“Go away,” I say tiredly, once more leaning my head against the toilet seat. I really need to find a better place to argue. This is truly disgusting.
“No.” I can practically hear her teeth grinding together.
I reach up and flush the toilet.
“You’ve been keeping secrets.”
I sigh, but I don’t fight it anymore. I’m too tired to find lies, half-truths, or ways to conceal the facts. “It’s just as I said. I’m Connected to him.”
“But . . . Jonah . . .?”
“Yeah. Him, too.”
She’s silent for a moment. “No one has two Connections. Well, except them, because they’re twins and all.”
Bitter laughter bubbles through my lips. “Thus, my problem.”
“Holy shit. That’s . . . wow. I don’t even know how to take that.”
“Join the club.”
“This is why you had an ulcer.” She motions to me, still resting against the toilet.
I’m glad she doesn’t need more info. “Yes.”
“This is why things have been tense between J and Kel for years now.”
I nod.
She slides down next to me. “They obviously know about it.”
Another nod.
A super long pause. And then—“That blows.”
When Kellan arrives, he and Cora barely acknowledge one another, but it’s interesting, because the light in Cora’s eyes towards Kellan is different now.
Less hostile. Less judgmental.
He joins me on the couch wordlessly, sliding his arm around me. I shift closer and turn into him, allowing myself to go blind in his comfort.
Cora mumbles something about wanting to put her feet in the water, and the next thing I hear is the screen door slamming shut behind her.
“He didn’t call off the wedding,” is the first thing Kellan says to me.
I wonder how hard it is for him to tell me something like that.
His fingers weave through my hair. “Or break up with you. He was trying to tell you that the Guard has requested his presence as Council liaison on a crucial Elders mission which just so happens to fall on the same date as . . . you know. He was . . .” Kellan blows out a breath. “Upset, and when he’s upset, he sometimes isn’t the most eloquent guy out there. I thought you’d know that by now.”
I’m surprised Jonah can even breathe, I’ve put him on such a high pedestal—but he’s always been the in-control one in our messy trio. I’ve never seen him upset enough to be anything other than concise with his thoughts.
But Kellan wouldn’t lie to me. Sweet, sweet relief fills me up, which only serves to make me feel all the guiltier, because I’m being comforted by the person I’ve considered leaving Jonah for countless times.
I am truly a screwed up girl.
Kellan shifts under me. “He’s freaking out right now. Ready to kill me for coming here and not letting him come, too.”
And yet, I’m glad Kellan came. I chew on my lip for a moment and then tell him, because he’s my secret keeper, the truth. “I’m really tired of all of this.”
His heartbeat is steady against my ear.
“The overreactions. The feeling like I’m going to die or lose myself every time something happens between any of us.” I twist my fingers in his shirt. “Do you ever feel like that? Like sometimes, you wish there were no such things as Connections? That you could pick and choose whom to love, and when, and how?”
His answer is, “Every single day.”
And I know he doesn’t take it the wrong way, that he knows I’m not saying I wished I didn’t love him, or Jonah. But that it’d be nice to have a say in my life.
Nons have it so good and they don’t even know it.
“Do you think it ever gets easier?”
Kellan’s thoughtful for a long moment. “Honestly?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
Going back to Annar is a relatively simple process considering how I left. I’d fled to Hawaii, sure I was going to split apart. As I head back, I realize that there was no splitting, but rather, yet another round of cracking. I feel like one of those antique vases, where the glaze is riddled with cracks, and it’s barely held together but somehow manages to still be functional.
I insist on us walking Cora back to her apartment before I head home. The truth is, I’m just not quite ready. I feel . . . fragile. Tired. Worn out. Beaten down.
Cora pulls me aside at the door to her building, jabbing me in the stomach with a finger. “I expect you to come to me the moment that thing comes back.” She looks over at Kellan, who is checking his email on his phone. “I get it now.”
“Huh?”
“Him.” She nods in his direction.
I give her a blank look.
“Why he is the way he is,” she says patiently. “I’m impressed.”
“Oh.”
“It takes a lot to impress me.”
“I know.”
“I used to think he was scum for wanting his brother’s girlfriend. I couldn’t understand why he’d do that to his twin, because I figured, it must hurt Jonah a lot. But I get it now. He’s not scum.”
I’m exasperated. “I’ve told you that hundreds of times.”
“Yeah.” She grimaces. “But I get it now.”