by Ginger Scott
“Yeah…I’d like to eat pie with you, Owen Harper,” I say, biting the edge of my bottom lip to hold my soft grin in place, to keep the full-on smile from creeping too far. It’s my first foray into blatant, forward flirting, and my hands are numb with nerves. I’m pretty sure my mouth no longer works, but the way my stupid little sentence makes Owen’s cheeks flush makes my courage worth the effort it took to muster it.
Owen and I trail behind the rest of our group, Andrew and House peeling away to step in line for some ride that looks like it’s sole purpose is to induce brain damage and vomiting by the way it flips people around over and over again. Willow keeps glancing over her shoulder; I get the sense she’s checking up on me to make sure Owen isn’t upsetting me.
We all stop at the largest food booth in the center of the festival grounds, and Owen orders for me, asking a man with a grizzly beard and biker tattoos wrapped around both arms and neck for two slices of “mama’s best.”
“He’s not Mama, right?” I ask, and Owen chuckles.
“No,” he says, still laughing a little when the biker man hands him two plates slathered with caramel and large chunks of apple and crust. I follow Owen over to a picnic table, sliding in across from him. “It’s Carolyn Potter’s recipe, but she died a few years ago. Those are her boys. They look rough, but they’re not really. That one?” Owen nods in the direction of a more heavy-set blonde guy who also has a beard and his own impressive set of tattoos.
“Yeah?” I acknowledge, pulling my plate in front of me and smelling the aroma steaming from it.
“He’s Santa,” Owen says, pushing his fork in and lifting up a hefty bite of pie. “Not like…the real Santa. I mean he plays Santa. Every year, at the hospital.”
I take a moment to admire the man he pointed out, watching closely as he laughs with his brothers, all of them large and weathered, but wearing smiles that are infectious. Santa looks like he’s picked up his mother’s duties, and at one point, he’s actually whistling as he peels a ringlet of skin away from an apple.
“Do you know them well?” I ask, stopping to take my first bite of pie. The second it hits my tongue, I concede, my eyes flipping to Owen’s while the flakiness of the crust disintegrates into a perfect buttery blend in my mouth, the caramel coating the crunch of the apple, and the tartness coming through at the end. “Holy shit!”
Owen laughs so hard he has to cover his mouth with his arm, his mouth still full from his bite, he’s coughing from almost choking. “I told you. It really is good pie,” he says, and I like the way his eyes look right now. This moment. This is the Owen Harper I like the very best. “And yeah, I know them pretty well. House’s mom is married to the cashier; his name’s Dale. And my dad…”
Owen stops there. He’s pretending to chew his bite while he looks out at the festival crowd, his thumb rubbing over the handle of his fork. After several long seconds, he brings his eyes back to mine, taps his fork a few times on his plate while his teeth hold the edge of his tongue, almost as if he’s deciding how much of himself is safe to reveal. “My dad used to help out at the hospital with him…on the holidays. I remember a little, but I was four or five, so it’s all sort of fuzzy, ya know?”
“Yeah, I know fuzzy,” I say, thinking about my youth, before my life became all about the piano and concertos and following in my father’s footsteps. Owen looks away again, and I can tell he’s trying to remember more, feel more—bring his past in line with the present. I study him while he’s not looking at me. His eyelashes are long and dark, and his jaw is squared, like a man’s. My last boyfriend, if you could call him that, had soft skin, a voice that wasn’t fully settled in and he watched cartoons in the afternoons. Jacob was privileged, and drove his father’s Infiniti to school every day. But looking at Owen now and holding him up against what I remember of Jacob, I realize just how far away from becoming a man he was.
“Why do people think you’re so much trouble?” I blurt out, and Owen laughs through his last bite, holding his hand over his mouth so he doesn’t lose it.
“Kens, I mean…all this?” he says, waving his hand from the top of his head down to his legs, all the while still chewing and mumbling through his words. “I’m pretty high maintenance.”
He reserves his serious face while I stare at him, and eventually I pick up the edge of my crust and throw it at him.
“Hey, that’s like a felony, you know—wasting perfectly good crust! Shame on you, pie privileges revoked,” he says, stealing my plate away.
“You can have it. Ugggg, I’m so full,” I say, hand rubbing my stomach.
Owen doesn’t even hesitate, shrugging and piling the remnants of my pie into his mouth in two bites—then carefully dragging his fork over the surface to make sure he’s captured every single crumb. It makes him seem like a little boy, and frankly, it melts my heart.
He stands when he’s done, carrying both of our plates to the trash, and I take advantage of this moment to admire his body, how tall he is, how broad his shoulders are, how warm everything about him looks. A part of me is aching to touch him.
“Seriously, what’s the story behind your story?” I ask again, trying to keep myself focused, hoping I’m not pushing too hard. Owen reaches behind his head, pulling his hood over his hat and zipping the front of his jacket closed while he stuffs his hands inside the pockets. He does this when he’s uncomfortable, and I’ve seen him do it before, but this time his smile doesn’t leave his face.
“Yo, Ryan,” he says, leading me over to the next table, where the rest of my friends are still finishing their slices. “So Kens wants to know why people think I’m an asshole.”
“Hey!” I shout, slapping my hand against his arm. “I did not say that!”
“No, not directly. But, let’s face it, Kens. People don’t call me trouble; they call me an asshole,” he says, his lips pressed together in a tight smile, his shoulders raised.
“I’ll tell you why he’s an asshole,” Ryan says, surprising me since he’s always the first to defend Owen to me. “He’s an asshole…” he continues, standing and pushing his empty plate in Owen’s chest, “because he’s a ball hog who doesn’t like to pass. Hey, ball hog, go take my shot and throw my plate in the trash, would ya?”
Owen blows a kiss at Ryan, who does it right back, and the two of them laugh, but Owen throws Ryan’s plate away anyway. There’s a genuine respect between them both, like Owen has with House. I wonder why they aren’t closer.
“I could give her a few reasons if you’d like,” Willow says, standing to throw her garbage away next.
“Oh, I’m sure she’s heard everything you’ve got to say,” Owen says, reaching out and taking Willow’s plate from her as well. His gesture surprises her, and I notice her brow pinched as she follows him with her gaze while he does her this small, but in many ways enormous, favor.
“Uh…thanks,” she says, and he blows her a kiss next. “And there he is.”
“You don’t hate me. You hate the me I was when I was fourteen,” Owen says, challenging her. Willow pauses at the end of the table, keeping her eyes on him, her eyes squinting while she considers what he said, and she finally sucks in her bottom lip and nods once before responding.
“Okay. Clean slate. But…” she says, coming closer to him, just close enough that I can hear her whisper at his back, “don’t give me a new reason to hate you, okay heartbreaker?”
Owen’s laugh is fast and soft, and more of an acceptance of her warning. He never says anything out loud, and Willow pats his back—with a little extra muscle—while she passes behind him.
“Rides!” Elise finally chants, standing next to Jess, grabbing his trash and practically leaping from the table. “I have waited,” she starts, pausing to count on her fingers, “like way too many years to get my ass on that rollercoaster. Ryan Barstow, I hope you’ve got an iron stomach, cuz we’re riding that thing a dozen times.”
“Yeaaaaah, I got something you can ride,” House says, stepping up behin
d us and grabbing his crotch, literally taking the conversation to the playground.
“Don’t do that shit,” Ryan says, poking his finger hard in House’s chest, then grabbing Elise’s hand and kissing the top of it before pulling her into his arm at the side as they walk away. She doesn’t seem offended, and she’s quick to shrug House’s statement off, but I’m a little bothered by it. I’m not sure how I would handle him talking to me like that—well at all, and I wonder what Owen would think.
With a single comment, House has managed to send everyone in various directions; the only people left with him now are Owen, Andrew, and me. I’m starting to understand why Ryan and Owen don’t hang out often. I’m pretty sure it’s House.
“Dude,” Owen says, wincing at his friend.
“Oh, don’t give me that shit. You know I only have one level. I don’t tone it down for no one,” House says, shrugging his shoulders in his giant hoodie, then pulling it up over his head. He’s embarrassed, whether he wants to admit it or not.
“I need some cash,” Andrew says, holding his hand in front of Owen’s chest, twitching the ends of his fingertips, like he’s scratching an itch.
“Then I guess you need a job,” Owen says, his hands still lodged in his pockets.
“Yeah, I’d get one of those, but I have this super overbearing brother who makes me take double high school, so I’m not really sure when I’ll find the time…” Andrew trails off because Owen holds a twenty out for him in the middle of his speech.
“Yeah, yeah. Good point. Just go to college. Now take my money; it’s all I’m good for,” he teases, and Andrew winks at him once and pats his shoulder before jogging over to some carnival game with House.
And for the first time tonight, Owen and I are completely alone. A group of kids run by waving tickets, and a mom rushes behind Owen with a pile of napkins held fast to her son’s bloody nose. There’s activity everywhere, yet it feels like Owen and I exist in a bubble.
“I got busted with a gun,” Owen says, and his statement is so out-of-the-blue, it makes me shake my head. I’m trying to find the context.
“What?” I finally ask.
“You asked why people think I’m trouble,” he says. “That’s when it started. I was in sixth grade, and I brought my big brother’s gun to school.”
“Oh,” I say, my chest growing tighter with worry about rumors I fear Owen is about to confirm.
“There was this big kid, his name was Hunter, and his dad was on the town council or something like that. Anyway, Hunter made my life a living hell. He told everyone…” Owen looks away, taking a deep breath, so I reach over and tug on his sleeve to bring him back to me. When he turns, his face tilts to the side, and his lips form a perfectly straight line, not a smile, but not a frown. They are complete nothingness.
“About your dad?” I finish for him.
Owen nods, looking down at his feet. “He would follow me home with his friends, yelling shit like ‘your daddy was a crazy man’ and ‘when are you going to go crazy?’”
“That’s not very nice,” I say, and inside my head I paint a mental picture where I punch this Hunter kid. Owen smiles at my response.
“Yeah, well, one day I brought James’s gun to school, and I told Hunter about it and said I was going to shut him up,” Owen says, his eyes drifting into that dark place as he remembers. His confession is scaring me, but I hold my ground and keep the worry away from my face.
“I didn’t mean it. I was just acting tough. And I didn’t know any better. My grandpa practically raised us, and he wasn’t very well most of my life. And my mom, she was working, even back then. But Hunter ran to his dad, who called the cops, busted my locker open, and the next thing I know my mom was piecing together every penny in our savings account to bail my ass out of juvie.”
“Wow…I gotta be honest. I was expecting you to tell me it was all lies,” I say, unable to stop my upper body from convulsing in a shiver as the breeze picks up, dropping the air another ten degrees. Without pause, Owen unzips his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders, still careful not to let his hands touch my skin.
“Thank you,” I smile, pulling the sleeves over my arms and wrapping myself with the fabric still carrying the warmth from his body. I imagine for the briefest moment that instead of his jacket, I’m in his arms.
“You want me to be honest?” Owen says, and there’s a glimmer in his eyes that worries me, making me wonder, but I nod anyhow, giving a slight tip of my chin, then I wrap my arms and Owen’s hoodie around me even tighter. “If there’s a rumor you’ve heard about me…” he says, his head tilting down ever so slightly to make sure my eyes are met by his, “it’s probably true.”
“You held a gun to your head?” My question is a whisper, my inner voice pleading for him to tell me everything except that. Everything. Except that.
Owen stands his ground, his head still tilted so our eyes are locked, and he never flinches. Not. Once.
I wipe the tear away quickly, but not before he sees it, and his mouth falls with his spirit.
“Why?” I ask.
Owen shrugs at first, looking beyond my shoulder. When I turn, I notice our friends are walking toward us, Elise excitedly leading the way. When I turn back, I catch Owen’s intense gaze waiting for me.
“I don’t really smoke. And if you’ve ever noticed, I don’t do drugs. I never once take that shit my friends pass around. I drink. Yeah, I do drink, but that’s it. The rest? The rest are all risks I control. I like to feel that edge, to know where it is,” he says, a fire flashing in his eyes.
“But what happens when you lose?” I ask, and his fire fades quickly, and suddenly he’s back here with me.
“Then I’ll know I’m just like him,” he says, and my chest completely slams closed, my heart exploding all at once.
“Ryan’s sick. I made him go on the big drop too many times,” Elise says, and I breathe in a sharp, quick breath—trying to erase, or at the very least bury, everything I just heard.
“Oh, poor guy. You guys done then?” I ask, trying to ignore the look Willow is giving me over the fact that I’m smothering myself in Owen’s jacket. I’m far deeper than she realizes.
“Elise wants to ride the big wheel, then we can go…” Ryan stops himself, looking at his friend and realizing his major slip. Everyone is hit with discomfort simultaneously, and no one wants to be the next to speak.
“It’s okay. Really,” Owen says, being brave. Perhaps just taking a risk. “I’m here, and that was hard enough. It’s just a stupid Ferris wheel.”
“Right, it’s way different, too,” Willow says, but Jess leans into her shoulder hard, stopping her from making this worse. “I just meant…from when we were kids…shit. I’m sorry Owen. Hey, I’m just going to go buy my ticket.”
“And I’m going to go with her and make sure she keeps her mouth shut,” Jess says as Willow elbows him while they leave. Elise and Ryan follow them, and Ryan mouths a “sorry” as they pass; Owen shrugs it off.
“My brother always wanted to ride this thing,” he says, looking up at the flashing lights, the spinning buckets, the massive height.
“I could take him…if you want?” I say, and Owen drops his chin, his eyes softening at the sight of me.
“Take me on what? The wheel? Oh heck yeah, I’m in!” Andrew says as he strides up behind me. I follow him to the ticket line, and he’s talking about how one of the games he was trying to win is fixed, something about the bottle tops being too large for the ring.
His voice is muffled in my ears because I’m desperately trying to keep my attention on Owen. When we step up to the window, I make my request for two tickets, ready to pay for Andrew’s, but Owen’s hand reaches over my shoulder, and he slides a ten through the small slot in the window.
“Make it four,” he says. “You can ride with House,” he says to Andrew.
“Oh, it’s okay. Really, I can just wait on the ground with you. We’ll eat more pie,” I stammer, trying to give him a
n out as the woman in the booth takes his money and slides four passes into his hand.
“You couldn’t possibly want more pie,” he smiles, handing House and Andrew their passes, his eyes having a silent conversation with his brother and friend. “Guys, really…it’s just a ride.”
Andrew nods and moves to the line for the ride, but House sticks with Owen for a little longer, his eyes telling a different story. “I’m fine,” Owen says, he grits through his teeth, his voice almost threatening toward his friend.
“Sure you are, man. But if you suddenly decide you’re not, you tap out, got it?” House says, holding up his fist, waiting for Owen to accept. Owen just pushes it away finally, his motion harsh and abrupt as he turns and leaves his friend standing with me while he joins his brother in line.
I walk to join them slowly, and before House and I get too close, I ask: “What is tapping out?”
“It’s our safety plan. When we race, there’s always a point where we have each other’s backs—where it’s safe to admit we’ve had enough. We bail on whatever the situation is, back off the gas, pull over and calm down,” House says.
“You ever need the safety plan?” I ask, and he nods yes.
“Has he?” I know the answer as soon as I ask, but it’s confirmed when House sucks in his bottom lip and raises his brow.
The ride before us goes quickly, and Owen is handing the carnival worker our pair of tickets before I’m ready. Instinctually, I look around us, expecting to see a crowd gather, to see people whispering in horror, amazed at what Owen is about to do. But nobody cares. My friends are all up in cars on the other side of the wheel, their view of this completely obstructed. They have no idea how brave Owen’s about to be—and I’m terrified that he’s not really being brave at all, that he’s only being wild, as Willow would say.
“Locked and ready,” the carnie man yells, signaling something to the ride operator. With a jerk, we stream upward about twenty feet, halting fast and our gondola swinging back and forth while we wait for the bucket below us to load more riders.
