God, what is she saying? She hates me. And no one has ever really hated me. I’m always well liked. I work hard at being liked. By my professors, by my employers, by what few friends I have.

This woman doesn’t even know me and she hates me on sight.

“I—I should go.” I stumble backward, practically smacking into Wade, who’s standing right behind me, and then I turn. I’m running down the hall to Owen’s bedroom, where I slip inside and grab my small overnight bag and my purse off the floor, slinging them both over my shoulder so I can make my escape.

I can’t stay here. Owen told his mom he doesn’t have a girlfriend. I don’t exist. So what does that make me to him? His piece on the side? Some dumb girl he’s just … fucking until he’s finished using me and ready to move on to someone else?

The idea is so painful, I can hardly stand the thought.

Blindly I walk through the house, noticing that the front door is still hanging wide open and I have no choice but to leave the way I came. Wade isn’t in the living room. He’s nowhere to be found. I don’t see Owen or his mother, either.

Oh my God. If Fable knew Owen was still in contact with their mom, she’d probably flip out.

I step out onto the front porch to find Fable already there, glaring at her mother as though she wants to tear her throat out, and Owen is grasping hold of Fable’s shoulders to keep her from lunging.

“You need to leave,” Fable is saying, her voice so low, so dark, it sends a shiver down my spine.

I’m frozen, standing by the door, watching the three of them.

“Why does she hate me, Owen?” their mother sobs before she turns into Owen’s chest, crying all over the front of his shirt. He wraps his arm loosely around her shoulders, looking uncomfortable.

“Please. You’re so pathetic,” Fable mutters. “Quit the act and get away from him. Stop trying to ruin his life.”

They hardly notice me and I make my escape, slipping past them and down the short steps, running down the sidewalk without a backward glance. My feet slap against the concrete, my breaths coming fast and full of panic. I can’t stop hearing Owen’s denial that he has a girlfriend, the horrible things his mother said to me, about me. She doesn’t even know me. How could she hate me so much? What did I ever do to her?

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.”

I say nothing because he’s right. I do have my secrets. But he wouldn’t understand. Not now. If I confessed everything to him about Dad, he’d think what he did for his mom was okay. He’d think I understand because of my no-good father. That I’d have no problem with Owen for enabling her. Giving his mom drugs, giving her money, keeping their relationship from Fable, from everyone. It wouldn’t be fair.

My secret will remain my secret.

“You can’t walk away from me like this, Chels,” he says. “Give me another chance.”