A Matter of Heart (Fate, #2)

“Do you mind?”


“Of course not.” Callie slides a hanger back on the rack.

It’s stupid, but I forgot my phone back at the apartment. And, even though he’s not talking to me much, I want to make sure Jonah has a way to get ahold of me if he needs to.

“Do you want me to go with you?” she asks.

I shake my head. “It’ll take me half an hour at the most. I’ll be back well before you’ve finished trying on the twenty outfits hanging in your dressing room.”

She can’t argue with me. She knows I’m right.

I leave the store and hurry home. But as I unlock my door, angry voices nearby nearly bowl me over.

Extremely angry voices.

I quietly shut the door behind me and listen, trying to determine where the voices are coming from.

Jonah and Kellan are arguing in Jonah’s apartment.

Actually, arguing is a very mild word for what they’re doing. They’re full on shouting at each other, saying the most horrible, shocking things, and not in their way. They’re fighting in full sentences with accusations, names . . . things that these two should never say to one another. Things I never thought them capable of saying to one another. I am so stunned I find I cannot move. I doubt they have no idea that I’m here; I’m still far enough away that our pulls aren’t immediately noticeable. And if I want to listen, I’ve got to stay where I am.

Because they’re arguing about me.

I cannot believe the things that are being said. It’s awful. Their words are like poison, drifting through the apartments and hitting me, making me so nauseated that it’s only due to the strongest willpower that I don’t throw up everywhere in my entryway. These two brothers, twins—they’re best friends and yet, from the way they’re acting with one another, you’d never know that.

It sounds like they hate each other.

Just how often do they do this? Is this what it’s like nowadays, when they talk to each other their way, if they even do anymore? Is this why they so rarely see each other anymore?

Responsibility weighs down on me, heavier than ever. It’s crushing. Suffocating.

I listen to them for a good ten minutes, which just so happen to be the longest ten minutes of my life. And then, a door slams, and Kellan’s gone. I remain immobilized until Jonah slams the same door two minutes later.

I am alone in the apartments.

They never knew I was here.

Callie’s words from just an hour and a half before resonate within. Sometimes love requires risk.

I love them.

I love them both.

And now I need to love them enough to let them go. It’s the only chance they have.





I stand in the middle of my bedroom, looking around at my things. They’re just things, collected over a lifetime. Some have meaning, some don’t.

I’m going to leave it all. It’s the only way this’ll work. I’m not even going to take my purse, keys, or phone. I’m not going to take anything. Because I know I have to leave and if I take anything with me, I’ll break under the pressure of meaning and sentimentality.

This is my choice. I’m choosing to leave. Screw Fate. I’m no longer going to let some intangible entity dictate whether or not I keep hurting the people I love and myself in the process.

I am in control of my destiny. Me. No one, nothing else.

My mind switches my body over to autopilot.

I slide the most precious possession I have off my ring finger and put it in a secret compartment of my jewelry box. My heart cracks and breaks, but it has to be this way.

Everything gets left behind.

I briefly debate leaving a note, but even this is too painful to contemplate. I’m no good at saying goodbye. Hell, I couldn’t even truly say goodbye to my parents, even though they apparently had no difficulty saying it to me. Verbalizing, even with a note, to Jonah—and Kellan—that I’m leaving? I just . . . I can’t.

I know that makes me a coward. I also know they’ll hate me for it, but it’s a risk I have to take, if only for my own sanity. Plus, I doubt a note would ever stop either man from looking for me, especially Jonah. There’d be rationalizations, promises that things will be different, yet they’d be overlooking the reason for all of this—that they need to stop worrying so much about me and my feelings and focus more on their own. It pains me to know they’ll be confused and hurt, but . . . it’s best this way.

I leave my apartment and head to the Transit Station. I do not look back. I stand in a corner, considering the doorways around me. It ought to be easy, because for years, I daydreamed of escaping. Even just this last week, I toyed with the idea. But I’d never really had a true reason to go until today.

Thinking about this any other way than practically will result in me turning around. What are the things I need to survive?

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