Page 41 of Broken Things

Now

It feels strange to ride in Wade’s truck with Abby next to me, and Brynn fiddling with the radio in the front passenger seat, and Wade tapping a rhythm with his hands against the steering wheel—almost as if we’re really friends. Some people, I know, get to live like this all the time: they ride in cars with their friends. They listen to music. They complain about being bored.

If Summer had lived, maybe she’d be sitting next to me instead of Abby. Maybe Owen would be the one driving.

If, if, if.A strange, slender word.

Abby reaches over and takes my hand. “You okay?” she asks. Luckily, Wade’s truck is so loud—he seems to be carrying the contents of an entire Best Buy in the back—that I know he and Brynn can’t hear.

“I’m okay,” I say, and give her hand a squeeze. Thank God for Abby. I haven’t told her about seeing Owen yesterday. I haven’t told Brynn, either.

Always, the story leads back to Owen. I think again of what he said:I felt sorry for her.And:I was in love with you.

Could it possibly be true?

Does it matter?

Brynn’s right about one thing: he’s the only one who knew about Lovelorn. If my hunch is right, he’s the only one whocouldhave known.

To get to Owen’s house we have to pass through town. Main Street is, once again, blocked off by squad cars and barricades. Beyond them, a crowd is clustered at the corner of Spruce, in front of the little gazebo and the bandstand where the parade must have ended yesterday. Several trees have come down and been roped off by the parks department.

Abby presses her nose to the window as we wait at the light to turn onto County Route 15A. “What’s going on?” she says. “Why’s everyone standing around?”

“I don’t know,” I say, but then I spot the bunches of white lilies arranged in front of the gazebo steps and the microphone set up for a speaker, and my stomach drops.

Brynn must see them at the same time. “Summer’s memorial,” she says. Her voice sounds thin and uncertain, like a ribbon beginning to fray.

“Should we stop?” Abby asks.

“No,” Brynn and I both say together. Abby looks surprised, but she doesn’t argue.

When we drive past Perkins Road, Wade raps a knuckle against the window.

“That’s your street, isn’t it?” he says to Brynn. She gives a nod. “I remember your old house. I came over once for a barbecue when you were, like, five. I think it might have been your birthday party. Do you remember?”

“No,” Brynn says flatly.

“I wore a Batman costume. That was during my superhero phase—luckily,beforeI got really into Green Lantern butafterSuperman—”

“Wade?” Brynn’s voice is fake-sweet. “Can you please keep your weirdness to a minimum?”

Wade just shrugs and smiles. I suck in a quick breath when he makes the turn onto Waldmann Lane, navigating around a honeysuckle bush that cascades halfway into the road. How many times did Owen and I make the walk up the hill together, while he used a stick to beat at the grasses at the side of the road and overturn the mushrooms growing between the pulpy leaves, while I let every single word I’d swallowed during the school day come pouring out of me, a sudden release that felt as beautiful and natural as dancing?

Abby whistles when we crest the hill and the house comes into view, an enormous patchwork of stone and wood extensions, additions and modifications tacked on over almost two centuries. There was always something sad about the Waldmanns’ house—I’d always thought it must be because Owen’s mom died at home, just dropped dead one day from a cancer everyone had thought was in remission—but now it looks worse than sad. It looks broken and wild. The breakfast room, which used to feel like beinginside a snow globe, has been completely destroyed. A tree has come down straight through the roof.

“Well,” Abby says, “that’s one way of redecorating.” Brynn snorts.

“You guys stay here,” I say quickly when Wade parks. I know, suddenly, that I need to get Owen alone. If he did what I think he did, he’s been keeping the secret for years. There must be a reason, and I won’t—I can’t—believe that he did it. That after the years that had passed, he was guilty after all. “I’ll talk to him.”

Wade is already halfway out of the car but now slumps back in his seat, obviously disappointed. Brynn twists around to look at me, and for a second something flares deep in her eyes, an expression of care or sympathy or maybe just pity. Then she clicks her seat belt closed again.

The gate—a new gate—is open. A big truck is parked in the driveway:Krasdale Landscaping + Tree Removal. I don’t see any other cars. Someone is working a saw—the air is shrill with the sound of metal on wood, a sound that makes my teeth feel like they’re getting filed. The air smells like running sap. Like heat and rot and insects. Like summer.

I start down the flagstone path, now choked with grass and weeds, toward the front door. One of the landscapers, ropy and muscled, comes around the corner of the house, carrying a chain saw. He shouts to someone out of sight. Then he turns to me.

“Not home,” he says, gesturing toward the door with his chain saw.

“Do you know where he went?” I ask, wrapping my arms around my waist, even though it isn’t cold. Just creepy to stand in a place that used to be familiar when it now feels so foreign, like standing on the bones of a former self. He shakes his head. “You know when he’ll be back?” I ask. He shakes his head again. My phone buzzes in my bag. I turn around, squinting, to see whether Brynn or Abby is gesturing to me, but can’t make out anything beyond the glare of the windshield.

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