Chapter 74: You are not alone
"Kellen, why were you worried about me? We’ve been friends for so long, what triggered this?" Taylor’s soft voice came over the phone, and Kellen could feel the embarrassment welling up inside of him. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to say it, since he had a feeling he knew how they were going to react.
"Well, everyone is going to leave me when they get paired and don’t need me in their lives anymore. I’m just a placeholder." No one said anything as Kellen fought to keep the tears back. It felt like a losing battle, but he was doing his best. His face felt hot and he poured more cider into his mouth so he didn’t have to look at it anymore. He hated that he had ended up talking about this, not once, but twice, and with almost everyone he didn’t want to talk about this with. He really didn’t want to find out that his suspicions were correct about every relationship he’d ever had in one day.
"Kellen!" Gwen’s voice came at him first, before her body did. She covered him in her body, her arms wrapping tightly around his neck and began kissing his face all over. "My sweet, dumb older brother! You are not a placeholder, and you have never been a placeholder! No one could replace you!" She was practically sobbing as she held and kissed him. Hill stood up, fury written all over her expression. Her eyes were even glowing orange.
"Who the fuck said that to you? Why the hell would we ignore you as soon as we paired up? Fuck, you’re the first one to do it out of all of us, and are you going to ignore us?" Kellen was stunned at her reaction. He had kind of expected Gwen to be upset with him, but not this open display of pure anger from Hill. Taylor’s soft laughter over the phone shocked him next.
"Do you honestly think I would pair with a Guide you hadn’t personally vetted beforehand? Or with someone who didn’t like you? Fuck percentages, you’re one of my closest friends. I’m only not saying best friend because you’re in a weird headspace right now. Fuck, do I need to come over there and knock some sense into you? You big, dumb, idiot?" A laugh escaped him, and he couldn’t stop it, the same way he couldn’t stop the tears that began to roll down his face.
"No, there are already too many people witnessing me cry right now. I don’t need more." He said. Gwen pulled back, cupping Kellen’s face in both of her hands to force him to look at her.
"I would rather never pair than abandon you and Mom and Dad. You know that, right? If they were part of a Guild or whatever that was far away, I’d either make them move here, or travel back and forth all the time if that wasn’t possible. Taylor’s right. Fuck percentages." Kellen laughed, shaking his head.
"You guys are saying that now, but-" Gwen covered his mouth with her hand, her eyes flashing between grey and purple.
"Shut your trap. I know you waited a long time for your perfect match, but I’m not the same as you. I wasn’t fucking harrassed by everyone to be better like you were. Hell, if I see Uncle Tom again I’m going to-" Gwen caught the temperature shift in the room, and happened to glance towards the Captain at the same time and closed her mouth. Even Kellen, who felt like his body was numb because of all the emotions in his body at the moment, could feel the energy coming off of the Captain. He squeezed his hand.