The Past is Prologue: Chapter Three - Richard Lockwood
”You start out life with a clean slate. Then you begin to make your mark. You face decisions, make choices. You keep moving forward. But sooner or later there comes a time where you look back over where you have been... and wonder who you really are.”
The only reason he slept with Carol Harper the night of Grayson and Miranda's reception was because he was so goddamn angry and lonely, the idea of going home alone to his apartment in Richmond was enough to make him want to jump off his balcony.
See, the fucked up thing was, no one thought he was angry because he and Miranda broke up eight years ago, and, sure, it had mostly been his fault. But Grayson was his best friend, and he had told Gray just how much he had loved Miranda, and then, the second they were out of Mystic Falls, Gray made his move.
It was a dick move, and, although he agreed to be Gray's best man because that's what you do when you've been friends with someone since in the womb, Rich also knew he was never going to forgive him for doing what he did.
Carol wore the same pale pink dress as Kelly Donovan and Miranda's little sister, but it fit her oddly; Kelly looked a hell of a lot hotter but, despite what everyone around town said, it could get kind of tricky getting Kelly Donovan into bed. Rich had never had the pleasure because Kelly had told him on more than one occasion exactly what she thought of him, and he found it highly unlikely that was going to change because of a half-dozen whiskey sours and any kind of wedding lust.
Carol, on the other hand, had wanted to be with him ever since those six weeks during sophomore year when he had used her as an easy hook-up. His mother warned him and his brothers about girls like Carol Harper; “gold digger” and “social climber” were words Cecilia Lockwood tossed out whenever any of them brought home a girl she didn't think was worthy of the Lockwood name.
Cecilia Lockwood loved Miranda Sommers; Rich had been treated to countless speeches in the past eight years about how stupid he had been to “let a good girl like Miranda go.”
Carol smiled warmly as he sidled up to her, slinging the same bullshit that had made him so popular at Virginia Tech. He kept ordering her more Amaretto Sours and, when he suggested they get out of there, she had practically tripped all over herself to climb into the passenger’s seat of his convertible.
They went to her shitty studio on the edge of town, both of them too drunk to even consider driving into Richmond, and Rich couldn't help but wrinkle his nose at the sight of the one room which was smaller than any single room in his apartment. As Carol drunkenly kicked off her heels and offered him wine which came from a box, Rich resisted the urge to compare her to Miranda.
Jesus Christ, was he pathetic.
He pushed her back onto her scarred, secondhand kitchen table and fucked her there, hard and discourteous. Rich waited for her to say stop, to call him a bastard and kick him out, but she didn't, which almost made it worse. She was just so goddamn needy and desperate for his attention, and in that moment, he didn't really care because he was going back to Richmond in the morning, leaving this armpit of a town in his rearview mirror.
Carol left him messages on his answering machine for weeks after the reception, but he erased them without listening. Brad came up for a weekend and laughed at the sound of Carol's attempts at telephonic seduction.
“She's totally going to Fatal Attraction your ass,” Brad laughed as he pulled another beer out of the cooler between their chairs on the balcony.
“Shut the fuck up,” he ordered good-naturedly. “She'll get the hint.”
“Carol Harper? Are you fucking kidding? She'd wait until the next Ice Age if she thought she'd get to end up Mrs. Richard Lockwood.”
“That'll be a cold day in hell. My mother would kill us both before she'd ever let me walk her down the aisle.”
“You know now that Mark's engaged, she's going to be on your ass again.”
Rich rolled his eyes. The oldest of his younger brothers had announced his engagement a few days earlier, and, after she had nearly gone into full convulsions at the idea of hosting a wedding at the mansion, his mother had called and started to drop hints about how it was really time for him to start living a “real” life instead of “playing bachelor in the city.”
Sometimes he wondered if 26 was too old to put yourself up for adoption.
They bullshitted back and forth for a few hours before Brad headed back to Mystic Falls and Rich passed out. He had to go into DC in the morning for a meeting, and Grayson had been leaving his messages to get together ever since he and Miranda got back from Hawaii. As he drifted off to sleep, Rich wondered if maybe another move wasn't in the cards.
Anything to get as far away from Mystic Falls as possible.
He woke up to the insistent ringing of his phone. Without opening his eyes, Rich fumbled for the receiver before grunting, “What?!”
“Get your ass to this house right now.”
Rich was wide awake at the sound of his father's voice. Benjamin Lockwood did not speak on the phone; he had people who made calls for him, who issued his pronouncements while he attended to more pressing business. Rich had never spoken to his father on the phone, and he had only heard this level of anger in his father's voice once before in his life, the night his father had literally beaten him black and blue for crashing his mother's Mercedes.
“Dad, what - “
“Now, Richard!”
The dial tone told him just how serious his father was. Without even considering the ramifications on his career, Rich dialed the office and told them he would be going to DC today due to a family emergency. Within thirty minutes, he was on the interstate headed towards Mystic Falls.
When he entered the mansion, the first thing he noticed was just how silent it was. It was August, and all of his brothers were at home; usually the moment he crossed the threshold, Mark was there to discuss what was going on in law school or Jake would want to talk baseball or Mason would jump on his back and want to wrestle. This time there was only eerie silence and a sinking sense of dread growing in the pit of his stomach.
Rich tried to remind himself that he was a grown man, an adult who did not need to come running just because his father snapped his fingers, but, even at 26, Rich could admit he was still scared of his father.
The moment he entered the living room and caught sight of Carol on the couch, her hands folded in her lap, wearing a dress which was obviously not her own, Rich felt an acute rage overcome his body. He was opening his mouth to curse at her when he noticed his mother had been crying, one of her scalloped, monogrammed handkerchiefs clutched in her grip, and his father was glaring at him as if he was going to rend him limb from limb.
“What's going on?”
“Carol is pregnant,” Cecilia Lockwood stated, the tremble in her voice cutting into Rich's heart.
His head snapped to face his one-night stand, and, even as she demurely murmured, “I tried to tell you,” Rich could see the subtle signs of victory in her eyes. Cecilia had warned all of her sons about the dangers of getting girls pregnant, and Rich was usually fastidious about using a rubber, especially with girls like Carol Harper.
Damn the Gilberts and paying for that open bar.
“How do I even know it's mine?”
Rich didn't think this was a ridiculous question; he didn't really know Carol that well, but he knew enough about her and the company she kept to know she had a reputation comparable to Kelly's. And if Rich had come to his parents instead of Carol with this claim, he had no doubt it would have been the first question out of his mother's mouth.
Instead, he barely had time to see his father's hand flying at his face before Benjamin Lockwood's backhand sent his head snapping to one side. Rich tasted the blood in the corner of his mouth, and he wondered how old he would be before his father stopped thinking it was okay to hit him.
“Do you have no decency at all?” Benjamin growled, shaking him by the sleeve of his shirt.
“Dad - “
“Here is what is going to happen,” Benjamin continued, thinly controlled anger in his voice. “You and Carol are going to announce your engagement at the dinner party your mother and I are throwing tomorrow. Then, in about a month, you're going to elope. You'll move into one of our rental properties until you can find a proper house, and you'll come to work managing the mill.”
“I don't want - “
“I don't care what you want!” Benjamin roared, prompting both Cecilia and Carol to jump. “This is what is happening and this is what you will do!”
By the time he and Carol left the mansion, a ring which had once belonged to some Lockwood ancestor resided on her ring finger, sparkling in the summer sun.
It was the shiniest shackle Richard had ever seen.
When their engagement was announced during his parents' dinner party, Richard could read the shock on Grayson and Brad's faces. Since his father's orders the night before, Rich had not been able to bring himself to tell his best friends what was going on; Mark had shown up in his room last night and offered his condolences, but Rich hadn't wanted his little brother's pity.
Carol beamed as she accepted everyone's congratulations and Rich hated her so much, more than he has ever hated anyone in his life. Perhaps it was his own paranoia kicking in, but he just knew she had done this on purpose, that she had probably been plotting this since they were seventeen, just waiting for her chance.
He smiled because that was what he had been trained to do; the very first lesson any Founder was taught was how to feign interest and enjoyment at functions they had little desire to be at. As Mark's fiance squealed over Carol's ring and Grayson attempted to cut off a visibly intoxicated Brad, Rich spotted Miranda near the terrace. He excused himself from Reverend Fell and Mrs. Gilbert, grabbing a flute of champagne off of a passing tray, and following Miranda into the night.
She wore a navy dress with silk flowers around the neckline, a matching flower tucked into the tumble of dark curls he used to love to run his fingers through. Miranda was without a doubt the most beautiful woman Rich had ever known and certainly had ever dated, and that beauty had only grown since they were teenagers. She taught fifth grade at Mystic Falls Elementary while Grayson interned at Mystic Falls General, and he knew from Mason how much all of the students loved her.
He really does try not to be bitter about how everything worked out, but it had never felt more unfair than it does today.
“Congratulations,” Miranda offered softly as she sips from her own champagne, keeping her gaze focused on the pond in the distance, the fountains spraying prettily in the moonlight.
Rich scoffed because he couldn't imagine feigning excitement over this blackmail marriage, not with Miranda. She had always been the only person he had ever really been able to talk to openly, even more so than Brad or Grayson, and, even after she had started to date Gray, they maintained a fairly close friendship.
He always hoped she would leave Grayson, come back to him, but he didn't say that because it would've killed two friendships in one stroke.
“I know this isn't what you wanted,” Miranda began.
“This is what she wanted,” Rich growled, tasting the bile in his own voice.
“You weren't exactly an innocent victim here,” she pointed out, her voice even and practical. “You did sleep with her.”
“Because I was drunk and depressed, not because I wanted her to be my wife!”
Miranda sighed, finally turning to face him. “What do you want me to say here, Rich? Carol is my friend, and you did get her pregnant.”
“I want you to tell me the truth.”
“About what?”
“About whether or not she planned this.”
He expected Miranda to deny it immediately because, even if it was true, Miranda was fiercely loyal to her friends, especially Kelly and Carol. Instead she pressed her lips together until they had almost disappeared and sighed heavily through her nose. And then, and only then, did she finally speak.
“She never told me of any kind of plan to sabotage birth control or anything, but...”
“But what?”
“But desperate people do desperate things.”
“And what does she have to be desperate about?”
This time Miranda scoffed. “What, you think Carol dreamed that one day she'd get to tend bar at the Grill? That she'd have to give over half her check to her mom just so she'd still have a roof over her head? That she'd have to work two jobs just so she can help put her sister through school?”
“She does all that?”
“Do you know anythingabout the woman you're marrying?”
“I know she doesn't have any reservations about getting bent over a table.”
Miranda's face folded in distaste, and Rich instantly knew he had gone too far. He wanted to apologize for offending her but she was already moving, sneering her disgust at the callous way she referred to Carol and ordering him to sober up.
He didn't see Miranda again until after the elopement, after Carol Harper had officially become Carol Lockwood, and even then she'd barely glance in his direction.
Rich was getting ready for work one morning when he heard Carol start to scream, “No! No, please God, no!”
He ran down the stairs of their townhouse to find Carol hunched over the sink in the kitchen, a rapidly swelling bloodstain spreading across the cotton on her nightgown and streaking the tile. Carol was moaning in pain as she slid to the floor, her hands resting on the bulge which in four months was to be their child, and Rich swallowed back the urge to vomit. Instinct more than anything else led him to grab the telephone, but it was not 911 he dialed; instead he called Grayson, babbling incoherently as he tried to explain what was going on. Grayson told him to bring Carol to the emergency room, and he was never more grateful to see his best friend than he was as they entered the hospital.
Rich wasn't sure how long he was pacing the waiting room when Grayson finally emerged from the exam room, a somber look upon his usually jovial face. He listened as Grayson explained what had happened in the simplest of terms, but all Rich was really able to glean was that there was no more baby, that Carol was going to stay over night, and that they would be able to try again in six months.
He called his mother and then Carol's mother; both women came to the hospital, both dabbing at their eyes, and it was the first time Richard could ever remember Cecilia Lockwood and Jane Harper interacting without looking completely awkward. Miranda and Kelly show up a few hours later, Miranda still dressed in her work clothes, Kelly looking as if she was coming off a week-long bender. Both of them hugged him, which caught him off-guard; the last time Kelly Donovan had hugged him, it was only to get him close enough to knee him in the balls.
“I'm sorry,” Miranda sighed against his neck.
Richard wasn't sure he was, but he knew he couldn't say that out loud.
Later, when he finally entered Carol's room, he found his usually put-together wife sobbing, her face pale and swollen from tears, her hair a tangled mess. If there was one thing Richard could say about Carol, it was that she was always immaculately put-together, always presented herself as if she was going to be competing in a beauty pageant; to see her so out of sorts was disconcerting to him.
“Are you going to divorce me now?” Carol whimpered as he approached her bedside.
Rich froze, genuinely stunned. “What?”
“You only married me because I was pregnant,” she reminded him, her lower lip quivering, “and I couldn't even give you a healthy baby.” Breaking down into sobs, she pitifully added, “But I really wanted this baby, and I'll be a really good wife, I promise.”
He moved to the side of her bed, perching on the side. Drawing her into his arms, he stroked her hair and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Of course I'm not going to divorce you. You're my wife, Carol. Everything's going to be okay.”
Rich wasn't even sure he liked his wife, but he did know he might be the only person she had.
Two more miscarriages followed the first, and with every pregnancy which did not come to fruition, Rich started to feel like Carol was becoming an entirely different person. It was strange, watching the evolution of his wife, but soon she had gotten so good at imitating his own mother, Rich couldn't help but wonder if she was attending special Lockwood tutoring sessions with her mother-in-law.
Suddenly Carol was spending massive amounts of money on new clothing, new hairstyles, jewelry; whereas she had once proudly flounced around town in outfits and hairstyles straight out of music videos, Carol now wore the kind of tailored skirts and sweater sets common to the country club set. She organized bake sales and fundraisers and co-chaired events with his mother, and it was almost as if she had completely erased people's memories of her as Carol Harper, daughter of the alcoholic who ran off and left his family, the girl who had desperately wanted to be Miss Mystic Falls and couldn't scare up a nomination, the girl who tricked Richard Lockwood into marrying her.
They had just moved into a house of their own on the edge of town, and Carol insisted on throwing a housewarming party.
“Small, intimate dinner,” Carol corrected when he complained about yet another party. “Just a few of our friends having dinner and a little wine.”
He had learned long ago arguing could be pointless once Carol dug her heels in, so he simply nodded. As she began to list the people she wanted to invite, Rich noticed she had conspicuously forgot one person.
“What about Kelly?”
Since their wedding, Rich had come to appreciate Kelly and her blunt style of delivery. It was always refreshing whenever everyone was over, discussing their careers and how the stock market was doing, to have Kelly swagger over and begin to tell ridiculously outrageous stories about her latest hook-ups. He hadn't seen her in months, not since she had given birth to Victoria and stopped going out on the town, and he knew from his last conversation with Grayson that Kelly was struggling with single parenthood.
Carol wrinkled her nose before minutely shaking her head. “I don't think that's a good idea.”
“Why not? I'm sure she could find a babysitter for the night.”
Carol sighed before folding her hands atop the list she was making; Rich instantly recognized it as one of his mother's mannerisms. “I don't think we should socialize with Kelly anymore.”
He blinked in surprise. “What are you talking about? You've been friends with Kelly since diapers.”
“And how Kelly conducts her life isn't the way we conduct ours. We have a reputation to uphold; the Lockwood name is older than this town and it means something. Someday you're going to be mayor of Mystic Falls, and when that happens, we can't be associated with people like Kelly Donovan.” She scoffed. “Honestly, Richard.”
It was one of her newest habits: calling him by his full name, referencing his supposed future as mayor. He knew it was what his parents wanted; the Lockwoods had been running Mystic Falls for over a century, and, as the oldest son, it was his duty to fill. The problem was, he didn't want it. He had never wanted it.
Back in high school when he was with Miranda, they had gone out to the falls to fool around. Afterward, they had talked about their futures, what they wanted outside the boundaries of Mystic County. She was the only person he had ever told about his aspiration to become an illustrator. He used to draw characters in the pages of her notebooks, little designs on the palms of her hands; Miranda encouraged him to apply to art school, and, while he had never quite gathered enough courage to do it, he had minored in art while at school. It was why he had loved his job at the ad agency in Richmond, why he despised his job pushing paper at the mill.
He had tried to outrun the Lockwood legacy, and here he was anyway, married to the kind of woman he had never wanted to marry, facing down his parents' dreams for him with little hope of escape.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad being mayor.
When Carol announced she was pregnant again, Richard did not bother getting his hopes up. There were already three babies-that-never-were in the past three years, and Rich was fairly certain there would not be any babies in their lives.
He thought he should probably be more upset about it, but the truth was, his own father was such a shit show, Rich wasn't sure he wanted to be a father. Between his impatience and his temper, he was fairly certain he would just end up fucking up his kids.
Grayson and Miranda had been trying for a baby for years now, but the doctor told them it would be highly unlikely they'd be able to conceive naturally. He and Grayson had talked about it a few nights before Carol's announcement, about how it felt to be almost thirty and living the lives of their fathers.
“I wish now we hadn't bought that great, big house,” Grayson divulged as they drank themselves towards oblivion. “I catch her in the spare rooms sometimes, just imagining what they'd be like if we had kids. I feel like I'm failing her or something.”
“You could adopt.”
He nodded. “We're talking about it. I think it upsets her a little, to see Kelly with one kid and another on the way, two kids she didn't even really want to have, while we can't even get a positive test.”
“It makes Carol jealous,” Rich stated with authority, remembering how angry Carol had become when she had heard that Kelly was pregnant again. “But, then again, everything does.”
Grayson studied him for a moment before asking, “Are you happy, Rich?”
He shrugged before finishing the last of his beer. “Does it really matter?”
Like with the last three pregnancies, Rich waited for everything to go south. And when it didn't, when Carol reached the third trimester for the first time, Rich had to face the reality that he was going to be a father whether he liked it or not.
Tyler Richard Lockwood entered the world at the crack of dawn that December, and Rich had no idea what to do as he stared down at his son. He stared at the newborn in his arms, his face screwed up tightly as he cried, and Rich had never felt more inadequate than he did in that moment.
Grayson and Miranda arrived first, Grayson clapping him hard on the back as Miranda cradled Tyler against her chest, tears in her big, brown eyes. Brad and his wife came and even Liz, whom he hadn't seen since her wedding and was only in town for Christmas, waddled in, hugely pregnant with her own child. It strangely touched him, the only people in the world who knew what it was like to struggle under the weight of being a Founder there to support him.
When his parents arrived, they insisted on taking a picture, and all of them gathered around Carol and baby Tyler. As the camera flashed, Rich wondered if this was the beginning or the end of who they used to be.
Six months later, as he got ready for work and watched as Carol less-than-successfully attempted to spoon food into Tyler's mouth, the phone began to ring. Rich picked it up on the fourth ring, grunting out a greeting as he attempted to tie his tie while the phone was wedged between his ear and shoulder.
“We adopted a baby,” Grayson announced, his voice practically crackling with excitement. “You and Carol have to come see her.”
The baby was a girl they had named Elena. As Carol fawned over the little girl, pressing kisses to her pink cheeks and showing Miranda the frilly dresses she had managed to procure between eight this morning and five this afternoon, Rich couldn't help but notice his wife had never reacted to their own child this way.
Two of the babies-that-never-were had been girls; Rich knew she wanted daughters more than sons.
He saw how obviously happy Grayson and Miranda were, and he couldn't help but feel an overwhelming swell of jealousy envelope him. As his friends gazed lovingly at their daughter, brushing kisses against the other's lips, Rich knew this was what love was supposed to look like, what happiness was supposed to feel like.
He and Carol would never have this.
The night his father died, Rich didn't know what to do. For the majority of his life, Rich had hated Benjamin Lockwood; his father was demeaning, at times brutal, and very quick to judge. But as much as Rich hated him, he also didn't know how life would work without him. Benjamin set the tone for his life; he was the one who laid down the rules, who set the boundaries, who dictated what would and would not be happening. To live in a world without his father was to fly blind, and, as much as he always said that was what he wanted, it also terrified him.
Tyler was with the nanny and Carol had stayed behind with his mother to help with arrangements, but Rich had to get out of there. Mark and Jake were both there trying to do their best to help their mother, and he had no idea where Mason had gone to, but Rich knew another moment in his childhood home would send him up the walls.
He wasn't sure why he ended up on Miranda's doorstep. Even as he rang the bell, he knew he should be with his wife and family, that he shouldn't be bothering Miranda, especially on a night he knew Grayson worked the night shift at the hospital.
The look of pure pity on her face as she opened the door snapped something inside him, and before Rich was even aware of what he was doing, he had enfolded her into a hug, clinging desperately to her body as if it was his lifeline.
“I'm so sorry, Rich,” she murmured against his ear, stroking his back comfortingly. “I'm so sorry.”
She smelled like formula and the perfume she always wore; he hadn't seen her much over the past year, what with being placed on bed rest during her pregnancy and then just the every day work of caring for a toddler and an infant. Carol had made several pointed comments about Miranda “slacking off” in her Founders' duties, and it had taken Rich everything he had not to snap back that it was much harder to find time to be frivolous when you were raising your own children instead of farming it out.
Someday he will stop comparing them, but his emotions were too close to the surface right now to be silently charitable.
Miranda insisted he sit down while she fixed him a cup of coffee; it wasn't until he sipped it and found the familiar taste of Bailey's dancing across his tongue that Rich smiled for the first time in days.
“I figured Folger's wasn't going to cut it,” she explained with a half-smile, moving the basket of folded laundry from the couch so she could sit beside him.
They sat in silence for several minutes, and it was the first time since receiving the call that his father had a stroke five days ago that Rich could remember there being quiet. The moment the hospital called, his life had become about contacting his brothers, consulting with neurologists, and then making arrangements at the funeral home. Carol was not a silent person by nature, and he hated how she was even viewing this as an opportunity to showcase the Lockwood name.
“He forced me to marry Carol.”
Miranda started at his words; he hadn't planned on saying them but now that he had, Rich felt like the flood gates were open and everything began to pour out: how desperately he wanted out of his marriage, how he had cheated on Carol multiple times in the past six years, how he was so sorry for how he had treated her when they dated back in high school and how he wished he could have made it right before she married Grayson. By the time he was finished, Rich felt as if he had purged himself of every feeling he ever had, and, from the expression on Miranda's face, he knew he had gone too far.
Miranda got to her feet, anxiously running her fingers through her long, curly hair. “You should go now.”
“Randi - “
“Don't!” she ordered, holding up her hand, her voice sharper than he has ever heard it. “I love Grayson, Rich, and that will never change. We have children together, we have a life together, and how dare you come into our house and say these things to me?!”
“Miranda - “
“And your father didn't make you do anything!” she continued, beautiful face pinched in frustration. “You did what you always did: you were too goddamn scared to ever stand up for yourself, to stand up for what you believed! You want to know why things never worked out between us? Because when the chips are down and things get hard, your first concern will always be you!”
People didn't talk to him like that; it was a side effect of being the mayor's son. But he was no longer the mayor's son because the mayor was dead, and he was now just another unhappy man in his thirties trapped in a bad marriage and trying to draw Miranda down into his quagmire of a life.
Rich got to his feet, opening his mouth to offer a pitiful apology, but Elena was suddenly at the top of the stairs crying for Miranda, and Rich knew his place was not in the Gilbert household.
Rich wasn't sure where his place was; that had always been the problem.
At the reading of his father's will, all Rich could think about is how much he wished he had been last, like Mason. Mason was seventeen now, far more rebellious than any of them had ever been, built like a brick shit house, and completely disinterested in anything having to do with school or his future. His father had repeatedly threatened to send Mason to military school, but his mother would never allow her baby to be sent away; Rich was beyond envious of the total lack of expectation placed on Mason as a result.
Today his youngest brother was slouched at the end of the table, his tie askew, completely uninterested as the lawyer outlined the terms of his trust. Rich was barely able to follow the complicated legalese, and the parceling out of his father's life disconcerted him greatly. When they were finished hearing what had been left to each of them (bulk of the estate to Cecilia, trust funds for all of the children and grandchildren, ownership stakes in the businesses), Rich was getting to his feet when the lawyer stilled him with a hand on his forearm.
“Richard, if you could stay behind for a moment.”
He dutifully sat, confused. A moment later his father's attorney returned with a thick envelope; Richard instantly saw his father's bold script across the front, clearly addressing the letter to him.
“Your father left explicit instructions that, in the event of his death, you were to receive this letter.”
“What is it?”
The attorney shrugged. “I don't know. But Benjamin was very clear: it was for your eyes only.”
Rich tucked the letter into the inner pocket of his suit coat, nodding in thanks before joining Carol in the lobby. As she rattled off the list of things awaiting them, he forgot about the letter until later that night when he was gathering up the clothes which needed to be taken to the dry cleaner's.
He slipped his finger under the flap, removing the folded, handwritten pages. At first he was only skimming the words, his brain too rattled by the events of the past week to truly focus, until he came to the line which stopped him cold: It is time I tell you of the curse put upon the Lockwood line, the curse which has fallen upon you and, by extension, Tyler.
Rich read in horrified fascination about the curse of the Lockwoods, about what kind of monster he could become if he ever “activated” the curse by killing someone. His father wrote of how his temper would become overwhelming when the moon was full, how he would need to keep a close eye on his brothers (especially Mason, Richard; his control is already so frayed) and his own children.
The last few paragraphs described something called a moonstone, some relic of great importance he had hidden beneath the floor boards of his office.
It is imperative that no one, especially a vampire, ever knows that we hold this. The moment anyone knows of the moonstone's location, is the moment the lives of everyone you love become endangered.
When he was finished reading, Rich threw the papers into the fireplace, watching as the words went up in smoke, never to be read by anyone else.
“They're going to have a special election to appoint a new mayor,” Carol reported a few days later as she flipped through her date book. “Lawrence Fell is considering putting his name in.”
“I'm going to run,” Rich stated decisively, trying not to smirk when Carol's head snapped up in surprise.
“Are you serious?”
Rich nodded. “This town always runs best with a Lockwood at the helm.”
He won the election easily, and his mother insisted that he, Carol, and Tyler move into the mansion. At a party celebrating his victory, he found himself out on the terrace again, Miranda standing near the railing.
“I never thought you wanted this,” Miranda observed after they had exchanged pleasantries and congratulations.
“Being an adult isn't about always getting what you want.”
Miranda smiled sadly. “No but...It's also not about chasing things you don't want either.”
Rich drained the rest of his scotch, placing the sifter on a nearby tray. “No offense, Miranda, but I really don't think you have any idea what is I want anymore.”
He didn't either, but he knew he should want what he did have: beautiful wife, healthy son, and now a career as the most powerful man in Mystic Falls.
Richard glanced up into the night sky, studying the swollen moon for a moment before turning on his heel and heading back inside, hiding from the beams which could force him to become a monster.
He was Mayor Richard Lockwood now.
It was time he started acting like it.
CHAPTER FOUR: JOHN GILBERT