"Sienna wanted a high school sweetheart. Those stories don't include breaking up freshman year and spending the rest of high school trying to find someone else," Owen said.
"You wanted to break up freshman year?"
"It was pretty easy to discover that Sienna and I did not like the same things," he shrugged.
"Then why were you dating Sienna?" I asked. I thought about my beautiful, perfect sister and my cheeks flared even hotter. "Never mind."
"No, Quinn, it wasn't like that. Sienna made things easy for me. I'm not a joiner, I don't like being in the middle of things. I never would have experienced half of high school if it wasn't for her. I would have been down here." He looked around our basement family room.
"With me?"
I was not ready when Owen looked back. His blue eyes were too bright, his grip on my hand too warm and tight. He leaned forward and the nearer he came, the less breath I was able to capture. I sat airless, and in the vacuum, hope, excitement, and fear fought. We couldn't do this, could we?
"Quinn? Are you down there again?"
"Father?" I asked. I dropped Owen's hand as if it had burned me.
"We're going to order a pizza. Come up and join us," my father said.
I thought about all the food from the funeral and realized the thought of it turned my stomach as well. I had hardly eaten all day and pizza sounded good. Even though all my father's invitations sounded like orders.
"I'll be up in a minute." I turned to Owen and whispered. "Wait a couple of minutes and go out the kitchen door."
He smiled and patted my leg. "Don't worry. I've done this before."
In the kitchen, my stomach was still fluttering with excitement. I felt as if my brain had no control over my emotions anymore and I swung from one feeling to the next without thought. Sienna was gone, I was still reeling in shock, and yet Owen felt the same. About everything. All those years of longing and the feelings might not have been unrequited. I clung to that joyful thought.
"Oh, there you are, darling. I ordered the pizza with the sun-dried tomatoes. Just like you like," my mother said.
"That was Sienna," I said.
"Oh, yes, sorry. I forgot you were home," my mother said. She poured a glass of white wine. "There's a special on the bridges of Paris, your father thought you might want to watch it while we eat. The pizza should be ready any minute."
"That was Sienna, too," I said. "You start without me and I'll go pick up the pizza."
Sienna loved Paris. It was her daydream city. Whenever she was feeling sad or pressured or stressed, she made imaginary plans to go to Paris.
"It feels good to think about leaving it all behind and going somewhere I've always longed to go," Sienna had explained. "Where would you go? And you can't say Paris."
"Las Vegas," I had told her.
"We live in Las Vegas."
"The Strip. All the lights, all the people from other places," I had tried to explain.
"All the flashing screens and video games?" Sienna had cocked an eyebrow at me. "You sound just like Owen. He's always wanting to go there. I mean, it’s fun once or twice, but I'm not into playing video games on wall-sized screens or whatever it is you two like to do."
I fought the overwhelming urge to get in the car and drive the 15 minutes to the Strip. People who lived in and around Las Vegas generally avoided that area like the plague. To me, it had a comforting aspect – like a part of my imagination come to life. And it did not hurt that no one there knew me or Sienna or what had happened.
#
"If you're ready now, we can take the long way into town. I know you love that drive," my father said. He strolled into the kitchen, checking his watch.
"That was Sienna," I said. "Sienna liked to take the long way because she had a dream house picked out on top of the hill."
Summerlin was a relatively small community, so the long way was actually just a tour of the neighborhoods. The houses were impressive and it was fun to drive at night and peek into other people's lives.
The pizza place we liked was only a few minutes away, but Sienna and my father were sometimes gone for nearly 45 minutes. They drove around and plotted her perfect future. She wanted to be surgeon at one of the exclusive private hospitals in Las Vegas where she could treat rich people from all over the world without leaving her hometown. My father had even taken on clients from those hospitals to make sure Sienna would have the contacts she needed.