A Matter of Fate (48 page)

Why would he insist so forcibly that he loves me when he was kissing someone else? And not just any old kiss—I mean, they were really going at it.

Gods. I hate them both.

The second message is all of twenty minutes old.
Chloe, I . . . I would really . . . I would like to see you, please, as soon as you want me to. This is . . . I feel . . . like it’s an insane nightmare I can’t wake up from. They tell me you’re going to Annar but . . . no one will let me come over again, not after what happened last night. I suppose that’s fair . . . but . . . I really want to see you, just . . . I’m not allowed to go there this weekend, so . . . Please don’t leave without letting me talk to you first. I’m begging you.

He sounds as listless as I feel. I slide down the front of the dresser until I’m hunched on the floor, gripping the phone like my life depends on it. My mind flatlines.

The door opens and Karl steps in. “I wanted to see . . . .” But he stops when he notices me rocking on the ground, sobbing.

I wave at him to pay me no mind. Karl squats down and waits for me to stop crying, but it’s hard. And then, somehow or other, the crying transitions to laughter. Karl just watches me, growing more and more concerned until I finally stop laughing. And then I start to cry again. Dammit, where’s the anger? Why does it have to be pain rather than anger?

I wave the phone around. “Why do you always have to be so mad when you leave me messages?”

He puts an awkward arm around me. “I didn’t know where you were. Jonah wasn’t being very helpful, and I got worried.”

This only makes me cry harder. “He called me.”

Karl pauses. “He came over late last night, too, but we made him leave.”

I’m blubbering now.

“Do you want me to call Jonah? Go get him? Take you there?”

Everything in me tenses, becomes a wire stretched taut on the verge of snapping. “No. I can’t. Please, no.” Footsteps sound behind us, and then a familiar hand reaches down and touches my back.

“She listened to her voicemail,” Karl explains as I dissolve in Kellan’s arms.

“Oh,” Kellan sighs. “I should’ve taken the phone out of here.”

Karl hesitates before saying, “Did you . . . ?”

“Yeah. He won’t be coming over again, nor will he be doing anything stupid like trying to meet you at the portal.”

“Good. We’ll be leaving in about an hour. I’ve asked Cora to drive us, as I thought it’d be best if . . . you know . . . .” Karl trails off uncomfortably. Kellan has no response.

The door clicks shut behind Karl before I formulate any thoughts. “You’re not coming to Annar?”

He’s oddly resigned. “It’s best I stay back.”

It’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard. “You need to come!”

“Chloe,” he says quietly, “you’ll be staying with Karl and Moira. You’ll be in good hands.”

It’s completely unfair of me to demand that he come with, but I can’t help myself. I do it anyway. I tell him I need him. I have to have
him
.

Ever so slowly, “You need some time to—”

I cut him off, nearly hysterical. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me!”

His eyes close and his face opens up, showing the struggle he’s fighting inside. But I have faith that he will come through for me. Because it’s Kellan, and that’s how he is.

And he does. “If that’s what you want, I’ll come, too. But . . . .” He hesitates, his words twisting slowly away. What he’s not telling me, and what I know he means, is that if he comes, it pretty much means the same thing as the two of us slapping his brother right across the face. And then thumbing our noses at him afterwards.

“Good,” I say without the slightest hesitation.

Kellan is subdued. “Well. I need to . . . um . . . go tell Karl about the change of plans and see about how things can be switched around.” He looks back down at me hesitantly, rubbing at his hair. Then he says to himself, almost inaudibly, “Alright. Fine,” as he walks out the door.

I am sitting on a step halfway down the staircase, leaning against the wooden railing. There’s this poem I’d read when I was little, about how the middle of a staircase is a safe place. Neither up nor down. A decision-free zone. And this is how it feels as I sit here. Upstairs, in my bedroom, there is the agony of tears and abysses. Downstairs and out the door is the reality of Jonah’s betrayal. Here on the stairs, there is nothing but me.

Somewhere nearby, Karl and Caleb question Kellan about the reasoning behind his change of heart about Annar.

“She begged me to come,” Kellan answers, his voice far too vulnerable.

The guilt in me grows. The safety of the stairs is disappearing.

“Just keep it in the forefront of your mind that she’s just had her heart literally blown to smithereens by Jonah,” Caleb says.

“Believe me, I know,” Kellan says so quietly that I can barely make out his words. “I saw it in every last detail.”

“She needs to talk to him,” Karl says.

“She doesn’t want to,” Kellan counters. “And, I’m not going to push it just because you think they should talk.”

“They’re Connected!” Karl snaps. “You think this distance will make things easier on her? Them? Think again. Speaking from experience, I can assure you the best thing they can do right now is work this out as quickly as possible.”

Stony silence fills the house before Karl adds, “You going with her to Annar is only going to make things worse, Kellan.”

Anger envelopes me with a vengeance.

The wooden railing cracks loudly under my fingers, a sharp fissure racing the length of the banister. I jerk back, startled. The movement is enough, though. A ripple shudders throughout the wood as it splits entirely in half, crashing to the ground with a deafening thud.

Horrified, I recoil back against the wall. Oh my gods, I’ve destroyed something again, and like with the tree and fence, I hadn’t even been aware of doing it. Which makes it all the more terrifying, because it’s exactly what I’ve been frightened of for years.

I am not in control of my powers. Maybe I’m exactly what my mom accused me of being: a scared girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing. And that thought nearly pushes me over the edge of sanity.

The little voice argues with me, insists this is not the case, that there’s a very real and valid reason why I’m falling apart, but just then, Karl, Kellan, and Caleb dart into the living room. All three come to a halt, gaping at the mutilated railing at their feet. I don’t even know what to say.

It takes a minute, but Kellan eventually steps over the railing and makes his way up the steps to me. “Don’t worry about this,” he says calmly, taking my hands in his. “It’s nothing.”

“I’ll . . . I’ll fix it,” I manage hoarsely.

“Later,” Caleb gently insists, and then he and Karl retreat back into the kitchen. Kellan slouches on the step below me, stretching out his long legs against what is left of the railing. He waits until our friends are gone before asking quietly, “Do you maybe want to talk to my brother on the phone? You wouldn’t have to see him . . . just talk. Or not even talk, just hear what he has to say.”

The pictures on the wall behind us begin to vibrate. I have to focus to get the hysteria under control. “No.”

“I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but it might help to hear from him.”

I stare off into the distance and try to piece together my reasons. But all I can come up with is, “It’s too much.”

He sighs, but doesn’t push. “Did Karl tell you J came here last night?”

I nod.

“He’s so pissed at me right now since I wouldn’t let him in.” Our hands find each other.

My eyes narrow in on the tiny cut above Kellan’s lip. How did I miss that this morning? Did Jonah hit him? How dare Jonah even remotely think about getting mad at his brother! Wasn’t
he
the one who’d wronged
me
?

Kellan continues, “Didn’t you hear anything? I could’ve sworn we woke up the entire neighborhood.”

“No. No sounds. Nothing but black.” I think about the abyss and ask, “Was that you?”

“Was what me?” he asks, running his thumb up and down mine. It feels good. Beyond good, actually.

I struggle to focus on what we’re talking about. “The black. The abyss.”

“No, C. I can do deep depression, enough to create an abyss and more, but I would never do that to you.”

“And the numbness?”

“Oh, well . . . that’s me. I thought numb would be better than hysterical. Do you want me to stop?”

I shake my head. Numb is definitely better than having to feel anything acutely. “Kellan?”

“Yeah?”

“Am I overreacting?”

He studies me quietly.

“I mean,” I clarify, “you obviously know a lot more about emotions than I do. Is this . . . normal? Freaking out like I am. Shutting down. All over something like seeing my . . . .” I have to swallow first. “Jonah . . . kissing someone?”

“I think that if this is the reaction your heart gives you, then you are not overreacting. Hearts don’t lie.”

“What about ‘mind over matter’—”

He cuts me off. “Our minds do not rule our emotions. Our hearts do. Chloe, listen to me . . . If this is how you feel, then it is how it is.” He pauses, looks away. “Besides, it’s the Connection. People who have Connections and are separated from each other don’t deal with it well.”

A car door slams outside and I nearly jerk out of my skin.

“It’ll just be Cora,” he says flatly.

And he’s right. She strolls into the house without bothering to knock. “Ready to go?”

Kellan doesn’t say anything to her. He merely regards my Cousin with narrowed eyes. Then he squeezes my hand and leaves.

Cora sits down in his spot. She nods at the twisted half-sticks before us. “What happened?”

I murmur, embarrassed, “I guess I got upset.”

She nods, as if this was expected. “Look. I need to talk to you about some stuff before you leave. Let’s go sit on the porch.”

We settle on a comfortable bench that my mother has fitted with an overstuffed pad. Cora looks out at the front yard and says, “I brought your homework, just in case.”

Like that’s even on my radar at the moment.

She smiles and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I know.” Then she takes a deep breath, blowing the air out hard and loud. She nods once, twice, before turning to face me. “What are you playing at?”

I am stunned, not prepared in the slightest for this particular question. “What?”

“Kellan was going to stay behind, so, I’m assuming it was at your request that he changed his mind and is now going to Annar.” She sighs loudly through her nose. “Why would you do that?”

Blink. Blink.
Huh?
I tell her, “I need him.” It’s the honest truth. I don’t care if she understands it or not. She doesn’t have to.

“You do not
need
Kellan. What you need to do is to go and talk to Jonah.” I flinch at his name but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Just a couple of days ago, you were engaged to Jonah! And now you’re, what, running away with Kellan? What the hell?”

I can’t believe this is Cora, that she’s saying these things. “You didn’t see what I saw!”

“You mean the kiss?” The grass in front of me blurs slowly before coming back into focus. “He showed me.” Her face remains calm—how is she doing that? How can her voice and words contradict so much with how her face looks?

Confused, I ask, “Kellan?”

“
Jonah,
” Cora stresses, grabbing my hand. Her fingers are like hot pokers: judgmental and painful.

And then what she’d said finally hits me. She’s seen Jonah, she had to have been with him to see something like that. Oh, oh, what did she see, what did he say, was he missing me, was he okay, was he sad, was he happy I was gone, is he happy with Callie, is she still with him?

The little voice urges me to focus. “I’m . . . surprised he would show you that.”

“He didn’t purposely show me! I surged, and he was so off his game at the moment, I was able to see bits and pieces. I want you to know it took me a good couple minutes to calm him down before we could even talk, not to mention fix the damage you did when you decided to attack him with twenty tons of fencing material.”

FIX. THE DAMAGE. I’D DONE?

Black spots appear and grow before my eyes. I’ve hurt him, and there’s nothing to ever excuse this. Not even his cheating and lying.

“You could’ve killed him, Chloe. What were you thinking?”

Everything just sort of splinters in my mind. The black now encompasses half of my eyesight. “I . . . I didn’t . . . .”

She stands up. “Do you remember when they first got here, and you knew who he was, and yet you decided to throw yourself at Kellan? And Jonah actually forgave you, which still beats the shit out of me, because I sure as heck wouldn’t have. I mean, you dated his
brother
. That’s just . . . .” She shakes her head, disgusted. “Yet, he makes one tiny mistake, and you won’t even give him the opportunity to tell you his side of the story? You’re a hypocrite, Chloe.”

This is my best friend, my Cousin, and she is taking his side. My boyfriend cheats on me, and Cora defends it, calling it a
tiny mistake
.

“Do you even know what things are like for him right now? Are any of his so-called friends telling you?” she asks angrily, but she doesn’t wait for me to answer. “No? Well, let me fill you in. His emotions are so out of control that when I stepped into his house, I felt like I was on a rollercoaster. And now, with what you’re doing to Kellan . . . .”

Kellan? I blink at her, trying to hold on. The black doesn’t clear, though. It’s only getting worse.

“Have you even stopped to think what insisting on him going to Annar with you will do to
their
relationship?”

“Stop,” I whisper, blinking furiously.

She doesn’t hear me. “They are twins, and you are hacking at their bond with an ax! Even worse, it is almost like you’re doing it with a grin on your face!”

The blackness is so overwhelming now that I know it’s only moments before I’m gone. Even still, I manage to shriek, “Do I look like I am
smiling
?”

Caleb’s voice suddenly barks, “Enough Cora!” He hovers in the air next to her, anger practically steaming off his body. When did he come out here? Has he been here the whole time?