A Matter of Heart (40 page)

It’s getting hard to focus.
My hands grip his hips, my fingers skim the skin right under the waistband of
his low riding trunks. “Sound like what?”

He’s
quiet. “Like you’re mine. Only mine.”

An hour later, my cell phone
rings. Jonah’s finally calling me. I force my breath to steady, will my voice
to not crack when I answer.

His exhaustion is painfully
evident even in his greeting. I ache for him, want to make it better, which is
a joke since everything I’ve done this last week will only serve to wound, not
heal. Since I can’t hug him, hold him, kiss him, I do what I can—I ask about
his mission. How he’s dealing with it. Reassure him that things are okay, that
he’s done the right thing in the long run. Act like nothing is wrong, that
nothing’s changed, even though things aren’t even close to okay, at least for
me. Any stress I’d felt in the past few months about my conflicting feelings
toward the Whitecomb brothers has elevated into full-blown, Def-Con One crisis
mode.

A sickening pain in my
stomach tells me this is only the beginning.

“At least it’s almost over
with,” Jonah is saying. “If all goes as planned, I’ll be on the beach with you
tomorrow afternoon.”

I’m glad, fiercely so, which
only serves to confuse me further. I want to see Jonah. The thought of being
with him again has multitudes of butterflies in my stomach clamoring for
release.

Caleb speaks for the first
time this week.
Tell him the truth. He deserves to hear it from you.

What if I lose him?

That’s a risk you chose the
moment you and Kellan kissed back in Annar.

I stare out at Kellan. He’s
in a barrel, moving so smoothly that he makes surfing look easy. Telling Jonah
means purposely choosing to hurt both of them.

You’re being selfish,
Caleb
accuses.

But the thing is, as much as
I am, I’m also not. I’m hurting, too. I’m brokenhearted in this moment. I love
these two men more than I thought anybody could ever love another being. And if
me agonizing over these things in silence can prevent either of them from
getting hurt any more than they’ve already been, especially by me, I’m willing
to suffer any and all consequences to do so.

“Chloe?”

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly.
I lie back down on the blanket and stare into the sunny blue sky. I can’t watch
Kellan and talk to Jonah at the same time. “The connection is faulty.”

Which is truly ironic,
considering.

“I’ve been worried about
you. How are you dealing with everything?”

Lousy, is what I want to
say. I’m self-destructing. “This week has been a good escape,” I tell him.
Which isn’t a lie. It just has nothing to do with my parents like it ought to.

A pregnant pause ripe with
static fills our ears. “You’ve . . . you guys are getting along? Having a good
time? Was this the right call, having him take you somewhere as a distraction?”

He’s trying so hard to trust
me, I realize. To prove he’s willing to sit back and suffer so I can have a
relationship with Kellan. And yet, it’s eating him up worse than any
blood-sucking bug in Africa. The guilt in me is acidic now. I have never hated
myself more than in this moment.

No
, I
want to tell him.
I wish I’d never gotten out of bed that morning, never
stumbled across Kellan and Sophie. I could be blissfully depressed back in my
apartment, waiting for you to come home.

That’s how it should be. But
it isn’t. Because I’m a coward who can’t seem to learn from her mistakes.

“What time do you think
you’ll be here tomorrow?” The sky above me is white, it’s so bright. I close my
eyes and watch red with black dots bloom in the shapes of clouds.

He doesn’t answer this,
though. “There’s something I’ve got to get off my chest before I come.” My
heart pounds as he sighs. DOES HE KNOW? “I’ve hated knowing you’ve been on
vacation with my brother all week. Without me. I know I promised I wasn’t going
to accuse you of anything, and I’m not—I won’t—but . . .” Another sigh. “It’s
hard, Chloe. I’m really, really trying here. I want you to know that.”

This is the point where I
ought to be sobbing and pleading for forgiveness. And yet, I don’t. More now so
than ever, I stand to risk losing too much if I do.

“I’m sorry I just dumped
that on you. I’m an asshole for doing so. It’s just . . . sometimes it’s too
hard to hold it all in, you know?”

Oh, do I ever. And yet, I’m
becoming frighteningly adept at it.

I
end our call by telling him how much I love him. How I always will. At least
that isn’t a lie.

“Jonah will be here tomorrow
afternoon.”

Kellan doesn’t miss a beat.
“I know.”

I chew on my lip until the
tang of blood coats my tongue. “Did you two talk today?”

He sits on his surfboard,
arms wrapped loosely around his knees. “Yes.”

Was it before or after we
almost had sex on the beach? “Are you blocking him?”

He slowly shakes his head.
How often has he let Jonah into his mind this week? Is he trying to tell his
brother the truth he deserves when I can’t?

Evil girl I am, I order,
“Block him now.” Kellan’s eyebrows shoot up. Even though I have no way of
knowing if he’s done it or not, I continue, “He hates that we’re here
together.”

“
No
. Really?” When I
glare, Kellan says, “No offense, C, but his suggesting we come had everything
to do with making sure your needs were met while ignoring his.”

Pain radiates from the wound
I’ve created on my inner lip, but I continue to chew on it with gusto. “You
knew?”

“I guess I’m surprised you
didn’t. What did you think? That he’d magically become okay with us being
together? He’ll never be okay with it.” His fingers search for his cuff, but
it’s back at the house. “For that matter, I’ll never be okay with you being
with him, either.”

It’s the first real
admission on his behalf in a long time.

“You never talk about this
with me,” I whisper.

“Why would I?”

“Because . . . it’s how you
feel.”

“So?” Our eyes meet, and I’m
unnerved by the amount of pain he’s finally letting me see. “It’s been clear
since the day you decided Jonah was the one for you that my feelings are
irrelevant on the matter.”

I sit up on my knees.
“That’s not true and you know it.”

“Do I? Because, frankly, you
haven’t ever indicated otherwise.”

I’m furious. “I’m indicating
it
now
.”

He matches my fury. “On the
heels of my brother calling you, no less. How very convenient. So now you get
to have your woe-is-me pity party while wringing your hands over what you’ve
done while he’s been gone and get me to—what? Apologize for unfairly seducing
you or something?”

Caleb practically basks in
his gloating in the back of my mind over the train wreck unfolding in this
moment. Me? I’m drowning. I don’t know if I can keep my head above the water
line for much longer.

“You want my true feelings
on all this, Chloe?” Kellan rises on his knees in front of me. “You want to
know how I’m feeling about my brother coming tomorrow? Pissed off
.
”

I’m mute in desolation. My
stomach spasms painfully.

“You want to know how I feel
about your upcoming”—he flashes air quotes, to add well-deserved insult to
injury—“
wedding
? Pissed off is far too nice of a phrase to even begin to
define how I feel about it. Every time I allow myself to even remotely
entertain the horror I’m going to face—” He yanks at his hair. “Did you know
that when you break a bunch of bones, the pain is so intense it pretty much
overrides everything else? Going into shock is even better. Is that good enough
for you? Is that real enough?”

The spasms intensify until I
nearly bowl over. I’m beyond horrified. Why did Fate do this to us? Why?

And yet,
I’m
doing
this to
him
. He’s destroying himself because of
me
.

“There are times I hate my twin
brother. There are times when no amounts of alcohol or sex or adrenaline or
pain can mask the agony I get from this fucking Connection I don’t
want
.
But guess what? My feelings pretty much are null and void on the matter.
Because all you have to do is pull my strings and I’ll jump up and do whatever
it is you want. I have no control over my feelings—me, an Emotional. Do you get
what that’s like, Chloe? How fucking ironic it is?” He laughs bitterly. “Is
that
real enough for you?”

I can’t see clearly, the
tears are so thick. “I’m sorry—”

“Jesus. Stop. I’m not . . .”
He runs his hands through his wet hair; black chunks go wild around his face.
“None of this was meant to elicit any kind of guilt trip on your behalf. I know
this weird sense of guilt you carry around eats you up. It’s . . .” He shakes
his head, calmer. “I know you didn’t ask for this, either. Stop apologizing so
much. It’s pointless.”

My chest hurts from holding
back sobs. My stomach is on fire.

“This week.” His fingers
force my chin up so I have to meet his eyes. There’s too much there to process.
“Yeah, I felt guilty at the beginning. But you know what? I don’t anymore.
Because, wanted or not, guess what? You. And I.
Are Connected
. And
there’s not a goddamn thing Jonah can do about that, no matter how much he
tries.”

At this point, my breath is
shallow. It’s the only way to keep going.

“I can feel your confusion,
Chloe. I know how much it terrifies you, loving me as much as you do. But you
do love me. And you can go around telling everyone how happy you are with
Jonah, how perfect your Connection is, but you and I both know that it’s the
biggest lie in Annar. Because things are not okay. If they were—if you were
absolutely, one hundred percent on the Jonah train—things wouldn’t have
happened between us this week and you know it.”

I search for my voice. “I’m
trying . . .” He waits, but the words I want to say won’t form in my mouth. So
I tell him the truth, too, even though the words hurt like hell. “I tried to
let you go. I can’t.”

His anger softens. “You’ve
been happy with me this week. I know you’ve been drowning in guilt, too—but
you’ve been happy.”

There’s no denying it. And
that’s what finally breaks me. Tears gush out, hot and heavy.

Any hope I’d ever harbored
of things becoming okay for the three of us dies a cruel and final death.

Kellan leaves me alone for
the next few hours. He dropped me off at the house and then left, saying he
needed distance away from me to think. Caleb refuses to talk to me. It’s not
hard to assume he’s disappointed. Probably disgusted, too. I’ve spent the
better part of this time miserable.

My stomach aches and burns.
I want to throw up, but I’m too afraid that once I open those floodgates, I
won’t be able to stop for hours.

I’m on the porch on one of
the Adirondack chairs, wrapped up in an old, oversized sweater I’d found in his
closet when Kellan drives up. He climbs the porch slowly, hands stuffed in his
pockets.

“This sucks,” is what he
says first.

Agreed.

He’s determined, though, to
keep going. “Chloe, it seems like I’m the one who pretty much laid myself bare
today with what I want—”

“But you didn’t. You told me
how you’re feeling about everything, but not once did you tell me what you
want.” I realized that earlier, while I was wallowing in a vat of great self-pity,
just like he predicted.

He sits on the second step
from the top and faces the ocean. “I assumed that was clear, especially after
this week together.”

I come to sit next to him.
His smile is tight. “I want you, C. I want this.” He trails his fingers lightly
across my knee. “I want us.” His hand moves away. “More importantly, I want you
to want it, too.”

I lean my head down against
my knees, against the spot still tingling from where he stroked me. Telling him
the truth is like ripping my heart out, but I do it anyway. “I don’t know what
I want anymore.”

His quiet laugh is swept
away by the roar of the ocean. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? Jonah and I, we’re
certain about what we want. You don’t have a clue—and haven’t for a long time
now.”

I reach out to touch his
knee. “I do know I love you.”

“You love him too. The love
you have for my brother—it’s like a beacon. Sometimes, I can’t even stand to be
in the same room as you two. The love you guys have blinds me.”

Breathe, I tell myself. Keep
kicking. Keep yourself above the waterline.

“Do you ever wish you’d
picked me?”

I struggle to answer his
question, which was said with so much vulnerability that I can feel myself
sinking under again. No is probably the best, truest answer, yet also a huge
lie. I’ve never regretted Jonah and what we have once. And yet, I still have
these feelings for Kellan, stronger than ever. “It’s . . . complicated.”