Astrid has called together yet another family dinner—this time at her house, where the combined group of Lotuses, Whitecombs, and Danes converge to nosh on roast beef. Callie jokes that it’s like a mini holiday dinner just days after the real thing, but it’s oddly fitting to me. One last big family meal together; the next will be one person smaller.
After lunch, as we walked back to the apartment, Kellan made a big push to act normal. We talked about normal things—things that had nothing to do with his leaving. Things like movies and songs and books we’ve read lately. About how it seems like it’s far past time for Callie and Will to simply break down and admit something’s between them. How glad we both are that Astrid and Cameron are so happy. How absolutely, hilariously weird it will be if parents and then children both end up as couples—or better yet, married. I cracked up as he talked about this possibility, laughed so hard until my sides ached, and I forced myself to accept that if those weddings happen, he will not be at any of them.
Or even know they’d be taking place at all.
When Jonah came home, he and his brother spent time together, talking long through the night. I found them the next morning, both asleep on Kellan’s couch, take-out containers littering the coffee table and the television softly humming in the background. They looked so young like that, sprawled out across the black leather with long legs sticking in every direction. And they looked so very much alike that I turned right back around, went upstairs, and locked myself in the bathroom until I could breathe again.
How can this relationship just simply cease to be?
And now here we are, sitting at Astrid’s brand new, huge oak table that engulfs the dining room, and Jonah is a wire stretched tight and thin and I’m holding my breath, waiting for the bomb to drop. I take hold of his hand under the table and squeeze it.
I let the press of my skin against his tell him that I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for him. I love him. We are forever. We will get through this together. He is not alone.
I squeeze his hand over and over again when Kellan calmly tells his mother his decision. I squeeze his hand when Astrid’s quiet tears cut our souls, and when Callie yells angrily at her best friend. I squeeze his hand when the girl he’s known his whole life storms out of the room so she doesn’t break down in front of everyone, and then again when Astrid gets up and hugs her son, afraid to let go. I squeeze his hand and finally let go when he gets up and joins them, these two boys and the mother that took them in when they had nobody else to love them. And then I find my hands being squeezed by the men who did the same for me when the last bombshell drops.
Tonight is our last night with him.
We get no sleep that night. Instead, the three of us stay awake and fill the hours with all the words we won’t be able to get in during the coming decades. And then we talk about what’s going to happen.
Kellan has already finalized all of the plans with Zthane. Kiah, as a Dreamer, and Jonah, as an Emotional, will tag team in their efforts manipulating Kellan’s memories. Kiah will carry the bulk of the work; she’ll alter Kellan’s realities. Jonah will come in and influence those false experiences, leaving behind feelings and drives that will help propel his life forward. It will take several hours, I’m told; this is not the first time such a thing has happened before. There have been documented cases over the centuries of Magicals’ memories being blocked as punishments, of having their powers stripped away. It’s just ... this is the first time it’s being done voluntarily. Because this is the first time a Magical has died and then was brought back by a stubborn Creator, and nobody else has had to face the choices Kellan has before.
I am not to be in the room while it’s done. I’ve been requested to not even be in the building. And once it’s done, Jonah is to leave because Kellan doesn’t want him to know where the Guard eventually takes him. We will not know his new name (because he’s asked for a new one), we will not know where he will live, we will not know if he flourishes or fails miserably.
The cords between us will be cleanly cut.
“I transferred all your money over to Zthane,” Jonah is saying. He sounds like a robot right now running on automatic, he’s so desperate to stay strong for his brother. “He says he’ll ensure it’s set it up in a bank account with your new name in the city you end up in. I wish I knew whether it is going to be enough.”
Kellan’s smile is tight and sad. “It’ll be more than enough, J. How many other young twenty-somethings get to start out as multi-millionaires?”
It’s so odd hearing them talk in complete sentences and paragraphs to one another. I want to ask if it’s weird for them, too, but I’m too afraid. Do they ever say something in their heads and then realize the other can no longer hear them?