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In court, they ask him: The day of the incident, did you attempt to make any contact with Mr. Johnson before it occurred?
“Yes. I called him on the phone.”
When?
“Early. Like, 4am.”
Did he pick up?
“No. I left him a message.”
What did you do?
“I called him again, but he didn’t pick up so I just thought he was asleep.”
Does he usually pick up the phone when you call?
“He used to always, but he’d been ignoring me. I’d left him a few voice messages. He hadn’t responded.”
What did you do after calling him?
“I just tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t.”
Why not?
“I was worried about him.”
Did you suspect that he was going to do something like this?
“No. Not… this.”
And look: it’s a crime to lie under oath. And Owen swore, hand on bible. But he knows that if he told the truth — the entire, ugly, beautiful truth of it all — nobody would understand. The conclusion that they draw from his lies are the conclusions that they would be drawing from the truth, had they understood it correctly, so there’s no harm in it, right? It just cuts down on the time of the explanation. Owen tells himself this over and over, in the mirror and before bed and before he walks into the courtroom again and again as the case drags on.
Matt is tried as an adult. Jared is… somewhere. They can’t find him, and Matt swears up and down he doesn’t know. Owen believes him on that, even though it doesn’t seem like the jury does. He doesn’t know why he believes him, after everything, but he knows that Matt is not a liar. Matt is frighteningly honest. Maybe that’s what’s making this so much harder for Owen, because it’s what proves his own lie — of course he suspected. Nobody knows Matt better than Owen, and yet…
Well. He never thought it’d come to this.
Matt had told him to lie, only once, a long time ago, and it was more of a lie of omission, anyways: Don’t tell anybody about us. Owen hadn’t known what he meant at the time, and in the years afterwards he wondered if Matt even remembered he said it, if he’d even have an explanation for it if pressed. Everybody knew about Matt and Owen, to see them apart was probably more of a shock for people then it was to ever see them together. Owen can’t recall a time where they weren’t functionally inseparable.
Over time, he’s come to believe that the operative word there was tell. To know about them, to see them together in the halls, that was one thing. For Owen to tell someone, to try to explain it all, that was different. Even now, as he’s forced to, he doesn’t think he can. That even if he could, nobody would understand it. That’s why Matt told him not to do it. Because nobody would get it except the two of them.
Matt hadn’t even asked him to lie in the time after he’d crossed the classroom. He had been smiling and Owen had been shaking, desperately trying to say something, anything, but the words weren’t coming. He just stood there with his lips parted as Matt came closer and closer, waving the pistol around. He pointed it at Owen jokingly, laughing high-pitched and maniacal, seemingly at Owen’s panic more than anything else. Like the idea that this would scare him was laughable; embarrassing, even, like this was one of their horror movie nights that ended up with him wide-eyed and rattled in Matt’s lap while Matt pretended not to love it as much as he did, laughing equal parts fond and mocking.
In that moment he’d remembered Matt’s hand against his back, even though he didn’t know it was that at the time, having not heard Matt approach until he was already right beyond him. Matt had insisted the pressure against his spine was him holding his gun against him, then firing it from where he’d actually been keeping it in his other hand. Owen had flinched. Matt had laughed then, too.
Now, with his hand not holding the gun, he had reached out and eased Owen’s hand off the door handle, cupped Owen’s cheek in a way that only made him shake harder, and Owen’s eyes had wandered downward. Landed on the shirt. He had let out a shaky, incredulous laugh, a high keening sound, and Matt had smiled so brightly, said “I made it myself,” as if Owen’s pained exhalation had been the ultimate compliment. Maybe it had been, to him. “I made you one, too. It’s in the bag. I wasn’t sure if you’d want it or not.”
The ultimate truth of the trial — maybe Owen didn’t know Matt as well as he had thought. That’s the scariest part. Matt certainly didn’t seem to think Owen would testify against him. Not that Owen would consider himself as on some kind of team opposed to Matt, or on anyone’s team other than his own. Matt had looked almost excited when Owen had first gotten up on the stand, face falling almost imperceptibly as he began to speak, as if he expected him to take his side and spin some wild tale that would somehow get him off murder charges. It’s not that Matt wants him to lie, even, Matt does want him to tell the truth. It’s just that Matt thinks the truth is that he’s still in the right even after all of this, because Matt is crazy.
Owen knows that Matt is crazy because he had shot two of his classmates, killed one, and after he did it, he held Owen’s hand. It’s not something they ever did in public — they didn’t even discuss it when they did it in private, like calling attention to it would shatter the delusion that it’s okay. Matt is far too deep into delusion right now. Matt’s delusional, Chrissy tells him later, that’s when the difference between what’s real and what’s not becomes arbitrary to someone.
Matt brought Owen to the library next, and as they make their way there, the halls have mostly cleared out. Someone’s pulled the fire alarm, and the blaring noise is only serving to stress Owen out more. He wonders if that means the fire department is on its way, what’d happen if they showed up. Matt’s holding his hand the whole time and it’s really uncomfortable because both of them are getting pretty sweaty but Owen is afraid if he lets go Matt will freak out or something. Owen feels guilty for feeling so much like a hostage when Matt isn’t even threatening him. He should be figuring out some way to stop this, but he doesn’t know what to do. All he can think about is how his family would be really angry if he was an accessory to murder and how he can’t believe he didn’t stop this beforehand.
In court, they ask him: At what point did Mr. Johnson begin pursuing you?
“I don’t know— Early? There were gunshots, and then people started running. I did too. I didn’t see him, I didn’t even know what was happening. I just got caught up in it.”
Witnesses say he started screaming your name.
“Everyone was screaming.”
Why did you go with him?
“I was afraid.”
It’s a lie. He can’t help it. He tells them about fear pulsing through them as Matt had come to him, that he’d been bracing himself for the gunshot to come (and that part isn’t a lie, because he was afraid, so afraid ) but the moment Matt had opened his mouth, he knew he never would actually hurt him — not intentionally, at least. Not in the way he’s making them think. The worst part about running through the halls with him had been that he knew this wasn’t the end. Something was going to have to happen after. Murder-suicide is a romantic idea, but it was never possible with Matt. Matt would never let him die, not if he had anything to say about it. Death is punishment for people who hurt Owen. Owen is not allowed to have it.
Owen feels stupid for thinking Matt was going to shoot him, now. Matt would sooner shoot himself. Maybe he would have, if he knew how much this was getting to him. Or maybe his deluded belief that he knows what’s best for Owen runs too deep for that. Either way, it’s too late.
When Matt and Owen had gotten to the library, Matt let go of his hand to slam the door open and shot Sean Spiering in the stomach. The sound was deafening and Owen’s had frozen in place at the entrance while Sean dropped to the floor like a rock — ha, ha — and there were other students who were still in the library, hiding under the desks and behind the shelves, and one of them had gotten down on the floor and played dead as if she was trying to fake that Matt had already shot her. This had only made Matt scrunch up his face and nudge her side with his foot and say, impatiently, come on, get up, I’m just here for the bad guys. Jesus Christ, he was proud of that line. I didn’t shoot you, Matt insisted petulantly, only to turn around and realize that Owen was having a panic attack. He’d been hyperventilating so hard it was making him lightheaded, swaying on his feet like he was about to fall over, and Matt had grabbed Owen’s shoulders to steady him. Owen hadn’t noticed it, but he’d begun crying, and Matt had begun hastily wiping at Owen’s tears.
“What’s wrong?” Matt asked him, and Owen felt so fucking angry, angry that Matt would have the fucking audacity to do this, to do this to him. “It was just Sean, don’t worry, I’m not hurting anyone else— like I said, bad guys. I mean, he hit you, remember? It’s in the movie, everybody’s going to see it.”
Owen would’ve responded but he didn’t know what the fuck Matt was even saying, couldn’t get it to register in his throbbing head over the still-blaring alarm, the sirens. He was still panicking, probably.
“RCMP!”
Oh, yeah. Of course.
People were still yelling. They yell, drop the gun. They yell, what’s in the bag? Owen was kneeling on the floor with his head in his hands and someone was grabbing at him, but not Matt. He had tried to move away, but he was too dizzy to do much of anything. His body felt numb. Someone says, are you okay, did he hurt you? Owen was about to repeat the question back at them in disbelief before he looked up again and saw Matt. He’d dropped the gun and the bag, then he was handcuffed, then he was led out of the school.
He hadn’t moved his eyes from Owen the entire time. “It’s okay,” Matt said to him, even as the cops were speaking. “It’s okay, I’m going to— Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine—”
Owen wanted to tell him that’s a lie, but he still couldn’t speak.
The cops called Owen’s parents, but they didn’t pick up. They brought him to the station, and eventually Mike came and took him back to the apartment. He says something to him while they’re driving, but Owen can’t hear it. It’s like the gunshot is still ringing in his ears.
As soon as he gets home, he shuts himself inside of his room. Selfishly, he can’t stop thinking about how he isn’t going to be able to spend his days (and a fair amount of nights) in Matt’s basement anymore. He doesn’t know how he’ll be able to go anywhere near Matt’s family ever again.
In court, they tell him: In the footage, you threaten to tell Mr. Johnson’s mother about his plans.
The footage. The Dirties II. Home movie, as a kid at school had called it at one point, with an air of humor to his voice. Owen hadn’t found it funny. He thought Matt probably would.
Then, they ask him: Why would you threaten that if you didn’t suspect something like this?
Owen’s been thinking about the situation a lot, and he’s arrived at the following conclusion — the footage is at once both objective and subjective.
The footage is objective in this sense: everything shown in it happened. Matt had made his plans apparent from the very beginning, and he’d recorded him saying so. He had laid them all out while he was waving the gun around frantically in his basement, Owen sat pressing ice to his head and smiling at him through the dull pain of another bruise he knew his parents wouldn’t look twice at forming. He’d laughed, because he really did think Matt was joking, at first. He doesn’t know where he stopped thinking that. When Matt had taken him to the campfire, asked him for the name of the person who threw the rock at him, Owen had been so hesitant, but he told him? Matt had already asked that question to Jared, Owen saw it on the footage, while he was working on the maps — and that had been the moment, hadn’t it? When Matt laid it all out for him on paper, manic and gleeful in a way he’d rarely seen him get about anything except for Kubrick, and Owen had known, but he didn’t say anything. Even when he’d told him he’d tell his mother her son’s fucking crazy, putting those pictures up of people he thinks he’s going to kill, while Matt’s face had been set with an almost blank incredulity. People he thinks he’s going to kill, Owen had phrased it. Not will kill or trying to kill. He never leaves the hypothetical, and even if he hadn’t thought about the phrasing at the time, it's what buys him a degree of innocence. He says nothing came of it because he hadn’t actually thought this is what he needed to prevent, he was worried for Matt, that he’d do something to himself, not that he’d actually kill for real.
The footage is subjective in this sense: The court had to get Owen to go through the footage scene by scene and tell them if Matt had put them in the right order. He did at times, but not the full way through. In the middle of their fight, near the end, he’d inserted footage of them from the day they were stuck in their gym clothes. Owen doesn’t know why, and Matt doesn’t give an actual answer beyond vague statements about an artistic vision, but Owen suspects it’s because he needed some way to show that they were still friends, even if they weren’t talking, even if there wasn’t footage to show it. Owen has been losing sleep trying to figure out if there’s any difference between him and the version of him that exists for Matt. The footage is Matt’s pure, unadulterated vision of him, of their relationship, set to Best Coast and teen angst ukulele covers, too cheesy by Matt’s own admission.
Owen’s not actually on trial, but sometimes it feels like he is. Even if the footage is technically his alibi, it’s also an indictment. Nobody who’s seen it looks at him the same way afterwards, hell, Owen doesn’t know how to feel about himself afterwards. The footage shows him the way Matt saw him: a tragic figure, one worthy of pity and in dire need of being saved. It’s clear that Matt sees him as some sort of damsel in distress, needing to be rescued from the big bad Dirties by no one other than Matt himself. Contempt for Chrissy shines through the later parts of the footage in a way that’s surprising even to Owen, who witnessed his jealous outburst firsthand before he’d rewatched it from an outsider’s perspective. He tries not to think too much of how many times Jared was there, lurking in the background, known only to Matt. He tries even harder not to think about how Jared is lurking out there somewhere now. Every day since the incident they’ve been looking for him, and so far he seems to have vanished without a trace, leaving only a camera and the footage he’d finished editing before sending it to as many emails as he seemingly could behind him. He wonders how many people have seen it so far. Apparently it’s been circulating around online, though the government seems to be trying as hard as they can to take down every last reupload of it. Owen himself has it saved to his computer and on three different USBs, though he hasn’t watched it in months. He’d watched cuts of it on Matt’s computer with him while they were still in the process of filming it. Right after he’d first received the ‘finished’ cut it he’d watched it near-daily, and when the rhythm of his all-consuming obsession had faltered he’d become terrified to open the file again, as if he’d notice something new this time, have to reevaluate his entire life again. He’d already had to do that enough to last more than this lifetime.
The day he returned to school, Michael Spiering had punched Owen directly in the face, told him it was for what that freak fucking psycho did to my brother, faggot. It’s a first — not getting punched in the face or called a faggot at school, of course not, but because teachers and even some other students immediately came to pull them apart, as if even imprisoned Matt’s spectre was haunting the school, ready to strike down anyone who dared to fuck with Owen. He hasn’t been punched since, and Michael even got suspended for a week. It’s a little surreal. It’s probably good Josh didn’t have any siblings to defend his honour now that he’s six feet under. Apparently his parents have moved away, and Owen doesn’t blame him. He wonders if Jackman’s family are going to stay, now that Jackman’s out of the hospital. The Spierings certainly don’t seem to be moving away, but it looks like the bullet fucked with Sean’s spine and now he might never walk alone. He lived too, though, like Jackman did. Can’t say the same for Josh. Boles, Boozy, whatever. Owen feels a little guilty for all the times he’d wished with his whole being he’d just drop dead so he’d leave Matt and him alone. It’s a terrible wish to have finally granted.
Owen’s sure he wouldn’t know how to get through it if he didn’t have Chrissy. Despite it all, Chrissy sticks with him. He doesn’t know why. Even after his — Matt had been about to kill her for making Owen laugh. Or at least he assumes he was going to. The footage shows Matt stalking Owen while he spends time with Chrissy, writing something on his list right after, though you can’t see what it is from the way the camera is angled.
“I don’t remember,” Matt had said when they asked him what he’d written, even though he obviously fucking did. He included it for a reason. There’s no way to find out, though, so they have to drop it. Matt burned all the notebooks. The footage showed that, too.
Chrissy is his best friend now. It’s Matt’s worst fears realized, and it’s basically his fault. Owen finds himself aching for the time when it was just him and Matt, oscillating between being disgusted on Chrissy’s behalf he’d even want that and betrayed on Matt’s behalf for doubting his own feelings of wanting him back. He tells his court-ordered therapist about a few of these thoughts, tells Chrissy about a few of them, too. She hugs him. The therapist puts him on meds. Owen feels the worst he’s ever felt in his entire life.
In court, they tell him: Records say beforehand he checked out multiple copies of Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger from the school library.
Then, they ask him: Did you know of an affinity for this book?
Owen can’t help it, he laughs out loud. The entire courtroom falls dead silent.
And so Matt gets life in prison, because Matt is guilty. Matt gets life in prison because he killed those poor, not-so-innocent students. Matt shot up his school and filmed it for a sadistic student film, and Matt is not sorry for it, so Matt will be locked away for the rest of his life. He’s got a lot of it left, probably. He looks upset at the verdict, but not overly so. He does not cry. Josh’s mother does. Ryan Gahoolie (Christ, who invited him?) keeps sniffling. Even Chrissy sheds a tear. Matt does not, and Owen does not either. Owen hugs Chrissy comfortingly and he does not make eye contact with Matt, despite how he can feel Matt’s eyes boring into him.
When Owen gets home that night, as soon as the door to his room shuts behind him, he begins to sob, and he doesn’t stop until he can’t anymore.
Mike bangs on the wall, as if to get him to quiet down, but he doesn’t fucking care. Doesn’t know how anyone can expect him to just live on as normal when the entire foundation of his day-to-day has been uprooted like this. He knows some people blame him for it. Like he should’ve stood up to Matt at some point, any point, and prevented this terrible disaster. Owen himself can’t stop spending his time thinking about when and how he should’ve done that, but the truth of the matter is that he can’t. What’s done is done.
His phone rings. Unknown number. By the time he’s stopped sobbing for long enough to answer it, whoever’s on the other end has hung up.
Owen visits Matt in prison, because of course he does.
“Why?” It’s the first thing he says. He can’t help it.
“What?” Matt says, grinning at him lopsidedly from the other side of the glass, phone pressed to his ear.
“Why did you do this?” Owen says. He’s heard it in court, he knows, but he needs to hear it be said just to him.
“You saw the movie,” Matt says.
“Fuck off,” Owen says, and Matt raises his eyebrows. “I don’t want to hear your— You need to say this to me. Not some imaginary audience.”
Matt swallows. “They were bad. They did bad things. You of all people should understand this. You want me to be honest with you? They deserved it, and I don’t regret it. You can’t make me regret it.”
“Yeah, look where this fucking landed you,” Owen says. “You really— Fuck, I—” Owen can’t help it— he starts crying. Matt looks unfairly distressed at this, pressing his hand not holding the phone against the glass as if he could reach through it and wipe Owen’s tears.
“Owen,” Matt says sadly, but he doesn’t say sorry.
“I really miss you,” Owen admits. It feels like the ultimate betrayal of weakness, something Matt should mock him for.
“I miss you too, Owen,” Matt’s smiling again, as if he’s flicked a switch back to normal. “You could— you should visit more. Not like there’s much I’m doing during visiting hours anyways. I know there’s a limit, but. You could bring me things, books and stuff. And we could talk about them, maybe, and it’d be just like old times.”
“Matt,” Owen replies, voice low, “Please stop trying to act like we can go back to normal.” It’ll just hurt Owen more if he can let himself think that.
“We could a little bit, though,” Matt insists. “Just… You can’t be mad at me for this.”
“What are you talking about?” Owen complains angrily. “Of course I can.”
“No you can’t. We’ve always been there for each other, nobody else will ever get… this,” Matt says, boldly, “You need me.”
“I have Chrissy,” Owen protests.
“Chrissy wouldn’t have done this for you,” Matt says scornfully, like he’s judging her for her lack of drive in successful elimination of any and all threats in Owen’s life. “I’m the only one who would’ve. I did! I’d— I’d do it again.”
“How can you say that?” Owen’s voice comes out sounding embarrassingly strangled even to his own ears, but he keeps pushing. “How can you say that when you’re in there and I’m out here? Stop acting like this is on me! It’s your fault! And now you can’t… you can’t even…” He has to bite his tongue to keep the next sentence back: You can’t even take care of me anymore. Because the way Matt takes care of him has a body count. Even so, he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to live singularly now. He got two sodas from the vending machine the other day and had to drink them both because, for just a second, he forgot. Who does that? Josh’s parents haven’t forgotten, I bet. Or Jackman’s parents. Jackman certainly hasn’t. Or…
Matt’s face falls, because Owen struck where it hurt, because Owen is the only one who could’ve known where to strike to make it hurt. “Owen…” He sounds forlorn. Owen has to fight the urge to comfort him. “I did this for you, to help you, I…” As Matt trails off, Owen sees in an instance what he knew the jury could never see — the process. They hated him, understandably so, for his demeanor. How it all seemed like a game to him (a movie, like the woman at the fire had said) but they never saw him like he did, the way his eyes told his thoughts out loud. Doubt. Reassessment. Commitment. “They’re never going to hurt you again.”
“Why do you get to decide that?”
Matt shrugs, and for a second, much like the jury, Owen hates him too. “I did what had to be done,” he says. I know what’s best for you, he thinks. Owen cannot remember what his life was like before this — even though he’s stopped replaying the footage by now, every day he replays the memories in his head, and at night they come back to haunt him in his dreams. From the morning of it to all the mundane moments in between, Matt’s stolen looks at him that he can’t tell between legitimate memories and his own warped perspective at this point. This version of Owen, the one sitting here separated by Matt from glass, would not exist without the actions Matt took to put himself behind it. He is Matt’s greatest creation, far beyond any shitty student film or macabre documentary, like Matt’s a sculptor, a modern day Pygmalion. An auteur, his mind bitterly supplies.
Owen used to feel like he lived in Matt’s basement — inside Matt’s mind, somehow, surrounded by him in ever corner of his life, but now he avoids his family by spending all day at Chrissy’s instead.
Jared’s on the run, people keep saying, he’s hotwiring cars all across Canada, or he’s crossed the border to the States, or something. He’s taken up with Mormons in Alberta. He’s living on a commune in Oregon. He’s making bank as a cinematographer in Hollywood under a different name. Chrissy says he’s probably killed himself somewhere where the body isn’t obvious yet. Wherever he’s gone, Owen kind of doesn’t want to ever find out. It feels right for Jared to be gone. He’s vanished so completely it makes him wonder if he was ever really there, even though it’s a stupid thought to think. There was no one else who you could just… look past, so easily.
Chrissy’s the one who had gotten him to stop rewatching the footage over and over. He can’t help but see his actions reflected back on it, through Matt sitting at the computer when Owen was asleep, watching the footage of himself in the dress, over and over and over and over. Owen keeps thinking about that, if it’s something he should bring up. They’ve never discussed it before, and Owen always thought it was just some big joke to Matt. He certainly acted as it was when Owen was awake. They never brought it up in the discussion of the footage during the trial, either, like Matt was right to be so clearly ashamed of this part of himself and it should be dutifully ignored. So Owen keeps ignoring it, too, even though he shouldn’t. It feels like to talk about these feelings he’d be admitting that everyone was right, that every terrible, terrible thing that the dirties had said to them was justified because they were right, weren’t they? Matt and Owen should not feel this way about each other. This is true more than ever, now, and Owen knows it’s terrible to still hold onto this idea of his friend when he’s left this trail of blood behind him. Matt’s name hasn’t been released — he’s protected under the youth criminal justice act — but people know what happened. It’s in the news, online, and Owen spends too much time reading every article and comment and true crime blog post about it. Matt is a villain to all of these people, and he should be to Owen.
Chrissy tells him as much. “You were lonely, and he knew that.”
“He was lonely, too,” Owen says, like defending Matt is second nature. “We only had each other for so long.”
“And? You didn’t kill someone over it. It’s on him,” she says.
“He told me his plans,” he says quietly. “All his plans.”
“Because he knew you wouldn’t do anything about it. Because you trusted him.”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“It doesn’t matter if you should have or not,” Chrissy says. “The point is that you did, and he took advantage of that trust.”
Owen shrugs.
“Maybe you shouldn’t visit him as much,” she mumbles, almost a whisper. Neither of them say anything else.
Owen continues to visit Matt in prison, because of course he does.
Matt seems to be doing well, or however well he can be doing. The mania has lasted for months now, like he’s still riding off the self-righteous high of the shooting. Despite this, it’s clear talking with Owen is the highlight of his isolated life. He tells Owen as much.
Part of Owen wonders if he can tell that he’s been having his doubts about his visits and is trying to guilt him into keeping him around. Owen doesn’t think so, though, doesn’t think Matt would dance around it. He’d tell him.
Owen, meanwhile, does not tell Matt.
Owen keeps getting these calls from an unknown number, but they always hang up before he can answer. He relapses — he watches the footage again, obsessively trying to figure out if there’s any clues left behind as to where Jared went. He throws out all the clothes he used to share with Matt, everything you can see Matt wearing in the footage, which means he has to replace most of his wardrobe with clothes from the thrift store. Chrissy helps him pick some stuff out, and for the first time, he feels a little more like his own person. The Johnsons have started subletting Matt’s basement room.
Owen’s started spending a lot more time online than he used to. He reads a lot of posts by people who have loved ones in prison, a lot of them wives with incarcerated husbands. They wear probation and release dates like a badge of honour, and Owen doesn’t participate in any discussion out of shame of the fact Matt will never have either of those. He exchanges messages with a woman in America whose husband is on death row, briefly, until it stresses him out too much and he stops responding.
Matt gets jealous when he finds out, of course.
“People like that…” Matt shakes his head, as if the two fo them are not included in ‘that’ and he’s not that biggest hypocrite ever. He cracks a smile after, says, “Good thing we don’t have the chair up here in the north, huh?”
“Shut up,” Owen mumbles, not wanting to think about if it’d be easier to move on if Matt was going to get filled full of poison by the state.
Matt doesn’t shut up, just asks, “Seen any good movies lately?”
“Why?” Owen spits, suddenly defensive. “Like you’d ever be able to see them.”
“Owen,” Matt sighs, kind of warningly, but now Owen’s angry again.
“No! Stop it, I can’t…” Owen can feel tears welling up in his eyes, feels like he gets set off my every little thing nowadays. “I’m really sick of having to act like everything’s normal.”
“You don’t have to act like that,” Matt says. “Not with me.”
“Stop it,” Owen repeats. “Stop acting like what you think of me, who I am with you, that that’s somehow the real me. I’m… You don’t get to decide what’s me, what my life is.”
“I’m not deciding it,” Matt insists. “I’m knowing it. How could I not? Nobody knows you, not really, not like I do. Not Chrissy, not… Not a single person.”
“You ruined my fucking life.”
“No I didn’t,” Matt says, moving closer to the glass. “You said it yourself, nobody bullies you anymore. That’s… That’s what I wanted.”
Is it? Owen spends a lot of time thinking about what it was that Matt actually wanted, what could’ve stopped him. The dirties weren’t bullying Owen the same way they were by the end, but he still carried out his plans. Would it only have been if they’d never hurt him in the first place? Or would Matt have eventually become so far gone that he’d begin shooting anybody whose eyes lingered on Owen for however long he deemed was too long, no matter the reason? Owen doesn’t ask, because he’s scared of the answer. It’s been months since the shooting, months more since the trial concluded. He still feels like a hostage, even though Matt is objectively, utterly harmless behind the glass.
When Owen doesn’t say anything, Matt continues, “Your life was already terrible. At least nobody’s hurting you anymore.
Owen thinks: you still are.
Owen says: “But I had you. I always had you.”
“You still have me.”
Matt puts his hand up against the glass, and Owen puts his up against it, too. They stare at each other.
“Time’s up,” says the guard, eventually. Owen doesn’t know how long they’ve been there, just gets up and leaves Matt behind. Still sitting, still staring.
Chrissy mostly gives up on subtlety and starts sending him links. He receives a lot of posts by people who have loved ones who hurt them, a lot of them wives with who were abused by their husbands.
That doesn’t apply to me, he texts her back. He regrets opening up to her, but then regrets that he regrets that, because she’s been telling him he needs to stop feeling guilty for needing help and just accept it.
Just read them, she messages him back.
Nothing I Do Was Ever Good Enough For Him, the caption reads. Owen only gets a paragraph in before he closes the tab.
I’m not his fucking battered wife, he sends her back, probably the meanest thing he’s ever said to her. Stop acting like I am.
I’m not, she replies.
Maybe she’s not telling the truth. Maybe Owen isn’t either.
That night, Owen’s phone rings while he’s holding it. Unknown number. He answers immediately.
“Jared?” He can’t tell if the breathing he’s hearing is his or someone on the other end of the line. “Jared, is that you?”
Whoever’s on the end of the line hangs up, or the call drops — either way, Owen’s left standing there alone.
He brings it up when he sees Matt next, because it weighs on him: “Do you know where Jared went?”
“No,” Matt says, sounding almost a little annoyed. “I really don’t know where he is. I didn’t tell him to go anywhere, he didn’t tell me if he was.”
“I believe you,” Owen says, mostly because he doubts Matt has heard that response when he starts this line of conversation before and he really doesn’t need to hear the rest of Matt’s rant about how much he definitely doesn’t know where Jared Raab is.
Matt smiles really bright at that. Then says, “I wouldn’t worry about where he is. Jared’s always right where he needs to be.”
Owen doesn’t ask what that means, because he doesn’t want to know.
Michael Spiering corners him behind the school near the end of the year and punches him directly in the face again before someone intervenes.
“Fuck off,” Michael tells the guy, whoever he is. He’s one of Michael’s friends that Owen doesn’t know the name of. “What, are you afraid of his faggy little boyfriend? He’s in jail.”
“Shut up,” Owen interrupts. “Don’t fucking say that. That’s not— You don’t know anything.”
“I’m not a fucking idiot, Williams,” Michael laughs, mean. “I saw the little movie project. Come on. Or what, he trick you into think he’s actually your girlfriend, or some shit?”
The other guy laughs at that, and Owen’s face is burning. He clutches his backpack and hurries away from the school before Michael can stop him, breathing heavily as he makes his way home.
When he sees Matt next, he immediately zeroes in on the black eye.
“What happened?” He sounds incredulous, as if the idea of Owen getting hurt is something he never thought would happen again.
“I got punched,” Owen responds flatly.
Matt’s eyes are angry. “What happened? Was it Mike? I fucking swear, I’ll—”
“No— I mean, yes— wrong one, though,” Owen sputters before Matt can continue the threats. He clarifies, “Spiering.” Owen hasn’t really been around his stepbrother at all, recently, which Matt would probably be pretty happy about. He confessed on the stand that his plan, if he had made it out of the school without being stopped by the cops, was to go to Owen’s house and kill his family. They’re bad guys, he’d told them when they asked him why. He suspects that’s why Mike won’t look at him anymore, but he’s always been an asshole.
“Oh,” Matt’s silent for a moment. He grits his teeth. “I wish he’d been in the fucking library.”
“Do not say that,” Owen demands, “You have to stop saying stuff like this.”
“What, you want me to lie?”
“No!” Owen exclaims, “Maybe! Yes? I don’t know! Why do you expect me to? What am I supposed to do now? When…”
“When?”
“When they all know, now.”
“Know what?” Matt asks, looking genuinely confused, maybe even a little dismissive.
“You told me once to not tell anyone about us, and you still edited and released the footage like that? Everyone knows now. I know Laren said— you know, what he said, and people would say stuff about it, but this is different! They know, and here you are, away from it, while I have to deal with that. You win. I don’t get bullied anymore, but now nobody will even look at me. My parents hate me even more. You— Fuck you, Matt! I fucking hate you!”
Matt looks horrified. “You don’t… You don’t mean that.”
“You’re right, I don’t. That’s the problem,” Owen says, fists clenched like he wants to punch through the glass separating them. Maybe he does. “You’re a bad person, Matt. You think you’re a good person because the people you shot were bad people, too, but you’re as bad as them.”
“What, so we’re bad guys now?”
“Stop it! Stop it with the fucking we, Matt! This is on you!”
“Everything I did, I did it for us. I did it for you, Owen,” Matt pleads.
“Fine,” Owen says. “Maybe I’m bad, too, then, because I didn’t stop you. I fucking enabled you, I just… I couldn’t help myself. I… I l…” He can’t say it, swallows it down, instead. Says quietly, “I don’t know if I should keep coming to see you.” He doesn’t want to say that Chrissy’s the one who had him doubting his visits. He doesn’t need to give Matt another reason to wish he killed her.
“...You wouldn’t stop.”
“I could,” Owen insists, voice raw. “I could leave you here to fucking rot.”
“You wouldn’t do that to me,” Matt argues. “You wouldn’t do that to us.”
Owen wants to say: us? You still think it’s us? Instead, he says nothing. He just gets up and leaves before visiting time’s even over, fists still clenched, and he doesn’t look back.
Matt’s right, though.
He tells Chrissy that when he gets back to her place, afterwards, because of course he always goes to Chrissy when he’s this upset. She doesn’t say I told you so, but Owen thinks he probably deserves it. It feels like Matt was the only person who actually knew what he deserved and would give it to him, without question. Even if it was too far for everyone else. Even if it was too far for Owen.
If Matt were here, he would gloat about how he was right and Owen should really just listen to him more often, huh? Then he would hit Owen lightly in the arm for an excuse to touch him, and Owen would lean back with him on the couch and put his arm around him while Matt fumbled for the remote to turn on the TV so they could watch a movie.
He watches movies with Chrissy, now, different ones than the ones he watched with Matt. Less blood and guts, more happy endings. The change feels ironic. It’s not even that he likes these ones less, it’s just strange to see movies with so much less misery than he’s used to, especially now that he feels more miserable than ever. There was a time when he’d been happy to get away from Matt, but it feels like years ago, now.
“You don’t have to quit him cold turkey,” Chrissy tells him, “I just think it might help if you ease yourself away from him.”
His immediate response, Matt’s voice in the back of his head, is asking help who? but instead, he just replies, “Maybe.”
“I don’t like seeing you like this,” Chrissy says.
“Like what?”
“Acting like he owns you. You’re going to have to move on eventually, Owen. You’re young.”
He is. He’s 17, now. Matt is too. He doesn’t feel any older.
“I don’t know how,” he replies. “...To move on.”
“You’ve given him so much. It’s normal to want closure,” Chrissy tells him in lieu of an answer. She doesn’t have an explanation of how to, either.
“I guess,” he says, because what else does he want? It’s not something he can ever say out loud. She’s right, though. He has given so much to him.
The rest of the day, Owen’s going over something he could bring Matt the next time he gets to visit him in his head, desperately angling for some kind of poetic closure. He thinks of Matt’s final gifts to him, a body and an .mp4 file sent through Jared. It’s not like he can bring him DVDs in prison, murderers don’t get TV access, do they? Maybe he could print scripts to bring him, and they could read them together at this visit, doubling up on the roles just like they used to. He can’t decide on which, though.
Owen decides it probably doesn’t matter that much. After all, if this one isn’t it, he can try again. He’s got lots of time to find the perfect movie for the two of them.