“Bullshit,” she says. When I don’t acknowledge this, she adds, “Chloe. You don’t have to hide anything from me.” I feel her hand on mine all of a sudden. It’s cold. I can’t help but think of the phrase a teacher once told me: cold hands, warm hearts, when I told her my mom’s hands were cold. But my mom’s heart . . . it was never warm towards me. Or, maybe it was, but only when it was too late. It’s been months and she and my dad have been good to their word—no contact. Nada. Zilch. “We’re . . . friends,” Callie continues, wincing like it’s painful for her to admit. Which, actually knowing her, is hard because she hates opening up to anybody about anything. “And . . . friends are there for each other. Right? So, talk to me.”
I’ve tried really hard lately to not unload myself on anyone, not even Caleb, who’s put himself on a time-out of sorts. But in this moment, the weight of everything is so heavy I don’t even know if I can stand. And here’s Callie, with genuine worry on her face and sincerity in her eyes.
She’s probably the worst person to tell this to. She’s still in love with Jonah, I think. She’s Kellan’s best friend. She’s their family. Yet still, the words trickle out. “It’s hard. Having two Connections is really, really . . .” Impossible. Crushing. “Hard.”
She doesn’t even blink. This doesn’t faze her one iota. “No shit? I thought it’d be a picnic. There goes that dream.”
She blurs in and out of focus. I refuse to let myself cry, especially here in public. I cannot give anyone else good reason to think that their Creator isn’t who they need her to be.
“Look. I talked to my mom about this before, when I was trying to understand the whole Connection thing. Before you and I became . . .” She waves a hand between us. “You know. Anyway, there was always a small hope that I couldn’t let go of, that maybe Jonah and I still had a chance. But—” She sees the surprise in my eyes and holds her hands up. “No. Don’t worry. That hope is dead now. I swear. What I’m saying is, I thought about what Mom said. A lot.” Her thin hand finds and squeezes mine. “I thought about you. What it must be like for you to have not only one, but two Connections. And how it must suck to holy hell.”
A violent sense of relief strikes me. This girl—the one nobody, myself included, would have ever guessed to get it, does.
“I’ll fall out of love with Jonah someday. I’ve got that luxury. But you don’t, do you? I mean, with Kellan. You’re always gonna have feelings for him. But Chloe—” She pauses, squeezes my hand again. “Don’t take this the wrong way, because I don’t mean it as an insult. I’m just saying, after I thought about how crappy the situation is for you, I got to thinking about J and Kel, too. And how they also have two Connections apiece. Their Connection to one another isn’t a romantic one,”—she snorts a laugh, but then sobers—“but it’s still valid. So, not only are you constantly feeling torn apart, but they are, too. They’re not only fighting for the girl they love, but doing it against their best friend. Their other half.” She shakes her head. Smirks ruefully. “I used to be so jealous of you. It used to eat me up, even when I was growing to love you as a friend. But nowadays . . .” One last squeeze before her hand leaves mine. “You couldn’t pay me to be in your shoes.”
I twist the ring on my finger. “Anyone ever tell you your pep talks suck?”
She’s not insulted in the slightest. “Constantly.”
I sniff, wishing I had a tissue to blow my nose She needs to stop being so understanding right now.
Callie studies me over her teacup for a long moment before standing up. “You need a vacation. A girls’ weekend.”
I also stand, yet hesitate. “It’s Tuesday.”
“It’s the weekend somewhere in the worlds. Let’s go where there are no boys, no Connections, no broken hearts. Let’s go where there are lots of great stores to shop our misery away in, or at least serve as expensive Band-Aids before we have to face the cold, harsh light of reality again. But by then, we’ll look fabulous doing it.”
Go, Caleb whispers. It’s his first word to me in days.
So I do.
It was a toss-up between New York and Paris, Callie’s two favorite cities on the Human plane, but, as “Paris is the City of Love,” and “We aren’t in the market for that shit,” we end up heading to the Big Apple.
Jonah wasn’t thrilled with me going, but I think he knew I needed to. He had to go on a mission in Southeast Asia anyway for two days, so Callie’s plan worked out well.
“We used to come here for weekends all the time when I was little,” she tells me as we stroll down Fifth Avenue. A well-dressed man in an impeccable suit whistles at her; she returns his appreciation with a look that could cut through flesh. “Mom loves New York. Says it reminds her of the city she grew up in.” We linger at a stoplight, alongside dozens of other people. “I thought about moving here, after high school. I didn’t know if Annar would be the right place for me, since I’m technically a non and all.” She sighs slowly. “I guess I still don’t know, if that makes any sense. But Mom talked me into coming with her, said she’d miss me too much.”
“You’re lucky.” I slip on my sunglasses. “Remember how you said you were jealous of me? Well, I’m envious of you and the relationship you have with your mom. I’d kill to have that.”
Her green eyes zero in on me. “Yeah. Your parents are douches, aren’t they?”