It’s Kellan’s turn to study me as I pace back and forth, alternately kicking and throwing rocks. I’m well on my way to making us a rubble-free zone when he finally says, as quietly as one can over the mind-numbing din from outside, “Being angry serves no real purpose right now.”
Why does he have to be so good at being an Emotional? Not only can he and Jonah pinpoint an exact feeling in a plethora of jumbled, messy ones, but they can also sense out the whys, wheres, whos and hows beyond such emotions. Jonah tells me that he chooses to tune most people out when he isn’t on a mission because it can wear him down to be privy to numerous emotions over an extended amount of time, but I’m the one person he never, ever blocks out. It’s a Connection thing, he says, less because he’s physically incapable of doing it and more because he sees that link to me as comforting. How anyone, even Jonah, can find my crazy feelings comforting is truly astounding.
I wonder if Kellan is the same.
But no—he’s chosen to block me out for eight months. Longer even, if I were to count the time in high school he avoided me. He chose to stay away.
He chose to let me go.
Anger transitions to sorrow. My emotions are all over the place, and I don’t know if I ought to just hold onto the roller coaster or simply let go.
“You know this is how it has to be,” Kellan tells me from his spot on the wall. He’s twisting the studded leather cuff on his wrist over and over, looking as miserable as I feel. But then, when he realizes my eyes are on him, the misery is replaced with indifference.
The fact that he can look so calm, so indifferent at will when I am angsting thankfully turns the sorrow back to anger. “Must be nice, having all the answers.”
His head leans back against the wall. “I wouldn’t know what that’s like.”
I laugh. It’s completely unattractive sounding, all brittle and false. “Could’ve fooled me.”
He lets go of the cuff and rubs at his hair. “What do you want me to say here? I’m trying my best.”
Maybe it’s the situation we’re in, trapped inside some random cave on the Elvin plane. Maybe it’s the fact that we haven’t spoken more than a sentence to each other in nearly eight months. Maybe it’s because I’m incredibly messed up, someone who selfishly clings to things she shouldn’t. Maybe it’s in reaction to hearing that Jonah’s struggling right now, too and it’s making me needy because there’s nothing I can do. Maybe it’s because there’s a very real possibility that we might never get out of this cave alive. But I can no longer help myself. I blurt out, laughing that ugly laugh, “What’s that? Trying your best to pretend I don’t even exist anymore?”
Caleb does the mental equivalent of throwing his hands in the air in defeat. I ignore him. Clearing the air, seeing where we stand, laying the cards on the table—whatever it is I’m trying to do, and the truth is, even I’m not so sure at the moment what that might be, feels just as critically important as breathing.
The cuff spins on his wrist. “Don’t do this, C.”
Where does he get off, acting the victim? I plow forward, incensed. “You—”
“Don’t,” he stresses, and his eyes are so sad, so . . . so vulnerable, I guess. Only for the quickest of seconds, not long enough for me to assure myself they were really there or not. But I pause long enough for Caleb to barrage me with a hundred and six reasons why Kellan is right with his request.
Not to mention remind me how Kellan is technically receiving the short end of the stick when it comes to the Connection we share. Because I chose Jonah. And how that must truly suck for Kellan, knowing he can never be with his Connection.
The large cave closes in around me. My skin is too hot, my clothes too tight. The air is hard to pull into my lungs. All of my thoughts scatter, and I’m seeing Kellan for the first time in my history class in high school, and the letter he wrote telling me he no longer thought we could be friends in perfect, excruciating clarity, and a zillion other moments, small and large. And my heart hurts, physically aches while bites are taken out of it.
But when I look back at Kellan, boredom practically radiates from every pore. And that just slays me, because here I am, feeling so many, many things, and he’s acting like he doesn’t have a singular care in the worlds, now I’ve gone quiet and he’s gotten his way.
Had I imagined it? Was the vulnerability yet another act he’s perfected that I’ve always been too blind to notice before? Or, worse yet—did he force me to back down by manipulating my feelings without my permission?
I want to wipe that expression off his face.
I want to hurt him like he’s hurting me. Hit him where it counts.
My fists clench. “You’re an asshat.”
And he proves it, because he doesn’t even bother looking at me. Instead, he yawns before offering a leisurely, “That’s probably true.”
Nothing Caleb can say will stem this tide now. “Do you want to know what I hear about you?”
Now he’s picking at his nails. “Not particularly.”