Reality Check

O's and B's Plans

Through the Dark (by One Direction)

"But don't burn out, even if you scream and shout. It'll come back to you, and I'll be here for you . . ."

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As he told her the story, they'd continued heading away from the pure possibility, increasing their distance from it. With no one standing guard at the gates anymore, exiting the summer camp was easy. Everyone was being taken by the pure possibility anyway, so they didn't run into any problems while leaving.

On the way, he'd filled her in on everything. But it hadn't been easy. Somehow, this seemed even worse than telling her what'd happened to their friends, because that had been an accident. Finding the words to tell her that Kiel had intentionally cast a spell that led to him forgetting her? That was surprisingly harder.

When Owen had finished speaking, he cringed, awaiting Bethany's reaction. But there was none. Not at first, anyway. He looked up to see that Bethany was staring at the ground, taking a sudden interest in the grass beneath her feet. She hadn't spoken in a while.

"Bethany?" Owen said. He debated touching her shoulder, or maybe trying to hug her, but couldn't tell what she needed. "I'm so sorry. I messed up, letting him go through with it. I messed up so bad." He stumbled over his words, repeating himself. "I'm sorry."

And it was true that he'd messed up. Owen had been there, watching, while Kiel went into that spell. He'd believed in Kiel, believed that despite the warnings, it would work and he'd get out of the spell as soon as possible. But he hadn't. And Owen had let him . . . he'd let him forget their best friend.

He felt like he was messing up a lot of things lately. With Kiel's memories, with Kara kissing him and Owen saying absolutely nothing . . . not to mention, everything that'd happened with the stone. The one thing he'd finally fixed had been his relationship with Charm, but what good had that accomplished if she was gone?

Bethany looked up, and the almost expressionless look on her face surprised him. "He . . . doesn't remember me. That's just perfect."

"Um . . . are you okay?"

"Of course I'm okay." But she didn't say it nicely. And she'd rolled her eyes.

Owen frowned at her. As always, she was using anger and sarcasm as defense mechanisms, and she knew it and Owen knew it but it was preferable to the alternative. He wasn't sure if he'd expected her to break down in tears or scream at him. This was somehow a little harder to deal with.

"You don't sound okay."

"Well, I am. He doesn't remember me. Who cares?"

He felt confused. ". . . I thought you would?"

"Nope! That's where you're wrong." She pointed a finger at him. "I don't care anymore. If Kiel chose to forget me, it's his call."

They'd reached the parking lot. Owen shook his head. "The thing is, he didn't—"

"It's fine. Don't bother explaining it for him."

"If I don't explain it you won't understand, Bethany. Well, we all knew it might happen but it was still an accident! He didn't try to do it on purpose, if that's what you think—"

"No, I know why he did it. Whatever. Just — whatever." She didn't look at him. Her jaw was clenched. "I guess if I ever see him again, I'll just have to . . . figure something out. Great, problem solved. Can we just be done talking about this already?"

With that, she marched across the parking lot. Very quickly, away from Owen. He stared after her, mouth hanging open. He couldn't tell if she was mad or even upset. Obviously, she seemed annoyed, but that was nothing new. Why wasn't she breaking down right now? This didn't seem right.