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“He’s an asshole,” Owen said quietly. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “I need to get the fuck out of here.”
“We can…”
“I got into NYU.” Owen licked his lips, not looking at Dmitri who was stunned because he hadn’t even realized Owen had applied. “I told my mom last night, and she talked to someone and now my uncle thinks the charges are going to be dropped. And then I can go. I can just…go.”
Dmitri wanted to be happy for him, but there was a tinge of bitterness because that wouldn’t have happened for him. His accident nearly hitting Antoine with his car had gotten him punished and charged.
And he’d done his time for it, but no one offered a kind hand so his life wouldn’t be ruined by a single mistake.
Owen had deliberately hurt someone. He’d lashed out in his anger, but his soft pale hair and his light eyes and perfect nose offered him things that Dmitri would never have. He swallowed back bile.
“Have you talked to anyone about what’s going on?”
Owen squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “No. And I’m not…I don’t want to talk about it. People don’t need to know that Archie…” He stopped abruptly and Dmitri felt like he was sinking into the floor with the realization of what Owen wasn’t saying.
“He left Savannah,” Owen went on, “so if you want to start complaining that if I don’t say something, someone else will get hurt, don’t fucking bother.”
Dmitri bowed his head and swallowed back the words that would beg Owen to tell him exactly what happened. To lay the burden on him so he wouldn’t have to suffer alone. But he knew better. This person—nearly a man—was not the boy who had pretended to be his twin. He was in the shape of jagged, confused pieces that would one day be put back together, but Dmitri didn’t have the strength or ability to do more than sit on the end of the bed and wait.
“I’m sorry they think it’s your fault that I’m like this,” Owen said, his voice nearly a whisper. “I’m sorry I didn’t…do better.”
“It’s fine,” Dmitri said, and Owen laughed again.
“You don’t have to be such a fucking martyr, man. You can tell them to go fuck themselves.”
Dmitri wanted to laugh at him, because Owen would never, ever understand how he couldn’t. How if he wanted to live, and exist in some semblance of peace, he had to take it and keep his fucking mouth shut. Because Savannah was not like other places in the world, but in a lot of ways, it still was. It was still a city with a lot of people who looked nothing like him, who were willing to lay blame at his feet for corrupting a good kid.
Someone with potential.
Someone unlike him.
“I think New York will be good for you,” he said eventually, and it was the first time he’d seen Owen genuinely smile in far too long.
“I think so too.” Owen laid his head back along the wall and closed his eyes again. They didn’t really talk after that.
Weeks turned into months. They walked the stage at graduation, and Dmitri had enough people in town who cared enough to cheer when he shook the principal’s hand and took his little diploma with the frayed ribbon and bent edges. And he met Owen’s eyes across the lawn during pictures, and it was that moment he knew there was an ending between them.
It was the moment Dmitri knew that in this place, in the one place he considered safe, he really was entirely alone.
* * *
“Hey.”
Dmitri, who had been sitting on the edge of the pier watching a small turtle swim from one rock to the other, startled at the sound of an unfamiliar voice. He had been expecting to wallow on his own. It was his birthday, and his aunts had presented him with a cupcake and his uncle with the keys to a car, but twenty had never felt so pointless. He was older than all the kids he’d graduated with thanks to all the missed months that held him back two grades while he was still under the tender loving care of his parents.
He'd felt distant from them before, but it was worse now.
The loneliness in his gut was profound as he sat with his toes in the water and tried to understand how his life had gone so damn wrong. Savannah was a soft, quiet space that offered sanctuary to so many, so why had he been denied?
He couldn’t stop his irritation when his brooding bubble had been popped by the stranger, but he looked up at the person and saw that it was a guy who looked close to his own age, wearing a striped t-shirt and cuffed capris. He was every gay kid’s teen dream with his swooping pompadour and expensive loafers. He was clearly a tourist drawn to town by the rich history that none of them could ever escape, and Dmitri had been spending most of his summer trying to avoid people like him.
Nellie was dealing in some vacation rentals, and strangers were sticking around longer, making everyone’s summer slump worth a little bit more cash.
“Am I interrupting something?”
“Oh, just your usual bout of angst,” Dmitri told him.
He shifted over and out of his periphery saw the guy toe out of his shoes and ruck up the hem of his capris before sitting. Dmitri wondered if he gave off his own vibe. He was never much of a fashion anything—he was petrified of bothering with trends, so he let Jayden pick out whatever he thought might look good. He had a lot of thick wool peacoats for winters, but his soft green cargo shorts and black t-shirts in summer were at least simple enough to let him pass unnoticed.
