Page 83 of Broken Things

“But—” It doesn’t make sense. And yet I know he’s telling the truth. I believe. “You told me you didn’t love me anymore.”

“I learned to stop,” he says, and his voice breaks, and my heart explodes against the sky in cinders and ashes. Fireworks. “I made myself. I had to.”

“Owen.” I take a breath. “I still—” But before I can finish, before I can saylove you, the front door opens with a whine and Brynn freezes where she is, hand outstretched to knock.

“Oh.” Ms. Gray looks almost relieved. As if she’s been standing there, waiting for us, all this time. “I thought you would come.”

Inside the house it’s dim and sticky-hot, although several window units are regurgitating air. Maybe that’s why she keeps the lights off and the curtains closed: a single lamp pushes feeble yellow light through a graying lampshade.

The house looks just as featureless inside as out. It’s very clean,and the wood floors are bare. The furniture is all the do-it-yourself kind made out of painted plywood and cheap plastic. There are no pictures on the walls except for a framed painting of two yellow-haired cherubs cavorting in a sky of puffy pink clouds that looks as if it belongs in a bad diner or a dentist’s office.

In the living room, Ms. Gray invites us to sit on a couch upholstered in itchy beige. She sits across from us in a fake-leather armchair so stiffly resistant it squeaks under her weight. Possibly no one has ever sat there before.

“Would you like something to drink?” Her tone is pleasant. She interlaces her fingers on her lap. The woman who taught me the meaning of the wordspermicide. God. “I don’t keep soda in the house. But I have lemonade. And water, of course.”

“We’re fine,” Brynn says quickly.

“All right,” she says. “Well, if you change your mind...”

“Ms. Gray.” Owen’s mouth sounds dry. He’s sitting very straight, palms to thighs, and I press my knee hard into his. For boundaries and safety and comfort. “You said you thought we would come. What did you mean?”

Ms. Gray tilts her head, birdlike. She says in a measured voice, “It’s about Summer, isn’t it? I thought you would come about Summer.”

I’m surprised that I’m the one who answers. Always in the strangest moments I find I have a voice. “Yeah,” I say. “It’s about Summer.”

Ms. Gray looks away, toward a window curtained off, reflectingnothing. “I knew,” she says. “When you said you were doing a project for her memorial, I knew. Why would you need to talk to me? You were her best friends. You were more than that.” She looks at Owen and for a brief second her whole face peels back—and beneath it is an expression of such jealousy, such need, that my stomach goes watery and loose and I almost run like I did all those years ago. But then her face closes again and she looks like the same old Ms. Gray. “I knew then,” she says, and she looks down at her hands. “But I guess in some ways I’ve been waiting.”

“Is that why you didn’t leave Twin Lakes?” Brynn asks.

“I liked to be close to her,” she says quietly.

“Tell us what happened,” Owen says. He still hasn’t moved—maybe he can’t move—but he’s gotten it together, doesn’t seem anxious or angry anymore. “When did it start?”

Ms. Gray looks away again. “You have to understand,” she says after a long pause. “I loved Summer. I saw myself in her. I was raised in the system, too, bounced between homes—” She breaks off. Then: “You don’t understand, can’t understand what it’s like. I was never loved by anyone, I don’t think. I was never even liked, really. If you’re lucky, you’re tolerated. And then you’re supposed to be grateful. Have you ever had a dream where you’ve tried to run and can’t? Tried to yell and can’t? That’s what it’s like. Like...” She trails off.

“Like being a shadow,” I say, and she smiles a nice normal teacher smile, like I got the right answer on a quiz.

“Summer was having trouble in school. The reading andwriting especially. I offered to help.” She glances at me sideways, and I think of her telling us so casually at TLC that Owen was tutoring Summer. Still clinging to her lies. Still trying to protect herself. The hatred blooming inside me feels toxic, like one of those red tides that stifles everything alive.

“What a sweet little setup,” Brynn says. “You knew she wouldn’t tell anyone. She’d be too embarrassed.”

“No,” Ms. Gray says quickly, turning to Brynn. “I didn’t plan it. I swear. She told me about Lovelorn, and how she’d always wanted to write a sequel. But she was shy, you know, about her writing. I just offered to help.”

“Bullshit,” Owen says. Still calm, still casual, not the wildfire boy who moved but a boy I don’t know, a boy I really, really want to know. Not memory and story but fact and now and real. “You thought it would be easy to put the blame on us.”

“You’re not listening.” Ms. Gray looks upset for the first time. “I’m telling you—I didn’t mean for it to happen. I didn’twantit to happen.”

“You took the gas can,” Owen says. “You left it behind my house.”

Ms. Gray touches a hand to her forehead, and for a second I think she’s going to cross herself, but she lets the hand drop. “That was afterward,” she says. “I didn’t know what to do. And I figured that’s where she’d gotten them. You were the only thing she could talk about, in the end. Owen, Owen, Owen. She knew you didn’t really care about her, you know. She knew there wassomeone else.” Her eyes slide to mine and I have to look away. “Besides, she had your sweater. She’d forgotten it at my house the day before. We’d had a fight....”

Why?I want to ask.Why was she in your house at all, removing her sweater, removing any of her clothing?But I can’t bear to hear the answer said aloud.

“My sweater?” Owen repeats.

Brynn shakes her head. “She wasn’t wearing a sweater.”

“I put it over her,” Ms. Gray said. “It was ugly. Dark brown and stained. But it was better than nothing. I was worried, you know, that she’d be cold at night.” She says this matter-of-factly, as if there’s nothing weird at all about stabbing someone seven times and then worrying about how cold she’ll be.

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