Free A Matter of Heart by Heather Lyons Page A

good to me, to
     the point he put his welfare and his own state of mind far below the needs he
     saw in me, which is exactly what we fought about. Me never thinking about his wants
     and needs, and him bending over backwards to give me mine.
    When I begin to
     hyperventilate, he grabs my hands. “Don’t cry. It’s okay, I swear—”
    I yank them free. “We’re
     going to die in here! Jonah is trapped—who knows if he’s really okay or not?
     And we’re fighting, and I hate it, and I’m so sorry, and I’m hungry and . . .
     gods, are you hungry? Are you okay?” My arms whip around like a madwoman’s;
     I’ve reached banshee-level wailing. “How are you doing? I’m not asking enough.
     I’m so selfish! I haven’t been asking enough. I need you to be okay. Are
     you okay? I need us to be okay. All of us. Oh my gods, nothing’s okay,
     Kellan!”
    As crazy as I am, the
     craziest thing of all is that Kellan doesn’t hesitate. One second I’m having a
     full-on, nuclear meltdown that has rocks around us exploding like firecrackers
     and the next his arms are around me.
    My
     world stills.
    Caleb doesn’t bother saying
     a single word. He knows it’s pointless. Instead, he buries himself in the
     furthest corner of my mind he can find.
    I can’t help but think of
     when my life imploded last year after I found Jonah kissing Callie. Everything
     in me short-circuited, leaving one, small instinct left: go and find Kellan.
     And I had. I ran straight to him, even though my heart was destroyed and I was
     blacking out and doing all sorts of horribly embarrassing things to admit to
     doing in light of seeing a kiss between my Connection and his ex-girlfriend.
     And Kellan made it better.
    Like he’s making it better
     now. Not with his mojo, not like the last couple days of full-on Emotional
     tweaking, but just by being him. By touching me.
    By being my Connection.
    Part of me is ashamed,
     because he obviously knows he has this effect on me. How couldn’t he? I was
     just wild-banshee woman and now I’m practically purring like a kitten. What
     does this say about me? Me, who chose his brother. Me, who is happy with his
     brother. Me, who dreams of marrying his brother.
    Me, who is utterly content
     to be held in his arms again.
    I don’t know what to say. I
     don’t have the slightest clue on how to even approach this. We could always go
     back to the whole pretending bit, but, if I’m honest with myself, I don’t know
     if I can.
    And I definitely don’t know
     how I can endure another eight months of no talking, no touching, no . . . no
     anything, let alone another eight minutes.
    “It’ll be okay,” he repeats.
     I know right then that he’s decided to play the role. He isn’t going to let me
     know he’s affected by my touch, too, even though I can feel his heart pounding
     like the surf he loves against the shore. No, he’s going to keep everything
     locked down tight, because he—unlike me—actually puts someone other than
     himself first.
    But, he’s wrong. At least
     about it being okay. Because now I can truly admit to myself that it won’t be.
    I’m not over him. Not by a long
     shot.

 

    Three days.
    To recap, we’ve: not eaten,
     drank what I estimate to be two full cups of water each, slept fitfully due to
     the constant screaming outside, and not touched each other again since the hug.
     On his end, Kellan has lost his ability to communicate with Jonah entirely,
     although he claims his brother probably can still sense his feelings and hear
     his thoughts. On my end, I have descended into what I (well, Caleb) can only
     term sheer despair.
    “You should sleep,” Kellan
     tells me. He should talk. The dark circles under his eyes would make a boxer
     proud.
    I’m lying on the blanket,
     staring at him. It’s what I do nowadays. I stare at him. I’m too tired to do
     anything else. “You should.”
    He sits down next to me,
     which spurs me struggling into my own sitting