We Own the Night Read online

  To the friends tucked into my heart,

  you are my home.

  Contents

  Radio Niteowl: Show #156

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Radio Niteowl: Show #157

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Radio Niteowl: Show #158

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Radio Niteowl: Show #159

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Radio Niteowl: Show #160

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Radio Niteowl: Show #161

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Radio Niteowl: Show #162

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Radio Niteowl: Show #163

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  WZTQ—The Swish: Transcript Excerpt

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Radio Niteowl: Show #165

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Preview: The Sound of Us

  RADIO NITEOWL

  SHOW #156

  MAY 28th

  NITEOWL: Good evening, my Owls, and welcome to Radio Niteowl on 93.5 KOTN. The phone lines are open and I’m raring to go! Tonight’s topic is forbidden love. Dun-dun! Got a tale to tell? A love you can’t quite articulate? Or are you on the other end of that unrequited affair? Just slide me a line at [number redacted] and—bless, two callers already! Holla, Caller One! You’re on the air. What’s your poison?

  CALLER ONE: Yo, I've got this broha of mine. He’s had a run of bad luck. Our best friend died about a year ago.

  NITEOWL: Oh no. I’m sorry.

  CALLER ONE: Yeah, brah, it was bad. He hasn’t been the same since. I know he didn’t love her, right? But the man can’t seem to let her go. I’m just all twisted about this because he’s my brah, and I don’t know what to do. I’d go to jail for him, you know? I just want him to forgive himself. She loved him and . . . he never felt the same.

  NITEOWL: So he feels guilty.

  CALLER ONE: Yeah, brah.

  NITEOWL: Hmm. You know, my grandmother always said that you can’t open new doors until the old ones close. If you keep them ajar, drafts’ll blow in and close any new door you want to open. Maybe he should confront his feelings. It’s been a year. Maybe he should try to close that door.

  CALLER ONE: Shit, that’s it. You’re a genius. There’s a vigil coming up in July. If I can just trick him into going . . .

  NITEOWL: A vigil? Hold on, who is your friend?

  CALLER ONE: Thanks, broho!

  NITEOWL: Wait! . . . Never mind. He’s gone. I hope your friend finds some peace of mind! Okay, Owls! What else do you have for me tonight? Here we go. Caller Two!

  CALLER TWO: Oh—uh, hi. So . . . there’s this . . . there’s this girl.

  NITEOWL: Good, good. I like where this is going. Much lighthearted. Very yes.

  (CALLER TWO and NITEOWL laugh.)

  NITEOWL: You’ve got a nice laugh.

  CALLER TWO: So do you. You know, for the radio. I mean, you’re probably very pretty too, I didn’t mean—

  NITEOWL: So, about this girl . . . ?

  CALLER TWO: Right! Yeah. She’s way outta my league. We’ve been friends for years, but she’s my best friend, you know? I'm not her best friend, she’s best friends with someone else, but she’s mine. Isn't it funny how that works?

  NITEOWL: Then she doesn't know what she's missing.

  CALLER TWO: (laughs nervously) No, she doesn't have eyes for me. Never has. But it never bothered me until I realized one day.

  NITEOWL: That you love her?

  CALLER TWO: It kinda hit me. Like a linebacker with a personal grudge against me. Anyway, point is, I like her and I don’t know how to tell her, and at this point I don’t think I should. After the summer, most of us are going away to college and she likes someone else . . .

  NITEOWL: Well, summer’s about to start, and if you’re going away, this might be your last chance—ever. I say do it. Balls to the wall, boy. You only have one life. Do you want to spend it wondering what-if that one girl was your North Star?

  CALLER TWO: And when she says no? That she doesn’t . . . you know. That we’re just friends and she never saw me that way and never will? Then we’ll drift apart, and in ten years we’ll see each other at class reunions and make small talk, and that’ll be it.

  NITEOWL: Don't be so dark and brooding. I’m not saying it’ll be easy—

  CALLER TWO: Have you ever done it?

  NITEOWL: Done what?

  CALLER TWO: Walked up to your best friend and told him you loved him?

  NITEOWL: You’re assuming I like guys. I might like girls—but the point’s moot. My best friends are a bunch of blockheads—all three of them. They couldn’t see love if it came hurtling at them from a canon.

  CALLER TWO: But if they could?

  NITEOWL: Not an option. But I'll tell you what, call me back when you've told her, and tell me what she says, and I promise I'll do the same to my blockhead best friends.

  CALLER TWO: You like one of your best friends, too?

  NITEOWL: Isn’t that the rule? We fall in love with the people we can never have.

  Chapter One

  Micah paints imaginary lines in the sky with his fingers from one star to the next. I can almost see the constellations if I tilt my head and squint, but I really don’t care if I see them or not. May evenings are the best in Steadfast, Nebraska. The days aren’t stifling yet, and they sigh with a cool breeze coming off the miles and miles of farmlands, blowing the scent of blooming sunflowers into town.

  My head rests against his shoulder as he draws Orion in the sky. The cadence of his voice is soft, mellow. It dips and bobs with his accent, curling around the r’s and stuffy t’s. I’ve heard it my whole life. He was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and his house always smells like spicy food and burning incense. His voice is warm, like a blanket. It’s safe.

  “How far away you think they are?” I ask.

  “Thousands of millions of miles,” he replies. “Chances are they’re already long dead. Their light takes time to reach us—”

  “At the speed of light?” I joke, turning my face toward to his. The spotlight from our porches cuts his cheekbones into sharp lines, the plains of his face smooth and soft, like an Impressionist painting.

  He drops his brown eyes to me, grinning. “Smart-ass.”

  “Smartest of them all.”

  He looks back at the sky. He scoops a handful of dark curls back with his free hand. “What’re we going to do after graduation, Igs?”

  I groan, rolling off him. I lay on my back, arms out, staring at the endless sky. We’re in the grass between our front yards. It’s wet with dew and prickly against the back of my neck. “I don’t know. You think Billie’ll just
reuse the speeches he gives the football team for his Valedictorian one?”

  “I’d like to hear that.” He clears his throat and tries to imitate our mutual friend’s midwestern twang: “It’s real simple—now most of you’ve been at this gig for twelve years. And this is it. This is where we take a stand. Now you’ve got the world ahead of you—”

  I elbow him in the side. “Stop it,” I say, trying not to laugh. “Billie doesn’t give speeches like that.”

  “Oh, so you’ve been in the locker rooms? Got a secret identity, Ingrid North?”

  My cheeks burn. “No.”

  “Don’t act so guilty!”

  “Come on, that’s ridiculous!”

  “Well you’ve been MIA for the last few months, so what do I know?” He moves to sit up. Blades of grass coat his back, and I absently begin to pick them off him.

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “Did I go somewhere?”

  “You’ve been distant since . . .” He chews on his bottom lip, looking back at my house and the light on in the living room, where Grams is watching Jeopardy.

  “Oh. That.” I lay back down. “Life just happened, that’s all.”

  “But you’ll have more time now, right? With graduation?”

  “Probably not.”

  He scoots closer to me. “Why not, Igs? The group’s not the same without you. And your grandma—”

  “Can we not talk about it right now?”

  He purses his lips, worry lines creasing his face, making him look older, like a scolding parent. Maybe what he’ll look like in twenty years, when he owns his father’s auto repair shop. He pretty much lives there now, his fingers always stained with grease. “We miss you. It’d be nice to hang out a few more times—you, me, Billie, and LD—before we all go off to wherever we’re going. This is our last summer together. Maybe forever.”

  “Stop being so dramatic,” I say, and roll my eyes, but there’s a twinge of truth to his words. Of all people who should know how quickly something you thought would stay the same changes forever, it’s me.

  He mutters something under his breath before turning to face me. “I mean it, Igs. We need to make our last summer in Steadfast epic. We owe it to ourselves, you know?”

  When he looks at me with those brown eyes that might be mocha or might be coffee or might be dirt flecked with gold, it’s hard not to think that, for a moment, something could be epic. Something could be world shattering and wonderful. Like his gaze is the missing piece of a puzzle I’ve been looking for my entire life.

  I wish I could tell him that, but the words get caught in my throat. I quickly look away, caving.

  It’s hard not to cave when Micah Perez looks at you like you’re the last star left in the sky. “Fine, yeah. Got anything in mind?”

  “Well, there is a Barn party tonight . . .”

  The warm feeling in my gut turns to ice. “That’s why you wanted to stargaze tonight? We’re not stargazing at all—we’re waiting on the others!”

  He wobbles his bottom lip. “C’mon, Igs, for me?” Then he starts begging me in Spanish so choppy that his ancestors must be rolling in their graves, so I clamp his lips closed to stop him. His parents might be from Monterrey, but Micah almost failed Spanish in seventh grade.

  “I don’t do Barn parties. No matter how much you want to sweet talk me. Besides, who’s going to watch Grams?”

  He rolls his eyes. “Your grandma’ll be okay; promise. And my parents are right next door.” He thumbs back to his house, and his mother’s watching America’s Rising Star with that punk singer Jason Dallas as a guest judge. I wish I were watching that now instead of being out here. “If not for me, come for the dozens of classmates who’d love to see your face.”

  I snort. “Yeah, on a milk carton.”

  “A sour milk carton. It’s the last Barn party before graduation. Tomorrow we’ll walk across that stage and shake hands with Clipboard Butt”—the loving name we have for Principal Monroe, since he always shoved his clipboard down the seat of his pants—“and that’s it! We’ll be done. Officially not high schoolers anymore. Hell, we’ll be adults.”

  “That’s scary.”

  “Am I winning you over yet?” he asks, trying on another grin for size. Trouble sinks perfectly into the corner of his lips. His cell phone beeps, and he takes it out of his pocket to read it. “You better decide fast. The others are on their way.”

  “I don’t see why everyone loves the Barn so much,” I try to argue. “It’s just an excuse to make bad decisions with classmates.”

  He wiggles a thick black eyebrow. “I’m all up for bad decisions tonight.”

  “Oh? You know condoms expire, right? Don’t trust the dinosaur that’s been in your wallet since fifth grade.”

  He feigns a gasp. “I’d never! I might pack heat,” he fashions his hands into a gun, “but a good pistol deserves a good holster.”

  “Don’t you mean toy gun?”

  “Ouch.”

  “You walked into that one, ranger.”

  Headlights pull down the road. They briefly blind us as we pull up our hands to shield our eyes. Billie’s beat-up gray Cadillac drives up, and LD leans out of the passenger window, her teal hair piled high on her head in a perfect braid. “You two love birds stop mackin’ on the front lawn and get your asses in here!”

  Micah flashes her the bird. “So what do you say? Wanna come prevent some bad decisions tonight? I’ll even let you listen to that radio deejay you like so much, Rooney Quick—”

  “Quill,” I correct.

  “—on the way there!”

  I level him a glare. “He’s not even on right now.”

  “Well, when he is, then.”

  “You hate his voice.”

  “I’ll endure anything for you.”

  “Liar.”

  He feigns hurt. “I’m sure Rooney Quits—”

  “Quill!”

  “—never had his best friend call him a liar!”

  My idol Rooney Quill also never had to grow up in nowhere Nebraska. I sigh heavily. “Fine! Fine, help me up.”

  “¡Vale!” He jumps to his feet and spins back around, grasping my hands. He heaves me up.

  “I hope cat tacos are in,” I say, motioning to my sweater.

  LD gives a wolf whistle. “Sexy cat tacos. Hop in!”

  Grams and I both have an affinity for knit sweaters, so while I don’t have many summery dresses or sparkly skirts, I do have sweaters, with everything on them from R2-D2 to cat tacos (as in cats in tacos). We’re are alike that way. We love to ham up our lives with sweaters covered in . . . ham. Or cats. Or ham and cats. Or ham and cats and the eternal face of Donny Osmond.

  I glance back at the window. She is exactly where I left her, in the recliner in the living room, having fallen asleep watching Jeopardy. I pulled an afghan to her chin earlier, so she looks like a cocoon of snuggly orange-and brown-zigzags. A part of me wants her to wake up so I’ll have an excuse to not go. I’m sorry guys, I have to sit here with Grams and watch Days of Our Lives reruns with her while she cooks bacon in the kitchen and hums the theme music to Star Wars, I’d say.

  But she looks so peaceful, I can almost trick myself into thinking everything is still okay.

  From the car, the golden-headed Billie Bleaker, star running back and Valedictorian and so many other golden things, shouts from the driver’s side, “Hey, North! No second-guessing!”

  “I’m not second-guessing.” I climb into the backseat with Micah.

  Billie raises a single strong eyebrow. Somehow, he always knows what I’m thinking when Micah doesn’t. “Totally were,” he argues.

  “Was not.”

  “Was.”

  “Was not!”

  “Was times infinity.”

  I scowl as he bumps fists with LD. Micah gives me an apologetic shrug as we pull off onto the road again. I glance back through the rear window, watching the yellow light in the window grow smaller and smaller until Billie turns onto the main road, an
d then it disappears.

  Chapter Two

  Before you start wondering, Mom left when I was six.

  I was the last to see her, standing in the doorway with her floral suitcase, dishwater-blond hair braided atop her head. She spied me hiding at the top of the stairs and put a finger to her lips.

  “I’ll be back soon,” she whispered as an Exorcist-puke-colored taxi pulled into the driveway.

  Then she walked out the front door, cowboy boots clinking, and closed the door so quietly the hinges barely squeaked. Then the big green taxi pulled away.

  That’s not to say I’ve never heard from her since. Oh, she used to send postcards for my birthday the first few years—from California, New York, Beijing, Morocco, Singapore, Egypt—but after a while they stopped. Now she just calls whenever she runs out of cash, always from weird area codes like White River Junction, Vermont, or Herald Call, Minnesota.

  I hate to think that I’m anything like Mom, but I know that deep down my skin itches for other places, too. The walls are already closing in, the town suffocating. I know, deep down, I’m just like her, from my dishwater-blond hair to my hazel eyes to my knack for twenty questions (“Good journalistic instinct!” Grams always proclaims). I wish I’d gotten her figure too, thin as a rail, and her laugh like honey, not just her bad traits, but I look more like a pear than the next model on the cover of Hipsters Daily. Mom can't remember who the male donor was that made me, and I never cared to find out.

  But, unlike Mom, I actually have a conscience, and it’s guilty. Every time I blink, Steadfast makes more reasons for me to stay. Like Grams, and my friends, and Micah in a tight white T-shirt that stretches gloriously over his biceps, and jeans that make his butt look so, so stellar.

  Not that I ever look at his butt.

  . . . Unless, obviously, it’s in my face as he reaches up between the seats to change the radio. “I hate this station. It’s nothing but Deadheads.”

  LD slaps his hand away. “Now, now, we should support our local Deadhead.”

  “He’s not even a good deejay.”

  “You wouldn’t know a good deejay if it smacked you across the face,” I defend as he sits back with a huff. “I’d like to see you try to do better.”

  “And play something besides country,” Billie adds, looking up in the rearview mirror at me. I can see his grin in the reflection, and it’s charming in a boyish way. Billie is tall and muscular from years of football. His sandy hair is gelled in a swoop, the sides newly buzzed. His mom runs the local salon, and I still remember all the years in middle school when he had green or blue hair. But he grew out of that phase. He put his punk CDs in the attic and joined varsity football, something he’s genuinely good at. Girls like him—a lot of girls like him—but he just isn’t the kind of guy to count notches in his belt. Which is probably why so many girls find him attractive, come to think of it.