Page 42 of Broken Things

Another guy comes around the house, this one reed-thin, shirtless, and the color of raw leather, with a skinny blond mustache and a goatee and lots of bad tattoos. There’s an unlit cigarette in his mouth. Maybe backcountry, or one of the cottage kids.

“You need help with something?” His tone isn’t exactly welcoming.

“I was just looking for a friend,” I say. “I’ll come back.”

“He had a funeral,” he calls out when I’m halfway to the car.

“What?” I turn around.

“No, not a funeral.” He’s got his cigarette lit, and he exhales a long stream of smoke from his nose, dragon-style. Definitely backcountry. I wonder if he knew Summer. I wonder if he knows me. “A memorial or whatever you call it. There was a girl who died a few years ago. Got axed. Nearly took her head off.” When he smiles, he tilts his head back and narrows his eyes, like a cat looking at something it can eat. “Yourfriendis supposed to be the one who did it.”

As always when someone mentions the murder, I get a weirdout-of-body feeling, like the moment right before you faint. “She didn’t get axed,” I say. My voice sounds loud. I’m practically shouting. “She was stabbed. And he didn’t do it.”

I turn around and practically sprint back to the car.

“No luck?” Brynn says, when I get into the car.

“He’s not home.” I feel strangely out of breath, as if I’ve been forced to run a long distance. “He went up to town for the memorial.”

“What?” Brynn squawks. “Is he insane? He’ll get lynched.”

“Come on,” Abby says. “It isn’t that bad, is it? Not after all this time. We were at the school yesterday and no one bothered us.”

“That’s because no onenoticedus.” Brynn pivots completely around in her seat to glare. “You live here. You should know how people are.”

“I’m antisocial, remember?” Abby says serenely. “I’m a shut-in, like Mia.”

“I thought you were famous.”

“Online.”

Brynn rolls her eyes. “Sorry, Batman. You don’t exactly look like you’re trying to fly under the radar.”

Brynn has a point: today Abby’s wearing a polka-dot taffeta skirt with a ruffled hemline, a T-shirt that saysWinning, chartreuse shoes, and her Harry Potter glasses.

“I think we should go,” Wade says.

Brynn rounds on him next. “Oh, yeah, right. That’d go over real well. Sorry, but I’m already full-up on shitty ideas.”

“I’m serious.” Wade turns around, appealing directly to Abby. “Killers often can’t stay away—from the scene of the crime, from the media, from anything having to do with the case. What do you want to bet the killer will be at Summer’s memorial?”

“He’s right,” Abby says. “I watched a whole documentary about it.”

I can feel Brynn’s eyes on me and I look away. Owen came home after five years, right in time for Summer’s memorial. Could it possibly be coincidence?

No. Of course not.

But then I think of his smile and the way he used to chuck my arm and say,Hey, Macaroniwhen we passed in the halls. The afternoons up in the tree house, eating cheddar cheese on graham crackers, which was weird but surprisingly delicious. How he would watch my dance routines, really watch, his chin cupped in his hands, totally interested, no matter how long they were. The kiss.

And I know thatthatOwen, the old Owen, the Owen I always believed in even after he broke my heart, is the only thing I have left. I can’t lose it, too.

“That’s what everyone will think ifweshow,” I say. My voice sounds faint and fuzzy. Like a bad recording of itself. “They’ll think we just couldn’t stay away.”

“We don’t even have to get out of the car,” Wade says. “We’ll just get as close as we can, and we’ll watch.”

Brynn shakes her head. “No. Mia’s right.”

“Come on, guys.” Wade looks from me to Brynn, then back to me again. “Don’t you want to finish this?”

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