“That’s all you’re taking?” I end up asking.
He looks at me blankly, like I’m speaking in Greek.
I try again. “Don’t you think it’s going to be weird, waking up in the morning, with only two bags to call your own?”
A small smile curves Jonah’s lips that smacks strongly of vindication, like he’s tried this argument, too, and failed.
“Now, I can’t exactly speak from experience,” I continue, walking away from the windows, over to where they’re standing, “because when I woke up in Alaska morning after morning, I knew what to expect. But I’m pretty sure that when you wake up tomorrow morning with a head full of new memories, you will be utterly confused as to why you only have two bags of belongings, even if you believe you just moved somewhere new.”
From the look on his face, this appears to be the one thing Kellan hasn’t considered in all of his plans.
“While you two are ...” I swallow and force the words out. “At Guard HQ, let me arrange for movers to take your clothes and some furniture to wherever it is you’re going. I can even have them keep everything in boxes, so it will feel like you just got there.”
“C,” he murmurs, “the point of you staying behind is so you don’t know where I end up.”
I swallow again. My throat is so dry and sticky and thick. “I don’t have to know. The movers can discuss the location with Zthane. I’m just saying ... let me do this for you. So when you wake up in the morning, you won’t have questions that you can’t answer immediately. That ... you have a bed to sleep on. Clothes to wear. Shampoo and a brush for your hair, a tea kettle and cups and plates to have meals with.”
He murmurs my name again; there is so much raw pain in those two syllables.
“You won’t know what they mean. They ... they’ll just be things to you. Your things. They won’t be memories.”
“Okay,” he finally says. “But ... it’s a smaller place. You can’t send everything.” And then, more quietly, “Please. No photos. I ... I can’t—” He breaks off, turning away from us.
But not before I see the tears in his eyes.
Zthane calls about an hour later. They’re ready for him.
Panic claws at my insides so ferociously it’s a miracle I can stand. He’s leaving. He’s leaving us. He’s leaving me.
By tonight, he’ll be gone forever.
I forget how to breathe. All I can do is go to Jonah and hold him tight and kiss him and swear that everything will be all right. Reassure him I’ll be here waiting for him. That I always will be. And then he walks out the door first, telling Kellan he’ll meet him downstairs.
This man for whom I tore my life apart so many times stands before me, his heart in his hands one last time.
I love you, I want to tell him.
Oh gods, I love him so very, very much.
“I wish you nothing but happiness,” is what I end up saying. And then I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight, reveling in the feel of his body against mine for the very last time. I want to kiss him, press my mouth against his once more so I can drown in the feelings that his kisses inspire in me, but ... I gave up the right the day I chose Jonah.
I press my lips against his cheek instead.
His breath comes out shuddery and soft as we stand there in the silence of his apartment.
“I wish you nothing but happiness, too,” he finally murmurs. “Promise me you’ll never stop chasing that. Promise me you and my brother will have the very best of happy endings.”
Gods, it’s at such a high cost. Too high. Even still, I whisper against his chest, “I promise.” How can I not, when he is sacrificing so much for us?
When he presses a lingering kiss to my forehead, I close my eyes and breathe him in this final time, praying silently I will never forget this scent, or the feel of his arms around me, or the way my heart flutters so very strongly in his presence.
I whisper, my words barely discernable in the silence of the apartment, “I love you.”
He tells me he loves me, too.
All too soon the moment is over. Cool air swirls around me and a door clicks shut before I open my eyes again. And I’m left in an empty apartment alongside a lifetime of regret.
There is no time to fall apart like I ache to. The movers I’d called immediately after Kellan’s approval of my plan show up not ten minutes later. We spend the next three hours packing up as much as we can before they need to leave in order to beat Kellan’s arrival at wherever it is he’s going. The hustle and drive to get the job done is a lifeline through each torturous minute that leaves me wondering how things are going. How many memories have been hidden. How many new ones have been suggested. I wonder how Jonah is doing—I’m sure he’s made it so nobody can see the turmoil he’s going through. I wish I were there for him, holding his hand the entire time, letting him know that just because he’s losing his brother, he’s not alone. He’ll never be alone. I’m still here, and so is Astrid, and Callie and Cameron and Will and hell, even my mother in her own small way. His family is here for him.
But I know that’s a small consolation. My husband is losing his twin brother. He’s lost his mother—and by extension, his father. He lost his uncle, and then his aunt. He thinks he’s lost Callie, even though every so often, it warms my heart to see the threads of friendship repairing themselves between them.
I make a promise right here and now, as I fold Kellan’s clothes and place them into boxes. I will not fall apart on Jonah in the coming weeks and months. He will not need to be strong for me. I will be strong for him.
I will not let him down.
I will keep my promises to Kellan.
One of the movers calls out to me; they need to have everything loaded up to take within the next five minutes. I tell them I’m nearly ready—but there’s one last thing I need to get before they leave with Kellan’s past.
I go over to the small nightstand that sits by the empty space a bed once occupied and dig out a battered copy of Kerouac’s On The Road. Memories rush back through me as my fingers curl around the yellowing pages; Kellan was reading just this book the day we met. I remember wondering what secrets he’d discovered within the pages, why he took the time to highlight certain passages. But I don’t flip through the book now that I finally have a chance; I don’t look at those secrets of his. Instead, I carefully place the book amongst his clothes.
One of the movers leans against the doorway. “You ready for us to go?”
I seal the box shut with packing tape. “Yeah,” I lie to him. “I think I am.”
He takes the box from me and leaves along with the rest of the team. Within minutes, the apartment is partially naked, all wires and dusty spaces that once held pieces of Kellan Whitecomb.
Jonah will be home soon, and he’ll need me. We will get through this together. The happy ending we’d always worried would never come is now within our grasp. I’m ready to reach out and grab it.
Just like I promised I would.
I reach over and tug the zipper of my wetsuit up and stare out before me. I’m fucking crazy. Because there’s no other explanation for what I’m about to do. Or, hell, even why I’m here. I’ve had a break with reality or something. Too many beers. There has to be a logical explanation why I am in a boat headed to one of the world’s most dangerous surf breaks and feeling calm and stupidly elated all at once.
“I have been waiting for this day for years,” Logan yells over the roar of the boat’s engine. He looks maniacal, he’s so excited. “Storm of the century!”
“You’re sounding very Patrick Swayze right now, dude. It’s a little creepy.”
He just fist pumps in the air, leaning his head back to howl.
Seriously, though. How did I get to this place, both metaphorically and physically? I mean, shit, I’ve been surfing for all of five months; guys who have their heads screwed on right do not attempt a break like Mavericks after being on a board for such a little time. I should know, considering. And
now, I’m staring at some sick, monstrous waves in front of me and it’s like I’ve finally come home, that this is where I belong. And that maybe, just maybe, I’ll find all the answers I’ve been searching for to questions just out of reach on these waves, which is not normal for a guy who spent the past four years in Arizona and the twenty before that in Minnesota and never saw the ocean until he visited his roommate’s family for Christmas break one year.
“Bro, I am so glad you finally got your head out of your ass and got out here,” Logan is saying to me. “Jesus. If I had to spend one more summer in Arizona ...”
I’ve heard that for four years running now, even since we were freshmen in undergrad school trapped in a dorm room together. “I kind of had to wait to get my acceptance letter. Wasn’t going to move myself across the country again without it, you know?”
I still don’t understand the deep need inside of me that insisted on moving to California. For most of college, I kept thinking I’d head back to Minnesota, even though nothing was really left for me there. As an orphan, my parents are long gone, as are all of my grandparents. But then Logan kept hammering me about his hometown of Santa Cruz, and ... damn, I don’t know. California sounded perfect for grad school.
He does this horrible wink-wink thing. “Sure you were.”
Asshole. Although, he’s totally right. So there was more than one reason. And yeah, it was a pretty fantastic reason.
Logan never knows when to stop, though. “Nice, trying to pin your move on school. Just wait until I report that one back.”
I’m not worried. I simply flip him off.
“Truth is, you weren’t thinking with your head, that was for sure.”
I punch him in the arm for that one.
All I get in return is a lazy grin. “That said, what the fuck was I thinking,” Logan says, “going to school in the desert?”
“You were thinking free ride,” I smirk. “Scholarships are handy like that.”
“Don’t start that shrink shit on me.” He throws a ball of wax at me. “This is a shrink-free zone, remember?”
I just laugh. He knows I’m right. I’m pretty damn good at reading peoples’ emotions.
Thirty minutes later, I’m paddling like hell, the waves roaring around me as other surfers fight for their spots on this monster I’m ready to fall down on, and all I can think is: finally. There’s white foam all around me, and Jesus, this is what I’ve been missing.
I’m home.
“Did you guys have fun?”
I throw my bag down on the tile and lean over and give Ash a kiss. She’s barefoot and hot as hell right now, wearing one of my college sweatshirts and tiny shorts. “Yeah, it was fun.”
“Fun?” She laughs, shakes her head so that her light, golden brown waves go flying. “Fun is going down to the boardwalk. Fun is definitely not risking your life just for a high. I totally expect this sort of behavior from him,”—she hooks a thumb toward her brother—“but not from you.”
“You make me sound so boring,” I murmur, pulling her close. Damn, she smells so good right now, like vanilla and cake, which makes sense since she works at a bakery until she finds a job out here.
“Oh, you’re definitely not boring,” she murmurs back, standing up on her tiptoes to kiss me. “I don’t think anyone could ever call you boring.”
The same could be said for her.
And ... then Logan is there, shoving his hands between us. We both sigh and then laugh. “Not in front of me,” he says. “It’s bad enough you guys are living together now. I don’t want to see my best friend and sister makin’ babies, you know?”
Ash kicks his butt; he just grins and heads toward the fridge.
“So, you survived,” she says to me.
I pretend to look wounded. “You didn’t think I would?”
I did more than survive. I lived, I think. When I hit the white water after my first ride, I had this moment, though, where I looked around for ... I don’t know. Something. Somebody? Not Logan, though. It was weird. I wanted to share this moment with ... hell, I don’t know. Somebody that should have been here?
“I had faith in you, baby,” Ash is saying. “When you put your mind to something, you always do it.”
I’ve definitely got my mind on a few things right now, and they don’t have a thing to do with surfing.
Logan passes over beers to the both of us before cracking his open on the counter. “You’re like a communist, Ash. You grew up on the ocean. Hell, you learned to surf before I did. How could you say that about Mavericks?”
She takes a log swig before saying, “It’s because I grew up surfing that I say this about Mavericks.” And then, “Lo, I love you, you’re my favorite brother—”
“Your only bro,” he pipes in. “And your twin. So, there’s that.”
She simply smiles. “But honestly. You have a college degree. Don’t you know what communist means?”
“Not all of us went to an Ivy League, babe.”
She turns to me. “Somebody switched babies in the hospital. I can’t possibly be related to him.”
Logan pulls a lime out of the fridge and tosses it onto a cutting board. “More like you were a greedy little twin who siphoned all the good stuff in mom while we were baking.”
She rolls her eyes. “We’re fraternal twins. We had separate amniotic sacs, you idiot.”
It’s nuts, but I envy them their bickering. It’s not real; these two are as tight as they come. As an only child, I would kill for this kind of relationship. It’s embarrassing, and not anything that I ever tell Ash, but part of me is resentful for what they have. Sometimes I wonder if, in a past life or something, I had a twin of my own, because all too often it feels like I miss him or her so much without even knowing who they are. Like I’m missing a limb or something. My psych advisor tells me it has something to do with being an orphan, but ... I don’t know. It’s eerie, and every day the sensation grows stronger.
I even dreamed about it one night. Dreamed about surfing with someone who looked like me. Woke up feeling ... sad. And yet, hopeful all at once.
“Why you keep hanging out with this knucklehead is beyond me,” she’s saying to me.
As her brother slices the lime for our beers, I pull her close. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have met you, would I?”
Logan cackles. “He’s got a point, Ash!”
She looks up into my eyes, and I’m wishing her brother were far, far from here right now. Because my girl is sexy as hell right now. Meeting her was the luckiest day of my life. “Okay. I’ll give him that.”
Logan comes back over and shoves lime wedges in our beers. Then he holds one up. “To surviving Mavericks.”
To coming home, I think.
We clink our glasses together and take long swigs.
“And, to you two crazy kids. You’re fucking nuts, moving in together at such a young age—”
“We’re twenty-four and five,” Ash reminds him at the same time I say, “Mid-twenties aren’t exactly young, dude.”
“But I guess everybody has a soul mate, right?”
Yeah, I think as I look down at my girlfriend of two years. My heart twists in this funny, blissed out dance. They really do.
I make my way out of the house, having napped way too long this afternoon. It was a wonderful luxury, though; lately, it seems there’s never enough time to just relax anymore.
Jonah and Kellan are already down at the beach. I can see them; they’re probably a hundred feet away from the wrap-around porch, waxing their surfboards as they talk.
I drop down onto one of the rockers; I don’t want them to know I’m up just yet. I like these moments where I can simply watch them doing things like this. Actually, I like watching them do just about anything, especially when they have no idea I’m doing so.
Their heads are fairly close together, shiny black hair merging seamlessly together in the bright sunlight. It appears that Kellan is telling Jonah something funny, because my husband
is smiling like crazy. Kellan’s smiling too, cracking up in his boyish way that never fails to charm me. I can’t help but wonder what he’s saying; part of me yearns to just go down and make him start from the beginning so I can be part of it, but this is their thing, their time together. There’s a bond between the two of them that no one, not even me, can understand.
I watch them for a long time, rocking back and forth, contentment wrapping around me like a warm, soft blanket. Kellan’s story has now finished; Jonah’s shaking his head in that exasperated, amused way that I know all too well. And then he looks up toward the house, they both do, and I’m waved down to join them.
“You going to surf with us today?” Kellan asks me as I approach.
I sit down in the sand and let him know I’m more than happy to just watch, thank you very much.
He does this thing, where he almost rolls his eyes but then stops. “She’ll never get better if all she ever does is watch,” he complains to Jonah.
“It’s okay,” Jonah answers. “She can’t help if she wasn’t born with surfing in her blood. Give her time.”
“How much more time does she need? Hasn’t she been trying for over a decade now?”
I try my best to keep my mouth straight. “I’m sorry I can’t be awesome like you two.”
“You could be.” Kellan gives Jonah a meaningful look. “If you only practiced more.”
Jonah merely chuckles at this and leans over to kiss me. Butterflies swarm around my chest.
Kellan pretends to gag. “Do you two have to do that around me? You know it makes me uncomfortable. So. Gross.”
“So. Sorry,” I tease. “We’ll try to remember that next time.”
He stands up, smacking sand off his hands and knees. “No you won’t. You two are impossible. It’s embarrassing. You’re too old for this sort of behavior. None of my friends’ parents do this sort of stuff.”
Jonah exacerbates the situation by kissing me once more before also standing up. “I’m fairly certain they do. Your friends would not be in existence right now if their parents didn’t.”
A Matter of Forever (Fate #4) Page 28
