“What’s your dream?” Owen looked back at me after a moment.
To speak without thinking.I didn’t say that. “I don’t know. I don’t have big dreams. I ... love arts and crafts.” I felt silly and childish and aimless next to a guy who knew what he wanted from life, and from the looks of it—was going to achieve it.
“If you love it, you’ll be good at it,” he said, and there it was—that smile again. It melted my insides. Like a ball of cotton wool growing from my throat to my heart to my belly.
“My middle name is Gertrude,” I blurted. “That’s not a great start.” I had to take my mind off that softness if I didn’t want to drown in it.
Owen laughed. “Cry me a river. Mine’s Walter.”
“NowI’msorry for you!” I laughed. I couldn’t have known that one day I’d be living with his namesake.
Laughing, we both leaned into each other, the sides of our damp bodies touching from our shoulders to our hips.
“Your first name is after a song. That’s amazing.”
“Amazing? Who does that to their kids?”
“Your mom.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, she felt that if her favorite band wrote a song about a river she lives close to, it meant something.”
“I can’timagine you with any other name. Not a regular name, anyway. You’re Rio. Must be fun to have a name that makes people sing in their hearts.”
“People do that?” I looked at him, hardly able to contain my surprise.
“Maybe only I do.”
He chuckled, but silence fell between us soon after. I blushed up to my ears.
“Can I ask you something seriously?” Owen asked after a long moment of feet dangling inside the pool.
“You can try.”
“When did you start stuttering?”
“You mean you don’t gossip about me with Simon?”
“No.” He let out a dry half-chuckle.
“From the very beginning. I was born with it. No trauma or anything, just something that happens to some kids. Most recover spontaneously, but in my case, it didn’t go away. That happens to—”
“About one percent of the population. And girls are only one in five of those who don’t recover,” Owen said softly, not cutting me off but picking up the thought like we shared it.
I tilted my head sideways, looking at him in surprise and appreciation. “Yes, that’s right.”
“I was just ... it was just interesting to learn more about.”
I nodded, slowly, unsure what to make of it.
“I also read that it eases when people whisper or sing.”
“I always wished life was a musical and it’d be totally normal to suddenly burst out singing.”
Owen laughed again, bumping his shoulder against mine, sharing in my sarcasm.
I couldn’t wait to tell Ruby about all of this. Me, speaking so openly with Owen Wheaton! She’d hate missing that.
“Hey, are you two coming?” Simon’s voice broke the cozy solitude we had been wrapped in.
