“Are you sure you’re all right?” Finally, the lock in my throat has released. “You don’t need to go to the hospital or anything?”
“I’ll be fine,” Owen says, peeling a hand away from his eye, which is swollen shut. “But I guess my modeling career is over.”
We’re parking in front of a 7-Eleven on the outskirts of the old downtown. Wade, Abby, and Brynn have left us alone to go find ice for Owen’s eye. It’s hot in the truck, even with the windows open, but sitting so close to Owen, practically thigh to thigh, leaves me with a desperate shivery feeling. Blood is crusting above his upper lip. He looks so raw and bruised and open, and I want to help him, fix him, take his face and kiss it everywhere.
I want to ask him whether he meant what he said, about loving me.
I want to know why, if that’s true, he chose Summer.
Why he lied.
Where he was.
I want so many impossible things.
“Does it hurt?” I ask, instead of saying the ten other things that occur to me. #24. Feelings are larger than a whole dictionary full of words. He makes a face. “It’s not so bad. He was going for my nose. Good thing his aim was off. I kind of like my nose.”
“I do too,” I say automatically, and then wish I hadn’t. He peels a hand away from his eye and grins, then winces. “What happened back there?”
Owen sighs. “I just wanted to pay my respects, like everybody else,” he says. “I’d forgotten how crazy this town can be.”
“That’s because you left.” The words come out as an accusation, and I bite my lip. Words would be less frightening if you could swallow them again, chew them and digest them into nothingness.
But he doesn’t seem to notice. “Everything was fine until that pinhead and his friends noticed me.” He shakes his head. His hair is extra flame-like today. I have an urge to run my hand through it, and an idea that if I did, I’d get burned. “He told me to leave. I said no.” He shrugs. “You basically saw the rest.”
Before I can respond, Brynn slides into the car again. “Here. Best first aid 7-Eleven has to offer.” She hands Owen a frozen burrito. “Our options were limited,” she says before I can object. “But it’ll help. I promise. And when it thaws, we’ll have a snack. It’s black bean veggie.”
Owen’s laugh quickly transforms to a groan. “Smiling hurts,” he says.
“And check it out,” Brynn says. She pulls an unfamiliar iPhone from her pocket. “I got Heath’s phone. What do you want to bet he’s got dick pics on here?”
“Brynn. You stole that.”
“I reappropriated it,” she corrects me. “He shouldn’t have been flashing it around, anyway. Relax, Girl Scout,” she adds, rolling her eyes. “I’ll mail it back to him or something, okay?”
Wade and Abby come out of the 7-Eleven together. Abby’s carrying a plastic bag distended with sodas and waters and snacks. Wade has, for some mysterious reason, purchased a flat-topped red visor and a pair of sunglasses.
I feel a sudden hard pull of loneliness.
“You okay?” Owen touches the back of my hand, quickly. Skims it.
“I’m okay.” I put my hands between my thighs and squeeze. “I was just thinking about Summer. Missing her, I guess.”
He seems as if he wants to say something else. But then Wade slides behind the wheel, and Abby maneuvers into the backseat, both of them still arguing about whether Snickers have caffeine. When Owen slides over to make room for Abby, our knees briefly touch.
“Hey. I guess I should say thank you.” He straightens up, still holding the stupid burrito to his eye. “I mean, you guys saved me from death-by-mob.”
“Yeah. And now you owe us.” Brynn reaches into the backseat, swiping a Kit Kat bar from Abby. She rips off the corner of the package with her teeth. “We came to collect.”
Owen’s face changes. “What do you mean?”
“Mia didn’t tell you?” Brynn says, turning to me now. Her voice is light, but I can tell she’s trying to telegraph a warning through her eyes. Don’t fall for him again. Don’t be stupid. Don’t. Don’t.
“I didn’t get to it,” I say to her, which falls under #23: Lying by not saying what you truly mean. Secretly I know I haven’t asked for one reason and one reason only: because I’m afraid of the answer.
“Mia and Brynn are on the hunt for a killer,” Abby says, in a movie-announcer voice. She’s struggling with a bag of potato chips. She doesn’t seem to notice that instantly, everything goes quiet, except for the crinkle-crinkle of the bag.
“I thought Brynn thought I was the killer,” Owen says.
“So convince me otherwise.” Brynn shrugs, like they could be talking about any stupid argument, about a movie or a new sandwich place.
Owen turns to me after what seems like forever. “Mia?”
I swallow back the urge to apologize. “You told me you did a favor for Summer.” The words come slowly, haltingly, but they come. “You told me you kept her secret because you felt bad.”
“I did.” Even with one eye covered, Owen’s staring at me as if he’s mentally shrinking me down to the size of an insect. And I feel like an insect, or like I’ve swallowed one and now it’s trying to scrabble free of my stomach. “I swore not to tell anyone. Ever.” He emphasizes the last part deliberately.
“Summer’s dead, Owen,” Brynn says. There’s a hard edge to her voice. “She doesn’t have secrets anymore.”
Owen opens his mouth, then closes it again. His face has gone white. He turns to me. “I promised her,” he says.
Just like that, the old jealousy comes back: a worming, sick feeling, like a stomach virus. Why did he promise Summer? Why did he protect her?
Why did he kiss her, when he should have kissed me?
I know it isn’t fair to blame him. We all protected Summer, for reasons I can’t totally explain. That’s why Brynn and I never told anyone what really happened that afternoon in the woods, and why we never revealed what Summer was really like. How when she was angry she would swipe me with her nails, or grab me by the shoulders and shake me until my teeth rattled in my head. How once she took scissors to her wrists after Brynn admitted to maybe having a crush on Amy Berkowitz, just sat there drawing long scrapes down her skin until Brynn begged her to stop and started to cry and promised Summer she’d never love anyone more than she loved us—and how Summer laughed afterward, telling Brynn she was a hopeless dyke, and left the scissors on my desk, still crusty with blood.
How she became our everything, our tornado. We were caught up in her force. She turned us around. She made the world spin faster. She blotted out all the other light.
We couldn’t escape.
And maybe it’s the old influence, the winds still embedded inside, but now I’m the one who wants to destroy. I want to break the old connections. I want to flatten her back into the grave.
I want her to let us go.
Owen’s still watching me. Pleading, as if he expects me to contradict Brynn.
Instead I say, “It’s time, Owen.”
Owen lets out a big whoosh of air, as if instead of speaking, I’d punched him. He slumps down in the seat, lowering his hand from his eyes, staring down at his lap.
“Okay,” he says finally. “Okay,” he repeats, and looks up. “I didn’t think it was a big deal. She asked me to take away your story—that book you were working on. She made me swear I wouldn’t read it, that I wouldn’t look at it at all.”
Brynn’s eyes click to mine for a sharp, electric second. “But you did, didn’t you?”
Owen shakes his head. “No way. She brought it to me all packaged up.”
“She must have told you about the story before, though.” Brynn keeps her voice casual. “Since you were tutoring her and everything.”
“Tutoring her?” Even with his cheek hopelessly swollen, Owen manages to go bug-eyed. “I never even saw Summer with a book.”
You were too busy doing other things, whispers a terrible voice inside my head.
Brynn exhales. “All right, so you never saw Return to Lovelorn until Summer gave it to you. Did she say why she wanted it gone?”
Owen shakes his head. “All she told me was the game was over,” he said. “She told me that she was ending it for good.”
“Why you?” Brynn asks bluntly. “Why didn’t she get rid of it herself?”
Owen shrugs. “She knew I’d be able to get to Maine, I guess. That was back when my dad was drunk all the time. He never paid attention.”
“Maine?” I echo. “What’s in Maine?”
But Brynn’s the one who answers. “Georgia Wells,” she says. She brings a hand to her mouth, as if the words have left a taste there. “Georgia Wells is in Maine. That’s where she’s buried.”
Owen only nods.
As always, Abby is the one to speak first.
“Good thing we bought snacks,” she says. “Who’s up for a road trip?”