Chapter 21
The Raven and the Stag is, if the brass plaque is to be believed, “the third-oldest pub in New England.” The swinging wooden sign above the door shows the feathered silhouette of a magnificent, nearly arterial set of antlers. This…this does seem familiar.
Hayden pushes inside, and the warmth is immediate, a lit fireplace on the far wall filling the cozy bar with a rich glow.
It smells like old, polished wood, woodsmoke, and amber spirits.
The stretch of windows overlooks the harbor and ocean, and I feel as if I’m in the cabin of a large, ancient ship, the captain’s quarters.
“It hasn’t changed much, has it?” I breathe, following the tightening in my chest. Hayden looks down at me, something like hope flickering in his eyes.
“No,” he says. “It hasn’t.”
It’s not very crowded, being a weekday. A few tourists are scattered along the bar, and the odd table is taken by a family here and there. But when the hostess grabs two menus and attempts to show us to a table, Hayden shakes his head.
“We’ll wait for that one.” He points to a table beside the window, the one that overlooks the lighthouse. I arch a brow at him when the hostess goes back to her stand.
“Look at you, the stuffy, fussy vampire,” I scoff. Hayden’s smirk is knowing.
“You’ll see,” he says.
Will I? I feel so out of the loop sometimes, a strange thing to feel, as it’s my own life. My own love. I look up at Hayden as he casts his eyes across the bar, that tinge of melancholy taking shape once more.
Something occurs to me.
“How do you know?” I blurt. “How do you know that we met in my original lifetime?” Hayden’s expression gets thoughtful. He worries his soft bottom lip between his teeth for a long moment.
“I suppose there’s no true way of knowing,” he begins slowly.
“All I can tell you is I had spent the past century lost and directionless all over the globe. When I met you, I…Something settled within me. Something I’d never felt before in my existence.
” He tilts his head. “It’s a tiny detail, but…
in your first life, I got really close to your dad.
Your mom had already passed, but…he was like you.
Same kindness in his eyes. Same gentleness.
Not terribly common back then. I’ve gotten to know your parents in every lifetime, and it’s clear he’s the only one who really feels like you. ”
“Huh.” I feel that strange jealousy, that weird left-out feeling again, like I’ve slept through the most important parts of my life. You should have been there, I think, a pinch in my heart. “How do you even find me?” I whisper. “After I die every time?”
Hayden leans back against an oak barrel set near the front entrance.
“That’s like asking someone how they breathe to stay alive.
I just do. I—I lose you…” Hayden’s face flares with revulsion when he says lose.
“And then I begin my search. It’s not exact.
The years, the method.” Hayden casts his eyes out the window, pensive.
“Remind me how many Roses there have been?” I ask, an edge to my voice. It’s my turn to drop my eyes. I can feel Hayden looking at me.
“There’s just you, Rose,” he says softly. “There’s only you.”
“You know what I mean.”
How many Roses have you kissed? Made love to? Shared inside jokes with?
How many Roses knew you in every way possible, while you’ve pushed me away over and over?
I look up to find Hayden watching me, unreadable.
“A few,” he says vaguely. I feel a lurch of anger.
“Come on,” I say, and he lets out an exasperated breath.
“I don’t want to think about it,” he snaps.
“Because it’s the number of times I’ve let you die, that I’ve failed to save you, that I’ve…
” He drags a hand through his hair, and it stands up, beautiful and rumpled.
“Sorry. This isn’t about me. I know you, Rose.
The fewer details you get the better. But it’s something around ten. Okay?”
Ten. Ten Roses he’s fallen in love with. Ten times I’ve died. Ten lifetimes of knowledge he has and I don’t.
“Right,” I say, confused by the surge of pain. “Okay.” I rub my eyes. I can’t help my next question. “Do you have a favorite?”
Hayden’s face softens. He steps close and takes my fingers, tracing my knuckles.
I wish he wouldn’t hold back. After last night, he’s being careful again.
“Let me ask you this,” he says softly. “Do you love me more when I’m sitting down than when I’m standing?”
“No,” I finally say.
“There you go.” He looks up to find the hostess waving us over, and he drops my hand, heading to the table overlooking the lighthouse.
I wonder if he’s thinking what I’m thinking right now: that I haven’t actually said the words out loud yet. Hayden shut me down the first time I tried to tell him I loved him in the heat of the moment.
Now I’m scared to say it. In the wake of all the Roses that have loved him before, the Roses that he has loved, I feel inferior. Scared. Is it even fair for me to say I love him? Do I even know what love is?
Hayden probably doesn’t care about that sort of thing, anyway: hearing me say “I love you.” I, on the other hand, have been replaying the urgent, desperate way he said it that night in the church, when he first showed me his fangs, his true self.
I’ve since realized he only said it with such abandon that night because he was sure he’d have no other chance. He was, in his way, not just saying he loved me: He was saying goodbye.
Does he notice that he hasn’t said it since?
I’m feeling open and raw as a shucked oyster as we slide into the wooden booth opposite each other. Hayden scans the menu, and I gaze out the window at my father’s lighthouse, silhouetted in the snow.
“How are they all me?” I say, clipped. “And, like…I mean, surely it’s like…having a favorite outfit of mine? Or something. You know?” Hayden looks up from the menu, amusement coloring his features. He sets it aside and folds his hands.
“You are my favorite. You. The one sitting in front of me right now, because it’s the same you who’s been sitting in front of me for centuries.
” He cocks his head. “Your soul is the same, Rose. I know that it’s hard to understand, but if you were there, if you…
” Hayden makes a frustrated sound, searching for the words.
“It’s like I said. Whether you’re the apprentice for a dressmaker, a publisher, or a print shop, whether you’re a photo lab tech in Canada or attending a community art college in San Francisco, you’re always searching for broken, scattered pieces in the world to put together to make something new and beautiful.
“You’re always curious, always a little bit anxious, and always brave enough to push through it.
Nothing crushes your spirit. Not gossip, not cruelty, not war.
” Something fractures in his eyes. “Not—not my failure. Not you reliving your deaths every night, not—” He presses his face into his palms. “Trust me, okay? I— This is—”
“Had a chance to look at the menu yet?” Our waiter, a distracted youngish guy, pulls a pad out of his pocket. Hayden drops his hands, his face smooth and impassive.
“I’ll have an old-fashioned, and she’ll have a glass of your house malbec.
” He watches the waiter jot it down and walk to the bar.
“Still serving teenagers.” He snorts. “Some things don’t change.
” I’m about to ask him what a malbec is, but his soft expression makes me swallow the question.
“Come here, look at this.” Hayden pulls out his phone, clicks on the flashlight, and gestures for me to duck beneath the table.
When I do, he shines the light on a spot on the old tavern wall.
Unmistakably carved into the wood is a simple heart surrounding H + R.
“This was our spot,” Hayden whispers in the dark. “Yours and mine.” I scrabble back up above the table, shocked at the jealous surge in my throat.
Nothing about this feels like mine. It was yours and some other Rose’s.
What the hell. Who gets jealous of…themselves? Hayden slowly sits up straight, eyeing me curiously. But he doesn’t say anything. What can either of us say? This is unprecedented, messy, heartbreaking, beautiful.
A week ago, I was wondering if I should switch my major, imagining what it would be like for Hayden to take me to the nearest Barnes & Noble, holding his hand in the aisles, the rattle of iced coffee.
Of course I’m handling this all so poorly.
The waiter brings us our drinks, setting a glass of red wine in front of me. I take a tentative sip, and my eyes get big. I take a bigger sip.
“Oh, wow,” I breathe. “I think I just found my favorite drink.” Hayden’s eyes gleam, the corner of one side of his mouth twitching. “How did you—”
I cut myself off abruptly, looking down into the wine. I swirl the glass, watching the dark liquid turn transparent as it slides down the sides of the curved glass. Hayden sets down his drink, his eyes trained on my face.
“What’s wrong?”
“You know what I just realized?” I say, the edge in my voice back. “Remember the night of Autumn Fest? You lied to me. Because you never answered my questions in the courtyard.” Hayden’s face breaks into a smirk. He takes a sip of his whiskey.
“I didn’t lie,” he says. “I chose my words carefully.” He’s teasing me, the smug set of his sculpted jaw so, so sexy.
I drop my eyes down to the malbec. I take another sip, just to be sure, and my eyes fall shut. Oh yeah. This is definitely my favorite drink, there’s no mistaking it. It’s already making my skin pleasantly warm and sensitive. I swirl the glass at my mouth, feeling light-headed. Dizzy.
Wow. Turns out I have, like, no tolerance.
“Hey, easy on that.” Hayden’s eyes flare with concern. “You…tend to be kind of a lightweight.”
I set my glass down hard on the table.
“Okay, see?” I snap. “This—this is unfair.”
Hayden goes still, his expression shadowing. He sets his glass down carefully, tracing the smooth rim with his middle finger.
“Thought we already established that,” he rumbles. “Yeah. It’s all unfair.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m talking specifically about the fact that you know me, like, eleven times over, and I don’t know anything about you.
You’re so guarded, but she…me…I?” I bury my face in my hands, let out an exasperated growl.
“Hayden, this is so messed up. I’m— It’s so weird to be jealous of me.
I wish…I wish that I…” I drop my hands. Hayden’s blinking at me, caught off guard. “I wish I were her, Hayden.”
“Who?” he frowns, confused.
“Any of them. Me. Any of the mes.”
“How many times do I have to—” Hayden scrubs a hand across his jaw. “You are her. She is you.”
“I don’t know your birthday.” My quiet voice freezes Hayden.
“She does. I don’t know your favorite song.
She does. Whether you whistle. If you pick up a penny if it’s heads up.
Your mother’s name. I don’t know any of it.
” I tilt my head back, so, so sick of shedding tears in front of him.
“She does, Hayden. She knows the tiny things. The most important things. And you won’t even answer a few questions for me… I—”
Hayden’s mouth is immediately pressing against my ear. He’s crowding against me, suddenly needy, the cold barrier of his grief gone.
“Ask me again,” he says in a harsh whisper. It shocks electric through me, and I have to close my eyes against the wave of yearning that rises in me. “Go on. Do you remember your questions?”
Of course I do.
“What’s your favorite memory?”
“It is always changing.” Hayden drags his lips along the shell of my ear. “But right now, I think it’s from that night in the library courtyard, the moment you realized you had torn a hole in Delia’s dress.” He pauses. “You couldn’t have cared less about the bruise on your elbow.”
“When…” I say, breathless. “When was the last time you cried?”
“Now, it’s the night I caught you from the steeple.” His voice is open. Naked in a way I’ve only heard a few times. “But before that, it was the day of your funeral, my most recent loss of you.”
This next question, I know the answer to, but I ask it anyway.
“Have you ever had your heart broken?” Hayden turns his body in to me, his breath fracturing. He tilts my head back so he’s looking down at me, his eyes blazing and hot.
“Rose,” he says, “my heart is always broken. The only times it is ever whole is when I’m touching you.
Kissing you.” Hayden drops his mouth to the corner of my mouth.
He moves his face to kiss my cheek, and I turn my face so our mouths meet.
He makes a soft noise in my mouth, and I part my lips, swallow it, chase it with my tongue.
We kiss frantically for several impossibly fiery moments. When the waiter clears his throat, we break apart, swiftly pay our bill, and leave.
“Only one last stop,” Hayden says, looking up at the gathering snow. “We’ll need to leave before the storm gets bad.” I follow him into a tiny florist’s shop.
“It’s okay,” I say. “You’ve shown me more than I could have ever imagined. If we need to head back to Payen now, we can.”
“No,” he says gruffly, paying for a sumptuous bouquet of creamy, snow-white roses. “This is for me too. I need to pay my respects.” When we step back out into the snowy afternoon, his voice drops. “Come with me to see your grave. Your first grave. Please?”
“Of course,” I say, blinking up at him, a little stunned. Hayden’s smile is sad. He opens his mouth to say something, slams it shut, and turns, heading down a small stone street.
As I begin to follow him, movement flickers out the corner of my eye. I look over my shoulder. But the snowy alleyway is empty. I frown, resuming my steps.
There’s another passing shadow at my periphery, and this time when I turn, I see someone. I gasp, shocked into stillness.
A handsome man is standing in the middle of the alley, wearing the same jeans and button-down I saw him in earlier today.
Julian? I shake my head, blinking, and when I look again, there’s no one there.
I glance over at Hayden, but he’s already too far ahead. No way he saw. I look back, but there aren’t any footprints in the snow, nothing to indicate that what I saw was real.
This isn’t a new feeling, my imagination getting the better of me. And it’s been a really messed-up few days with little sleep. It was obviously nothing.
I try and smooth the unsettled feeling in my stomach and turn from the empty alleyway, following Hayden to see my grave.