“Owen Harper alert,” Willow says, her eyebrows raised as she stares at me from the other side of the table. I turn to the side and realize Owen is no longer on his table outside, and his friends have all left as well. I somehow missed them leaving, but Willow has spotted him again—right behind me.
“Hey, Kens,” he says, his voice sounding calm and comfortable as he seduces me right here in front of my friends. I’ve become addicted to his voice, so much so that I even considered calling to listen to his voicemail once or twice—fear that he might pick up the only thing stopping me, as silly as that sounds. I swivel in my seat and peer up at him, and my response comes out more like a croak.
“Hey, Owen,” I squeak. My palms are sweating, and I’m pretty sure my arms and back are as well. In fact, everything about me feels like it’s on fire, never mind the gray skies and cold front threatening to bring a massive chill outside the window. Right now, in my body, it’s summer in the desert.
I glance around the table and notice all of my friends suddenly only interested in their trays and food, but their faces are all smirking, and it makes me blush even harder.
“Hey, O. What’s up, man?” Ryan says, the last to slide into his seat. Thank god for Ryan, the only one acting normal. “Conditioning starts next week. You coming?”
“You know it. I might miss a few; I’ve got work. But coach already knows,” Owen says, tapping his fist into Ryan’s as he sits down next to Elise.
“Good. Oh, hell man, what happened to your eye?” Ryan asks, pointing to the spot on his own face that mirrors the deep blue bruise left on Owen’s cheek. It’s the last remnant of his run-in with my father, and the very conversation playing out at our lunch table right now has my throat closing and my stomach threatening sickness.
“Oh, you know. Just messin’ around with House and the boys, pick up games and shit. Some guy didn’t like a call, elbowed me,” Owen says with a shrug. He never looks my direction, but as he sits in the seat across from me, I feel his foot slide up next to mine and tap it twice. He lied for me, just like he promised he would.
“Dude, some guys just can’t keep their cool on the court. I hate that shit. I don’t know why you play those pick-up games anyways,” Ryan says, leaning over and kissing Elise on the cheek. She looks up for a brief second, but she puts her head back down quickly, almost like the rest of my friends have some secret pact to give me pretend privacy when Owen comes to the table. Truthfully, it’s only making me feel weirder.
“So, Kens. Was wondering,” Owen starts, looking around the table at the tops of everyone’s heads. He shakes his and pinches his brow at how strange my friends are all being. I kind of want to die.
“I have to work Friday, but I thought maybe, if you’re not busy, I could repay you for that grilled cheese emergency this weekend? My mom’s going to be home, and she’d like to meet your mom, if she’s off Saturday night,” Owen says, his eyes focusing solely on his knuckles, which he’s cracking nervously, over and over. His foot under the table is now tapping quickly with nerves, and it’s starting to make the entire table shake a little.
“Uh, Saturday?” I repeat his question, my mind searching for a way to make Saturday happen twice—one version I can live through with Owen and his mom, and the other where I can go to the festival and perform with the band. I’m about to lie, about to pretend there is nothing else I have to do on Saturday so I can make Owen’s leg stop shaking and so I can spend Saturday night with him, meet his mom, when Jess decides now would be a good time to quit looking at his lap and insert himself back into my reality.
“You can’t, Kensi. We’ve got the apple fest,” Jess says, and everyone stops breathing simultaneously. He couldn’t say I had a thing, a band assignment, a performance, something…anything…with them—no, Jess had to go and be specific, painfully specific.
I flash my gaze back to Owen, and now he’s the one looking at the top of the table, his hands no longer wringing, his foot no longer jiggling. His face is just pure emptiness—as if he’s just had the wind knocked out of him—and the way his lip is hanging open and quivering with the struggle to breathe lets me know that this is the first he’s heard of the apple fest. It lets me know that Willow wasn’t exaggerating her story about Owen and that day. I know it because the look of absolute pain that’s fallen over him, taken over his body completely, isn’t one that could come from anything but tragic loss. And Owen’s experienced the deepest tragedy of all.