I go to whisper another apology, but he says, “I’m glad you two were able to hang out since I’ve been gone. I hope you’re not mad I told him about the fight with your mom. I’ve been worried about you being alone.” He pauses, and I flounder once more over what to say. “I figure if I can’t be there for you, he should be.”
I close my eyes and let the guilt soak me. Because that must have killed Jonah to say to me, especially with him being on an entirely different plane and all.
“Your parents are fools for what they’ve done. I truly believe someday they’ll regret this bitterly, and it won’t be because I made them feel it. In the meantime—I know I keep saying this, but—please remember I love you more than anything, and . . . Kellan loves you, too. We’re your family and always will be.”
A flood of tears threatens to fill the entire apartment.
“Don’t go crying.” Jonah knows me too well. “Because I really was just buttering you up so you won’t be pissed off about what I’ve got to say next.”
He knows. Oh gods, he must know.
But he doesn’t. “We have to move to another area to complete the mission. I’m not sure when I’ll actually be coming home now. It’s so depressing, Chloe. But I guess I’ve done a fairly good job, because the rebels are really riled up and are marching against the Capital today. It’s just . . . awful. I . . . I hate this so much.”
It breaks my heart to hear him struggle. “I’m so sorry,” I choke out. “I wish I could be there, too.”
I’m trying not to look at him while I talk to Jonah, but I can’t help but catch the look of pain on Kellan’s face at this.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’d hate it out here. It’s pouring nonstop, just like you warned me it would.” He pauses for a moment and I literally feel like I’m about to fall to pieces from the guilt. Static hisses in the space where my confessions ought to be. “I’ve been thinking . . . since the mission’s been extended, I think you should get Kel to take you somewhere. Away from Annar and your parents. Just—go lay on a beach and relax.”
I cannot have heard what I think I just did. “What?”
“I can’t stand the thought of you being alone after everything that happened. Go pack a bag and tell Kel to take you to one of our houses. Whichever one you want.”
“You want . . . your brother to take me . . . on a trip?” I manage to get out.
Kellan leans up on his elbows, shocked.
“Don’t worry, I won’t freak out like when you two went to Hawaii. There’ll be no accusations of you two having sex or anything.” Jonah laughs, like this is, in itself, utterly ludicrous.
OH MY GODS. “I—”
“I’ll come and meet you two wherever you end up, because by that point, I’m sure I’ll need a vacation, too. And he and I haven’t gone surfing together in forever, so it’ll be win-win for everyone involved.”
I’m surely going to hell in a hand basket. “You’re serious?”
“Absolutely. And Chloe, please know that I miss you so much. It’s like my heart’s been taken out, being away from you when you’re hurting.”
I’m full on crying now, no long able to hold the tears back. I want to tell him I’m sorry for so many things, that I miss him, too, but I can’t actually say anything. I can only sob into the phone.
This, of course, alarms Jonah to no end. “Oh, honey—I didn’t mean . . . don’t cry, please.” Someone talks to him in the background, and I know he has to go. “Damn,” he mutters. “We need to leave; we’re hiking into a remote region and it’ll take all day to get there. I’m told there’s no cell service there, which sucks. I’ll keep trying to call, though. Let me talk to Kellan one more time, okay?” But before I manage to pass the phone to the person I spent all night kissing, my fiancé has something else to add. “Chloe, I love you more than anything.”
I babble incoherently and end up tossing the phone at Kellan. Then I roll off him and the couch and run straight into the bathroom so I can wash my face and possibly my senses.
It doesn’t help.
I end up on the floor, the tile cool against my skin. I’m shaking all over, barely keeping my head above the flooding anxiety, and nothing my mother has said, nothing, could be as bad as what’s happening here.
I can’t wrap my mind around how easy it was to deceive Jonah like that. Kellan and I lied to him, even though technically the words we said were all true. We let him think everything is great, and that we’re the best of friends, hanging out, and he believed it because he believes in us.
He trusts us.
He wants his brother to take me away to what will be no doubt some absurdly romantic tropical spot, and he trusts us to do nothing but hang out and be friends. And then he wants to come to join us, the two people he loves and trusts most in all the worlds.
I just lied to the most important person in my life.
When I finally muster the courage to go back out into the living room, I find Kellan sitting in one of the chairs, head lowered as he studies his phone.
Without looking up, he says quietly, “This sucks.”