Someone else filled in the details of the rape accusation for me. The girl had been very drunk at a house party. She’d ended up in a bedroom, away from the rest of the party, barely conscious. Owen had come into the room and taken advantage of her. She and her family were pressing charges.
When I first heard this, I couldn’t stop thinking about the girl Owen had hurt. I pictured her home. I pictured her father. I imagined her hair and her room. I could see her saying confidently, “I didn’t want that,” without shame, without blaming herself. Why hadn’t I developed that skill? I longed to be more like her. I wanted to be able to say, I didn’t want him, to myself and to my friends and to the whole damn world.
I told my mother about the girl, what she said Owen did, her parents. “Well…” She trailed off. She seemed displeased, as if I’d brought up something that wasn’t polite or appropriate. I could tell she didn’t know what to say. I remember feeling gruff and tougher than her. I lived in the Wild West, a place where terrible, unspeakable things happened every day, and she was a lady. It felt like my responsibility to protect her from those types of horrors. I didn’t let myself be disappointed that she hadn’t said more. It was better this way, better that she couldn’t offer insight or comfort. The less I needed from her, the less opportunity she had to let me down.
I did eventually tell a girlfriend about Owen. We were high, and I was lying on her soft mattress and gazing at the string of lights she’d woven into her bed frame. I told her about him and his red truck and the black lines on my arm. My friend was sitting cross-legged on the edge of her bed. She had a lip piercing, and I remember watching her bite it while she stared at me, listening. “That sounds like rape, Emily.” My head snapped over to her.
“What? No,” I said quickly. I blinked and turned back to the ceiling, feeling dizzy. I knew she was right.
* * *
I was nineteen, in an airport in the Midwest, waiting for a connecting flight back to California after a quick catalog shoot, when I learned that Owen was gone forever. At that point, I was used to flying by myself and navigating airports—used to sitting on cold linoleum floors and falling asleep in uncomfortable chairs and moving through crowds of people. I was sitting cross-legged, charging my phone in an outlet low to the ground, scrolling through Facebook on my iPhone when I saw the update. An older boy from high school had written his name and “RIP.” My first thought was that he’d misspelled Owen’s last name. He’d be so sad to see that, I thought. But of course they’d misspelled his name; he’d never had any real friends. My chest tightened.
“What happened? Is this real?” I texted a few old acquaintances to see if they had any information. Some part of me already knew the answer.
It wasn’t until I was jammed into my middle seat and the flight was beginning to ascend that I finally got a response.
“It’s real. He passed away.” I read the words as the pressure of the cabin pushed me down into my seat. The plane lifted into the air. My ears rang.
He was gone: his flesh, his eyes. He was no longer pulsing with blood and life. He was no longer anywhere. I would never have to see him again.
“Are you all right?” a woman in the aisle seat next to me asked quietly. The roar of the plane nearly drowned out her voice.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just found out that the first guy … the first boyfriend I ever had … he’s dead.” I felt my tongue swell. She laced her brows together.
“I’m so sorry.” She sounded so genuine that I wondered for a second if she’d ever known this feeling, this mix of loss and relief over the death of someone who’d hurt her. I wondered how to articulate it, to her, to anyone. I put the tray table down and rested my face in my hands.
Owen had died of a heroin overdose, alone, at twenty-one. His body was locked in the guesthouse he’d been renting, locked in there for three days before anyone figured out where he was. The police had to break down the door.
I attended the funeral alone, and chose to stand at the back of the crowd. We were on a cliff above the ocean. The sky was endless blue. I squinted my eyes to watch Owen’s father speak. He said that when the police brought Owen’s body out from the guesthouse, he’d sobbed. His beautiful baby boy was dead. He’d said, “My son, feel the sun,” as the California sun beat down on Owen’s pale, lifeless body.
“My son, sun, son,” he wailed.
* * *