And why didn’t Owen defend me?

“Chelsea!”

I hear him call my name and it only makes me run harder. Faster. Tears stream down my face but I don’t bother brushing them away. They flood my vision, make it hard for me to see, and when I trip over a raised crack in the sidewalk, I go flying forward, throwing my hands out and ready to eat concrete.

Only to be caught by Owen, hauled back into his arms with my face pressed against his chest. I can smell him—apples and the outdoors and pine, the scent of fall, of Owen. “Jesus, you’re fast, Chels. Good thing I caught you.”

“Don’t call me that.” I wrench out of his grip and take a step back, nearly tripping on the same spot again, but I gain my footing. He’s talking to me as if nothing’s happened. How can he do that? Everything’s happened. It’s … it’s over. Just like that. “Get away from me.”

He frowns, trying to take a step forward, but I only take one back. “I—let me explain. My mom … she’s crazy. She has a lot of problems.”

“Clearly,” I retort through chattering teeth. I’m freezing. It’s so cold out here and my hair is still wet. “Is it true?”

Owen frowns. “Is what true?”

“That you smoke pot with your mom. That you give her—marijuana and money?”

He sighs and hangs his head, runs a hand over his hair. I feel his despair. See it clinging to him like thick tendrils of smoke, wrapping all around his body, choking him. I ache to comfort him. To take him in my arms and tell him everything’s going to be all right, but I don’t. I can’t.

His earlier denial sliced my heart in two.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me. About my mom,” he says, keeping his head downcast.

“I know. Because you never tell me what’s going on. I’m completely in the dark here, Owen.”

“Really? You feel that way? Because you don’t tell me shit either, Chels. I know nothing about you. Nothing. Beyond you being some sort of child prodigy and graduating high school when you were sixteen—that’s all I got. And that’s not enough,” he says, his angry words flowing out of him like a dammed river that’s finally been let free.

“So you’re saying I’m not enough. That’s why you told your mother that you don’t have a girlfriend.” I wrap my arms around my waist and rub my hands on my arms, but there’s nothing I can do to ease the shaking, or the cold, dark ache that’s consumed my chest, the weight so heavy I can hardly breathe.

“Now you’re just putting words in my mouth.”

“I heard you say it. ‘I don’t have a girlfriend.’ Those words came out of your mouth. Oh, and my favorite, ‘She’s nothing.’ That sentence hurt the most, Owen. Can you deny you said them?” I approach him, stretch my arms out so I can shove at his chest. He goes stumbling backward, his expression one of total shock, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. None of it does. I’m hurting too much. “No, you can’t. So guess what? You don’t have a girlfriend? And I’m nothing? Then you’re right. You don’t have me.”

“I had to say it. I had to tell her that.” His voice is ragged, his expression full of anguish. His eyes are dark and full of so much … too much emotion. I can hardly stand to look at him it’s so painful. “If she knows we’re really together, she’ll try and talk to you. Ruin you. Use you. She uses everyone. It’s what she does best.”

“She hates me.” I pause because I’m finding it hard to breathe. “She doesn’t even kn-know m-me.” My teeth are chattering and I will them to stop. I refuse to fall apart in front of him. He shouldn’t matter so much.

But he does.

“She hates me, too.” He exhales roughly and hangs his head. “And I don’t think she really knows me either,” he mumbles.

I stare at him, dumbfounded. I wonder if I really know him. Did I ever? I believed I did. Only a few minutes ago, I thought I did. “Where’s Fable?”

“Back at my house, chasing our mom out of there.” His expression crumples and I swear, he looks close to crying. My already broken heart threatens to crack deeper and I take a sharp breath, trying to keep everything together. “I should’ve told her Mom was back,” he says. “I’ve kept it from her for months.”

“You should’ve told the both of us. You should’ve been honest with me, Owen.” I turn on my heel and start to walk but he doesn’t chase after me. Not that I expected him to, but … well. Fine.

I did expect him to.

Turning, I look at him. He’s still standing in the same place I left him, in front of someone’s house, standing next to a white picket fence and staring at me as if he can’t believe I would leave him.

But he leaves me no choice.

“So you’re a drug addict, too,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around myself.

He winces. “I smoke pot sometimes. It’s no big deal.”

“You smoke pot more than I think you let on.” I pause. “Is it a problem for you?”

He says nothing, which is answer enough. We both remain quiet and I want to walk away, but I can’t.

I’m not strong enough. Not yet.

“You haven’t been honest with me either and you know it.” His voice is so cold. “You have your secrets. Just like I have mine.”