Owen

9 - And She Cries

9 - And She Cries

We stay there for a long time, my eyes never running out of tears. I don't know why I'm crying, really. Maybe it's because I'm so relieved to find Owen again. Maybe it's because I'm happy Grandma was right and he's perfectly safe. Or maybe it's because he kissed me. Owen Richards kissed me. On the lips.

With my sore, red eyes I look at the person leaning against me, whistling little snores. His eyes are loosely shut, like any moment he'd wake up and be up and about. But his forehead still feels incredibly hot ... Worried, I look at the line of the fast food chain from outside. Edrin, judging from the weird crinkled shirt I've commented on on the bus, is still there, two people away from the counter.

How much can these guys order? I think, rather angrily, as the woman in front jabbers on and on to the cashier, whose face I can't see, but is probably as irritated as me.

That's when the doors open. The glass doors with the words EXIT on a red rectangle above it swings, revealing a girl I'm waaaay familiar with holding hands with a guy I don't really know. I cry her name, close to sobbing again, because every time I brush against Owen, I feel his temperature.

"Erica!"

She looks back because the boy and her are really fast walkers (I used to always lag behind her when she's really excited about something - I can't really keep up with her superhuman speed), and her eyes go really really wide. "Amy? Ohmigod, Amy!"

Then she lets go of the guy's hand and the guy says, "hey, wait up!" before they run (really, really fast) towards the bench we're sitting on.

"Amy, it really is you!" Erica says, her chinky eyes getting rounder by the second. She reaches out to hug me and then realizes she can't because there's a person beside me. "And, and, who's that?"

"Owen," I reply simply, almost happily because I know Erica'd agree to let us into their apartment, and a "woah" escapes her pink-lipsticked lips. "He has a high fever and I was wondering if-"

"High fever huh?" the boy with her spoke, and touched Owen's forehead. "This guy's going through hell right now, literally, with this temperature."

I look up, grateful even by a stranger's pity, and see someone with perfect teeth. A lopsided hat. A plastic bag with french fries in his hand.

"Terrence?" the name comes out shaky as I look back and forth between my so called crush (ex-crush? I'm not informed that your crush list is reset when you move) and so called best friend. "You two are ... dating?"

Erica's staring at me, still taking in what just happened. "Oh shit," she mumbles, looking at my tired, widened eyes. "I didn't have time to tell you." Terrence takes her hands, as if to make a point. Something cracks inside me.

"For how long," I say, not a question, because it's as if I'm suddenly too tired to even bother with intonation. Like I'm tired with everything.

I have a best friend who keeps secrets from me. I have an ex-crush who hooked up with my best friend. I have a friend who only seems to care about me because he's being fed by my Grandma. And leaning against me is someone so determined to find out how I grew up to be like this, he ran away. When he could've just asked me. What's more ... he can only see me as Amy, apparently, when he's almost delusional with fever. I sigh.

"A week?" Terrence answers happily, unable to see the growing tension. "You're her best friend who moved to the province right? I saw her sad alone at the mall two weeks ago I think. When I asked her why, she said it was because she lost her amazing friend, and I thought you died so I said condolence and she got mad and explained and I listened, y'know. Then after we got donuts, because she said it's her comfort food and I don't know, it just built up after that, the donut buying and the donut eating and the donut -"

"There you are!" Edrin thens says, barging his way in between the still-talking Terrence coupled with Erica and me, with a fever-ridden person using my shoulder as a pillow. "Little miss popular in the city huh and uh-oh," he says, upon seeing Owen. "Is that our mister runaway?"

"Yes," I say, not even caring about how that came out. Terrence looks at Erica as if saying, "did I say something wrong?" but she just glares at him and at last speaks up as Edrin offers me food.

"Listen, Amy, you know -"

"Edrin, we're going home after this, okay? Owen's got a fever and I want you to help me carry him onto the bus. We're gonna make a run for that bus, okay, so we get seated."

"Duly noted," Edrin says loyally, cutting off Erica some more as she tries to give me explanations. With tear-filled eyes, she tries to take a step towards me but Edrin waves his hand, stopping her. "Are you Erica?"

"Yes ... " she says, while Terrence seems genuinely confused by everything just stands there beside her, awkwardly patting her back as she cries. "P-please, I just wanna explain."

"She doesn't look like she wants to talk now," Edrin remarks, scanning my blank, staring face and my other hand tugging his sleeve. "Just talk to her some other time okay."

"B-But she was gonna ask for help regarding Ow-"

"We can handle him," Edrin says, rather harshly. "Thank you."

His thank you seems like a shoo-shoo, because Erica just storms off, her face in her hands, crying as her boyfriend stupidly tries to comfort her. When they finally leave our line of vision, Edrin looks at me again. "Are you okay?"

"No."

"Good."

"Good?" I ask, perplexed. What could be good about not being okay?

"Yes, good. Admitting your feelings to yourself is good. Now cry."

"You're asking me to cry?"

He pats his shoulder. "Cry."

He doesn't need to say it one more time. I cry, telling him in sputtered details how Erica has lied to me in our chats, how I believed her. She told me Terrence asked for me and my name, but they actually went out for donuts. And she also cut off most of our calls because she said she's craving them again.

Then just because I can't stop myself from babbling on, I tell him about Owen, about my frustrations of him trying to learn about me by himself, by creating up a stupid image of me in his head and not learning to appreciate the real thing.

Afterwards, in a shaky voice, I ask him quietly, "Are you only friends with me 'cause you get free food from Grandma?"

Then he laughs, wiping my snotty nose with a crinkled handkerchief. "Why would you ever think that?"

"Because you just eat and eat and eat-"

"So ... me eating what's given to me is equal to not having concern for you?"

"I didn't say that!"

He chuckles as I lean on his tear-stained shoulder. We must've looked so stupid. Owen leans on me, while I lean on him. A line of fallen dominoes.

"Amy?" he says a few minutes after, his tone suddenly serious.

"Yes?"

"I meant it when I said I'm your knight in shining armor." He straightens up then, and I lift my head from his shoulder. "But it's getting harder."

"Getting harder?" I question, as he stands up in front of me and squats just to tuck one of my bangs into my ear. My face reddens.

"Someday, you'll know," he laughs, and I notice a catsup dot on his cheek, which makes me laugh too. Idiotic Edrin. "You're as clueless as Terrence, Amy."

As clueless as Terrence? What's that supposed to mean? I'm about to ask when he announces that he'll just phone Grandma. She'll know what to do, he says, before marching off into the men's bathroom.

His words stick on my mind though, taking my thoughts away from the sleeping Owen momentarily.

Why are boys so confusing?