Chapter 16 Dark Paradise by. Lana Del Rey
Jackie
Fear was no longer an uncommon experience in my life.
Growing up in my parents' household, I was always scared. I was scared to say something wrong, act incorrectly, not say something I should. I was never enough for them, and the consequences of that were severe. Luckily, I always had Nate and Theo to keep me safe. They did their best to hide the reality of our childhood from me. Our oldest brother, Malachi, did his best, but our parents had always preferred him to us. It wasn’t his fault and we didn’t blame him.
Growing up was scary, but my siblings made it easier.
I was always scared after Nate had first passed.
I teetered between soul-crushing guilt about his death and the numbness that alcohol caused.
When I was drunk I was scared of being sober, when I was sober I was scared of being drunk.
It was the lowest point in my life and I had isolated myself from everyone in my life.
I was scared they would see the truth of just how badly I was spiraling.
It became easier, more manageable when I met Fai and Sarah.
Suddenly, I had a support system separate from my family, from Nate’s death.
Life after getting sober brought the fear of being constantly scared of relapsing.
I was nervous I would fall into old, destructive habits.
People assume the longer you’re sober the easier it gets.
In truth, it is just as hard and terrifying, but in different ways.
I had lived my entire life scared. Scared of my past, scared of my family, scared of who I was, and even scared of who I would become. I was still scared. The fear was almost comforting.
The fear that this case brought was different. It was soul crushing, terrifying, debilitating, and unknown. That was the largest difference, it was a fear I didn’t know or understand.
“I can hear your brain going a million miles an hour over there, Sunshine,” Will said, interrupting my thoughts. “What’s going on?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know how to admit just how scared I was. “Just… Well, we just learned so much today from Griffin. I’m not sure how to process everything.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“There is obviously something else going on. Talk to me.”
I sighed. It was terrifying how well Will knew me after just a few short weeks.
After the long conversation with Bec and Sarah, Will declared that I needed a break from the case. He still hadn’t told me where we were going. He thought it would be more exciting for me if it was a surprise.
“What if you’re right? What if I disappear next?” I asked him, in nearly a whisper.
“Then I’ll find you.” Will grabbed my hand as we sat in the backseat of the car.
I looked him in the eyes, trying to find any sign that he was lying or exaggerating.
All I saw was the complete truth. Will had begun burrowing into my heart.
It was terrifying to let someone in. I had learned to be careful with who I trusted.
I was also scared to let someone in fully because I couldn’t handle them leaving the way Nate had.
“How are you so confident that you can?” I began, “we don’t know where I will be or when it will happen, if it does.”
“I’m a stubborn man, Jackie. It’s about time you realize that when it comes to the things I want, I’ll get them one way or another,” he responded, making me wonder if he was alluding to something else.
There was an obvious connection between the two of us. It felt more than just physical, almost as if we were connected on some higher level.
Ugh, I sounded ridiculous.
Will had that effect on me. Everytime he walked into a room, my eyes were drawn to him.
In my defense, you can’t look like Will and not draw the attention of every available person in the room.
It was truly unfair how… well, how pretty he is.
Winnie explained to me that both her and Will’s father were from Romania.
I had never been there, or had met anyone from there either, but I was convinced that was why Will was so distractingly attractive.
Slowly we drove down what could only be described as the quintessential fall town from a movie.
The tree-lined streets were orange and golden yellow.
There were pumpkins, hay bales, and other decor in front of the stores.
Families were walking down the streets hand in hand, likely enjoying the fall festivities.
The scene before me didn’t seem real, but instead staged for a magazine or movie.
Just as I thought we were going to stop, we continued onward through the small town I still didn’t know.
Each house had the old-timey charm of Northern New York.
We were just a few weeks from Halloween and the people here really went all out on their decorations.
I had grown up in a small farm town where you had to drive quite a ways to see your neighbors and decorations were few and far between.
Here, the houses were close but it gave off a cozy feel to the entire town. People were walking the streets and conversing with their neighbors. There was a sense of community that I used to long for growing up.
I turned to Will only to find him staring right at me. His blue eyes cut deep into my soul, almost like they were searching for something.
“What?” I asked.
In return he only smiled and shook his head.
Damn that smile, it was debilitating. A smile I learned most people didn’t have the pleasure of seeing.
We continued our drive for only about five minutes when we pulled up to a place I would have never expected.
“Are we at a cemetery?” I asked, looking out the window, staring at the many headstones.
“Yep,” Will responded as he got out of the car. I watched as he walked around and waved the driver off from opening my door and did so himself, offering me his hand. “Come on, I have something I want to show you.”
I accepted his hand and we walked into the cemetery, still hand in hand. We had been doing that more and more often. There were small touches, hand holding, lingering looks. Neither of us spoke on it, not wanting to prompt it to stop.
We made our way slowly through the cemeteries, occasionally stopping to look at the headstones. I stopped when I noticed a very popular name.
“William Rockefeller?” I turned to Will. “As in the William Rockefeller?”
He laughed and nodded. “Andrew Carnegie is also buried here, and one more person… Ah, here it is,” Will stated as he stopped in front of a headstone.
I walked up to him and began reading the inscription across it.
“Washington Irving….” I turned to Will, shocked. “Is this the writer of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow? Are we in Sleepy Hollow right now?”
“That we are.”
I smiled and continued to look at the headstone.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was one of my favorite stories growing up. There were not many horror stories, movies, books, or anything like that I was allowed to read. Although I would argue the Bible was scarier than most other books and I read that thing a hundred times over.
Nate had smuggled me a copy of the best scary stories. Within it were quite a few by Edgar Allen Poe, one by Henry James, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and my favorite. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.
“How did you know?” I asked him.
“Theo briefly mentioned it was one of your favorite stories and you have the book in your office. It looked well loved. I’ll admit I was initially nervous to bring you to a cemetery. Not the usual date spot.”
“Date?”
Will waved my question off. “You know what I mean.”
The thing was, I don’t think I did.
Yeah, there was an unspoken tension between us, but that was all I knew.
Being near Will was terrifying, but it felt right, felt purposeful.
Being near him made it easier to breathe.
It was a foreign concept to me. With most people, I had a facade on.
I needed to be my perfect self. If I wasn’t, they were always nervous I would fall back into my addiction.
With Will, that facade would always crumble.
The smiles I had around him were more genuine, the laughs were louder, but the sadness and fear were also more intense.
The most terrifying part of it all was that I wasn’t sure what he felt.
Yeah, I could tell he was attracted to me, that much was obvious.
What I didn’t know was if he felt the same unignorable pull towards me that I had towards him.
I wasn’t even sure if I wanted him to feel that way.
It would be so much easier if I could ignore it, push it away.
However, after hearing Theo’s plea to follow my own path instead of trying to please Fai made me wonder if maybe…
just maybe I could make it work with Will.
Maybe these feelings I had for him could be pursued.
Maybe we could be one of those couples we passed who spend their Monday nights together, walking down the street hand in hand. Maybe it could be real.
Who was I kidding?
Will was so out of my league it was laughable.
I was a journalist without a proper education, only a sister and niece to call my family, sometimes a brother, I was an addict, and had a tiny apartment to call my home.
Will came from one of the most powerful and wealthy families in the United States.
He held multiple PhDs, was world renowned for his writings and research.
He deserved someone so much farther in life.
Someone who could offer him just as much as he offered.
“Why the legend of Sleepy Hollow?” Will asked, interrupting my thoughts.
I shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I think as a kid the idea of a headless horseman was cool. Plus I knew my parents would hate it, which only heightened the appeal.”
“Can I ask you something… personal?”
I nodded.
“Why did Nate get you and Theo out of your parents house? It seems like more than you let on.”
I turned to face him, not sure how to answer the question. He was right, there was more to it than just getting us out of an abusive household, I just wasn’t sure myself.
“They never told me. I know there was a bigger reason, but I think I was too young at the time and since we were out it didn’t matter anymore.”
“They?”
“Theo and Nate. Although, I’m not sure Theo knows the entire reason either.”
“Does your oldest brother?”
“Malachi. And maybe. He has always been more disconnected from us so I’m not sure.”
Will nodded in response as he contemplated my answer and chose his next words carefully. “What happened when Nate came? What do you remember?”
“Well, I had just turned fourteen, meaning Nate had just turned eighteen. It was like four in the morning. Theo woke me up. She told me to pack a bag, and we were leaving with Nate,” I started.
We began to walk slowly through the cemetery as I continued, “We shared a room and so she started packing a bag too. Nate was downstairs. Maybe talking to our parents? He did have our social security cards and stuff so maybe he was grabbing that. Theo was crying. She tried to hide it, probably to keep from scaring me. I could tell my mom had just hit her. We spent maybe two minutes grabbing our stuff. We then ran down the stairs to the living room. Nate was basically in a stare down with my mom. It was… well, it was jarring. I hadn’t seen Nate in two years and suddenly he shows up in the middle of the night to take us.
It was weird. Once he saw Theo and I come down, he told us to get in the car and we listened.
It was this beaten down truck that somehow ran for years.
He didn’t say anything for a bit. He drove us out of town, on I-80 for a while, and maybe two hours in said he was happy to see us and apologized for coming so late.
” To this day, I wasn’t sure if he meant for late at night, or because it took him two years.
“We ended up in San Francisco and just started a new life. The three of us never really talked about that night.”
“Holy shit, Jackie. I’m really sorry,” Will responded after a moment of silence.
“Why? It wasn’t that bad, just weird.”
“Your brother essentially kidnapped you and your sister in the middle of the night, out of nowhere. I’m sorry you had to live through that. I have a feeling he had a good reason. Who knows about this?”
“Umm… well, myself, Theo and now you.”
“Not even Fai or Oliver?”
I shook my head. I had never told them. They knew my childhood was fucked up, but neither knew of Nate. I had a thought that Sarah suspected, but ultimately the stories of Nate were so precious to me I didn’t really tell anyone about them. It was easier with Will.
I don’t know why, but telling him felt safe.
Will wrapped me in his arms and hugged me tight. Being held by him was calming. “Thank you for telling me, sunshine.”
That’s how we stood for a short time in the middle of a cemetery next to one of my favorite writers.
It was in that small moment that I finally accepted that I was falling head over heels for William Bly, and I wasn’t sure if it was a fall I would survive.