Page 28 of Broken Things

Mia

Now

Back in the car, Brynn puts her feet up on the center console and leans back, crossing her arms. “Owen,” she mutters. “Always Owen.”

“Don’t,” I say.

Abby’s tufting her hair using the rearview mirror. “Who’s Owen?”

“Owen,” Brynn says, “was Summer’sboyfriend.”

“They were never together,” I say quickly.

“Mia was in love with him,” Brynn continues, as though I haven’t even spoken, with infuriating matter-of-factness, as if she’s explaining to a child that the sky is blue. “That’s why she never wanted to believe he was guilty.”

“And Brynn was in love with Summer,” I say. My voice is shrill. “That’s why Brynn always wanted to believe hewas.” I don’t have to turn around to feel Brynn glaring at me. “And in caseyou’veforgotten, the cops looked at him. He was suspectone.” I grip the steering wheel tightly, feeling small starburst explosions of pain and color behind my eyelids—a sure sign of a developing migraine. I breathe deep through my nose, willing away memories of Owen—his lopsided smile and poky elbows and hair the color of new flame and the way he used to call me Macaroni. All the other kids made fun of him, but he didn’t even care. He moved through the halls as if he was on a boat, tethered to something bigger and better, a future away from here. “He was arrested and released. They never even charged him.”

“Because his dad’s rich and the cops screwed up,” Brynn says. “They took hisbloodoff Summer’s clothing.”

“That was never proven,” I say quickly.

“I’m telling you, he’s hiding something. He’s been hiding something for years.” Now she leans forward. “He has no alibi for the day she was killed. He said he was home sick, but he wasn’t. Someone remembered seeing him in town.” She shakes her head, making a noise of disgust.

“He wasn’t in the woods,” I say, this time quieter. My throat goes unexpectedly tight. “I would have seen. I would have—” I stop myself from sayingI would have known. Of course, that sounds ridiculous, and it’s obviously untrue. Except that for years I did have an Owen Waldmann sixth sense, a weird ability to know where he would turn up and when. I could decipher his moods even when he didn’t say a word to me. We could reach each other’s thoughts just by exchanging a single look.

Owen and I had been friends since second grade, when he was so pale people called him Casper, or Nosebleed because of all the times he had to run out of class with his nose plugged up with tissues, and I was so shy no one called me anything at all. It sounds crazy, but I sometimes wished I had a nickname, even an obnoxious one, because it would mean that I existed, that someone had noticed me.

Owen and I sat next to each other in art class. One day, Mr. Hinckel was teaching us about found art by making us glue random bits of everyday items—Q-tips and cotton balls; crumpled receipts and rubber bands; paper clips and pen caps—to stiff construction paper, and then dye it and decorate it how we wanted. I made a portrait out of dried macaroni. The whole damn class, I sat there gluing macaroni in place, hardly looking up, hardly breathing. I must have looked psychotic. But when the bell rang, I saw Owen was looking at me, smiling. He had a great smile. It was crooked: the right side of his mouth always floated up an extra inch or two.

“Hey, Macaroni,” he said. “That’s pretty good.”

That was it: that’s how it started. The next day, when he saw me in the lunchroom, he waved. “Hey, Macaroni. How ya doing?”

Maybe he was being mean. Maybe not. But I loved it. Macaroni gave me something to look forward to.Macaronimeantinside joke, andinside jokemeantfriend.

And we did become friends—slowly, by increments, so that it felt just as easy as standing still. On the weekends or after schoolI’d look out the window and see him straddling his bike, peering up from the street toward my window, his face like a pale, upturned moon, and I’d go flying out of the house to meet him. We filmed funny videos and posted them to a private YouTube channel. We played kickball on his front lawn and sprawled out in his father’s garden, head to head, picking shapes out of the clouds.

In fifth grade, we found a tree house in the woods behind his house. Owen was having a bad year—he was always fighting with his dad, even then, and at school people started to spread rumors that he carried knives, that he cut up small animals, that he would someday come to class with a bomb in his bag. We outfitted the tree house with flashlights and a sleeping bag, junk food and even a battery-operated fan, so Owen could go there whenever he didn’t feel like being at home. One time, we got caught together during a rainstorm. We huddled together in the sleeping bag, practically touching noses.

The kids at school spread new rumors. Owen was a sex maniac. I was a slut. Everyone who saw us together made kissy noises or gross hand gestures, the way kids who are starting to outgrow being kids always do.When are you going to hit that, Owen? Hey, Mia. Have you and Owen done it yet?I always pretended to be embarrassed—Iwasembarrassed—but a teeny, tiny part of me was glad. I wasn’t invisible anymore. I wasn’t alone. I had Owen. Casper, Nosebleed, serial killer in the making. Still: mine. The boy with the big ideas and the crooked smile, the boy I could talk to about everything.

Still, I pretended I never thought about him that way.Owen? You think I likeOwen? Ew. Never in a million years.And Owen never said anything at all, just smiled his lopsided smile and shook his head. We didn’t have to say it. We both knew.

Of course we were meant for each other. Of course we would be together someday. Of course he would be my first kiss and I would be his. We were just waiting, letting it unfold, luxuriating in it, like staying in bed on a Sunday knowing there’s absolutely no place you have to be.

Then Summer came.

“If you’re so convinced Romeo had nothing to do with it,” Brynn says, “why don’t you go ask him why he acted like such a nutcase afterward?”

“Sure. I’ll just head off to London and go around knocking on doors,” I snap back. “Can’t be that hard in a city of eight million.”

I catch Brynn’s eyes in the rearview mirror. She’s making the funniest expression, as if she’s just taken a sip of spoiled milk and is too polite to spit it out.

“What?” I say. “What is it?”

“He’s back,” she says, after a beat. “I saw him.”

“Owen’s back,” I repeat. As if saying the words aloud will help me understand. Brynn nods. “And you saw him.” She nods again. I throw the car into reverse, filled with a desperate urge to move, to go, to drive. Otherwise I’ll lose it. “When were you planning to tell me?”

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