“I wish he would just O.D. already,” he says, his words flowing with a small laugh, one he quickly hides, ashamed of it. But I know that laughter, it’s not the happy kind, it’s the kind that tries to hide pain, hide the need to cry.

He keeps his eyes fixed on me, but not my face, almost as if he’s not strong enough to look me in the eye. He watches my hands as I rub my arms, my body still cold from the ride here in House’s truck.

“You’re cold,” he says, sliding his coat from the floor over to me. I lean forward and grab it, wrapping it around my body. I mouth the words thank you, and Owen nods.

“You drive yourself here?” he asks, his eyes coming to mine in fits, dropping away quickly.

I shake my head no. “I came with House,” I say.

“You shouldn’t have,” he says, biting his tongue, his lips perched to say more, his mouth working to speak, but no sound coming out for several seconds. “I just meant it wasn’t safe…not…not that you shouldn’t have come,” he says, his eyes coming to mine again, holding longer this time.

“Jess said he saw you smoking,” I say, regretting it instantly, Owen’s gaze quickly falling away. He shrugs. “You…you smoke?”

He shrugs again, and it feels empty. It makes me feel empty. I’ve never seen him smoke. I’ve never tasted it on him. He told me his only vice was drinking. Drinking…and death.

“Just a few times…” he says finally, his head to the side. His eyes lost again to the flames. “Only recently. It calms me.”

I’ve seen Owen angry. He embraces it, lets it fuel him and carry him through anything. He’s fearless. But this Owen is far from angry. He’s beyond sadness.

“He says you bought drugs, too. Was that just about being angry, too?” I say, my hands squeezing my biceps, my arms hugging my chest tighter, my frustration building. This question, it seems to stir something, and Owen leans forward slowly, his eyes dark as his hands meet one another in front of him, his knuckles popping one at a time.

“Is this you trusting me? You get your friends to spy on me, spread rumors and come back to you with dirty little secrets?” he asks, the corner of his mouth twitching as his tongue wets the edges of his lip.

“Is it a lie?” I ask, looking at him with the same strength he’s showing, not backing away from his challenge. I wait, and Owen waits to. Never answering.

After what feels like a minute, he leans back, his hands folded behind his neck. “James needed more of that shit your mom gave him. We don’t have insurance, so I bought it off the street. House knows a guy,” he says, his head leaning to the side again, but his eyes still fixed on me.

His answer stabs me in the heart, and I feel horrible for doubting him. The silence takes over again, choking me, and my chest burns. I don’t know how to fix this, how to fix any of this.

“You get what you came for?” he asks finally, and I let the silence take over again, my mouth unable to work, and my mind unable to build words to say. The way Owen’s looking at me—it’s as though I fit into his collection of disappointments, and I don’t know how this happened, and it’s breaking me in front of him. The muscles in my legs are firing with the want to move, trying to help my heart escape this place before I show him what he’s done, how easily he’s destroyed me.

But I can’t move.

As much as he’s hurting me right now, he also owns me. And I let the tear slide down my face slowly without wiping it away. I let Owen see—I let him see inside.

“Why did you take me to see your grandpa today?” I ask, the same question I asked earlier, the one he never fully answered.

Our eyes lock, and I choke down the desire to blink away the water building in mine, giving Owen everything I have left. I wait. And I wait. The fire snapping, the sound of my breathing heavy in my own ears, the thumping of the music a room away, fading to a dull drumming pattern. I’m in a tunnel, Owen the only thing I see, and inside I’m screaming for him to give in, to feel something, to let himself feel anything other than wronged and cursed. Owen shrugs finally, his lip lifting the tiniest hint.

He’s mocking me.

With one look, he breaks me, and the tears threatening to fall find the heat of my cheeks. My eyes flutter, almost feeling sleepy from the hammering of emotions tearing into me. I stand to my feet, listening to that voice inside that has been begging me to leave since the moment I slid into House’s truck. My feet take three steps away from Owen, pausing while I shut my eyes. I ball my hands into fists and push them against my face. Stop crying, stop crying, stop crying… I can hear my own voice in my head, and even in my thoughts, I am torn and in pieces. I turn slowly, filling my lungs with one final inhale. I find Owen’s eyes quickly, everything behind them empty—lost.