13/

“What are you looking at?” asks Sadie, who’s spent the last five minutes fidgeting with the cuff of her sweater. She’s got it grasped in her hand, pulling the fabric taut over the base of her palm.

Owen nods his head in the direction of the couple. “I think they’re on a first date.”

Sadie asks how he knows. “Because they just shook hands.” 

The couple is sitting on a blanket in the grass, and Owen watches the woman make a six pack appear from her bag like a magic trick. She hands one to the man, who taps on the tear strip before pulling the tab. They cheers.

Sadie slips her hand in his, and he strokes his thumb over hers. “You remember ours?” she asks. 

The corner of his mouth turns. “The aquarium. You cried at the octopus.”

“I did not.”

“You did! You told me they’re too intelligent to be kept in captivity. I thought I blew it.” 

Sadie makes a face and puffs out her cheeks, feigning indignance. “Well, they are.” 

Owen chuckles, breath escaping from his nose in little puffs. Sadie leans her head on his shoulder. In the grass, the woman is leaning back on extended arms, her head tilted to rest on one elevated shoulder. The man is sitting cross-legged, leaning forward and swinging his beer as he speaks. The woman shifts to run a hand through her hair and opens her mouth to laugh, hand to her chest as her shoulders round in. “Babe, don’t be creepy,” Sadie says. 

“I’m not being creepy! They’re sitting right there! It’s the natural place to look.” 

“It’s a little creepy,” she says.

“It’s people watching.”

“Creepy people watching.” 

“Sadie, stop.” 

She sits up and turns her body toward him, sitting at an angle on the bench. “I feel weird sitting here with you staring at them.” 

He sighs and reaches up to pinch his temples between his thumb and middle fingers, then moves them in to grasp at the bridge of his nose. Owen doesn’t say anything, just moves his fingers in tiny circles to buy himself time and tries to push back down the flush of irritation and growing tension in his jaw. Sadie’s turned away from him and has her arms crossed across her waist, her fingers tangled in the fabric of her sweater. When he looks over at her again, she turns her head from him and presses her cheek to the front of her shoulder. 

“Would you like us to go sit somewhere else?” Owen asks, trying to keep the peace. Careful of his own body language, he tries to relax back on the bench and moves his hand toward the outside of his leg, palm up in passive invitation. 

Sadie doesn’t answer for a long time, still sitting with her back to him. In the grass, the man is sitting with his legs out, mirroring the woman, who’s fidgeting with her hair as she talks, pushing it behind her ear and then combing through it and twirling it around her finger. From the corner of his eye he sees Sadie start to turn around again, and shifts to look at her. She’s standing up and grabbing her bag, but when Owen starts to stand she shakes her head and holds her palm up at him to stop. 

Sadie’s shaking a bit, bag flung over her shoulder as she crosses her arms tightly and pulls them into her. “I just told you I feel weird sitting here with you staring at them.”

Owen looks at her and lets a long breath out through his nose. “I asked if you wanted to go sit somewhere else. It seems like you don’t want to be here anymore. Do you want to go sit somewhere else? Or we could go on a walk?”

“I want to feel like my partner cares about my discomfort.” 

He closes his eyes and sighs again, but when he opens them Sadie is already walking down the path away from him. Owen doesn’t follow her, instead he leans back into the bench and taps his hands on his legs a few times and rubs his temples and his jaw and tries to keep himself from replaying and dissecting how their interaction degraded so quickly. He tips his head back to look at the darkening sky, and watches a bird fly from one sapling to another. The couple in the grass are both sitting cross-legged now, their knees touching. 

Owen thinks back to the aquarium, thinks back on the last year and a half, thinks about the first time he and Sadie touched, kissed, slept together, fought, made up. There’s a heaviness in his chest that he tries to sit with and hold. 

The couple stands up, both smiling. The man folds the blanket they were sitting on while she gathers the cans and takes them to the green bin and skips her way back. She demurs for a moment, trying to hide a smile as she reaches out and links her fingers with his. Owen watches them walk on the path until they stop and face each other, and the man reaches up to brush hair from the woman’s face, and they take a long moment just looking at the other before they turn again and continue on their way.

There’s a small part in him still denying it, but it’s not big enough to mask the growing understanding and resignation. Owen knows what has to happen next.