Wild Reckless Read online

  “Who the fuck are you?” she says, her breath practically flammable. I look her right in the eyes, then turn to face the front, my mouth never once breaking its hard line. I just need to survive ten or fifteen miles.

  House climbs into the truck and starts the engine quickly, my hands still feeling his seat for a belt as he rounds the corner and peels out of the parking lot.

  “I don’t have belts. Just hold on and keep your mouth shut,” he says, rolling his window down at the stoplight and leaning out yelling something to another car pulling up next to us. The rest of the people that were with their group are packed into an old Bronco, and when one of the guys flips House off and speeds by, he punches the gas fast without even thinking, running the red light right behind his friend, swerving us into the middle lane to regain his lead.

  The dodging and darting for position happens between every stoplight until we get to the edge of town, when House finally punches the gas hard, his engine growling as we speed away from his friend, toward Sasha’s house, toward darkness. My hands are gripping the undersides of my legs hard, trying to keep my heart from bursting with fear, my stomach sour with adrenaline. I hold my breath for minutes at a time, saying silent prayers to a god I’ve never talked to before—the pounding in my chest actually painful by the time we slide into the dirt driveway of Sasha’s house.

  Four or five other cars are out front, and the thumping of the music echoes around us. I don’t hear any people, though, which only makes me feel less sure about the place I’ve stranded myself—about what I’ll see when I get inside. House exits the truck first, then holds the door open and nods his head rigidly, urging me to hurry.

  I slide out, my hand accidentally pressing on the horn as I pass the steering wheel, and House winces.

  “Fuck,” he says, pulling my arm, his squeeze on me rough. He slams the door closed once I clear it. He meets the other girl at the front of the truck, reaching his hand into the waistband at the top of her jeans, his hand on her actual ass.

  I trail behind everyone, entering the house last. Everything is exactly as I remember it. The lights dim, the drone of music drowns almost everything else. People are gathered around the couch and floor, smoking something from a liter bottle. A few others are pouring drinks at the kitchen counter while others make out in dark corners around the house.

  My turn is slow, my eyes careful to catch every face, every outline, weeding out each profile that’s not Owen. But I don’t have to find him. He finds me, his voice haunting, his words harsh—if not indifferent.

  “What are you doing here?” he says, the sound barely audible over the loudness of the music. His tone isn’t angry. It isn’t curious.

  It’s nothing.

  I step into the sitting room, toward the beanbag chair he’s sunken into, the familiar clear glass propped between his fingers on his knee.

  “Decided the dance sounded lame,” I say, taking the seat across from him, leaning back into the softness, letting my arms fold across my chest, like a shield.

  Owen keeps his eyes on me, and I let my mouth relax finally, but I don’t smile—and I don’t breathe. He pushes the plastic glass to his lips, the space between the vodka and his mouth paper-thin, then pulls it away, instead tossing it into the fire next to us—igniting a short burst within the flames.

  “Have enough tonight?” I ask, the tightness in my chest relaxing with every second I’m here with Owen and he’s quiet.

  “Something like that,” he says, his eyes lost somewhere off to the side. I want to get up; I want to move to him, to hold him and kiss him—to make him remember how he felt a week ago. But I’m so afraid of scaring him, of offending him—of the other Owen. So I wait, and I stare into the flames, catching glimpses of him from the side, waiting for him to move, to shift his eyes from whatever thought is holding him.

  “My brother’s gone,” he says, his voice monotone, his gaze still on the blankness of the wall beyond me. “When I went home to check on him…” his head finally shifts, just enough, his eyes finding me—finally. “He. Was. Gone.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, still holding myself to my place, fearful of disrupting our connection, afraid he’ll close this door right back up. Owen is in a cycle. His family is in a cycle, but Owen more so than anybody else. And it’s killing him. I’ve watched it strip life from him in a matter of weeks.

  “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.

  “And here I thought it was because you loved me,” I confess, my chest caving in quickly, threatening to cut me off from saying the rest. I let it tumble out with my last breath. “Just as much as I love you.”

  I let my words hit him, my body still, my thumbnails digging into the palms of my hands—a subconscious effort to create pain anywhere else, to pull this feeling away from my heart. Owen never even moves.

  Before the next wave crashes over me, I turn away, stepping over the sweaters and shoes thrown on the floor. I catch House’s eyes on me from the kitchen, his mouth smirking, like he’s satisfied at my failure to pull Owen back to the light. I pick up my pace, not wanting anyone else to notice me, to see how pathetic I am.

  I barely open the door as I slip outside, and when I do, I’m hit with a wall of wind, air so cold it practically slices through me. I pull Owen’s coat tightly around me, hating that it’s his, that I need it, but thankful for it. I take lunging steps out into the driveway, through the gravel, past House’s truck first, then Owen’s, until my feet find the pavement of the small two-lane road that brought me here. I can see my breath, and the threat of more snow is very real. I know I can’t walk home. It would very likely kill me. But I can’t stay here.

  I won’t.

  I pull my phone from my pocket, the few dollars I folded along with it coming out and falling to the ground. “Shit!” I say to myself, bending down and feeling for them, my hands stinging. I grip them clumsily, but stay low, squatting, while I scroll to Willow’s number, knowing there’s a really good chance she won’t pick up. My thumb hovers over her number for a few seconds before my phone lights up, ringing with a call.

  Owen.

  I stare at the phone, not knowing what to do, then after three rings, his call disappears. Panic swallows me whole, and I drop my money again, my fingers fumbling to call him back when I look up and see him walking swiftly toward me. It takes him three steps more to reach me, his hands clutching my arms. At first I think he’s angry, and I flinch at his touch. But he brings me to his chest, the weight of his body working to shelter me. His hand cradles my head against him, and he only holds me harder when I begin to cry, my body shaking hard with each shudder.

  My core is starting to shiver from the cold, and Owen scoops me into his arms, holding me against him as he strides quickly to his truck, opening the passenger side and setting me inside, closing the door quickly, and running to the other side. He gets in fast, starting the engine and moving the heat to high, then slides across the middle of the bench seat toward me, his hands cradling my face, his fingers rough, and cold.

  “I brought you because I love you,” he says, his words coming out in a rush, his eyes piercing mine, the darkness fighting with the light. “I wanted you to meet him because he’s important to me…and so are you…because I love you. I hurt you…because I love you…because I’m fucked up, my family’s fucked up, and my problems ruin everyone they touch. I don’t know how to stop them, how to separate the good things from all the shit in my life. I ruin everyone I touch. People leave me…they leave me—” Owen’s breath catches, stuttering, his eyes turning redder as he talks. “People in my life…they die, and if they aren’t dead yet, they look for ways to kill themselves. And all I can do is watch.”

  “Owen,” I whisper, my hands wrapping around his wrists. His head falls forward to mine.

  “I love you, Kensi,” he says, his lips grazing mine softly, before he pulls his mouth away again, leaving his head against mine. “I love you…but I will suffocate you. Drown you. Loving me…it will kill you.”

  “No, it won’t,” I say, my hands shaking his wrists. His fingers are still cupping my face, his thumbs trailing tiny circles along my jaw. He rolls his head side-to-side along mine, his breath coming out in a slow spill, his body full of nothing but fear and doubt.

  I slide my hands up his wrists, to his fingers, threading mine through his along my cheeks then bringing them to my lips, kissing them, and letting my lips linger along his knuckles before resting my cheek against his palm. My touch finally opens his eyes, and I look into him, searching for my Owen, making him believe.

  “I love you, and I’m not afraid to love you,” I say. I can see the worry behind his eyes, the warnings working to remind him that he should run, that he shouldn’t feel. I can tell I’m not winning the battle, but I’m fighting the war, and every piece of me I give weakens that fear a little more.

  “I shouldn’t let you,” he says, his bottom lip held under his teeth, his breath a sharp intake. “But I don’t care, Kensi. Because I think I need you to survive. I think I need you to love me, because that’s literally all I’ve got.”

  My hands wrap through his hair, grasping at the back of his head and neck, pulling him to me. Owen’s hands are just as needy, our mouths crashing together hard and fast—this kiss, it’s more than all others. We both hang onto it, neither one of us ending it.

  I kiss Owen until the sun threatens to come up. And after he drives me home, I kiss him again, with the same sense of urgency. My father’s car is gone; it’s a concert night, so my world in my house is safe until tomorrow. I’d be content to stay here, though—in the driveway, in Owen’s truck, kissing him. When my lips are on his, I know he’s here.

  When I finally steal myself away, the worry creeps in again, so I run up the stairs, into my room, collapsing by my window. Owen’s truck is empty outside, and seconds later, his eyes are on me, his body where it should be, his smile finding its way.

  Please, God, don’t let me lose him again.

  Chapter 18

  I’m not sure whether or not Willow meant to text me the photo of her and Elise, smiling happily under the glow of a plastic disco ball. But I’m glad she did.

  Her photo was waiting for me on my phone this morning as I woke up, and I texted back immediately, gushing about how cute they looked, how much fun I bet they had.

  I wouldn’t have traded my night for theirs for all of the disco balls in the world. I’d even live through the hurt and pain of the beginning again to end up with Owen telling me he loves me.

  Yeah, well…the picture would have been cuter if there were three of us in it. Beeyatch.

  Her attempt to call me a bitch makes me laugh.

  You can’t even spell it right, that’s how I know you’re not really mad at me. If you were, that bitch would be full of ‘I’.

  I hold my phone in my palms, my head under my covers, the morning light fading into afternoon. I slept hard and well, asleep at my window by three, then crawling up to my bed at six with a crick in my neck.

  Bitch.

  She sends the single word, and at first it shocks me, and I think she might actually be mad. But she writes again quickly.

  You’re right. That felt dirty. Lose the ‘I’.

  I laugh to myself, and smile, rolling to my side just enough to peer out the window to
see if my mother’s car is gone. It is. She has the long shift today, which means I’ll be free of my father, too. No homework or projects are on my plate, the school semester winding down as Thanksgiving approaches, and James is gone. I know the worry of where he went is there, but the duty of caring for him isn’t. I’m hoping—at least for the day—that Owen will be mine.

  Everything…okay?

  Willow’s text is cautious. She’s trying to be supportive, though I know that’s not how she really feels.

  He said he loves me.

  I tell her because I’m happy. And because she’s the only person in the world I would want to tell. I think, somehow, telling her this will make her see Owen differently. I know it does when my phone rings a second later.

  “You’re shitting me,” she says. No hello or pause to wait for me to answer.

  “I’m not really sure how to answer that,” I say, “but no? I guess? Or yes, he loves me?”

  There’s a pop of her gum over the phone, and I hear her keys jingle in her hand. “I’m at the mall. This is serious, and I’m at the mall. Buying shoes. And there are all these people around talking, and I can’t hear you very well,” she’s speaking a million words a minute. It’s funny.

  “I will give you a play-by-play later. I promise. Go buy your shoes,” I laugh.

  “Okay, but first…you said it back, right?” she says with a small pause in the middle. She’s still worried about me.

  “I did,” I say. I said it first, not that the order matters.

  There’s silence on her end, and I can hear her moving through the door to another store, the faint noise of other conversations in the background.

  “So listen,” she starts, and I wait as the phone shuffles some more, and eventually the background noise fades, and her voice echoes. “I’m sorry I walked away from you. I was being overbearing and protective, and it’s not really my place. But…”

  “Are you in a bathroom?” I ask, really noticing the echo now.