Page 47 of Broken Things

“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 thecrinkle-crinkleof the bag.

“I thought Brynn thoughtIwas 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 toher 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 breakthe 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 bigwhooshof 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.”

“Tutoringher?” 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 sawReturn to Lovelornuntil 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.”

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