“Are you still walking on eggshells about all of that?” Kellin asked. “Your visions and hers and all of that? I mean, I don’t think you are, but it’s been a while since anyone’s talked about it, so I thought I’d ask.”
“We promised when we got married that we’d be honest with each other,” Thom said quietly, his heart giving a painful squeeze. I wish that meant that we wouldn’t keep secrets from each other, but I’m a fool if I think she doesn’t keep a few from me and I know damned well that she knows I have a few secrets I’m keeping from her. It made him feel guilty, though perhaps not as much as it should have. “We’re talking about it when it happens.” When it’s not too terrible to talk about, anyway.
Kellin took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, nodding. “Good. Good. I’m glad to hear it.”
He managed to smile. “Were you worried?”
She smiled back. “Maybe a little. She was worried about you for a long time.”
“Well, now it’s my turn to worry about her.” Not that I ever really stopped. I just get to continue worrying about her—just like I always have.
Just like I hope I always will.
“You okay, Thom?”
He nodded in response to J.T. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just thinking. I never really stopped worrying about her.”
J.T.’s brows rose and Kellin cocked her head to one side. Thom winced.
I said more than I meant to, I think.
“So you broke up because you loved her?” Kellin asked curiously. “That’s…kind of crazy and romantic at the same time.”
“You can’t say you didn’t do the same with Jamie,” Thom countered, regretting it almost immediately as Kellin winced and looked away.
“You’re right,” she said after a moment. “I broke things off with Jamie because I loved her. I knew she was leaving and it didn’t feel right to tie her to me like that when god only knows when we’d see each other again.” She smiled weakly. “That doesn’t mean I don’t regret it all the time, because I really do. I miss her a lot. I don’t even know if she’s alive. I hope she is. I hope she’s okay.”
Thom shivered. That was almost Marin and I. Hell. We got lucky. I didn’t go to the city and she hadn’t left for the East Coast. We were damned lucky. “I hope she is, too.” His lips thinned. “Is that part of why you’re so keen on this whole…trading thing?”
Kellin glanced sidelong at J.T. “Thom thinks it’s a terrible idea.”
J.T.’s brows rose again and he looked at his friend. “Why do you think it’s a terrible idea?”
“I just…” Thom frowned, taking a sip of coffee to buy himself time to think. “It worries me. Sending some of us out into nowhere in search of things that may or may not be out there to find. I’m worried that something bad will happen to anyone who goes and that we’ll never find out what happened to them it something does.” His brows knit. “There’s always the possibility of leading new trouble here, too. People who want to take things that we have once they see what we have to trade.”
Kellin shook her head a little. “We can’t live in fear, Thom. If we live in fear, every nasty, dark thing out there in the world wins. We’ve got to make the most of our situation—and live as part of this brave new world whether we want to or not. I don’t think cocooning ourselves here is an option.”
“Of course it’s an option,” J.T. said with a wry smile. “It’s just not a good option. You have to admit, Thom, she’s right about one thing. We can’t spend the rest of our lives scared of what might happen or who might show up here to take our stuff.
“All we can do is move forward and hope that we’ll rise to whatever occasion arises.”
