Chapter Text
I was running. Quickly. Jameson held my hand, pulling me toward the car. I couldn’t hear because my ears started ringing, but I was certain there were screams. There had been a serious threat at Country Day, this just being the most recent out of three, so I guess you can understand our fear. Oren trailed us, wary of any threat behind us. I was practically sandwiched between Jameson and Oren.
I don’t know why, but Jameson had made his way into the driver's seat, which made me sit shotgun. I knew I would feel Oren’s discernment later, but after crawling into the back, all he could say was,
“Drive!”
And then we were. Driving. Maybe a little too fast. I made myself take a few breaths and tried to calm down. It didn’t work.
Suddenly, Jameson cursed beside me. I looked at where he was and saw another car. When my eyes landed on the driver, my heart sank. Gray suit, frantic look in his eyes. Gray eyes. Grayson. Then, I was met with a cloud of white.
I awoke with Oren’s hands cupping my chin. “Avery! Wake up!” I opened my eyes, still groggy. I scanned my surroundings, forcing myself to remember and piece together. Remember: a possible bomb at school, piece together: car crash.
Car crash. I thought. The last person I remembered was Grayson. What was Grayson doing? I wondered. Then I felt like I was hit by another car. He knew about the threat. He was going to school. He was coming for me.
I wanted to run towards him, help him, any way I could. But I was frozen. I’ll be dead, Avery, just like my father. A voice echoed in my ear. I knew Grayson hated his father, but I hated knowing that he would never have the chance to not hate him. He was a terrible man, nothing like Grayson, but still I felt it. Guilt. I wondered if this was the same feeling he felt during the plane.
I broke away from my thoughts when I heard stirring beside me. I felt another layer of guilt, but this time for Jameson. The first person I thought of wasn’t him. The one who was literally inches away from me.
“Jameson,” I rubbed his back. “Are you alright?”
“What…” He mumbled, looking into my eyes, “Happened?”
“Car crash.” I didn’t tell him Grayson was in the other car.
Oren goes off to check on Grayson, now that he knows Jameson’s okay. He was silent for a while, but then responded with a signature smirk.
As Max would say, this was extremely foxed up.
It had been four days and Grayson wasn’t looking any better. We had learned that there was, according to the school, “a small explosive that was immediately removed from the premises.” Alisa thought it would be best to go to school, since there was a whole militia of security guards there.
So every day, after school, I stopped by the hospital to check on him. I wasn’t sure if he checked on me everyday when I was in that position, but I felt like I had to be there for him. Several people outside my immediate family had visited me during my bedroom-turned-hospital stay countless times. Max, Thea, Rebecca, and the Hawthornes. But checking the visitor’s log, I noticed I was the only one outside of the Hawthorne family who had visited the most. Thea and Rebecca had visited once but that was it.
I looked back at his blonde hair, then to his face. His eyes were closed and I realized how badly I longed to see those silver eyes of his. I couldn’t believe just four months ago it was me in this position. Strangely, I thought this was the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him. His hands laid near his sides, his right having a clip on his finger with a wire connecting to one of the various machines that were there. I looked back down at his hand again, and I held it.
I prayed he’d wake up soon, I knew that after a while, they would do what they did to me, and transfer him to his bedroom. Knowing Grayson, I thought he would hate that. He wouldn’t want to be vulnerable in front of the ones he loved. In fact, he didn’t have the choice to be vulnerable. The heir apparent had to be perfect. And I couldn’t help feeling like I, somehow, had a part in the destruction of all his hard work.
I hear the knob jiggle and the door creaking open soon after. Jameson. I quickly dropped Grayson’s hand. Jameson had been good to me during this time, but all I wanted to do was get away from him.
“Heiress,” he spoke, he gave me a smile that verged upon his signature smirk, but in his eyes I could sense a different story.
I smiled sadly back at him. “Hey.”
I don’t know how the fight started. Maybe I was being too sensitive, maybe Jameson was getting too jealous.
We had gone through the tunnels where we chatted about my day. I initiated a lousy make out. He knew I wasn’t putting my all heart in it and he could tell. I didn’t want to put my heart in it, not when Grayson Hawthorne was across the hall, doing physical therapy in the next wing.
“He’s going to be alright.” Jameson said, slightly irritated. He had repeated this mantra to me over and over the past month, and it has taken everything in me to pretend I wasn’t concerned. I had done a pretty poor job, I assumed.
I deny, “I wasn’t thinking about him.”
But still he pushes.
“Remember when I said Hawthornes have nine lives?” He joked. “Grayson’s got twenty!”
I was getting annoyed. “This isn’t a joke, Jameson.”
“Just trying to lighten the mood, Heiress.”
“Then don’t do it by joking about someone who doesn’t know if he can ever walk again!”
Silence.
“This isn’t about Grayson isn’t it?”
I sucked in my breath. “What?”
“Well, it is about him…” He had the same distraught look he had when we first met. “And you, Heiress.”
“What?!” I repeated.
I looked straight into his eyes, I was annoyed.
“Nevermind,” He shook his head, as if forgetting his thoughts. “Let’s get out of here.”
It'd been weeks. I needed to do something. Something to settle the guilt inside of me. I had tried talking to Grayson once. I knocked at the door in hopes to see him, but to no avail. So I did the next best thing. I went to the Hawthorne Foundation.
When I stepped into the light gray colored lobby, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. I did know I was not going to get in the way of Grayson’s work. That was his thing and it was the one thing left he had control of. Or one of the things he could control.
I faced the photographs that hung on the wall, the grayscale art staring back at me. Some have changed the last time I was here, replaced with more recent ones. I noticed one from Hawthorne Island. It was different from the rest, there wasn’t anyone in the picture. It was just of the ocean. It was beautiful. I closed my eyes. I was amazed at how he could take such a pretty harrowing experience seem beautiful from just one portrait. I wondered if he took that from his phone, how he caught the sun reflecting on the sea and the rippling of the waves. I took a deep breath. I knew what I needed to do. It felt a little silly, but it was something I needed to do.
I remembered my time with Grayson, how when we first met he didn’t have an ounce of trust in me. Ms. Grambs... He'd say with his voice filled with suspicion. Looking back, he didn’t understand me, but I didn’t understand him then either.
A lot of the time it was like he wanted the world to bend to his will, but I realized it was because he needed it to. When I read the will, I had a choice to take the money or go. He didn’t get to choose. Grayson Hawthorne didn’t get to have many choices.
On the way home, I told Alisa I wanted to make a stop at the photography shop. I bought Grayson the best camera in the shop, according to the sales keeper. I would leave it outside his door. I wouldn’t knock. It would be his choice to accept it.
Throughout the next month, Grayson only went outside his wing when Xander, Jameson, and I were in school. When I was home, he’d send his nurses for food, water, sometimes even books from the libraries.
Sometimes, when the house was empty or quiet, I’d roam around the halls, and hear Grayson’s voice. I would drop anything I was doing and just listen. Most, if not all of his chats are with those at the foundation.
I listened to every tone of anger or frustration Grayson gave in those calls, followed by slams of his walker or cane. He was always the independent type, one who did things by himself, no wonder he had such difficulty entrusting others to do the work for him.
It was hard to listen. I wanted to envision him right now, frustrated at what his life had become, but I didn’t out of respect. I had hoped during the times I wasn't listening in, he was talking to his brothers, his friends, anyone but his employees.
I wanted to knock, go in, help. Do anything. Give it one more try. I told myself, but I let my previous rejections stop me. This was a constant cycle, until one day, it wasn’t the rejections stopping me from going in.
“Heiress,” Jameson was calling me. “We need to talk.”
He had taken me to the topiary garden where Grayson had taught me to sword fight, and suddenly I had a feeling on what this talk was going to be about. He grabbed a flower and started taking a petal off.
“She loves me,” He dropped the petal, and handed me the flower. “Your turn.”
“This isn’t how it works.” I stated.
He gave me a mischievous look, “You’re telling me, you’ve lived in this house for this long and you still don’t know? Us Hawthornes don’t play by the rules.”
I eyed him carefully and sighed. “She loves me not.” Leave it to Jameson to always find a way to make a game. I handed the pink chrysanthemum back.
“She loves me.” He plucks the petal and I watch it drop. “You know you mean something to me, Avery?”
“Yeah,” He handed the flower to me. I plucked the petal. “She loves me not.”
“And you know you mean something to my brother?” He didn’t look at me, instead focusing on the petal. “She loves me,” he told it.
I will always protect you. I swallowed. I didn’t know what to say, but after a period of silence, I realized I had to respond to get the flower back. Part of me considered staying silent forever.
“Sure,” I said, noting the hesitancy in my voice. The flower is handed back to me and I pick off the next petal. “She loves me not.”
He plucked the next petal. “She loves me.” He hesitated for a bit, watching the wind push the petal away.
“The last time Gray and I cared for the same person this way, someone died.”
But this… us… It can’t happen, Avery. “That won’t happen.” I look him in the eyes. For a moment, we shared a gaze, but he looked back at the chrysanthemum. “She loves me not.”
“We don’t deserve this, Avery. Especially him, even now. She loves me.” He handed me the flower back. “You need to choose.”
Before I could respond, he placed the flower in my hands. Our knuckles brushed each others, and I realized that for the first time, I didn’t know how to feel about that. I looked down at the lifeless flower, closed my eyes and breathed.
I could hear waves crashing. I could smell sea salt, and feel soft grass at my feet.
Picture yourself standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean, Max had told me. I didn’t turn around, instead looking down at the waves underneath. They were blue, almost gray.
I opened my eyes and looked down at the flower this time. I plucked the last petal and watched it fall to the ground slowly, almost unwilling to touch the grass.
It was soft but I heard Jameson breathe sharply. Then, like a goodbye, he kissed me on my cheek briefly, then lingered near my ear.
“She loves me not.” He whispered slowly.
After our talk in the garden, I didn’t see Jameson much. So, I spent my time eavesdropping on Grayson. I even warmed up to one of his nurses. And by warming up, maybe that also meant paying her a couple bucks here and there, but I learned about his progress.
I frowned when she said not much has changed. He switched to the cane, but it would still take time to fully walk by himself. I wish he could’ve just told me these things himself. I didn’t like one Hawthorne brother avoiding me, but two?
Enveloped in my own head, I didn’t realize how obvious my standing with Jameson had been to the outside world ‘til Xander joked as he entered my room two weeks after.
“If your goal was to make every Hawthorne grandson ignore you, I think it's working." He chuckled.
I sighed. “What do you want, Xander?” I got my answer when my eyes landed on an envelope in his hand. God, is he breaking up with me with a letter? Like a Victorian?
“What’s that?” I ask him.
“Don’t know.” He opens the envelope. “Let’s see.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh,” Xander mused.
It was a postcard. The front had a drawing of the beach and a pier. Galveston Pier, it said. I flipped it to the back. Empty.
I sighed, grabbing a flashlight. Hawthornes and their invisible ink, I thought. Despite my efforts to hide the message, Xander craned his neck over to read it with me.
Heiress,
I think I've seen this film before.
So maybe it's best we close the door.
You aren't someone we can break apart,
But you'll always have a place in my heart.
Love, your friend,
Jameson Winchester Hawthorne.
“Well!” Xander flushed, looking giddy. “I gotta go.” He clearly read all the clues faster than I did.
“Wait!” I said, making him stop at my door. “I got the invisible ink. What about Galveston Pier?”
“Simple,” Xander had told me, the corners of his lips rising. “Grayson learned how to swim there.”
Of course he did, I thought as Xander turned to leave. I was about to let tears fall, when I heard Xander’s voice from the hall. I didn’t look up.
“Avery,” he said softly. “Please be careful with their hearts.”
I told myself I wouldn’t rush this. I stood outside his bedroom door, my heart palpitating. I had waited until his nurse's shift ended at 8. It was 8:30. I had been waiting for 30 minutes outside his door. 30 minutes.
I had everyone’s permission, Jameson and Xander’s from about a month ago. Libby and Nash’s a week after that, when I had caught them (about to?) kiss in her room. I had gotten a very much unwanted talk about whatever they were to each other, when I mentioned the Jameson-Grayson situation. Nash had given me a look, but smiled after Libby expressed her support for it.
Max had said almost blown up with excitement, cursing me with every fake expletive in the book. “Save some for us, you beach!”
It took Alisa a while to warm up to the idea of talking to Grayson again, but Langdon reminded her of our kiss on national TV. “It would work out well, my dear.” Langdon had told her in her posh accent.
On the third week, Oren and I had been in the car silent, when he told me to “Just do it.” I wasn’t sure what he meant at the moment, but maybe this was it.
I hadn’t even brought it up to Thea and Rebecca but today, they had waved and smiled at me. I took it as a sign of good spirits.
I had everyone’s permission, but I was the only one who was stopping myself from this. Here goes nothing. I knocked on the door.