“I’m fine,” I wheeze.
“I didn’t mean to shock you with all that.” She shoves me over to one of the chairs at the table, sitting across from me. “You’re probably thinking I want to blackmail you or something.”
My horror must show, because she quickly stresses, “I don’t!” before sighing. “Chloe, I ought to warn you that I’m known for having very poor tact. I guess I was just giving you a heads up that I know. Especially since he hasn’t told anybody else, other than Mom.”
“Oh,” is all I can think of saying.
She looks over at Kellan. “Can I be honest with you?”
I take another sip of water. “Is there a time you haven’t been?”
She chuckles, no doubt remembering the last time we were together, when she pretty much forced herself upon me so I could hear the truth about what went down between her and Jonah. “Touché. Look, I guess what I want to say is . . . they’re my friends, too. My family. Even Jonah, even now when it’s impossible for the two of us to be in a room together without it being painfully awkward. And . . . I love them, you know?”
Yeah, I do. And I’m surprisingly non-threatened by this confession.
“I’m not going away,” she continues, her green eyes meeting mine. “Neither are you. And even if Jonah and I never get past what happened, we’ll always be linked because of Mom and Kellan. There’ll always be holidays, and birthdays, and dinners, and thousands of other events big and small over the rest of our lifetimes. So . . .” She lets loose a puff of air that makes her hair float like a halo around her face. “This.” A hand is waved in between us. “We can do this, right?”
She’s sincere. I don’t doubt it in the least.
“Yeah,” I tell her. And I mean it.
Callie and Jonah are arguing. Again.
In fact, they seem to argue a lot. No—not argue. Bicker. They bicker incessantly, over what TV show or movie to watch, over sports teams (which I find confusing, considering they grew up together and ought to like the same local teams), over food . . . over, well, just about everything.
It’s sort of hilarious, actually.
Right now, they’re bickering over some friends of theirs from high school back in Maine as we sit around the table, eating dinner (Jell-o for me; some unfairly tasty looking stuff Astrid brought in during a quick visit half an hour ago for them). From what I can piece together, there’s a guy (Kai, I think?) and girl (definitely Maggie) who have run hot and cold over the past several years and are currently on a break. Jonah thinks this is inevitable, that the two of them are best served to be friends in the long run. Callie, outraged over this “insensitivity” to their friends’ plights, is insistent that they will work through this latest mess. “Oh, c’mon!” Jonah groans. “Cal. Seriously? They broke up this time because of sushi.” He shakes his head. “Because, you know, sushi is a real relationship killer.”
As a matter of fact, the two of them are eating sushi right now, which makes the conversation even more comical to listen to.
Callie smacks her hands on the table, sending drops of soy sauce scattering from an open packet. “Kai is being an ass and you know it. Why do you always defend him?”
“I am not defending him.” Jonah’s chopsticks jut toward her. “I’m just saying, that if Maggie’s gonna bring about World War III due to,”—he holds up a California roll—“uncooked fish—”
“Oh my GODS,” she hollers, smacking her hands against the table again. Water sloshes out of my cup. “Do you hear yourself?”
“The better question is, who can’t hear you two?” comes a scratchy voice from across the room. We all go still before our chairs nearly clatter to the floor on cue and in succession.
Kellan is awake, and he’s staring at us with that fabulous half-quirked smile of his.
“KELLAN!” Callie shrieks before promptly bursting into tears. She rushes to his bed and throws her arms around him.
“Jesus,” he mutters, his voice muffled through her hair. “You and Maggie, both off your rockers over Japanese food. Am I right, bro?”
Jonah is grinning like an idiot, so incredibly happy and relieved at the same time. I am, too, but I suddenly feel like the fifth wheel, even though there are only four of us in the room. I hang back some when Jonah goes over to hug his brother once Callie relinquishes her hold.
He’s awake, seemingly fine. Like he’d just been napping and not in a coma. And it’s just so surreal that I’m completely taken aback by it all. Yet, nobody else seems to be, not even Kellan.
“I should’ve known that you’d wake up to weigh in on the Great Breakup of Kai and Maggie, take thirty-seven,” Jonah is telling him. And the three of them laugh—Jonah and Callie much louder than Kellan’s tired, scratchy chuckle—but it’s really lovely to hear.