Chapter 16 #3
He sighed. He drew his knees to his chest and captured each wrist in the opposite hand. My eyes started to travel over his fingers, the veins that laced up his shirtsleeves and over his forearms. It made my throat dry.
“It might help us pinpoint what we’re looking for,” I suggested. I looked away. I needed to think—not let my mind wander. “Actually, you don’t have to tell me if you’re not comfortable yet.”
His eyes, slitted, traced the edge of the bookcase before turning to me. “How about this. I tell you something about my past, you offer something in return.”
My usual defensive shield started to pull into place. Instead, I held it fast. Just for a moment. A grain of honesty for honesty. He’d already listened to me talk at night. The only difference now was that I could see his reactions.
“Deal.” Outside, the sky had already started to melt into a faint pink. Within the hour, the colors would stretch far over the treetops, anchored by the sun.
“I know who put me here. The, ah, circumstances may be best shown instead of described, though.” His head tipped back until he stared at the ceiling.
The curve of his neck, the tilt of his chin, made my cheeks heat.
“It was Beulah, my nursemaid. I called her Bunny. She cared for me since I was a babe. It was not common for a mother to take care of her own, especially in high society, so the child was given to a wetnurse and was socialized with the parents once or twice a day.” His Adam’s apple bobbed.
He stretched his legs and leaned back on both hands.
His shirt pulled. “I remember I called her ‘Momma’ once, on accident, and that memory was the most replayed in that space. I just …”
I didn’t so much as breathe while he considered his next words.
“However young, she was my mother in every way. She was there when no one else was and it … all—hurts, how things ended.”
“You miss her,” I whispered, a tinted note of longing in my voice.
I wanted that, too, this pain he had, of knowing someone was there to love you, to build you in ways only a parent could.
I wanted a Momma to love me, despite my mistakes.
I wanted to miss her like he missed Bunny.
But I didn’t miss my mother—not like that.
It made me think of what he’d mentioned before, about not all relationships failing. Because he was right. I did want that, the connection, the ability to work on things with someone, the privilege of baring the ugliest parts of myself to another and having them not shy away.
I wanted to look another person in the eye and see the love in their irises, shimmering like broken lake water on a gentle breeze. Steady and soft. Persistent.
Hadrian’s eyes turned glassy. Once he blinked, they cleared, and his words came out rough. “I miss her greatly. Because there is no love like the guidance of a parent—by blood or no blood. She was that for me.”
Outside, the sad cry of a mourning dove split us.
“I have had a long while to come to terms with what happened, Landry,” he said, sincere. “She did what needed to be done.”
“What did she do?”
“Her concerns …” He scratched at the corner of his yellow eye, as if he could feel the difference.
“I know little of what she did, since I was so young. I do know she always concerned herself with matters of the house.” He sighed, then grumbled, more to himself, “She made a comment once or twice about the atmosphere within it. That she needed to sustain it. Protect the place from my father in any way possible.”
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“I remember … so little,” was all he said.
I didn’t want to push. Just like those moments at night when I felt a tug from down the hallway, I was suddenly holding myself over the side of a bridge, watching the water rush below.
If I let go, I’d fall. If I held on, I could wait for the water to calm.
Hadrian was the rushing high tide. His jaw ground too hard. His finger tapped atop the back of his hand.
“Hadrian?” I asked.
A shift. Whatever thoughts he’d been close to saying, evaporating. Sunlight started to peek farther over the treetops, magentas and peaches and warmth. “Yes, Landry?”
“Do you think—do you ever—” I tried another angle. “You never told me how long you were alone.”
Another pause. “Hmm. I do believe it is your turn to tell me something honest, yes?”
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth like a wet rag on sandpaper. “I’m getting to that.”
“Okay.” The word was ponderous.
“From your years,” I tried, and this time I tried to meet his gaze, “do you think that it’s possible for someone to not feel alone?”
“Are you asking if I was lonely in that place, or are you asking as a generality?”
I shrugged. “Either. You’ve experienced more life than I have.
That holds more value to me.” I wanted to know if this feeling would ever go away.
The emptiness. That no one would quite understand the guilt I felt for how my family fell apart.
How I’d handled it. How sometimes it felt like no matter how many people I was around, familiar or not, I was always a little alone.
“I should hardly consider my life experience more valuable than yours.”
“That’s a bit presumptuous.”
“If you mean, is it possible to not feel alone because of a lack of family, then no. I do not think it is possible for someone to not feel alone, if only a little bit.” He pressed the toes of his shoes to the bookcase.
His eyes hardened. “However, families come in many forms. If you are asking how long it was before I did not feel lonely within that place, I would say never. The memories berated me on a constant rotation. It was hard to remember what normal felt like, or what life was beyond my child-self crying, my father appearing, and Bunny searching for me.”
I soaked in the words. The images his voice conjured.
“It was painful. At first, I always seemed to be the creature. I could never will myself to be me. But over time, I accepted some things. Like my father’s choices.
And Bunny’s. I gained more liberties with my form, and as time passed, I only relived select memories at night.
But the house always changed with them. It was like a pressure—right on my chest.”
I sat the piece of trim down and wrapped my arms around my knees. I held my wrists in a desperation grip, the skin on the underside of my arms softer than fresh marshmallow. My jeans were stained with paint and something like oily ink I couldn’t identify.
“I think I’m having a hard time understanding how you’re not still angry,” I whispered. “At your father. What he did to you, and reliving it so much.”
Hadrian leaned forward, mimicking my position. Our shoes—my open-toed sandals versus his shined, tied black loafers—sat an inch apart. Like two children hiding in a closet, readying to tell each other secrets.
“I think you misunderstand.” His eyes grew heavy, knowing. “I was angry. For many, many years. You wouldn’t believe the things I did while I was in there.”
“Over one hundred?”
A nod. “And at least sixty were spent in hatred.” His mouth closed.
Lips pursed. “I still am angry with him. Anger means I care. But left too long, that anger will rot. Here.” He tapped a spot over his chest. “Who was it that said, ‘I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief’?”
I searched his cheeks, his neck, the collar of his shirt, but not his eyes. “C.S. Lewis, I believe.” The quote had been one of Aunt Cadence’s favorites.
His voice wavered, barely there. But when he caught my eyes, they were earnest. Tender.
“Anger is a prerequisite to a lot of things. Think of it like a train station. You can head north, west, east—wherever you wish. All you need to remember is that there is another stop after that first one. And each will be different. You decide where you go.” His fingers found the back of my hand—the only sounds the catch of my breath and the rustle of his shirt.
“You can ride it until the ends of the earth. But then you will have to live with the consequences of never leaving that train. And every opportunity you could have had will already be gone.”
The words spread like balm over me.
“What if I don’t want to leave the anger behind?” I murmured.
His jaw feathered. His fingers tapped on the top of my hand. “But what if you did?”
Hadrian was right: The anger meant I cared. I cared what people thought of me, I cared how they saw me. I cared that my younger self saw justice.
But how long could I hold onto it before it hurt me?
Could I really forgive myself for staying in situations that killed me from the inside out?
The sunroom bloomed in morning light by now. Long, welcoming shadows stretched over the walls, the floors, through the door to the sunroom.
“You’ll find your own way, Landry,” he said. A hint of the creature laced his voice. When my gaze met his, both eyes were yellow. The sun dripped over his cheeks like honey. “And we will figure things out together.”
I nodded. Without asking, I knew I was losing time with him right now. I explained the scouring of the office, the attic, the library, to no avail. “So what do you think I should start looking for?”
“You, ah …” Two creases appeared between his brows. “Your aunt kept old things, did she not? I saw boxes in the attic but did not—” He stopped himself. Did not go up there, was what he didn’t say.
“She did.”
“Where did she get them from?”
“Meredith said antique shows, I think. Why?”
“All the items were from shows?” he pressed.
I stared and my hand slipped from his. “Hadrian, don’t play with me.”
Hadrian gave a dry chuckle. “You have a knack for donating things. How much did you remove before I came into the house?”
My eyes grew round. “Are you saying there might have been something in those boxes I took to Meredith? Why didn’t you say anything sooner! You’ve been here long enough!” I smacked his shoulder. “I’ve been taking junk to her for months!”
He snatched my hand. “Breathe. It was a thought, nothing more.”
The back of my head started to tingle. I feigned shaking him. He only snatched my other wrist.
“You said you don’t even know what we’re looking for!” I said, blustery.
“I don’t,” he countered. “I am simply making a suggestion. Think—ritualistic things.”
“Like candles and salt rings and … dark magic.”
“Like curses.”
I could strangle him. If only I could wrap my hands around his thick neck, shake some sense into him.
My hands balled into fists instead. He drew my wrists in, pulling me closer, close enough that I caught the smell of open water and something distinctly masculine.
Flutters erupted in my stomach when his words brushed my cheeks.
“I’m sorry I’m of such little help. We know, at least, the room recycles memories. Maybe start there. And I will attempt to come forward more.” The words almost sounded pained.
“Then when you can, find me at night,” I breathed. I didn’t realize how it sounded until I said it.
Something in his eyes glittered. “Is that a request? Am I being invited?”
“Maybe.” We stared at each other, both breathing a little heavy, like the air between us was more nutritious if the other inhaled the other’s exhale.
Like he might give me patience, and I might give him a dash of anger.
Just enough to spur things along. Then his expression tangled, his pupils turned to razor-thin slits.
“What else aren’t you saying, Hadrian?” I whispered.
“I’m saying,” he said, “I hope you’re the praying type. Because I have little idea what I am tangled in, and I do not know what will happen when we find it.”
“The confidence you have in us finding anything is quite refreshing.”
A smirk kissed the corners of his lips. “You said you went to the library looking for pictures of me?”
“Not just pictures of you, you twit—”
“Any religions you know of that you could research?” he pressed. I couldn’t focus when he watched my mouth like that. With reverence.
That’s when it hit me. Religions. Cults. Aunt Cadence had asked about it before.
My stomach dipped. That meant Irene very well might know, and that she hadn’t emailed yet wasn’t promising.
Maybe I had scared her away.
“I trust you, Lan.” His words grew labored, feathered at the ends. The sun had slid down his chest, his shoulders, right to his elbow. Enough that it warmed my back. “And if I am honest, you are all I have.”
His mouth wavered inches from mine. I didn’t realize my head had tilted until it started.
Like whisps of smoke, Hadrian vanished in the morning sun. I was left with warm wrists and flutters far, far down in the center of my heart.