A Matter of Forever (37 page)

I am not to be in the room while it’s done. I’ve been requested to not even be in the building. And once it’s done, Jonah is to leave because Kellan doesn’t want him to know where the Guard eventually takes him. We will not know his new name (because he’s asked for a new one), we will not know where he will live, we will not know if he flourishes or fails miserably.

The cords between us will be cleanly cut.

“I transferred all your money over to Zthane,” Jonah is saying. He sounds like a robot right now running on automatic, he’s so desperate to stay strong for his brother. “He says he’ll ensure it’s set it up in a bank account with your new name in the city you end up in. I wish I knew whether it is going to be enough.”

Kellan’s smile is tight and sad. “It’ll be more than enough, J. How many other young twenty-somethings get to start out as multi-millionaires?”

It’s so odd hearing them talk in complete sentences and paragraphs to one another. I want to ask if it’s weird for them, too, but I’m too afraid. Do they ever say something in their heads and then realize the other can no longer hear them?

My heart crumbles again, knowing I did this to them.

I’d told Jonah when I came back from having lunch with Kellan that I was going to shut off my emotions from him for the next few days. That ... it wasn’t so much I wanted to hide anything from him, it was just ... I didn’t want to add my pain to his. So here I am, drowning in guilt and regret and so much sadness, and I’m oddly comforted by the fact neither of these dear men can feel the turmoil raging throughout me.

They’ve dealt with enough of my pain over the last few years. They don’t need anymore. This time it is all about them.

Jonah is saying, “Tomorrow, when ... when I influence you. What do you want to be? What kind of job would you like?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Kellan tells his brother. “It only makes sense I go into psychiatry, right? I mean, it’s what I’m good at. Or, at least, what I was good at. It’s not like I’ve ever been good at anything else.”

That’s a lie, I want to tell him.

“You’ll need a degree,” Jonah says.

“Then influence me to go back to school. Maybe that’s how I end up where I am—I’ve just moved to try to get into a school I want. It’ll explain how I won’t know anybody yet.”

For a moment, Jonah looks like he’s broken free from the weights resting on his shoulders; he rolls his eyes and then both brothers laugh easily in unison.

Once more, they look so alike to me as they toss the idea of Kellan going to college back and forth that I can’t help but wish to hold onto this slice of time forever and ever, so I can revisit in and live in it and know that I will always have them happy and together.

But even moments like these can’t last forever. Because sooner rather than later, the gravity of our actions catches right back up with us and all the smiles disappear.

Jonah’s knuckles are so white and strained from all the squeezing his poor hands are going through. “What about surfing? Do you ... is that something you still want to hold onto?”

Please say yes, I think. Don’t erase Kellan Whitecomb completely. I don’t think I can exist in a world where Kellan Whitecomb is completely gone.

But he says, “I think it best I don’t.”

“But ... you’re going into psychiatry,” I throw out desperately, “because it’s in your blood. So is surfing. Why would you ever want to give up something you love so much?” And it’s a stupid question, because compared to me and Jonah, surfing means nothing to him and I’m well aware of it.

“Big waves are in my blood,” he agrees. “And who knows? Maybe I’ll find my way back to the ocean. But chances are, if I go to those big waves, so might J. None of this is going to work if I keep running into you guys. There’s only so many times we can cut ourselves before we bleed out, C.”

Morning comes way too soon. It’s a beautiful day, sunny with no clouds in the sky. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming, and Annar is picture perfect beyond our windows.

“I had the lease signed over to your names yesterday,” Kellan is saying to Jonah. “I know Cameron and Will are moving back to their old place soon, but I told them they could stay as long as they need. I guess you can keep all the stuff in here or sell it or ...” He pans around the room, hands stuffed in his pockets as he takes in the sophisticated apartment Callie Lotus helped him decorate a few years back. “Do whatever you like with it.” His blue eyes briefly flick toward me before settling once more on his brother. “But, if you want my opinion, I like the idea of the two apartments becoming one. It makes sense once you guys start a family. You could use the extra room.”

Breathe, Chloe.
Breathe
.

There are two small duffle bags sitting next to the front door that Kellan packed a few hours ago. Out of everything he has, he’s fit all that he wants to take with him in such small pieces of canvas. At first, I ached, thinking about how he could reduce his life to such small quantities, but then I remembered that when I ran away, I took nothing with me. All too often, we assign meaning to our belongings. Certain clothes are worn during significant moments in our lives. Jewelry, too. And books and pictures and shoes and everything else we have and cherish. We accumulate smells and meanings and memories to such items. I refused to take any with me because I knew the weight of such memories would break me.

But then, Kellan is leaving us with no memories at all. Would it hurt to take his belongings with him? Have the Guard place them in his new home, so that when he wakes up tomorrow, he won’t be empty handed? That, despite erasing twenty plus years of life, he still has something of his past to hold onto, even if it means something completely different than it did just days before?

“That’s all you’re taking?” I end up asking.

He looks at me blankly, like I’m speaking in Greek.

I try again. “Don’t you think it’s going to be weird, waking up in the morning, with only two bags to call your own?”

A small smile curves Jonah’s lips that smacks strongly of vindication, like he’s tried this argument, too, and failed.

“Now, I can’t exactly speak from experience,” I continue, walking away from the windows, over to where they’re standing, “because when I woke up in Alaska morning after morning, I knew what to expect. But I’m pretty sure that when you wake up tomorrow morning with a head full of new memories, you will be utterly confused as to why you only have two bags of belongings, even if you believe you just moved somewhere new.”

From the look on his face, this appears to be the one thing Kellan hasn’t considered in all of his plans.

“While you two are ...” I swallow and force the words out. “At Guard HQ, let me arrange for movers to take your clothes and some furniture to wherever it is you’re going. I can even have them keep everything in boxes, so it will feel like you just got there.”

“C,” he murmurs, “the point of you staying behind is so you don’t know where I end up.”

I swallow again. My throat is so dry and sticky and thick. “I don’t have to know. The movers can discuss the location with Zthane. I’m just saying ... let me do this for you. So when you wake up in the morning, you won’t have questions that you can’t answer immediately. That ... you have a bed to sleep on. Clothes to wear. Shampoo and a brush for your hair, a tea kettle and cups and plates to have meals with.”

He murmurs my name again; there is so much raw pain in those two syllables.

“You won’t know what they mean. They ... they’ll just be
things
to you.
Your
things. They won’t be memories.”

“Okay,” he finally says. “But ... it’s a smaller place. You can’t send everything.” And then, more quietly, “Please. No photos. I ... I can’t—” He breaks off, turning away from us.

But not before I see the tears in his eyes.

Zthane calls about an hour later. They’re ready for him.

Panic claws at my insides so ferociously it’s a miracle I can stand. He’s leaving. He’s leaving us. He’s leaving me.

By tonight, he’ll be gone forever.

I forget how to breathe. All I can do is go to Jonah and hold him tight and kiss him and swear that everything will be all right. Reassure him I’ll be here waiting for him. That I always will be. And then he walks out the door first, telling Kellan he’ll meet him downstairs.

This man for whom I tore my life apart so many times stands before me, his heart in his hands one last time.

I love you, I want to tell him.

Oh gods, I love him so very, very much.

“I wish you nothing but happiness,” is what I end up saying. And then I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight, reveling in the feel of his body against mine for the very last time. I want to kiss him, press my mouth against his once more so I can drown in the feelings that his kisses inspire in me, but ... I gave up the right the day I chose Jonah.

I press my lips against his cheek instead.

His breath comes out shuddery and soft as we stand there in the silence of his apartment.

“I wish you nothing but happiness, too,” he finally murmurs. “Promise me you’ll never stop chasing that. Promise me you and my brother will have the very best of happy endings.”

Gods, it’s at such a high cost. Too high. Even still, I whisper against his chest, “I promise.” How can I not, when he is sacrificing so much for us?

When he presses a lingering kiss to my forehead, I close my eyes and breathe him in this final time, praying silently I will never forget this scent, or the feel of his arms around me, or the way my heart flutters so very strongly in his presence.

I whisper, my words barely discernable in the silence of the apartment, “I love you.”

He tells me he loves me, too.

All too soon the moment is over. Cool air swirls around me and a door clicks shut before I open my eyes again. And I’m left in an empty apartment alongside a lifetime of regret.

There is no time to fall apart like I ache to. The movers I’d called immediately after Kellan’s approval of my plan show up not ten minutes later. We spend the next three hours packing up as much as we can before they need to leave in order to beat Kellan’s arrival at wherever it is he’s going. The hustle and drive to get the job done is a lifeline through each torturous minute that leaves me wondering how things are going. How many memories have been hidden. How many new ones have been suggested. I wonder how Jonah is doing—I’m sure he’s made it so nobody can see the turmoil he’s going through. I wish I were there for him, holding his hand the entire time, letting him know that just because he’s losing his brother, he’s not alone. He’ll never be alone. I’m still here, and so is Astrid, and Callie and Cameron and Will and hell, even my mother in her own small way. His family is here for him.

But I know that’s a small consolation. My husband is losing his twin brother. He’s lost his mother—and by extension, his father. He lost his uncle, and then his aunt. He thinks he’s lost Callie, even though every so often, it warms my heart to see the threads of friendship repairing themselves between them.

I make a promise right here and now, as I fold Kellan’s clothes and place them into boxes. I will not fall apart on Jonah in the coming weeks and months. He will not need to be strong for me. I will be strong for him.

I will not let him down.

I will keep my promises to Kellan.

One of the movers calls out to me; they need to have everything loaded up to take within the next five minutes. I tell them I’m nearly ready—but there’s one last thing I need to get before they leave with Kellan’s past.

I go over to the small nightstand that sits by the empty space a bed once occupied and dig out a battered copy of Kerouac’s
On The Road
. Memories rush back through me as my fingers curl around the yellowing pages; Kellan was reading just this book the day we met. I remember wondering what secrets he’d discovered within the pages, why he took the time to highlight certain passages. But I don’t flip through the book now that I finally have a chance; I don’t look at those secrets of his. Instead, I carefully place the book amongst his clothes.

One of the movers leans against the doorway. “You ready for us to go?”

I seal the box shut with packing tape. “Yeah,” I lie to him. “I think I am.”

He takes the box from me and leaves along with the rest of the team. Within minutes, the apartment is partially naked, all wires and dusty spaces that once held pieces of Kellan Whitecomb.

Jonah will be home soon, and he’ll need me. We will get through this together. The happy ending we’d always worried would never come is now within our grasp. I’m ready to reach out and grab it.

Just like I promised I would.

I reach over and tug the zipper of my wetsuit up and stare out before me.
I’m fucking crazy
. Because there’s no other explanation for what I’m about to do. Or, hell, even why I’m here. I’ve had a break with reality or something. Too many beers. There has to be a logical explanation why I am in a boat headed to one of the world’s most dangerous surf breaks and feeling calm and stupidly elated all at once.