A gurgly laugh escapes me. “What?”
His voice, as light as he’s trying to make it, shakes just as much as mine. “We’re all adrenaline, Chloe. It’d be all raging and fighting and hot make-up sex.”
He’s lying. Well, not about the hot sex, which I’m pretty sure would be spot-on since so many of our make-out sessions were nuclear, but definitely about the fighting. When we dated in high school, we were a dream together. In Costa Rica? The same. He and I are ridiculously compatible. But I play his game. “Plus, we’d always be chasing after one another. I don’t know if you notice or not, but we both have a tendency to run away from our problems.”
Another soft laugh escapes him, because he knows I’m right. “It’s a problem for the both of us, isn’t it? We’d have to put preemptive tracking devices on one another in case of an argument or misunderstanding.”
This is probably the most gut-wrenching thing I’ve ever had to do. So much sadness twists through me, compounding the urge to double over and gasp, yet it’s not a new feeling. I’ve felt this way over Kellan too many times in the past. No doubt I’ll feel it countless times in the future. But the difference is this time, as I sit next to him while the sun slips behind Karnach, I finally know what it is I want.
Like he knows I worry he’s going to stand up and leave and never look back, Kellan holds out his hand and I take it, watching his long fingers curve around mine before a gentle kiss brushes my knuckles. Lovely, delicious tingles sparkle through my body. What if this is the last time we touch? Hold hands? Can I—even as sure as I am—ever live without this again? Do I really even want to? “Except, I’m done running. I’m not going anywhere this time.”
“Me either,” I whisper. And I mean it.
“Good.” A gentle squeeze, and then we are no longer touching; I’ve begun my mourning in earnest now. “You asked me once, a long time ago, to promise you that we would be something important to one another. I’m finally ready to make that promise to you.”
I know my smile is bittersweet and more than a wee bit teary. He’s giving me another gift right now, one I don’t know if I deserve. But because I love him so very much, and because, at heart, I will always be selfish when it comes to him, I gratefully take what he offers.
Because I will gladly take anything he has to offer me if it means I still get to have him in my life.
“I promise that I will always be here for you when you need me. I promise to be your friend, your confidant, and the person you can always count on. I promise you that you have my heart and my loyalty. I promise you that you will always have my love.” He leans his face against his arms, head tilted toward me, and I swear, his smile is just as bittersweet as my own.
There’s a fist in my chest, and it’s squeezing the crap out of my heart. Because I love him. I do. I love him so much, it’s ridiculous. He is an amazing person, so smart and warm and loving, and anybody, anybody, would be lucky to call him friend, let alone lover. To let him go tears me apart. I doubt I’ll ever get over it. I know I’ll never get over him. But it’s not fair, keeping him and me in limbo when I finally know that it’s Jonah who I want and need. In a way, Kellan was right. He and I have been intensity personified this last year and a half, tortured by high highs and low lows. He’s all about the rush—whether it be sweeping me off my feet or jumping out of a helicopter. And it’s not all because of me. That’s just who Kellan Whitecomb is. He’s a risk taker. And that’s all well and good, but what with the stress of being a Creator with crappy parents who have written her off, I need—no, crave my feet firmly on the ground, at least most of the time, anyway. Even still, if he’d told me we could never see one another again, I don’t know what I would’ve done. So I tell him, since saying anything more would just exacerbate the constriction against my heart, “Ditto.”
Because to promise him anything less would be a lie.
“I see you’re back to your natural color.”
I look up from the peaches I’ve been examining to find Sophie Greenfield leaning against a nearby table. Will and I are at Annar’s farmers market buying food for tonight’s dinner at the Lotus’. Initially, it had been suggested we go out to a restaurant, but once everyone took a moment to remember what happened the last time we were all together, we compromised and decided to eat at Astrid’s. That said, Will was pretty forthright about wanting to cook for everyone, even if it wasn’t his own kitchen.
So here we are, buying fruit and veggies, and I’m confronted by what appears to be a pissed off ex-girlfriend of Kellan’s.
I slip a pair of peaches in a bag. “Thanks.”