Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Mateo
I’m not surprised when the lights go out. It was just a matter of time.
The estate is miles from the new construction of town, isolated and enormous. A wood and coral stone relic of island history.
My bedroom is on the second floor, at the end of the east hallway.
It’s a massive room, with an attached sitting room and ensuite.
I was only allowed to claim it for myself because no one wanted it due to the lack of natural light.
There’s only one small, stained glass window, so any sunlight that comes in colors the room red.
A vampire’s lair, my mother called it.
When I was a kid, I pretended that the sunlight would burn my skin.
I’d hide in my lair for hours on the weekends, reading and drawing.
When a new housekeeper moved in the summer I turned nine, bringing along her daughter, I finally had a friend.
Someone who understood me in ways that my much older siblings never could. Ways that my parents never even tried.
I lost my mother that winter, and Cat became my lifeline. She was the only one I would talk to for months after we buried my mother, tasked with bringing up all of my meals and staying with me while I studied. Our friendship blossomed into so much more, and we had our life all planned.
Or I thought we did.
Turns out, I knew nothing.
I’m halfway to the closet to grab a lighter sheet and a fan when I hear the crash.
I don’t think before I’m out the door and rushing down the stairs. I pause at the foot, listening for any indication of where the noise came from. The muffled cry I hear from down the east hallway on the main floor sends chills through my entire body.
Cat.
“Cat, where are you?”
“Mmmsmm,” is the muffled reply.
I rush down the hallway only to be stopped in my tracks. Whatever took out the windows on this side of the house also let in enough water and debris to block the entire hallway. “Shit. I can't get through this way. Are you okay?”
There’s no reply.
“Cat, say something!”
There’s still no answer from the end of the hall. All I hear is the raging wind and the sound of the water rushing in as I stand there.
Terror sends a rush of adrenaline through my system, and I briefly consider plowing right through the mess to get to her.
But my common sense prevails. I can’t help her if I hurt myself.
I turn and run back the way I came, up the stairs and into my room. I can’t let myself think about what I’m about to do—otherwise I might not have the strength to go through with it.
I pull aside a heavy antique dresser, one I moved to this exact location the one time I visited home since leaving for college.
Since Cat left me.
The doorway behind is dusty and draped in cobwebs, but the handle turns easily. With a deep breath, I plunge down into the darkness.
I can follow the familiar stairs with my eyes closed, which is lucky, since not a speck of light reaches this secret staircase.
Down, down, down I run, my mind focused on getting to the woman at the bottom…
not allowing in thoughts of the many wonderful years she and I spent sneaking up and down these very stairs to visit each other.
There’s no time for that now.
The door at the bottom won’t budge, and it takes a mighty heave to push whatever’s blocking it far enough into the room to get the door open.
When I emerge, the scene in front of me does nothing to calm my nerves.
The window is demolished, a large branch impaling the house from where a large tree has fallen. The floor is strewn with leaves, glass, and splintered wood. The bed is—
Oh my god.
Cat.
I rush to her and drop to my knees beside the bed. Using one hand, I brush her hair from her face, while my other hand moves expertly to her neck to check for the pulse I know will be there. I don’t allow myself to even entertain other possibilities.
It’s slow, but she’s still with me.
It’s all I can do not to gather her into my arms right then and there, but I’m afraid to hurt her even more. I have to check for spinal injuries first. I have no idea what happened here, whether she was struck by the tree or collapsed from the heat or shock.
My quick but thorough physical examination shows no signs of injury. I finally dare to move her a bit, to try to rouse her.
“Cat, can you hear me?”
Her eyes remain closed. I’m sure I heard her cry out not ten minutes before, but now she’s unresponsive.
Out cold.
With the power out and the window smashed in, the whole east side of the ground floor is filling with water. It’s very windy and wet in here.
I brush aside a few palm fronds and gather her up in my arms, making my way back to the hidden staircase. I shift her carefully so I can close the door behind me and block out some of the wind as I climb. I’ll have to come back and figure out what to do about the house later.
Back up in my bedroom, I lay her on the bed and get the blankets from the large wardrobe. She’s sopping wet, but I’m not sure if changing her is the appropriate thing to do.
When I take one of her hands in my own, however, the decision is made. Her fingers are clammy and cold.
I gather some soft, warm clothes from my own closet and set to work pulling off her soaked ones as detached and clinically as I can. She’s just another patient who needs my lifesaving attention.
Once Cat is dry and cool under the sheet of my bed, I pull on my raincoat, and head back down the staircase to the ruined first-floor bedroom.
I don’t have the tools or materials I need to board up the windows, and there’s no way I’m going to make it out to the detached garage in this weather. I’ll just have to do the best I can.
Cat’s mother’s room is halfway filled with water and broken plant matter now, obscuring almost the entire bed. Dread melts over me at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t come to get her out of this room.
It’s almost as if her look from earlier, where her eyes seemed to beg me to save her, foreshadowed this tragic event.
If only I had a similar gift of seeing the future, then I might have been able to save myself from the heartbreak of putting myself on the line for the girl I loved only to have her turn her back on me.
But even as I think it, I know it would never have worked. I was thoroughly, foolishly, blindly in love with Cat on the day I waited for her to catch the train to Chicago—to our new life.
And I still am.
I spot her duffel bag and phone on a side table luckily not already covered with water.
I unzip the bag to toss the phone in and something catches my eye.
It’s a photograph of her and I, posing in one of the trees on my family’s property.
I can’t help but smile at the memory of that day.
We’d climbed up to pick mangoes and ended up spending the whole day up there, munching on fruit and making up stories about how it was going to be when we were grown up.
I am loath to snoop, but I can’t help but see another picture sticking out of the side of a leatherbound journal.
And another. I shake the book and our whole childhood falls out—at least a dozen snapshots of the two of us together.
I flip through them one by one, smiling to myself at the happy memories.
Memories I’ve tried so hard to block out of my mind the last Eight years.
Why is she carrying these pictures around with her? It doesn’t make any sense. The woman washed her hands of me years ago, and yet…
I burn with the desire to unwrap the soft leather cord and open the journal—just to see if there are any clues as to what is going on here…but I can’t. Even though she violated my trust, I can’t bring myself to return the favor.
I will, however, be demanding some answers as soon as she wakes up. Her behavior earlier—her hesitancy to offer even a single reason for abandoning me—felt dismissive at the time, but faced with this new evidence…it almost feels suspicious.
Growing up in a family like mine, where money and power are valued above all else, I’m used to hearing stories of people being bought off or “disappeared” when they didn’t fit the correct narrative.
Could that have been what happened with Sylvia?
I shake my head, not wanting to even consider that my Father could be cold hearted enough to take from me the person who kept me alive after my mother’s untimely death. The person who shined the light into my darkness.
The explanation must be something else. I vow to get to the bottom of it as soon as Cat wakes up.
I gather up everything that looks like it might belong to Cat, including her shoes and coat, and drag the dressers, wardrobe, and secretary desk to the far wall, away from the broken window.
It might not be enough to save all of Cat’s mother’s belongings from water damage, but it’s the best I can do with the hallway blocked by debris.
Back up in my room, I check her breathing and pulse once more before crossing the room to shed my damp layers and pull on dry clothes. Then I stand next to the bed like an idiot.
Do I get in? Lay on top? Fucking hell.
I finally crawl beside her and pull another sheet over myself, deciding she might not want me to crawl under the covers with her.
But after that kiss? And the photographs I found? The mystery of it all is astounding.
The truth is, I don’t know much about the woman lying beside me.
She could be married. She could have a family waiting for her.
It’s very possible that she knows what I'm doing with my life now.
I've made sure to keep social accounts up to date on the slim chance that she wants to reach out someday, but she doesn’t have a single profile. And believe me, I've looked.
My anger over what she did sometimes flares up, but for the most part it’s mellowed into a dull ache of sadness. She doesn't want to be with me, but I made myself believe there's a reason.
Now that I know she still cares about me, I’m even more curious about what that reason could be.
With the storm still raging outside, I take what comfort I can from the love of my life finally asleep beside me and drift off to sleep.