“We both need this.” Kellan’s voice floats up to me from the broken screen. “All of us. You and Chloe—you’ll get your happy ending—”
“You think this is my happy ending? You think this is what I want? To lose my twin brother ...” Jonah’s words are filled with every emotion I’m feeling, like we’re the twins now. “My best friend? Are you crazy? Do you really think that I would ever be willing, let alone okay, trading what you see as my happiness for a life without you? I would rather—”
“Stop, J,” Kellan says calmly. “I’m saying this because I know damn well you wouldn’t. That’s the point, okay? I’m positive you would bend yourself into horrible knots trying to figure out a way to make things bearable for me, along with Chloe, all while doing your damndest to shoulder all the guilt and blame. Just think about this, J. For years now, we’ve been in this horrible situation where you feel guilty, I feel guilty, she feels guilty. What kind of life is that? How are any of us living?”
“So you think that you, just ... what? Sacrificing everything, everyone, is the best way to go?” Jonah’s panic now turns to anger. “Leaving Astrid behind? Callie? You have more to your life than whatever this sick triangle we’re in is, you know. I get if you’re mad at me—”
“I’m not mad at you. It’s more than that and you know it.”
“You’re not thinking clearly right now—”
Kellan’s resolute, though. “I am. And it’s my choice to make.”
“The hell it is! Let’s forget for a moment about Chloe and me. You’re really willing to leave everyone behind? You’re okay with Astrid losing one of her sons? Leaving Callie behind? What about all your friends? The Guard? Hell, Kellan, what about every single person you know? Your home? You’re willing to just leave all this behind because you’re worried about resenting me? How is that fair?”
Kellan stays silent.
And then, his voice breaking, Jonah says, “I can’t do this without you, Kel. I can’t lose anybody else. There’s ... there’s got to be some other solution we can find. One that isn’t so—”
“Don’t think I’m not aware of what I’m asking of you.” So much anguish chokes Kellan’s words. “Don’t think I’m not shitting my pants, terrified of leaving you behind like Mom and Joey did. Because I can’t imagine a life without you, either. That’s why I need my memories blocked. It hurts so godsdamn much, imagining life without you.”
“Then don’t imagine it. Stay, and it’ll never be an issue.”
Something breaks downstairs, reverberating on the screen below me. I erase it before I can smash it, too. And then I count more numbers in my head than I’ve ever done before.
Jonah doesn’t come back upstairs for hours. And I don’t go downstairs. Now that the screen I’d spied on them is long gone, I have no idea if they’re even together. If Jonah managed to talk Kellan out of this insane idea.
Only, now that I’ve had time to think about it ...
It’s no longer insane. Because, outside of the pain I’m in, I think I really get why he wants this.
When I’d left Annar and all the people I loved behind last year, I’d wanted the very same thing, hadn’t I? A fresh start. A chance at happiness, although I always knew it’d be just beyond my grasp. But it’s not for him now, not when he’s no longer one of Fate’s pawns. Kellan has the rare opportunity to go and be somebody, anybody he wants to be. He has the ability to choose a job he might enjoy and the luxury of quitting it if he no longer likes it. He has the chance to live where he wants and how. He has the option to fall in love with somebody who deserves him oh-so-very much, who will put his heart and needs first and never want and love his brother just a little bit more. If he is truly now a Métis, he even has the choice to have children—more than one. A whole bunch of them, if that’s what he desires.
I remember reading something when I was younger, about how if you truly love somebody, you should let them go when things become too difficult. If they come back, they were always meant to be yours. If not, then it was for the best. He and I ... we were constantly running from one another. He left me. I left him. He left again. And now ... now I’m going to have to let him cut that cord of dysfunction between us.
I love him. There’s no doubt about that. I love him so much that imagining him in some other home, with some other girl, with a whole gaggle of beautiful children that look like him, is a thousand knives through my soul. Part of me screams out that it should be me there with him, me having his child. Me falling asleep next to him each night and waking up to his beautiful face. Me.