“Maybe he’s still blocking you?” I know it’s stupid even as the words come out of my mouth because Jonah would never block his brother in a situation like this.
He goes to his wrist, instinctually wanting to twist his cuff, but it’s not there. Astrid has it in her purse. “I remember, Chloe.”
My knees do buckle now as I drop on the bed like a brick.
“I remember us in that room.”
Oh gods. Oh gods.
“I remember ... something ...” His eyes go to the window, as if he’ll find the answers there. “Something weird happened. You became a blur, you and Enlilkian both.”
No. No. No.
“I remember something picking me up. One of those incorporeal Elders. And I remember something slicing right through my body.” A hand comes to rest over his heart. “Something right here.”
My eyes close. No. He cannot remember this. No.
“You need to fill in the rest of the pieces for me, C. And you need to do it now.”
I shake my head slowly. He’s fine. He’s alive. He’s here. He’s talking. We survived. We’re all here and we’re okay.
Something warm touches my hand; when I open my eyes, I find his fingers across mine. “Please C. I’m ... I know I’m grasping at straws here, but I need to know what’s going on.”
“Kate’s coming,” I whisper. “Kate will check you over and you’ll see. You’re fine.”
He shakes his head slowly. And then he says something that makes my stomach bottom out. He says, “I am not fine. I cannot hear my brother. I don’t ...” The sigh that escapes him gently pushes strands off his forehead. “I don’t feel the same.”
Just ten minutes before, I was so relieved he was awake, and now here we are, and it seems all so fast, like we’re on a speedway going two hundred miles per hour and everything around us is just a blur. There is no time to let it all sink in or savor this moment. It’s only life pushing us forward with each second.
I can barely find my voice when I offer up my last defense. How does one just say it? How does one tell another that they died? Or that I refused to let him go? “You’re alive. You’re here. That’s what counts.”
When his fingers curl around mine, squeezing gently, insistently, I find all those numbers that have gotten me through so very moments in the past are just not enough for this one.
I tell him the truth. I tell him he’s right.
For the next five minutes, he doesn’t say a single thing. He listens to me recall things I don’t ever want to think about again, ones I fear will haunt me until the day I finally die. And when I tell him the final truth, of my inability to let him go even in death, his hand leaves mine to lie over his heart.
So many other words fight to leave my mouth, but I keep them in. But if I could, I would tell him, I would say Kellan, I love you. If I had to do it again, I would, no questions asked. I will always make this choice.
Silence hangs between us so long that I wish I knew what words he was fighting to keep in, if they are even there at all. There are no visual cues for me to cling onto, no ticks, no twisting of bracelets. I have no idea if he’s glad I did what I did, disappointed, or angry. There is just Kellan staring at me and me staring right back.
Finally, his head slants away, toward the window. Gulfs grow between us, ones built on hushed unease. It isn’t until I get up to go open the door to let his loved ones back in that he says something.
“It’s funny how I always believed you owned my heart since the moment we met. And now ...”
I pause, my hand on the knob as I turn back toward him.
“And now it really is yours.”
He says it all so quietly as he stares at the leaves blowing in the wind just inches away from the glass, so ... unemotionally.
There’s no room to breathe in here anymore.
“Does he know?”
My answer is barely voiced. No, I tell him. No one does yet.
His eyes drift shut, but not before he says, “Open the door and let them in.”
I go to dinner with Will later that night; Jonah stays behind to talk to Kellan. To say my nerves are fraying is like saying the ocean is made of salt and water.
“I would think you would be over the moon right about now,” Will says, shoving a Gnomish equivalent of wontons in a red basket lined in waxed paper toward me. “All is right in the worlds. Those bastards are dead.” A tiny salute accompanies a wry grin. “You are back in one piece. Jonah is fine. Kellan has woken up. Annar is in the midst of rejoicing.” The grin fades. “Yet, you look a wee lost. What’s going on?”
For the hour following my confession, Jonah stuck close to his brother during Kate’s check-up. Concern traced lines across his forehead, but he stayed silent the entire time. So did Kellan. And now they’re together, alone, no doubt talking about what I’ve done. What I’m guilty of, even though I don’t regret my actions one tiny bit.