Chapter Text
Owen’s family ended up in St. Catharines.
A fresh start, or, at least, a change of scenery. A different town, different neighbours – somewhere the media wouldn’t keep bothering them. They had moved, before, to the opposite end of Toronto. Someone, somehow, would always manage to recognize a face, a surname, the story chewed, like gristle, over screens and in comment sections. Someone would always manage to show up at the door – Sorry, ma’am, just a few questions, if I may – like it was normal. Like it wasn’t disgusting.
It wasn’t too different from the beaches, not really. The same gray sky, the same crisp wind blowing off the lake.
In the warmer months, Matt and Owen used to hang out by the water. Bright-faced, loose-limbed, they’d sprawl in the grass and skip stones. Laughing, shoving, daring each other in the shallows of the Leslie Spit, whenever Matt’s mom would drive them there.
Owen tensed.
Five years, and Owen still tensed at the name.
The move, the change of pace – all of it was about as effective as sanding down a splinter. Smooth out the skin; everything looks fine. Unassuming to anyone else. But the pain remains, lodged underneath – tender and sharp the moment you press on it wrong.
Owen settles into his new life anyway. Mundane, unromantic, A body moving through days.
Years fly past without much thought. The hum of the QEW in the distance. School, sleep, repeat. The same buses, the same routes, the same people. Slowly, he learned which sidewalks iced over first. which streets, come autumn, would be the first to clog with soggy leaves pressed flat to the pavement. He learned how to keep his head down in public without looking like he was hiding.
He ended up moving out the second he could.
His place wasn’t much – a basement unit under a detached house, the kind you settle for when you’re young and broke and desperate enough to be alone. The stairs down were narrow. The air always smelled of mildew and old wood. But the rent was cheap and the elderly couple who lived upstairs was nice. The auntie often brought him warm, home-cooked meals wrapped in foil. It was miles better than the microwaved shit he had when he lived with his mom.
Once he graduated from high school, he got a job at the local diner. He refilled coffee, he smiled when it was expected. He learned to keep his head and his voice steady even when someone snapped at him or demeaned him. He learned how to exist with himself.
Once, he wanted to be a teacher.
He spends a lot of time by the lake, now. Fishing, mostly. The old man upstairs taught him, before he passed – always patiently, never making him feel stupid.
Owen stepped out onto the old wooden backyard landing. The yard was small and tidy. A small patch of grass, a few shrubs. Owen started helping the auntie with them when her hands started to shake too much. A neglected bird feeder sways. The wind blows. Wind chimes from next door carried over on the gusts, thin and hollow.
Owen walked over to the small shed, the old man’s gear still stacked in its usual corner – the fishing rods, a tackle box worn and scuffed at the edges, a net with its handle worn smooth. Auntie had insisted on gifting it to Owen. Owen insisted he was just borrowing it.
He walked to the lake as he’d done dozens of times, hands shoved deep into his pockets, sometimes adjusting the equipment slung over his shoulder. His phone stayed silent. No one texted him, no one called. He didn’t think about his mom, and he didn’t think about his stepbrother.
The walk to Port Dalhousie wasn’t far – he’d regularly gone further while he lived in Toronto – but there’s an emptiness to the wider suburban streets that tends to slow everything down. The streets narrowed as they opened up again near the water. Neat little houses with tired little porches.
In the summer, far more families would be out and about, the sound of laughter in the air. But Owen had come to prefer the off-season, when the waterfront was cold and quiet, the sound of reeds rustling in the wind. It didn’t need to perform; it allowed itself to be plain and overcast. Predictable.
The mechanics of setting up were soothing. The click of the reel, the sting of cold air on his knuckles. The sound of the line unspooling, the gentle sound of the bobber when it hit the surface of the water.
It took three casts before he felt a jerk. His body responded first.
He reeled, shoulders tightening, holding his breath. The fish fought and flailed as it broke the surface. Trout, Owen thought, as he maneuvered it into the net with practiced hands.
The hook had caught wrong – too deep, too angled. When he tried to work it free, the fish thrashed, the gill tearing wider than it should have. Blood gushed into the water, ruby red against the gray. It got over his fingers, sick and warm, making his stomach turn, his attention sharpen. The fish trembled in his palm, desperate and weakening before it went unnervingly still.
Owen’s eyes linger a little too long on the blood on his hands as it pooled into the creases of his knuckles, under his nails. He stared as if his hands belonged to someone else. His throat tightened. He swallowed, forcing himself to quickly finish the task – unhook, release, something.
When it was done – when the fish was no longer in his grip – Owen wiped his hands on his trousers with quick, rough swipes. It didn’t do anything but leave a dark mark on the fabric.
By the time he walked back, his thoughts thinned back into a simple list of what he’d do next: put the gear away, wash up – maybe a frozen meal if Auntie hadn’t left a plate for him. Go to sleep early, maybe, for work tomorrow.
As he reaches for the latch on the backyard gate, he notices a man on the landing in front of his door.
The neighbour, a stranger? Someone looking for Auntie, probably.
The man perks when he hears the latch of the door. He turns.
Owen saw his smile before he saw his face. The same smile he saw in hallways, in the courtroom. In his worst memories that’d come back whenever he was too tired to hold them back. His blood runs cold as the air thickens around him.
Matt is older now – twenty-one, not fifteen – but not in the way Owen expected him to look. His hair was shorter, his body -- worryingly lithe -- but firm. His posture had a practiced looseness. But his expression was the same.
Owen’s mind betrays him as he remembers the courtroom’s stale air – the hard benches, the hush of the jury. The contorting of the victims’ parents’ faces, the outrage, the sharp language in the papers – too lenient. Tried as a youth – a sentence that should have been six pared down to four. People muttering about money and lawyers and wealth, even in a case like this.
And Owen – Owen on the stand, hands sweating despite the cold, his voice forced steady as he answered the lawyer’s questions. He had caught a glimpse of Matt’s smile then, too, bright and confident. He didn’t realize Owen was there to testify against him. When Owen stepped down, he never saw what – if anything – changed on Matt’s face.
Owen never visited him. Not in detention, not in any facility, not once. He couldn’t bring himself to be in a room with him voluntarily. He couldn’t trust himself if Matt spoke to him like nothing had happened.
Matt stood there, as if five years were just a long weekend away.
“Owen,” Matt said. Too bright, too easy. Like they were still boys. Like a setup to a joke.
Owen’s fingers tightened around the strap of the fishing gear, hard enough to bite into his skin. He could taste the lake at the back of his throat. The smear on his pants, the residue under his nails, burned.
Matt’s smile widened, and Owen felt, with a sick sense of clarity, that none of it was ever enough.
“Owen,” Matt said again, almost amused. “What are you doing? It’s me.”