lara would be able to deal with me, and I would just end up running away anyway. So, she shelled out for me to go to one elite school after another when I kept getting kicked out for various unruly behaviors.

I still thought about Jesse, but my heart hardened quickly in his absence. I didn’t realize at the time that he was still nestled deep inside every fiber of my being.

I didn’t see him for years after that. Not until I filled out an application for him to work as a groundskeeper at the Hale house when there was a vacancy. I still remembered the tattered clothes he wore in school.

He took the job.

After that, all I got from him were stolen glances and rocks piled on my windowsill.

The rocks were our secret, but I didn’t understand them. I just kept them in a box in my closet because I didn’t want him to think I was rejecting him by putting them back outside.

Nothing was the same as it had been before even though he was a little closer. It didn’t matter because we had different lives.

I became a cliché.

For high school, I got to go somewhere new.

That was where I met Colin.

On the first day of school, student guides led us in packs through the ancient hallowed hallways for a tour, and my group stopped to do some kind of bonding activity.

“Hold hands with the person next to you, and try to solve your puzzle!” my group leader told us.

We all looked around in horrified disbelief that we actually had to do it.

I kept my arms crossed and watched as everyone else grabbed hands and worked on the giant puzzles on the floor in front of us. Why did we have to hold hands? How could we solve it that way? It seemed bizarre and unnecessary.

Colin uncrossed my arms, grabbed my hand, and started doing our puzzle all without saying a word. I couldn’t tell if I was impressed, or insulted. He was doing it all wrong, so I reached down and easily rearranged the pieces.

“Done,” I said nonchalantly, releasing his hand.

He looked at me like I was insane. “How did you do that?”

I shrugged. “I like puzzles.”

“I like you,” he said simply.

It was that moment we became best friends.

The only problem was that Colin quickly dated all my friends. First, it was Kelly, then Jenna, and Marie after her. After they broke up, they all hated him and resented me for being friends with him.

Colin was like the brother I never had, so I couldn’t give him up. He kept me from going too crazy because he was the only person I’d ever met that was more screwed-up than I was.

I didn’t ask why, but I just knew.

When you were dark and twisty inside, you learned to recognize those qualities in others. You came together, like magnets, because you couldn’t help it.

Sometimes, Colin and I would drive around in his Bentley for hours. We’d just drive. Technically, we had a curfew at ten, but we didn’t care. The school didn’t have the heart to kick us out because they needed the names we provided on the admissions list for prospective students. Hale and Conrad were known in the South like Astor in the North, and we abused our privileges more than anyone.

One night, Colin pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store.

“Stay in the car,” he told me, looking around in the dark for predators.

I sighed and looked around in his glove box out of boredom. He was always so protective.

He came back with a pack of cigarettes. He rolled down the window and lit one.

I reached for them, but he batted my hand away.

“Smoking will kill you,” he said blankly.

Silence wasn’t uncomfortable with Colin. We understood each other without having to try.

He smoked four in a row and then shoved the rest into one of the compartments in his dashboard.

We did this every night for a month.

Soon after, Colin started dating Catherine. She was the most popular girl in school, and it was a wonder she wanted to associate with either of us. For a while, both of us marveled that she had jumped into our lives, but we didn’t question it. She brought light into the dark place that we existed in.

We both reached for that light, but we could never quite absorb it. We could just bask in it while we were near her and hope it was enough to sustain us until the next time we would see her. I couldn’t help but think we were like the glow-in-the-dark stars that my mother plastered on my ceiling as a child that had to be charged during the day in order to work at night.

Soon, we were all driving around like we were The Three Musketeers.

When Catherine couldn’t come out with us because she was afraid of breaking curfew, Colin and I would go to the movies alone. We heard the rumors whispered that we had something going on behind her back, but we ignored it. Colin was the only person in the entire world that I knew I could never love like that because I loved him too much like a brother.

But if I thought Colin was bad, his best friend was the Antichrist.

“Tate,” Colin said to me one night while we were drunk at an off-campus party thrown by someone I didn’t know, “I’d like you to meet Casper.”

Now

THE NEXT DAY, Catherine leaves me alone in her apartment while she goes to work. Being alone in New York thrills me because I’m used to being able to drive myself wherever I need to go even though I hate cars. Here, I don’t have one. I don’t want to waste what money I have left on cabs, so I’ll be taking the subway—at least, until I find a decent job.