Orpheus

16

"So," Riley began as she took a bite of her salad. "What did you and Connor do to pass the time around here?"

They were in the cafeteria. After standing by the window for god knows how long, Owen suggested he'd postpone his gym session to some other time of the day, and accompany Riley.

"Humm..." he scratched his chin pretentiously. "Let... me... think... Oh, I remember now: Nothiiiing!"

"Nothing?" Riley couldn't help giving a small smile.

"Yup. Zilch. Nada." Owen replied taking in a spoon full of cereal. "He spent almost 90% of the time alone in his room, or by the Intersect, running calculations." He took a second's pause to gulp. "The times we did meet, he was more stoic than a piece of wood."

Riley politely nodded; though Connor had opened up quite a bit while they were dating, he was still vague at best.

"Did you ever actually see the woods?" Riley asked leaning forward. She found that she liked talking to Owen a lot more than she had initially thought. That scared a small part her to a certain extent.

'What if he's like Jonathan?'

"You mean like an actual group of trees?" Owen arched an eyebrow. "I have actually." He smiled a little bit. "I grew up in a more rural area so I guess I have seen glimpses of what the Earth looked back in its heyday."

"You lived in a rural area?"

"Yeah... we had a farm." his shy smile widened.

It was Riley's turn to arch an eyebrow. "A farm? You?"

"Yeah; why the surprise?" Owen grinned a bit. "Is it 'cause I don't have an accent?"

"No no! It's just..."

"Well I'm sowry Riales" Owen interrupted in a pretentious accent. "Reality is awften dissapoin'in'. Ya'll just gotta live widh it."

Riley chuckled a bit, not at the joke per say; she'd always found Owen's idea of humor quirky.

"Yeah..." he said, playing with his spoon, his eyes fixated on it. "Well, it was a small farm: me, Pa and Joe. Everybody got along; well everybody except me." he said, his spoon plunging into the cereal. He looked up at Riley; she thought she saw a bit of pain beneath Owen's eyes. "I was always a bit of a rebel, wasn't I?" He smiled a weak smile; a mask.

"Owen," Riley didn't know why, but she wanted him to know she was concerned, "do you want to talk about it?"

"Well..." he sighed, his eyes still fixated on the cereal. "You'll probably get bored; let's just stop."

"No no; I want to know more."

"Well then," Owen replied, folding his arms as he stared at the distance for a few seconds. "The farm was started by my Grandpa, and then passed on to my dad. He wanted me to, quote-on-quote 'Work on the farm'. " He did air-quotes on the last sentence. "Guess I never really liked cows." he turned to Riley for a second and gave a half-hearted smile, before taking a sip of water.

"Well," he continued, facing the stars outside. "then Pa died, and the farm came to me. I didn't mind it much. It was fine: me 'n Joe, we worked it out together. It just... It didn't feel right; like I didn't belong. Like I was simply going through the motions, but I wasn't exactly living..." he leaned forward, his gaze flirting for a second at Riley before staring at the cold white table. "Then Joe, um, started getting bitter; he thought I had it better in life. Don't ask me how he pulled that one up his arse but-" He stopped mid-sentence, shaking his head dejectedly. "He must have noticed how I felt, and... truth is, maybe I was beginning to feel the same. It went on like that for a while. I knew shit would hit the fan soon; I just didn't do anythin' about it." he lifted his gaze from the table to hers; Riley could see he was hurt.

"What happened then?"

"It ended bad." The rest of his face was emotionless as he stared at an imaginary spot on the table. "Fights, dramas. Words were said, lawyers got involved." Owen then looked at Riley dead in the eyes. "I decided I'd had 'nough of that. So I left it all behind, and long story short found my way into NASA, and am currently on a suicide mission with a beautiful girl." he barrelled through those last words. "Tadaaa!" he shook his hands in pretense celebration. "The mysteries of fate."

Riley didn't know what to say.

'Beautiful?'

"I mean its fine," Owen said, waving his palm to show disregard. "It's nothing compared to the shit you've been through."

'Wait, what? What does he know?'

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, Connor told me about some of it one day." Owen spoke fast, before glancing at his bowl. "Ah, shit! My spoon..."

Riley didn't give a hoot about his sunken spoon.

'How much did he tell? Why did he tell him? Did these guys talk about ME? Why would they talk about me?!'

Riley suddenly felt really uncomfortable; a feeling of panic and insecurity creeping up her leg. "I-I gotta go." Was all she could say before she got up and speed-walked to the door.

She could hear Owen call out to her "Riles! What's wrong?"

Truth be told, neither did she know.