Chapter 15
By the time we pull up to Hayden’s mom’s house, Hayden’s hands are shaking on the steering wheel. This is not what I imagined when he mentioned he was nervous about seeing his mom. I’ve watched him speak to ghosts through a Spirit Box and sleep in haunted hotels, but I’ve never seen him like this.
He’s terrified.
We park in front of a European-style home, its large bay windows adorned with overflowing flowers and a well-manicured lawn. Everything about it is picture-perfect, from the dimming sun casting an orange glow behind the house to the shaped topiaries and rush of waves lapping in the distance. Yet it seems like the most uncomfortable place in the world for Hayden.
I don’t love going home. It’s a place I know well but don’t fit into anymore. As vibrant as people in suburban New York could be, the bold personas bleeding out from the city, I outgrew it, and I’ve always known I would. Under my parents’ roof, though, my strange self is good enough. I understand Hayden’s discomfort, but I’ve never feared coming home like he does now.
The car turns off, but Hayden lingers on the door handle. I reach across the console and weave my fingers between his.
“You good?”
“I have to be.”
“You don’t have to be.”
I wish someone had been there to tell me that years ago. Hayden lingers on it, but the words bounce off him the way some of his wilder theories never sink into my brain. Finally, his thumb brushes against the back of my palm and he slides out of the car. By the time we reach the trunk, I recognize this person so much more, but there’s a blankness in his eyes that still feels unfamiliar.
He takes my duffel bag for me and leads me toward the front door and through the house toward a screened-in sunroom. The man and woman who wait there look rich and proper enough to be Kennedys. His mother wears a colorful Lilly Pulitzer dress, and his stepdad has an honest-to-god baby-blue sweater tied around his shoulders above his button-down. It’s so New England transplant it hurts. I suddenly feel severely underdressed in my leggings and flannel, but clothes won’t help. There’s a certain inferiority I feel that assures me, no matter what I do, I could never fit in. I could never step into a living rich-white-people Christmas card like this.
“Oh, sweetheart, it’s so good to see you,” his mother coos. They share the same dark hair and tall frame, but where Hayden is eccentric, everything about his mom looks like it perfectly belongs at a Tupperware party. Hesitantly, he greets his mom and leans in for a hug. She holds him tightly for a long moment, kissing the side of his head. Despite the strain I can see in his eyes and have seen over the past few hours, he holds on to her tightly.
His mother holds a firm hand out to me. “Ellen. Nice to meet you.”
“Hallie,” I offer. “It’s good to meet you, too.”
Her eyes linger on the color of my hair and the comfy road-trip clothes I have on. I brought something nicer for dinner, but both of us are dressed down now. Somehow, it feels like a few hours in the car and working for most of the day isn’t a good excuse for how we look.
Hayden moves on to greeting his stepdad with a firm, manly handshake, but the words between them are nothing more than a terse “Hayden” volleyed back with a lifeless “Jeff.” I try not to judge a book by its cover, but Hayden’s mother is clearly judging me, so I feel no shame in thinking Jeff looks like he causes problems at the local Home Depot.
“Can I get both of you a drink? A little something from the wet bar?” Jeff asks, rubbing his hands together.
“Bourbon on the rocks,” Hayden answers quickly.
I cross my arms in front of my chest, stepping closer to Hayden. I feel like a kid at an awkward playdate, relying on my friend to lead the way. “Whatever wine you have open would be great.”
Ellen prattles about recent renovations she’s done to the house (the kitchen is brand-new, and the wine refrigerator came just last week; the dining table in the sunroom came from an estate sale). By the time Jeff returns, I’m grateful for a drink in my hand. Hayden finishes off half of his bourbon in one sip, while Ellen and Jeff talk amongst themselves over who put the mini crab cakes in the oven.
Neither Jeff nor Ellen asks about the show the entire cocktail hour.
When Hayden excuses us to get ready for dinner, I follow him outside to the guesthouse. I eye the frames on the walls on the way, looking for any kinds of hints into Hayden’s childhood. I pass pictures of a scrawny little kid in glasses, posing proudly in front of science fair projects, track meet photos, old Christmas cards on the beach, and a horribly awkward prom photo.
He deposits me in our room and offers to let me shower and get ready first, and it almost feels like he’s offering to be the sacrificial lamb to talk to his family for another hour or so. The guesthouse is above the detached garage, with a bedroom and bathroom and a view of the ocean, slanted ceilings, and a pile of clean towels on the bed.
I quickly shower and blow-dry the blue waves into order. I debate a headband, or anything that’ll help block the color, but instead I pull my hair into a half ponytail, letting the curls drape along my jawline. Hayden returns by the time I’m halfway done with my makeup, looking like he’s run a marathon. His eyes come back to life when he finds me.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” he breathes, leaning against the bathroom doorframe.
“You okay?”
He nods. I feel like I keep asking, and I don’t know why I’m expecting his answer to change. I can’t push him to be honest. I can only try to make it better. I drop the mascara wand I’m wielding and step closer to him. I slide my arms around his waist, and he tugs me against him like I’m a life preserver in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. Hayden dips his head lower, his lips slowly finding mine. This still feels forbidden. I’ve spent so long telling myself I can’t have something I know will be good for me for reasons that are not good for me. But I want him and, when I have him, I feel safe and at ease.
His lips taste like the sharp bite of bourbon and he sinks in deeper for more. He lets out a low moan as my fingers wrap around his hair. His glasses bump the bridge of my nose and it makes both of us laugh. He holds on to me like he feels lucky to have me.
“Does your mom think we’re a thing?” I ask between kisses.
“She might suspect it.”
“Do they usually respond well to girlfriends?”
“I mean, it’s been a while.” Suddenly, he pulls away, his hands still cupping the sides of my face. Nerves wash over him. “I…Just in case it comes up, I feel like I should be honest with you.”
Now my nerves fizzle in the back of my brain.
“I was engaged before I moved out to LA.”
I have no right to be jealous and I’m not, until I envision a wedding band on his finger that belongs to someone else. Then something flutters in my stomach. Being engaged means at some point, he thought he’d found his person. He’d been so in love or so certain about it at one point that he asked someone to marry him.
To go from that, to completely alone…
“We’d been together for four years. I proposed when we graduated college and…I don’t know…my dad was getting worse and I guess I wanted him to at least see me get married if he was going to miss the rest of my life. So, we tried to move on it as fast as we could, but we kept hitting roadblocks. Then he took a sharp downturn and…I…grief breaks a lot of things. Abby deserved a better husband than I could have been at that time.”
As he says this, he keeps his eyes cast down. I trace the UFO tattoo on the outside of his wrist.
“Thank you for telling me.” It’s all I can say. “And I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
He nods. “I think we’re both happier now, so it’s okay. She just got engaged to someone else, so in case my mom mentions it, I didn’t want you to think I was keeping that from you. Not now that we’re…”
I close my fingers around his. “I know. You said it yourself. Me and Nessie are the only women in your life.”
He bites his lip with a smirk and a laugh, and the tension fades.
“We’ll get through dinner,” I assure him. “And for being a good sport, you can make me watch any weird monster movie you want. I won’t even bitch about it.”
Oh no, this lights him up. I’m in danger.
“Aw,” he hums. Already I see the ideas flipping through his head like a cryptid-movie Rolodex. “You have no idea what you’re in for.”
I press a kiss against the corner of his mouth. “Maybe I’ll just make out with you the whole time if it gets too weird.”
He ponders this, an eyebrow quirking. It’s not a bad deal for either of us, but I do understand how the decision between making me watch an alien abduction movie and feeling me up might be a challenge for him. Everyone has their kinks, and Hayden sure has his.
“We’ll have to see about that,” is all he says, and then he swaps me for the shower. I spend the next few minutes setting my face with powder and adding a few bouncier curls to my hair before Hayden steps out of the bathroom, pulling a deep green sweater over his head. It sits on top of a white button-down shirt. We took a quick pit stop at the mall to find me something to wear today. Most of my outfits for this trip were best suited for the woods or long car rides, not dinners with uppity moms.
Hayden hovers in front of the mirror longer than he needs to. His hair is combed and in place, and I can tell he’s resisting running his fingers through it like he usually does when he’s stressed. What’s more noticeable is that his sleeves are rolled all the way down, buttoned at his wrists.
I’m used to rolled-up sleeves with peeks of ink crawling down his forearm. Here, he looks far too crisp and polished to be the same person. His eyes are heavy and darker after his shower, no longer a vibrant emerald; more like a stormy forest green. As he swallows hard and draws away, I can’t help but think about how much I’d prefer him in one of his signature dorky T-shirts and a flannel. This person feels like an impostor.
He feels like the kind of person who’d scoff at the idea of aliens crash-landing to Earth, with the least open mind in the world.
If he’d shaved, too, I would have sworn I was looking at a Finance Bro named Josh.
His sleeve slides up, exposing part of the UFO tattoo on his wrist. With a frustrated sigh, Hayden tugs the sleeve down farther.
“How do I look?” I finally ask.
His focus breaks. His Adam’s apple bobs, and another emotion flashes through his expression. He eyes my nicer jeans and sweater. I think I look like a high school guidance counselor. A short lock of hair pops out of my ponytail. Hayden smiles, stepping closer and pushing the hair behind my ear.
“Beautiful, as always. You ready?”
I nod, following him across the yard to the main house. As we reach the dining room, Hayden’s entire body stiffens, but his mother beams at him.
“You look so handsome all cleaned up.”
No , I think. He doesn’t even look like himself.
A horrible thought dawns on me. Does Hayden’s mother not see him for who he is? Does he have to pretend to be someone else to get her love?
We sit as Ellen and Jeff ready the dishes for dinner. I reach over and rest a hand along the inside of Hayden’s leg. The muscles of his throat tighten, but instead of pulling away, he rests an unsteady hand on top of mine.
Nothing’s gone terribly wrong so far, but Hayden is braced for impact regardless. Of course, Ellen mentions Abby, and Hayden offers a curt response that he already knew about her engagement and he’s happy for her. Ellen wants to bait him more, and I can tell, so I interrupt to compliment her orzo salad. Moms love orzo salad.
I’ve learned every detail about Jeff’s landscaping routine, but it takes until halfway through dinner for either of them to acknowledge the show.
“Now,” Ellen begins, “Hallie, you are producing Hayden’s show now?”
“Yes, and co-hosting. At first I was just going to produce, but after the first episode, we decided Hayden should have a co-host.”
Somehow, that doesn’t comfort Ellen.
“How come?” Jeff gnaws on a carrot. “This was Hayden’s show, wasn’t it?”
Hayden goes to speak, but before he can belittle himself to them, I intercept.
“He’s great at what he does, but sometimes it helps to have a second person. Having someone to talk to makes it more engaging.”
“I see. So, you’re into all this…” Ellen waves her knife like a magic wand, like she’s putting a prime-rib-flavored hex on me. “Freaky stuff?”
“Not quite.”
“It’s weird, isn’t it? This was his dad’s thing. We always hoped he’d grow out of it.”
From what I know, Hayden’s dad cared about everything Hayden is and ever was. He cared for the shy kid who came home from school upset after being teased all week; he pushed deadlines and took him on adventures and made him feel important. Despite how ridiculous some of Hayden’s theories or these cryptids are, I like how he wholeheartedly believes in things he’s never seen. I fall for him most at his strangest because it sneaks up on me, and by the time we’re back to “normal” again, I’ve already lost another part of myself to the quicksand.
“You did?”
I wonder if I’m pressing too hard. Hayden pauses, lowering his fork and looking to me.
“Well, I don’t know what kind of career he’s going to really make talking about monsters.”
“He’s doing well so far,” I assert. “Really well, actually. He had such a strong fan base already that my bosses didn’t even hesitate to say yes to his show.”
Ellen and Jeff exchange a look. Jeff shovels another scoop of orzo into his mouth. A piece of it sticks in his mustache. Meanwhile, beside me, Hayden is painfully silent.
“Is it making money?” Jeff asks, now transitioning to a mouthful of beef.
Hayden clears his throat. “I mean, I’m hired as a contractor for the season. If we’re the most popular series and win, we’ll get a big budget for season two and can profit off the show. I was on hiatus with the podcast anyway, so I was prepared to go without a steady paycheck for a bit.”
“I worry about you, sweetie.” Ellen reaches across the table, wrapping her perfectly manicured nails around his hand. “I am afraid this isn’t helping you move on. I don’t want you lingering in the past. You can do whatever you want now.”
Hayden’s face drops, but he doesn’t say anything. Is this the Hayden who came home from boarding school each weekend, quiet and defeated?
“What if this is what I want to do?”
“You want to hunt the Yeti?” Jeff asks.
“This is what I’m good at, and I have never had to come to you and ask for help. I’ve been doing just fine.”
His voice cracks over the word “fine.” “Fine” means spending three years alone, trying to heal without burdening anyone or forcing someone else to hold him up when he can’t stand on his own. “Fine” feels so desperately lonely when he says it like that.
His mother face-palms. “Hayden, we’re not saying that you’re not good at it. We’re just saying that you can do whatever you want now.”
“You weren’t there,” he finally says.
I suddenly feel like I shouldn’t be here for this. I debate if it’s time to excuse myself and use the bathroom for an hour until they wonder if I fell in the toilet and died. “Every doctor’s appointment, every middle-of-the-night trip to the ER—you were not there for it.”
Rage flushes in Hayden’s cheeks, a shimmering coat of tears glistening over his eyes. This is frustration, not hurt. I know the feeling too well.
“Maybe this isn’t the kind of thing you’re excited to tell your friends in the needlepoint club about, and I’m sorry if it’s embarrassing to have your kid be the guy hunting ghosts on YouTube, but this is the first time I feel okay in years . What I have with Hallie—”
I don’t know if he means our show or us . Either way, if I’m the thing holding him together, I need to hold on tighter tonight. I need to keep him in one piece. I promised I would.
“God forbid I be happy doing something after what I’ve been through.”
“Hayden, sweetie.” Ellen rubs the back of his hand. I can hardly watch this. I can’t bear to see her belittle his pain and his feelings like this. If he doesn’t step in, I’m going to have to. How can she not see the tears building in his eyes or the pain painting every inch of his face? I’ve remained still for the past few minutes, not even picking at my food, waiting for some cue to step in if this goes south.
“I’m doing my best,” he breathes. “I didn’t want to do this here. Not in front of Hallie— Fuck it.”
He stands, tossing his fancy embroidered napkin on the table.
“Watch your language, son,” Jeff chides.
Hayden looks between Ellen and Jeff. “This isn’t about you, Jeff !”
He’s gone before I can step in and try and help him through this. There’s a moment of quiet, and Ellen and Jeff look at each other, and then at me. I reach for my phone. They watch me warily, as I pull up one of our videos. I don’t play it, but I scroll to the comments.
yessss. this is the best part of my week. I needed this episode so badly.
Thank you thank you thank you for this. This has been the week from hell and this fixed my mood.
I hope you guys know how happy you make people. This show is so full of joy and chaos.
It’s just a handful, but every week, our comment section is full. There’s a lot of nonsense, some people who want to debunk our theories and findings, but there’s also this. I know the first rule of being a creator is to never read the comments. But sometimes, when I know there’s things like this buried in there, it’s impossible not to. Some days I struggle to believe I’m the spectacular host our fans think I am, too, but there is a lot of love here that tells me stepping into the spotlight was not a bad idea after all.
I pass my phone to Ellen and Jeff. They lean into each other and read what I’ve pulled up.
“I know that all of this might seem strange, and I didn’t imagine myself hunting for Bigfoot or aliens either. I don’t believe in any of this, but Hayden’s made me wish I did. He has that way with people, and everyone loves him for it. He makes people happy, and it’s no wonder he’s had the amount of success he has. He’s working his ass off and it’s paying off. It might look different than what you imagined for him, but you should be proud.”
Ellen slides my phone back silently. Somewhere in the house, a door slams.