A Matter of Fate

by Heather Lyons

  An email from Kellan is waiting for me when I get home. I stare at it for a long time, wondering how things between us have come to two simple sentences telling me about a flight itinerary.

  It doesn’t require a response, but I send one anyway: Your brother misses you.

  That’s it, just the one sentence. Any more might destroy everything that’s been achieved with Jonah over the last few days. It is a rocky thing, being disheartened and missing one brother while blissfully getting engaged to another.

  At a quarter past two in the morning, I call Jonah and tell him about the email. He’s unfazed by my late night angst. “Didn’t you say he was planning on emailing you his flight info?”

  “Yes. You should know I emailed him back. About you.”

  He sighs sleepily. “I’m sure whatever you wrote was fine.”

  I close my eyes and burrow under my covers. “I told him you missed him.”

  “Then that’s fine, because it’s the truth.”

  “I know I probably don’t have any right to ask this of you—”

  “You can always ask me anything. You know this.”

  I still hesitate, chewing on my lip until it bleeds. “What should I do tomorrow? About the flight?”

  There’s a pause and what I assume to be another yawn. “Pick him up, just like you promised.”

  “Maybe . . . you should come, too?”

  It’s his turn to hesitate. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Panic wells up in my chest. Up until his email, Kellan’s arrival home has been intangible, something in the future. But now I have a definitive time for when I’m going to hurt him, and it makes me sick to my stomach. “We could explain things together. Maybe it would be easier for him.”

  “If it was me,” Jonah says, “and I had to watch the two of you reason with me why I was going to lose the only person I’ve ever fallen in love with, well . . . I don’t think I could take it. Kel and I have our differences, but I know he’d feel the same. It’ll be better for you to go on your own. But I’ll be waiting for you afterwards, like we’ve planned.”

  I roll to my side and curl up. “I’m nervous . . . .”

  “I can understand that.”

  The tang of blood doesn’t stop my lip chewing. “He’s going to be angry with me.”

  “If it’s any consolation, he’ll be angrier with me.”

  “No, I don’t—”

  “Yes,” Jonah says firmly.

  “Do you think he’ll be hurt?”

  “Chloe . . . .” When I stay silent, he says quietly, “Yeah, he will.”

  I have to fight off the desperation, so Jonah doesn’t hear it. Thank gods he’s not next to me feeling it. “I don’t want him to hate me, despite everything.”

  “I highly doubt he’ll hate you. He loves you. He’ll still love you.”

  Part me selfishly hopes it’ll be true.

  “Where were you last night?”

  Cora is standing next to my locker, arms crossed. “Annar,” I tell her, bending down to stuff a book in my bag.

  “Why were you in Annar?”

  “For dinner. Why the grilling?”

  Her face softens. “I couldn’t get ahold of you and got worried.”

  “That’s sweet.” I stand back up. “But no worries. I was there with Jonah and both Karl and Giuliana.”

  “Did you have fun?” But before I can answer, she adds, “Did you see Raul?”

  I squint at her. “Raul?”

  “Yes,” she grinds out. “Raul. Tall, Spanish, hot?”

  “I know who Raul is. And no, I didn’t see him last night. Why?”

  Her mouth tightens. “No reason.” Eyes, eagle-sharp, focus on my hand. Hers snatches out and grabs mine. “What. Is. This?”

  I try to tug my hand away, but she’s abnormally strong for such a thin girl.

  “This ring,” she clarifies loudly. Several people nearby stare shamelessly. “And why is it on this finger of all fingers?”

  “Stop,” I hiss. “Let go before you have to fix whatever bruises you’re creating.”

  Her grip lessens, but she doesn’t let go.

  “We can talk about this later, but not here at school.”

  “After school then,” she insists, finally letting go.

  “Can’t,” I say, rubbing my sore hand. “I have to go pick up Kellan from the airport.”

  She arches a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “Why isn’t Giules getting him? Or Karl? Or his brother? Or father? Or anybody else who isn’t you and likely to forget her pretty head when they see his sexy self?”

  I blink. Praise for Kellan from Cora is . . . well, it just never happens. “You think Kellan is sexy?”

  She grimaces, as if she’s sucking on a lemon. “Duh. A corpse would find that guy hot.” And then she leaves.

  Kellan is already standing outside of the airport by the time I arrive, bag sitting at his feet, hands shoved in his pockets. He looks tired, stressed . . . sad, even. And my heart goes out to him, because somehow or other, Kellan always tugs at my deepest heartstrings.

  Remember why you’re here, the little voice orders. Remember what’s at stake.

  As if I couldn’t. Jonah is back at my house, waiting with Karl and Giuliana. Goodness knows what he’s thinking right now, or even worse, imagining might happen here with his brother. But he’s put his trust in me, believes I’m here to break things off with Kellan so we can all start fresh on the correct paths we’re supposed to be on. And I mean to prove that trust is well-deserved.

  Once I’m standing in front of Kellan, though, I revert to the person he’d once talked to at a football game: a nervous, awkward girl whose heart is fluttering and finds it hard to breathe in his presence. “Hi there!” I practically yell, slapping the forced cheerleader smile on.

  He’s surprised and instantly wary. And then I stupidly remember that things like false smiles and cheery voices may work on everyone else I know, but not on an Emotional. He knows they aren’t real.

  And that makes it worse. Because now I’m grinning like an idiot with tears in my eyes. All I can think about is how I’m going to break his heart, how even though I love him, I’m going to tell him we can never be anything more than friends. Which I desperately want us to be, because something in me tells me I can’t let him go—so if I have to torture myself by hanging onto him as a friend, I’ll do it.

  Even though I know he knows it’s fake, I continue with the forced cheeriness. “How long have you been here? I hope I haven’t kept you waiting!”

  “Not long,” he says, sounding so calm that I want to shake him.

  “Did you have a good flight?”

  “If by a good flight you mean having some old lady sleep on my shoulder and thereby restrict my movements out of fear of disturbing her, then yeah, it was great.” He smiles when he says this, the self-deprecating one I adore so much.

  “You should have taken the portal,” I say, shivering in response. But Kellan misreads this, or at least pretends to, and says we ought to go sit in my car to get out of the cold. Once we’re safely inside, with the heater on high, he tells me, in the same rational, calm voice he’d used before, that I should just say whatever it is I have to say.

  Now I’m even more nervous, because of course Kellan knows something’s wrong.

  “Your trip? It was good?”

  He sighs, leans his head back against the headrest, and stares at a family shoving their luggage in the back of their minivan a few cars across from where we’re parked. He doesn’t answer my question; instead, he says, “Thanks for the email, by the way,” which is possibly one of the toughest things to hear him refer to. Because by acknowledging this, he’s also acknowledging that he knows Jonah and I have, at the very least, been talking with one another in his absence.

  “You asked me to do it, so I did.” I hate myself for saying it, because it sounds like an accusation, or, at worst, a cop-out: Me and Jonah, we’re together because you told us to be!

/>   “Yeah, I guess I did, didn’t I?”

  Invisible hands are strangling me so tightly I can barely get coherent words out. “Kellan . . . I . . . I need you to know . . . that . . . .”

  His eyes do not stray from the family, now bickering about the weight of their bags. “Obviously, it went well. My brother is no longer angry and resentful.”

  It isn’t enough, and I’d been doing it way too much lately, but I stammer out a heartfelt apology. He cuts me off, so calmly I want to scream at him, demand he sound anything but rational about the demise of our relationship: “Right. I figured this would be the case. I take it . . . .” And then he pauses, searching for the right words. But he doesn’t find them. Or, at least, he can’t say them, calmly or not.

  So I give him his confirmation, barely choking the word out he already knows and really doesn’t need. “Yes.”

  His eyes close. The only sound between us is my tremulous breathing and the hiss of heat through the vents. Even the family outside has stopped yelling.

  Why does this hurt so much? If this is how it’s supposed to be, then why do I feel like I’m breaking apart? I mean, I don’t doubt my love for Jonah, especially now. I don’t doubt my future with him, either. We’re Connected, and now that I know what it means, I absolutely see it and feel it with him. And that’s an amazing thing, at seventeen, to be so sure of someone. To know that they will always be there for you, that they will always accept you as you are. So many people never find this, seventeen or seventy. So many people search their entire lives to find someone to share their existences with and fail. But not me—I’ve found my home. And I’m at peace with this.

  So why then the crushing grief over having to let Kellan go? Why do I know that I love him, despite what everyone says about people with Connections only ever being capable of loving one person, and them alone? Why does it feel like my lungs are collapsing, my heart crumbling? Why these intense feelings of devastating loss, when I know Jonah is the one for me?

  Even the little voice is muted. It has no more answers than I do.

  “I . . . I wish . . . .” I mumble, now on the verge of full-blown hysteria, “I wish I could explain all of . . . this . . . .”

  While still calm and measured, his words are also hollow. “You don’t have to.”

  “But—”

  He won’t look at me. “Don’t.”

  “Kellan—”

  A muscle in his jaw twitches. “Look. You do not have to paint me a pretty picture of what you and Jonah have. I may be an idiot, but I’m not a masochist.”

  “No,” I gasp quickly. “I wasn’t—”

  Finally, some heat fills his words. “You think I want to hear about how wonderful things are for you and him?”

  “No! I just—”

  “Honestly? There is nothing you can say right now that will . . . .” He stops. Shakes his head. Runs his fingers through his dark hair. “I need to go.”

  Before I can even blink, he wrenches the door open and nearly hurls himself out of the car, slamming the door behind him.

  I get out of the car, too. “Wait!”

  But Kellan doesn’t wait. He is striding away from me, without even his bag, which is still in the trunk of my car. I take off after him, jogging until I catch up. “Please,” I say, grabbing his arm, “don’t leave like—”

  He jerks his arm out of my grasp. “Go back to the car and go home.”

  “Kellan, I want to—”

  “What part of me telling you I didn’t want to hear it did you not understand?”

  I reach out for his arm again. “Please don’t leave like—”

  “You’re the one leaving,” he says dispassionately.

  “You don’t understand—”

  He takes a step back, just out of my reach. “Oh, I understand, all right.”

  “Then you know—”

  “Go home, Chloe.”

  “Goddammit!” I shriek. “Will you at least let me finish a sentence already?!”

  But when silence and listening is offered, my words disappear. I stand there, staring at him, loving him, wanting him, wishing I could explain things in a way that wouldn’t be more devastating, and loathing myself for bringing all of this pain and misery about because . . . because . . . well, I don’t know exactly why. I wish so badly I did.

  I say the one thing that comes to mind. The one thing I can offer to explain why I’d ever think of giving him up, which, in any other circumstance, I’d never do. “Jonah’s . . . he’s my Connection.”

  There is absolutely no reaction to this statement.

  So I struggle to continue, to find more words to possibly explain away the madness of leaving him. “And . . . it’s real . . . . I mean, I wouldn’t have ever been able to do . . . what we’re able to do . . . if it’s not real, right?”

  Now he speaks. “Do?”

  “I . . . I don’t know what you call it . . . but . . . I guess people with Connections do it? Because it shows that . . . they’re supposed to . . . .” I swallow a huge lump in my throat, “be . . . together?”

  Kellan’s eyes go huge and the little voice shouts, Are you an IDIOT? Why would you TELL HIM THAT??

  Kellan may claim he’s not a masochist, but clearly, I am. I drive the final nail in my coffin by crying, “I wouldn’t even think of breaking up with you in any other circumstance . . . .”

  “Because,” he snaps coldly, “you and my brother are able to merge together?”

  He knows exactly what I’d meant. “No! I mean, because I love him, have loved him since I was little . . . .”

  He takes a step closer, looking, for once, dark and dangerous as opposed to beautiful and loving. And then, inexplicably, he pulls me up against him and kisses me hard. My mind, already on the verge of total meltdown, transitions into self-survival mode. There is nothing I can do except kiss him back like my very life depends on it. Like he’s the air I need to breathe.

  WHAT IN THE HELL?? the little voice screeches, but I ignore it, have to ignore it, because right here, right now, this is what matters.

  Just as suddenly as he began, he stops, letting go of my arms and taking a step back. In that same frustratingly dispassionate voice from before he says, “Really? Because right there, you pretty much told me how much you love me.”

  And then he turns on his heel and leaves.

  Chapter 35

  When I get back to my still-running car, I let the anxiety attack take over. I came here to break up with Kellan and instead kissed him.

  I’m not surprised when Caleb taps on the glass, insisting to be let in. I don’t ask how he knew where I was, or how he knew I needed him. I simply sob as he sits nearby, murmuring soft words of comfort. He insists on coming home with me, and I don’t argue. I only wish he was three feet taller so he could be the one driving. He flies me up to my door, reminds me that I’m seventeen and that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, and then leaves when I go in.

  Jonah is slumped in one of the living room chairs, Siddartha open in his lap, eyes closed. I wonder if he knows it’s my favorite book, that I’ve read it at least five times, and if it means something to him, too.

  Even though I’m tempted to wake him and plead for forgiveness and understanding, I instead go into the kitchen to get myself a drink and take some aspirin for the headache intense sobbing has brought about.

  Karl and Giuliana are sitting at the island, playing cards. “Is Kellan back at the house?” Giules asks me, checking her watch.

  “I don’t know.”

  Both Guard stop so they can stare at me. “Where is he?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I repeat.

  “Did he get off the airplane?” she stresses.

  I nod, swallowing two aspirin. After much prompting, I let them know I last saw him in the airport parking lot. Giules mutters something in Italian under her breath. Then she grabs her keys, tells us she’s going to go find Kellan, and leaves.

  Karl pats the stool next to him, but I do not
sit down. “So I take it things didn’t go well?”

  I let my sad eyes do the talking, terrified my voice might break.

  And then Jonah’s hand is on my shoulder. I turn around, shove my head against his neck, and cry in his arms. Karl discreetly exits the kitchen.

  It amazes me that Jonah’s here comforting me, especially since I’m crying because I feel like complete crap for hurting his brother. But he does it anyway, wordlessly until the tears dry up and my breathing returns to normal. And then he leads me up to my bedroom and shuts the door behind us.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

  I drop onto my bed in a heap of quivering exhaustion. “I think it’s safe to say I suck at this sort of thing.”

  “Breakups are never easy, Chloe.”

  “Yeah, but . . . I pretty much said the wrong thing at every opportunity. I only made the situation worse.” I look down at my hands, still trembling. “He definitely hates me now.”

  Jonah sits down next to me. “He doesn’t hate you. He’s angry, and hurt, but he doesn’t hate you.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I actually do,” he says, taking my hand.

  I give him a wobbly smile. “I told him I love you.”

  Jonah doesn’t say anything.

  Our fingers look right together, like puzzle pieces that fit. I tell him the truth, because he deserves it. “And . . . he kissed me. After I said that.”

  Jonah sighs loudly, his fingers tightening against mine. I feel like a broken record tonight, apologizing over and over, but I do it again. Time inches by until he finally speaks. “Will you do me a favor?”

  “Of course,” I quickly say.

  “Don’t kiss him again.”

  My stomach twists as I promise him this. I insist it hadn’t been part of the plan, and he knows this. He knows his brother, and he knows me—but even still, I can tell it hurts him more than he wants me to know.

  “I love you,” I tell him, crawling up on my knees so I can face him.

  “I know. I love you, too, Chloe.”

  I lean against him, and he wraps his arms around my waist. “I love you.” There is a small sigh of contentment from him. But I feel the need to drive the point home. “I love you.”