A Matter of Heart (13 page)

I muster up the horrible
audacity to ask, “What all do you know?”

“Enough.”

When I saw Jonah kiss Callie
a year before, it shattered me and nearly destroyed everything we have
together. And when Jonah found out I’d kissed his brother shortly afterwards,
it’d been just as devastating for him. What if he’d seen it? Through Kellan’s
eyes? Worse yet, felt it?

I cry, and even though
there’s no doubt he can feel the agony and misery in me, I still try to muffle
the sounds. Fat, hot tears well down my face in soundless paths.

“I’m trying,” I whisper when
the silence in the room becomes unbearable.

He knows what I mean. “Where
has that trying gotten you, Chloe? I’ve known these eight months what his
absence does to you. I can feel it in you. Trying means nothing, not when
you’re Connected to someone. You might as well try to cut off your arms. You
could get one off, but you’d never be able to take the other one off by
yourself. It’s impossible. He can try to force as much distance between you,
but it’ll never work.” Jonah lowers his hand and stares up at the ceiling. “The
two times distance has been forced between you and me—when the doorway was lost
and then last year, with Callie—it never helped me. It made things worse.”

“Sometimes it helps.” A tear
rolls across my nose; it tickles but I’m afraid to even move in this moment.
“The distance, I mean. When you’re with me, I don’t feel his loss.”

“I know,” he says.

“I didn’t choose this. I
mean, I chose
you
. I didn’t choose to have another Connection with another
person, let alone your brother.”

“I know, honey,” he says,
and part of me softens in relief with the endearment. “But, you need him. I
know that now.”

If someone could shatter in
fear, it’d be me. Eight months without Kellan is one thing. But I cannot fathom
life without Jonah. I wouldn’t want to. “What are you saying?”

He finally rolls back over
so we can look at one another. “I am willing to . . . concede, no—not concede,
because that would indicate I actually have some say in this—”

“You do,” I cut in. “You
absolutely have a say.”

“Nobody truly has a say in
someone else’s emotions. Well, except an Emotional . . . But you know what I
mean.” His smile is faint. “What I’m trying to say is that, while it was
Kellan’s choice to exile himself from you, I actively encouraged it.”

You’d think this would upset
me, but it doesn’t, because I know Jonah is not capable of being malicious
towards either me or his brother.

“And,” he continues, “I’ve
always known what this has done to him. But he’s done it, because he’s
altruistic and because he loves me, and I’ve let him because I’m a selfish
bastard.”

“No.” I reach over to touch
his face, but he gently grabs my hand before I can make contact.

“Yes. I am. But I had an
epiphany recently, and even if it kills me to do so, I’m going to back off and
let things fall where they may.”

I don’t understand. . .?

“What I mean,” he says,
sighing as he places my hand down next to me, “is that I will no longer
encourage my brother to stay away from you.” Just as my panic hits the top and
spills over the
Chloe Terror Meter,
he adds, “That’s not to say that I’m
encouraging you two to go off and get married or even . . . do anything like
you did in that cave . . . but, there has to be some kind of halfway point we
can all meet at. Because I miss him and hate knowing that I’m destroying him
like I’ve been doing—”

“You would never do that—” I
start, but he waves me off.

“Yes, I did. I’ve fully
known every last misery he’s been going through. People with Connections are
not meant to deny themselves of their significant others.”

“He’s not my—”

“You know what I mean. The
fact that he’s been able to go this long is, frankly, astounding, and a
testament to how much he loves us both. But having no contact with one another
hasn’t done either of you any good. So what I’m suggesting, I guess, is that
maybe you two can be . . . friends?”

I dumbly repeat back,
“Friends?”

“Yes,” he says quietly.
“Friends. Not friends with benefits, you know, because I have my limits, but .
. . friends . . . who are there for one another. Who are actively involved in
each other’s lives.” He studies me intently. “What do you think? Is this maybe
an acceptable alternative?”

I search his face. As much
as I love him, and as well as I know him, sometimes his face is so guarded that
it’s difficult to tell if he’s serious. “Is this what you want?”

“What I want is for you to
only have a Connection to me. But since I can’t have that, I suppose this is
something I can live with.”

I am so selfish, so
incredibly selfish, because I tell him after a long moment, “As long as you’re
okay with it, then yes.”

There’s a knock on the door
and Jonah rolls off the bed. My Jell-o has arrived, three cups of it. When the
orderly leaves, Jonah flips over the table leaf that goes over the bed and peels
off the lids. In a very neutral, carefully controlled voice, he says, “There
are some things you ought to know about Kellan nowadays.”

A cup is handed over, along
with a spoon. Thanks to the sickening mixture of guilt and unease at the pit of
my stomach, I don’t know if I can even get this Jell-o down, which is absurd
since I fantasized about food for nearly a week. But I take a bite anyway,
mostly because it appears Jonah’s going to make sure I get something in me,
even if it’s cherry flavored gelatin. “Um, okay?”

He scratches the side of his
neck. “Obviously, you’ve heard the gossip on my brother.”

Another spoonful gets shoved
into my mouth. I swallow slowly, debating how to answer that.
Yes
means
I’ve been seeking out gossip on Kellan and thereby, cheating on—no, not
cheating, but thinking? About another guy, other than my fiancé? And
no
would be an obvious lie, because, well . . . why wouldn’t I be seeking out
gossip on my other Connection? So, I end up with a carefully selected, “Uh . .
.”

“He’s popular,” Jonah
continues clinically. “And very social.”

Caleb murmurs,
Is that
how they’re phrasing it nowadays
?

I choke on my bite of
Jell-o.

Jonah keeps on going. “He
dates. A lot. You should know that, Chloe. The gossip on him isn’t wrong about
that.”

More choking. How is it
possible to choke on Jell-o? Jonah ends up having to smack me on the back a few
times before I manage another classy, “Uh . . .?”

“And he’s reckless. He and
his
friends
,”—this is said most derisively, like Jonah couldn’t imagine
anyone worthy of the title—“do incredibly stupid things, like skydiving while
seeing who call pull the cord at the very last moment without breaking every
bone in their body. Which they come perilously close to doing, far too often.
I’ve been in this hospital with him and his broken bones more than you can
imagine. I’m sorry for not letting you know beforehand, but he made it clear it
wasn’t any of your business.”

HOLY CRAP. I should just
stop eating, because I’m back to choking on
gelatin
.

“He and his friends go out
every night and drink until somebody has to drag their asses back to their
apartments.” He pauses, and then continues in that detached voice, “Usually
some girl that he just met and that he won’t see again—his choice, not hers.
But that’s okay, because there’ll always be a new girl to take her place the
next night.”

Why is he
telling
me
these things? “I don’t think—”

“You need to know this
stuff, Chloe. You need to know about the survival mechanisms he’s built into
his life if you want to be there, too. Because—” He shakes his head. “See,
Kellan is popular. Everyone thinks he has a charmed life. He’s got them all
fooled.”

Okay. No more Jell-o for me
for the moment. I shove it away, terrified of choking any further. “What do you
mean, survival mechanisms?”

“Think about what it was
like for you, when we were separated last year. For the both of us. How much it
hurt to be away from one another.” And I do. It was mind-bogglingly awful
because there was no way to control it, thanks to our Connection. Even still—

“I miss him, yes,” I admit.
“And it hurts . . . but it, these last eight months, they’ve been nothing like
what we went through then.”

He stares through the open
doorway, at his brother. “I asked Astrid about it. She’s been worried sick
about him, too. She says it’s because you and I are together, that because
we’re strong, and we’re happy—she thinks the loss of the other Connection you
have isn’t as acute. Because you have one that’s satisfied. But, he doesn’t
have that. He’s . . . he’s where we were, last year. We were like that for a
week. He’s been like that over a year.”

Honestly? I can’t even begin
to process this, because it’s just too appalling to even begin to think about.

“Kellan is out of control
nowadays, and it’s because, when he’s moving at a hundred miles per hour, he
doesn’t have a lot of time to think about how he’s feeling. All the adrenaline
rushes, the girls, the alcohol . . . they act like a drug. And it’s a good one,
because like I said, everyone thinks he’s happy.” Jonah closes his eyes, his
hair spilling down across his lashes. Then, like it’s the most painful thing
he’s ever admitted—“He needs you.”

“He needs
us
,” I say
quietly, and I know, more than anything else in my jumbled brain right now,
that it’s the absolute truth.

“I need to go to a Council
meeting.”

A glance at the clock nearby
tells me it’s nearly midnight. I’ve been dozing on and off after Cora, Lizzie,
and Meg came to visit, bringing with them exhausting questions and worries.
Yet, despite the time, Jonah’s shrugging into a hooded sweatshirt and picking
up his keys. I know I’ve been out of it lately, but Council meetings are never
this late at night. “Now?”

He shoves his wallet into
his back pocket. “There’s an urgent matter that can’t wait for morning.”

What in the worlds can be
urgent enough to drag Council members out of bed? “Did one of the planes start
a world war while I was asleep?”

His eyes widen before he
laughs. “No.” Then he sobers, biting his lip as he studies me. “It’s about the
Elders attacks.”

I swing my legs over the
side of the bed, but he’s right there to urge me back. “As a person who was,
you know, in one of those attacks,” I insist, “I should probably go.”

“Nobody is expecting you to
come tonight. You just woke up—you need your rest. I’ll tell you all the
details later, though, okay?”

I am pretty tired for a girl
who apparently slept two days straight, and the truth is, I’d probably
embarrass myself by dozing during the meeting. “Promise?”

He kisses my forehead.
“Promise.” His lips press together before he says, “I need a favor from you,
though.”

“Of course.” I smile as he
sits on the edge of my bed.

“I’m going to be gone for a
few hours, and while I’m not happy about that, it also means that you and my
brother are going to be left . . . unattended.”

I sputter out a laugh.
“We’re in a hospital. There are Shamans everywhere.”

He does not laugh. “Maybe I
phrased that wrong. How about this—I would very much appreciate it if you don’t
talk to anyone except the Shamans. Will you do that for me?”

Am I reading this wrong, or
is he acting a bit paranoid? “Ooh-kay?”

He’s all business, no
nonsense when he says, “Also, I think it’s a good idea if we move you into
Kel’s room while I’m gone.”

Whoomp
. My
spine is straight as it shoots me into a sitting position. “Come again?”

He glances at the open
doorway between the rooms. “Can you put the door back up?” Bewildered, I do as
he asks, and he continues, “It’s just, what with me needing to leave, I would
feel best if you were together. Especially since you’re the one who’s best
equipped to guard him—”