A Matter of Heart (46 page)

I hurt. Gods, do I
hurt
.

Dial
,
Caleb urges.
Call Jonah. You can do it
.

I manage to get it right
after two more tries. Jonah tries to say something, like hello, maybe? But I
tell him, “Hurt. Come?”

Although, things are sort of
numb now. Not so painful. Sleepy. So sleepy.

Jonah doesn’t say anything.
Did he hear me? I let the phone drop. I want to nap.

The Elder finally starts
screaming. This is how it’s supposed to be. These things scream. They’re
screamers. I want to scream, too, but can’t, because it’s sort of hard to.

I push myself up on my good
elbow right as the wall in front of me crumbles. Karl shakes wall stuff off his
fist. “What is it with you and walls, Chloe?”

He’s funny, that Karl.

Jonah pushes past him to get
to me. He says a lot of sweet things. I’m glad he’s here. He picks me up and
holds me like . . . like . . . like in a movie or a book. A good one, with a
hero. That’s it. He’s a hero. My hero. I want to throw my arms around his neck,
but one arm is all crooked.

I go to tell him that I
think it’s broken when I realize my hero is spitting fire. ‘Cause he’s yelling
at the Guard who’ve followed him and Karl in to find me, and—whoa. He’s red
he’s so angry.

He stops long enough to say
to me, “Don’t go to sleep.”

Ha. Haha. Right.

“Don’t. Go. To. Sleep,” he
warns.

“Heroes aren’t bossy,” I
inform him. But damn him, he makes it so I’m super awake before he yells at
those poor guys some more.

Everyone is saying they
truly thought they had the house covered. And, they did—I’ll give them that—but
the Electric tasked with watching the back entrance had to use the bathroom and
left his post for a couple of minutes. Which means the Elder must’ve been
watching us for quite awhile, biding its time until it had the perfect opening.

The guy’s genuinely
contrite, apologizing to me multiple times. I try to tell him it’s no big deal,
everybody has to pee sometime, but Jonah isn’t down with any of his or anyone
else’s excuses.

“We’re leaving,” he tells
Karl, but the big guy is blocking the exit he’d created just minutes before.

“We need Chloe to help
contain it. You know it’ll escape if she doesn’t.”

Jonah’s body tenses around
me. I worry he’ll argue, but then he asks me quietly, “Can you make it so it
can’t get out?”

I nod; he has to bring me
close enough to lay a weak hand against the fresh plaster. Once I’m done, he
says to Karl, “There. Contained. We’re going now.”

Kiah hesitantly steps
forward. “Jonah, we need—”

“NO.” He presses his lips
together, like he’s trying to keep words he’ll later regret it. “Right now,
Chloe and I are going to go back to Annar to the hospital. You guys wanted one
of these things—well, she got you one. Her work is done, at least for today.”

Kiah looks me right in the
eyes. “Sweetie, we could really use your help before you go.”

My arm is dangling uselessly
in my lap. My knee is at an awkward angle. Jonah’s got me lucid and pain free,
but rationally, I know I must have a concussion. Broken bones. And I’ll be no
good to anyone, least of all myself, if I try to work Magic when I’m not in top
form. “I know,” I tell her and Karl. “And I want to help. But, I think it’s
best that I get myself checked out first. Right?”

Karl scrubs at his hair.
“I’m an asshole for even suggesting anything else. Sorry, Chloe.”

I give him what I hope is a
warm smile, but Jonah’s worked it so I literally can’t feel anything associated
with my body.

Kellan meets us at the car.
He’s clearly trying to contain his anger, too, but whereas I can feel Jonah’s
trembling, I see it in Kellan’s hands. “Let me drive you guys.”

Jonah goes to argue,
something about needing his brother to stay back and make sure things are okay,
but Kellan counters with, “She needs someone to sit with her in the back so
there’s no more damage. You sit with her. I’ll drive.”

Karl is outside, watching
us. So are a lot of other people, all looking remorseful. I refuse to look at
any of them any longer, because, surprise, surprise, once again, the mighty
Creator proves herself to be as fragile as everyone thinks.

Jonah
finally agrees; Kellan opens the back door of the SUV I’d rented and helps his
brother load me in. During the drive, he fiddles with the car radio until he
finds a station he knows I like. And then nobody says anything out loud for the
rest of the drive.

Kate Blackthorn sends both
guys out into the hallway before examining me. They’re reluctant, but they go.
“Those two,” she says fondly, shaking her head. Or at least I think she’s
shaking her head, but she’s all blurry. “Stubborn as mules.”

Before they left, though,
Kate had Jonah revert my feelings and focus back to where he found me. He’d
fought with her, but caved when she said she needed to assess me in my true
state. I’m once more nearly blinded with pain, and my head is spinning. My eyes
can’t focus on any single thing.

She takes care of the
concussion first before getting to work on the broken wrist and knee. Warm
hands press against my wounds, knitting bone back together and smoothing skin
whole. She’s just about to help me sit up when she pauses. “What’s this?”

Her hands hover over my
lower abdomen. My eyes widen. “I’m not pregnant!” I blurt out.

She chuckles and yet still
frowns. “Dear girl, what with your hymen being intact and all,”—my cheeks
blaze, holy hell, I’m going to die of embarrassment, this is Jonah’s mom’s best
friend—“I certainly wouldn’t assume that’s the case. Although, I’ll admit I’m
quite surprised that you’re still a virgin.” OFFICIALLY DYING. And seriously, a
good point. But still. DYING. “But I was referring to a rather nasty ulcer you
have.”

Ulcer? I struggle to sit up,
but the Shaman pushes me back down. Her hands, warm again against my bare skin,
press into my belly.

“How long have you been
experiencing symptoms?”

I’ve got to be fire engine
red now. “You mean, stomach aches and all?” She nods, so I say, “Um, a few
months?”

Her hands move away, only to
help me finally sit up. Then they settle on her hips. “Why didn’t you come see
me?”

I tug at the hem of the
backless dressing gown hospitals insist on patients wearing during exams. “I
guess I assumed it was from stress.”

Rapid-fire questions shoot
out from Kate’s lips until it’s determined that I got myself into a vicious
cycle this year. My headaches stemmed from stress. The ibuprofen I’ve eaten
like candy tore into my stomach and caused an ulcer. Stress exacerbated the
ulcer and headaches. I took more pain relievers, hoping to find relief to only
make the ulcer worse. The worse it got, the more meds I took. I created a
monster.

“You need to cut down on
stress,” she says to me, like it’s an easy thing.

Of course. How stupid of me.
I’ll get right on that.

“You’ve also lost a lot of
weight since I saw you last,” she says, looking down at her chart. “That’s from
the ulcer and stress, too. You’d been at a healthy weight, Chloe. Losing too
much too quickly isn’t good for your body.”

So, no stress. Eat more. Check.
Double check. Why haven’t I thought of this before?

Kate pats me on the
shoulder. “I wouldn’t normally advise this, but drink some milk shakes. Eat
some hamburgers. Get some calories into your system.”

Right-o. It’s sooo easy to
just flip that no hunger switch. Got it.

Don’t be petty
,
Caleb warns.

I’ll get right on that, too.
Because girls like me—breakable girls who have probably killed innocent
nons—there’s nothing we can’t do, right?

“You look like crap.”

None of my other friends
have the balls to say this to me nowadays. Not even Cora. They skirt around the
issue, especially since I pretend that everything is okay. That I’m okay. That
my life is perfect and fine and I’m definitely not drowning when I know my air
supply as I sink to the bottom of the ocean I’m trapped in is miniscule, at
best. And they accept this because I don’t give anyone the option to do
anything but accept that I’m fine.

I sip my tea, but it tastes
bad. Everything tastes bad. I tell Callie, “Gee, thanks.”

“You’re wasting away.” Her
eyes flit towards a plate of scones, untouched, by my cup.

Has she been talking to her
Aunt Kate? “I’m not hungry,” I tell her. But I sip my tea again and hope that
it’ll be enough to satisfy her curiosity.

I’ve been unable to stem the
weight loss tide, despite Kate Blackthorn’s warnings. And I’ve tried reducing
my stress levels—yoga, meditation, calming music, you name it, I’ve tried it,
but nothing seems to work. Sleep is becoming increasingly elusive. I’m so
exhausted I can barely remain standing most days, but when night rolls around,
my brain won’t let me rest. I keep thinking about what I’ve done, what I keep
doing—of yet another cycle I’m trapped in, where I love two people so much I’m
falling apart. About how I can’t seem to let Kellan go. About how I still
haven’t told Jonah about what happened between Kellan and me in Costa Rica.
About how I’m beyond terrified of losing him. About what it’ll do to the twins’
increasingly rocky relationship. About how I’m too much of a chickenshit to
actually ask someone to translate those newspaper articles. About how I’m an
utter failure at learning the language they’re written in. How I’m hiding this
from Jonah. How I hide too much from Jonah nowadays.

Despite constantly blocking
my increasingly out-of-control emotions, Jonah’s worried about me. It seems I
can’t quite pretend very well around him.
Why aren’t you eating? Is there
anything I can get you? Did you have a bad dream? Is there anything you’re not
telling me? What are you not telling me, Chloe? You know that you can tell me
anything, right? Let me help you. Please let me in.

And Kellan . . . well,
Kellan knows the answer to some of these questions. He doesn’t bother asking me
anything, but our times together are filled with a sense of quiet helplessness.
And the times when I think he might start asking things I’m not able to handle,
he’ll shut up the moment I touch his belt. Fresh notches are materializing at
an alarming rate. I can’t breathe when I see them.

I’m kicking so hard to stay
afloat, but it seems the harder I kick, the further from shore, into deeper
water, I get.

Callie sets her teacup down;
her eyes narrow and look me up and down as best they can while seated at a
table. “Do you have an eating disorder?”

I choke on the tiny sip I’ve
just taken. She goes to smack me on the back, but I think she’s afraid of
hitting me too hard. Like she’s afraid I’ll break. She ends up rubbing my back
instead before she settles back into her chair. “NO. Callie, c’mon. It’s
nothing.”

“Yeah. Skinny girls like you
just drop weight and become lollipops for no reason.”

I scoff. “Whatever that
means.”

“You know. Where your body
is way smaller than your head.” She shakes a finger at me. “What’s going on
with you lately?”

I stare out of the window.
It’s raining, and the streets are filled with colorful umbrellas. I give her my
pat answer that I give everyone. “Nothing.”

Nothing is a safe answer,
mostly because it’s what people really want to hear. No one actually
wants
to hear the truth.

“Bullshit,” she says. When I
don’t acknowledge this, she adds, “Chloe. You don’t have to hide anything from
me.” I feel her hand on mine all of a sudden. It’s cold. I can’t help but think
of the phrase a teacher once told me:
cold hands, warm hearts
, when I
told her my mom’s hands were cold. But my mom’s heart . . . it was never warm
towards me. Or, maybe it was, but only when it was too late. It’s been months
and she and my dad have been good to their word—no contact. Nada. Zilch. “We’re
. . . friends,” Callie continues, wincing like it’s painful for her to admit.
Which, actually knowing her, is hard because she hates opening up to anybody
about anything. “And . . . friends are there for each other. Right? So, talk to
me.”