Chapter 16 #2
It was Julian who was in bed, and he sat up, leaning on the back of his elbows, some of his brown hair falling into his eyes. He needed a haircut. “Are we going to the Hamptons?”
“Unless there is a reason not to, and frankly, after today, I’m in a get-the-fuck-out-of-dodge kind of a mood.”
I climbed in next to Julian who rolled me against his side. Phoenix climbed in behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“You don’t want to stay here and wait it out?” Julian stared at the ceiling.
“I just remembered what I’ve been not able to think about for years. I want to go see it for myself. And yes I want to run away. I’m admitting that.”
Julian nodded. “Okay, we’ll run away with you. Where you go we go. That’s the motto we all live by.” He yawned.
I sighed. “I’m so sorry you haven’t really had the time to mourn your grandmother. This was supposed to be her day.”
Jeremy leaned in the doorway. I wasn’t sure how long he had been there. “I can’t think of anything she would have liked more than to get answers about what happened to Phoenix all of those years ago.”
He walked toward us. “Where are we going tomorrow? I missed that part.”
Phoenix nuzzled the back of my neck. “The Hamptons.”
“Right. I haven’t been there in the winter in years. Okay.” He squeezed my foot. “Love you, Alatheia.”
I smiled at him. “I love you too.”
“That’s good. Because I am not sure what I’d do if you didn’t anymore.”
His words were like a warm bath through my mind. They flushed the day away with them. There would be plenty of time to worry about things tomorrow. Those struggles weren’t going anywhere.
The wind blew hard at my head. It was cold even though I had the slightest bit more of fuzz on top of my scalp . Sally stood next to me, and we stared at the lake together.
I swallowed. “And you’re sure? Because you could come with us. I mean now that you know you could totally come with us.”
She side-eyed me. “I… I know I shouldn’t be so comfortable in so little a period of time, but I really like them, and I don’t want to leave them.
They don’t seem to want me to leave either.
When I brought it up, they actually got really quiet, and I think upset.
Sam said that maybe if I went, they would come too.
That seems silly. Phoenix has stuff to do or whatever.
You guys need to go. I’ve never… felt this way before.
Maybe I had to go through what I went through to get here?
Or is that just fantasy ridiculousness or something? ”
I shook my head. “I would be the last person to know how to answer that. This has all been nuts for me. In the best possible way. But I don’t think that either of us, or any of us in that place, had to go through that for any particular reason.
I don’t believe that. It just happened because it happened. ”
She hugged me to her. “I think we’ll see each other again soon. Sam will miss Phoenix. I bet we come see you soon.”
I hoped that was true. I had hardly gotten to see her, but I did like the idea of leaving her here. No one was trying to kill Sam’s family. Or kidnap them. Or whatever. For Sally, maybe this place would be tranquil and healing.
“If it doesn’t work out, you always have a place with me. Okay?”
She hugged me. “Thanks for saving my life.”
I blinked. Had I done that? I guessed I had. I’d wanted to save everyone. I had no idea what happened to anyone else. “Do you think… they’re all dead?”
She sighed. “Maybe. I mean… I keep thinking I should start googling them, but I don’t know what I’ll do if I find out they’re dead. Who’s going to believe any of us? We were branded as bad, you know?”
I did, actually. From the moment my mother died everything about my life had changed.
“That seems to be our story, right? Everyone’s, I mean.
Something happens and the world makes a decision about us and that’s that.
We’re too young to know we should be protecting ourselves when it happens and yeah, that’s it. ”
She nodded. “Yes. But how could we protect ourselves anyway? Even if we did know.”
She looked away. “Anyway, I’m glad to be here. Be careful, okay? It sounds like up there… everything is a lot.”
That was putting it mildly. I had inadvertently brought her here. What was going to happen to her now was anyone’s guess. But she wouldn’t get killed by the Lents’ worries. They would have no reason to bother with her.
I could keep her safe by leaving. That much I knew.
I couldn’t really remember my flight over here. Just the sense of the Lents talking to me as we boarded the plane, but I tried to remember some of it anyway. The whole thing was just a blank. A big old emptiness.
Barrett sat down next to me, snuggling against me. “You okay?”
I chewed on my lip. “I was trying to remember flying here.”
He winced. “You were in such bad shape. It’s like a miracle you’re upright and doing as well as you are right now considering what you just went through and what is happening around us.”
I leaned on his shoulder. “Maybe I will fall apart into a million pieces one day and can’t be put back together.”
He kissed my temple. “I can’t see that happening. Not with you. But if it happened, that would be okay. I’d just fall apart with you, and we could be broken together.”
I smiled. “I hate flying. This is my, I guess, my sixth flight ever. I only remember three of them. I hate it.”
Jeremy slumped into a seat across from us. “What we need to do is take you on vacation. Like a real vacation. On an airplane. And then you can associate it with fun stuff instead of just always being hauled around.”
I lifted my head. “What would that be like? A vacation? I mean your vacation is the Hamptons right?”
“That’s where we summer. I wouldn’t call it a vacation. Or where we summered.” He added the past tense. “I liked the summer in the city with you.”
Phoenix climbed onto the plane and walked to one of the longer seats. He winked at me before he lay down on it. Okay. He was going to nap. Julian was last on. He walked over and kissed my cheek before he sat next to his brother, yawning.
Yes, they were all exhausted. So was I. But I doubted I would sleep.
“How did it go with your fathers?” I asked Barrett and Jeremy, looking at both of them.
Jer shrugged. “It went fine. They’re under water emotionally the same way we are.
They have a lot of shit to deal with. And, they have to unpack it.
Better they do that without us here. But on the other side they want us around because they are all in this newly rediscovered we-have-to-be-a-family zone and that’s hard. ”
The engines started, and I shivered. Yes, I really hated this. I was never going to feel better about it, no matter how many people insisted it was perfectly safe.
Julian opened his eyes. “I should have gotten you a Xanax from my mother’s cabinet.”
“We don’t need to be giving out drugs, over the counter or otherwise.” Phoenix called from where he’d lain down. “My goal is to keep Alatheia away from all that. You remember what happened last time?”
Julian shook his head and closed his eyes again. “She isn’t going to get arrested for drugs on this plane from one pill that no one has to know she ever took. But point taken. I was just worried about the fact that she is scared.”
The plane took to the air right then, and I forced myself to breathe. Okay, that part was done.
“I can distract you.” Jeremy groaned. “With something I’ve been keeping to myself. But it is distracting.”
Even Phoenix sat up with this announcement. I looked between them. The other three had no idea what he was going to say. That was different for sure.
“What is it?” I met Jer’s gaze.
He leaned back. “Murial Monk is texting me daily. I kept it from you. Why bother you with it? But, she’s becoming increasingly pushy about it. The Monks want to see you.”
And in a world where the Lents ruled almost everything they touched, the Monks actually outranked them.
It would be hard to keep the Monks from getting to me if they really wanted to push the issue, even for the Lents.
The guys would fight them, for me. I knew that with everything in me.
The question was how difficult did I want to make this for everyone?
I sighed. “Did you tell her that I don’t have hair?”
“Yes. I mean, initially she understood you’d had your hair shaved. Why?” Jeremy shook his head.
He didn’t get it. That was okay. Jer lived in rich world but this was girl world. Girl world and rich world colliding. As had been clear in the city, he really didn’t understand that world. Not at all.
“She isn’t going to want me around looking like this.” I rubbed my hair. “Take a photo. Send it to her. Just text not ready yet. Or something like that.”
Jer rubbed his eyes. “I am absolutely not going to say anything disparaging about how you look. You are gorgeous. End of story. And your hair is fuzzy. It’s everything I can do not to not rub my hand over it all of the time.”
Barrett snorted and then outright laughed. “I would love to see you try to do that. Just rub her head.”
With a smirk, Jeremy shook his head. “I am controlling myself. The point remains. I will not be saying she doesn’t look good to Murial Monk. Fuck that.”
Phoenix lay back down. “Tell her to wait. Just because she is bored with her life doesn’t mean that she gets to interfere in ours. Cousin or no cousin.”
Julian who kept almost falling asleep shook his head. “She is a Monk. Whether we like it or not. Maybe Alatheia would like to see her cousin. We can’t just assume she doesn’t. Do you want to see your father’s family?”
I shuddered. “Not yet. Maybe not ever, but I don’t suppose that is possible. So no. Not yet.”
Julian nodded. “We need to at least ask.” He snapped a picture of me. “I’m texting her. I’ll say as you can see she isn’t feeling ready for New York yet. Talk soon.”
Jeremy groaned. “You realize you just opened the door so she can text you too. Actually, why am I complaining? It gets her off my shit.”
“If you want, I can text her myself.”
“No,” they both answered together, and I smiled. My ears popped and the engines made a noise. I closed my eyes tightly.
“It’s just the engines slowing after lift,” Julian supplied, and I shook my head.
“Don’t tell me, okay? I feel like that makes it worse.”
Barrett kissed my cheek. “Jer’s right. We need a vacation. A big one. For many, many reasons.”
Despite my terror, the turbulence was minimal, and I actually dozed on Barrett’s shoulder.
He smelled familiar, and the plane was quiet, filled with the sounds of the guys breathing and the airplane traveling through the sky toward the Hamptons where we would go to collect the rest of Phoenix’s memory and maybe let my hair grow in for a while before I had to be a Monk.
It was hard to imagine that could actually happen.
I wasn’t a Monk. I wasn’t even sure that I could be a Lent.
They had to be so constantly on to not have their truths exposed.
I didn’t know if I’d be any good at it or make it worse for them.
But I wasn’t giving them up. I could potentially avoid taking ownership of being a Monk.
But I would be a Lent because I needed them like air.
I jolted as the feeling of descent struck my ears. Barrett read a magazine that had cars on it, and he looked up at me when I woke.
“Hey. You’re okay. We’ve just started our descent.”
That was what I figured. “I’ll work out how to be a Lent. And not be embarrassing.”
“You could never be embarrassing. You’re everything. You’re all the whys.”
I wasn’t how Barrett saw me. But I loved that he did.