First Love: A Superbundle Boxed Set of Seven New Adult Romances (84 page)

“Alright, I’ll go,” he finally gives in, and he sighs dejectedly as he fetches his coat.

––––––––

The sun has long since gone down when I finally get Owen back to our apartment complex. It took the doctors less than an hour to set his thumb and get him into a cast, but we still had to wait in the emergency room for three hours before that.

“How are you holding up back there?” I call back to him as I pull into the parking spot.

“I... wow, really dizzy,” slurs Owen from the back seat. The doctor gave him some Vicodin to stop the pain, and it’s hitting him like a truck.

“Don’t worry; it’s just the painkillers,” I tell him as I help him out of the car. He wraps his arm around mine and wobbles across the parking lot as I support him

“This way. Careful, don’t trip,” I gently tell Owen, and I guide him slowly, step by difficult step, down the staircase toward his apartment. I imagine that if I let go of him, he’d flop head over heels all the way to the bottom like a human slinky.

It takes me almost half an hour to get him down to the door of his apartment and another five minutes until he figures out where his keys are. He’s so loopy from the painkillers that he’s practically helpless.

Finally, he finds his keys. After the third time he drops them in the snow, I snatch them away from him, unlock the door, and then sigh happily as the welcoming warmth of the apartment washes over me.

“You want anything to drink?” I ask him after getting him comfortable on the couch.

“Um... any beer in the fridge?”

“You’re on Vicodin. You can’t have any.”

“I like tea... can I have tea?”

“Where is it?”

“Top cabinet above the stove.”

I hunt through four cabinets before finally finding the one with all his mugs, and then repeat the process with drawers and spoons while the water heats up in the microwave. In goes the teabag, and then I head to the fridge to get something for myself while his tea steeps.

My attention immediately latches onto the lumpy red fruit sitting on top of a Tupperware full of leftovers. He has a pomegranate!

“And it’s all mine
,” I think excitedly.

I take it and the tea back to the couch and sit down next to him.

“Do you mind if I have this?” I ask, holding up the pomegranate.

“Planning on being here for a while? They take
forever
to eat.”

“I’ll be here as long as you want me to be.”

“Go ahead, then. I... I really want the company,” he answers awkwardly.

I watch him closely as he sips his tea. He looks much better now that the doctor put it in a cast. The bone is set correctly and the swelling in his hand has mostly gone away.

“Owen... what happened to your hand?”

“I got angry,” he answers succinctly.

I silently glare at him. That’s not going to cut it tonight.

“I... well, I got really angry, and I hit the table,” he confesses, pointing to the dining room table.

“You hit the table so hard that you broke your hand?” I ask in shock, gaping at him.

He nods sheepishly.

“Why?” I gasp, shaking my head. “What on earth could possibly get you that angry?”

Owen struggles to his feet without a word and wobbles across the living room away from me. I leap to my feet and hurry after him, worried that he’ll fall and hurt himself.

“I’m okay. Let go of me,” he protests, his voice slurring as he tries to extract his arm from my grip. I shake my head and hold tightly to him, and he quickly gives up. Instead, he leads me up to the wall of photographs and points to one near the sliding glass door to the balcony.

I immediately recognize him in the picture. He was handsome even as a teenager. A young, brown-haired girl stands next to him in the picture and waves to the camera.

“This is my family,” he tells me, his voice calm and quiet.

His father is a gruff, bearded man built like a lumberjack and with about as much fashion sense. Owen clearly inherited most of his genes from his mother; she is slender and beautiful with long, straight blond hair and a narrow nose. His father has brown hair like the little girl.

“You all look very happy,” I say, not sure what else is appropriate.

“Every last one of us is faking that smile,” he tells me, and the sadness in his voice nearly breaks my heart.

“If I didn’t smile in that picture—if I didn’t act like we were a perfectly normal family—I’d have been in deep, deep shit when we got home,” he continues.

I squeeze his arm softly and lean in closer to him as he stares at the picture. I can’t bring myself to say anything, but I hope he knows that I’m listening. I want to hear his story.

He takes a deep breath and turns to face me.

“Those broken bones I told you I’d had before...”

He cuts himself off and starts to turn away from me, but I reach up and gently put my hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“Please tell me,” I whisper.

“They’re all from Dad,” he says, his voice cracking. “He’s why I never go home. He’s still back there, and it’ll be just like it always has been if I ever go back there.”

Without a second thought, I wrap my arms around him and hug him. I’ve never seen someone need to be held so badly in my life.

“I’m scared, Maria. This is my last semester and I still don’t have a job.”

He chokes up as he talks, and I don’t know what else to do but hold him and listen.

“I don’t want to go back home,” he whispers. “I don’t want to be a kid again because going back there means going back into Hell.”

“What about your sister?” I whisper, rocking slowly back and forth as I hold him close. “Is she still back there?”

He lays his head on my shoulder and bursts into tears.

“God, I miss her more than anyone on earth, Maria,” he sobs. “I’d do anything to bring her back.
Anything
!”

“Bring her back?” I repeat as a terrible chill runs down my spine.

Owen looks up at me, his cheeks wet with tears and his eyes wide with fear and distrust. I immediately understand the look on his face. He’s feeling exactly what I felt when I first told Tina about Darren: the fear of rejection, the terror that comes with trusting someone with your darkest secret.

Owen just told me his secret, and now he’s afraid that I’ll hurt him with it.

I’d rather die than hurt him.

“Her name is Samantha, and she died when I was seventeen,” he whispers. “She tried to stand up for Mom during a fight, and Dad threw her down the stairs.”

He starts to cry again and I wrap my arms even more tightly around him.

“I promised I’d protect her,” he sobs inconsolably. “I promised I’d protect her from him, and instead I got scared and hid upstairs.”

All I can do is hold him as I stare at the tiny girl in the photograph. Now that he’s told me his secret, I can see the fake smiles and forced happiness. The only person with a genuine smile is his father.

“She’s gone, and it’s my fault.”

His voice is cold and dead as he finishes, and he pulls away from me and returns to the couch.

“When was your last pain pill?” I ask, hoping to pull his attention away from the miserable memories.

“Four hours ago,” he answers, glancing up at the kitchen clock.

“Okay, let’s get you another.”

He slurps it down with his tea, which has long since gone cold, and he lies back on the couch as I sit beside him.

“I’m sorry, Owen,” I say, picking awkwardly at my fingernails. “I didn’t mean to hurt you by bringing it up.”

“It’s okay,” he answers. “You needed to know what a wreck I am.”

“You’re not a wreck!” I protest, but he only shakes his head and changes the subject.

“You didn’t eat your pomegranate,” he whispers, pointing at the dull red fruit sitting on the coffee table.

“You were more important,” I answer, running a hand through his soft hair as he stares down at the fruit.

“You know why I like pomegranates?” he asks, closing his eyes and leaning his head on the arm of the couch. His voice is dull and slow, as if he’s teetering on the edge of sleep.

“Why?”

“Because they’re so ugly,” he whispers. “They look like they’re totally disgusting.”

“Then why...”

“Yeah... look so disgusting,” he babbles quietly. He’s getting loopier and loopier as the Vicodin kicks in.

He opens his eyes and sits upright again.

“But then... you go and open one,” he says, and he stares at me as if waiting for me to do something.

I stare right back at him, completely confused, until he finally points to the pomegranate.

“Go on. Open it.”

With two quick slices of a butter knife, I cut through the soft husk of the pomegranate and pull it apart into four quarters.

“When you break one open, it’s beautiful and delicious,” whispers Owen. “It’s absolutely perfect, but not until you break it.”

I stare at the glistening red fruit—each deep red pip glowing in the dim light of the apartment—and the pool of juice forming beneath it on the dish. I’m not one for poetry, but I’m stunned to silence.

He lies back down on the couch and closes his eyes. The Vicodin is knocking him out cold.

“Maria?” he whispers, his voice soft and his breathing slow as he begins to fall asleep.

“Yes?”

“You’re just like me, aren’t you?”

I look back at the pomegranate, not sure how to answer him. He’s right—it really is beautiful now that it’s been ripped apart.

“I guess I am,” I finally answer, but it’s too late. He’s already fast asleep.

I run my hand gently through his hair again. He looks so peaceful now that he’s asleep, but once he wakes up, he’ll be weak and scared again just like me.

He rolls in his sleep, and as he turns his head, I see the scar running along his jaw. I nervously reach out and run a finger softly along it. It’s a fine, white line against his already pale skin. Now that I’m close to him, I see more and more scars just like it under his chin, on his neck, and even one running along his eyelid.

I look down at his crossed arms, and now that I know what to look for, I see the scars there too. He has more of them than I can count—some older and nearly invisible, some newer and more obvious—and they’re
everywhere
.

“He really hurt you, didn’t he?” I whisper, and I gently touch his cheek.

He stirs in his sleep and I yank my hand away in fear. He doesn’t wake, though, and my nervousness settles quickly.

Owen’s sister is dead, and he clearly can’t turn to his parents for help. I have Tina to protect me, but who does he have? He’s completely alone.

No, he's not alone at all. Not anymore.

He has me.

Saturday, March 2 – 10:30 AM

Owen

When I wake up the next morning, I feel as if I’ve been run over by a truck. My hand hurts, my neck hurts,
everything
hurts. I try to sit up and nausea hits me like a hammer. I feel like I’m going to vomit, but I’m too dizzy to get up and race to the bathroom.

“Take it easy, dude,” says Craig from somewhere nearby. I could figure out where he was if my head would stop spinning.

“What the hell’s wrong with me?” I groan.

“It’s called Vicodin on an empty stomach,” he answers calmly.

My vision starts to settle out and my eyes finally focus on him. He’s sitting in the armchair across from me, flipping through one of his textbooks. I struggle to my feet and catch myself on the arm of the sofa as I lose my balance and nearly fall over again.

“God, I feel like shit.”

“You look like it too, buddy,” he tells me, shaking his head. “Seriously, go eat something. There’s yogurt in the fridge, or leftover pizza if you think your stomach can handle it.”

It feels like someone’s hitting me in the head with a crowbar as the harsh fluorescent lights flickers to life overhead. I shield my eyes from the glare of the refrigerator’s light bulb and then wobble back to the couch with a slice of cold pepperoni pizza.

“Hey Craig, what time is it?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just relax,” he answers, and I shake my head at him.

“Professor Meador needs me to grade some homework and he wants me to pick it up at noon.”

“I’ve already called him,” Craig tells me, his voice calm and peaceful. “He knows you’re not coming.”

“Craig, that’s my only paycheck.”

I try to get up from the sofa but immediately fall back down.

“I said relax! Just sit down and get some food in your belly, okay?”

“But...”

“Maria’s picking up the homework for you,” he blurts out.

I stare blankly at him, and then suddenly, last night comes rushing back to me.

Maria took me to the hospital. How did I forget that so quickly? She was here with me. She sat next to me on the couch until I fell asleep.

She took care of me all night. I remember it now.

A wave of embarrassment washes over me as I remember telling her about the pomegranate, and then my heart drops into my stomach as I remember the rest.

I told her about Dad and Samantha.

I can’t believe it. I seriously went and told her about my disaster of a family. I close my eyes and sigh as I lean back on the couch. There goes whatever chance I might have had.

I should have known that it was hopeless in the first place; why would a girl as perfect as her want anything to do with a mess like me? I have more baggage than most airlines, and unlike them, I can’t seem to lose any of it.

“Did Maria say anything to you?” I ask quietly, dreading Craig’s response.

“She told me about the Vicodin and the trip to the hospital last night,” he answers. “Sorry I wasn’t around, dude. I had no idea you were hurt. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I didn’t want your help. I didn’t want anyone’s help.”

“You just let yourself sit there with a broken hand? Seriously?”

“Yeah...”

“And here I was thinking Maria was the nutcase.”

I nod sheepishly and pick at the unappetizing slice of pizza.

He’s right; I’m totally crazy. I don’t even know why I hurt myself like this in the first place, and it’s a part of why I’m scared of letting Maria in. If I get close to her—even if she can handle my problems—what happens if I turn into my father someday? I don’t want to hurt her.