Chapter Seven You Were Totally Prepared to Become a Climate Terrorist #3
Kaitlyn doesn’t say anything, not right away, not until they’re exiting through the giant entrance of the arcade, out onto
the open deck where the stuffy heat and loud blinking lights are replaced with softer jazz music playing from a live band
nearby, and cooler, far more breathable air. It helps almost immediately. “What do you think has you feeling this way?” she
asks as they approach the railing.
Owen can’t help but peer over the side, wondering what it’d be like to topple right over. “I’ve been talking with Ravi more,”
he starts to explain.
Kaitlyn sputters. “Well, there’s your first problem!” She says the words with a smile in an attempt to ease some of the tension.
But one look at Owen’s expression tells her that her plan didn’t work. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he tells her. “Prices in the city keep going up. He thinks we’ll have to ask the bank for more money.”
“Do you think you’re going to?”
“It’s either that or—” Owen lets out a tired sigh. “I delay things by another year or two, save up what I can, hope there’s
some huge economic crisis that’ll crash the market and put a bunch of people out of work, all so I can open up a tattoo shop.”
He pauses, staring out at the endless black water.
“Or I just give up on the shop. Put the dream away for a while, maybe forever. Keep the money I’ve saved.”
“Would you do that?” Kaitlyn asks. “I guess it’d give you more time to look. Do you think with more free time you might pick
things up where you left them off?”
“With who?” he asks, knowing her answer before she says it.
“Jacob,” Kaitlyn says plainly. “I mean, you’d have a lot more time to—”
“Stop, Kait. This isn’t about Jacob. Please don’t bring him up right now,” Owen pleads.
“You’re right,” she tells him, bracing against the railing. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”
“I still want the shop, it’s just . . . I’m wondering if it’s worth it.” If wanting is enough.
“Well, there are other options. Don’t just give up at the first hurdle.”
“I’m not, I’m just . . .” Owen shakes his head. “How am I supposed to run my own shop when one little thing sends me into a spiral?”
“It’ll be okay. It’s not like you can do anything on this trip anyway. Just enjoy your time here, give the plan some thought.
Ravi will be waiting for you when we get back.”
He forces a smile, wishing it was as simple as forgetting the things that scare him the most. Their friends find them again,
and they spend the rest of the night out on the ship, finding a bar that’s playing a Sharks game that Jacob, Kevin, and Abigail
want to watch. And Owen stews for hours, unable to get the conversation with Kaitlyn out of his mind.
Does he still want this? Does he still want to be responsible for a whole building, an entire team of artists? Is this still a
dream of his?
Or is he just doing all of this to prove a point to Jacob?
Across the bar his eyes meet Jacob’s.
He can’t help but fixate on Jacob’s dimples, on the beauty mark right under his eye, on the slight gap between his two front
teeth that he’d once been so self-conscious about, until Owen told Jacob that it was one of his favorite things about him.
Then again, everything about Jacob is Owen’s favorite.
“You’ve been talking about the shop for years,” Jacob had said to him. “You could always just come with me, maybe save up
some money, open it when we come back to the Bay.”
“If we come back to the Bay,” Owen amended. Jacob had told him himself—this research could take years. “Who’s to say you won’t
just take another job, drag me somewhere else? And then another place, and then another.”
“Would it be that hard?” Jacob asked. “We’d get to be together.”
“No, I—” Owen stopped himself, hating how his words were being twisted. He’d never told Jacob that the way he spoke about
the shop was the very same way his parents used to poke at Owen’s love of drawing as a teenager. Not the same words, certainly,
but said with that same inflection. Like he didn’t believe that Owen would ever do it.
And maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe it was always too much to hope for, to want.
A deep loneliness begins to settle in Owen’s stomach, a dread that he hasn’t felt since his college days, when he first started
to entertain the thought that maybe higher education wasn’t the right path for him. Back then, he’d felt a little more secure,
at least. His parents hadn’t disowned him yet for wasting their hard-earned money and connections just to enter his adult
life with a high school diploma and “no real-life skills.”
For a few days, he had convinced himself that things might be okay.
And for months after, Owen wondered what his life might be like if he just . . . ceased to exist. He never wanted to take
his own life, never formulated a plan or even imagined how he’d go about it.
He just . . . he wanted to not be in his own body. At least for a little bit. With none of the pain from his arthritis, none
of the cruel words uttered by his parents echoing in his memory.
For a moment, Owen just wanted to not be himself.
Not be anyone.
Back in bed at the end of the night, Owen turns onto his side, curling into himself, hoping that he doesn’t wake Kevin as
he stares out the window. It’s so dark that he can’t see anything, not even the line of the horizon that he knows is there,
dividing the sky from the sea.
It’s just an endless black ocean that he’s been left to float on.
With no land in sight.