Owen Thorn was my first real love. 

I’m not even joking when I say that.

Owen Thorn was more than a book and movie series to me. It was my life.

Everyone else seemed to grow up and move on once the last movie came out, but I just… couldn’t. There was something about that world I couldn’t let go of. Maybe it was because, deep down, I knew I was an unremarkable person with an unremarkable life, destined for an unremarkable future. The Owen Thorn series was the only place I could escape to. So, was it really so bad that I wasn’t ready to say goodbye just yet?

“Mister Price! Are you paying attention?”

My head jerked up at Mrs. Slinger's shrill voice, the sharpness of her tone sending a jolt through me. My heart lurched, and I dropped the pencil I’d been using to doodle Owen in the margins of my notebook. It clattered loudly against the desk, echoing in the sudden silence that gripped the classroom.

Everyone turned to look, their eyes boring into me from every angle, like they could see straight into my soul. My face went hot, a flush of embarrassment spreading from my cheeks all the way up to the tips of my ears.

“Y-Yes, ma’am!” I stammered, my voice nearly cracking, which didn’t exactly help the whole ‘public humiliation’ thing. 

“Then, Mister Price,” Mrs. Slinger continued, “you wouldn’t mind telling me the answer to the question on the board?”

My gaze drifted to the chalkboard, where a jumble of numbers and symbols blurred together, swimming before my eyes. I hadn’t paid a lick of attention to them all class, and now they might as well have been chicken scratch.

I sank into my chair.

“I...I don’t know,” I mumbled, my voice barely a whisper. 

“Speak up, Mister Price,” Mrs. Slinger barked. “I can’t hear you.”

I resisted the urge to melt into the floor and die, which was honestly a rather gallant accomplishment on my part. “I said, I don’t know, ma’am.”

The class erupted into snickers, the sound buzzing around me like a swarm of relentless mosquitoes.

Mrs. Slinger shook her head in disappointment. “That’s what I thought. Maybe in the future, you could pay attention to the lesson instead of doodling, Mister Price. Then maybe you wouldn’t be failing my class.”

The laughter swelled, filling the room.

Sean, the boy next to me, leaned in with a smirk, his voice loud enough to cut through the noise. “Yeah, and maybe if he weren’t such a freak, he’d actually have friends too.”

The words sparked a fresh round of chuckles, the sound rippling through the room. A few people behind me muttered under their breath, “Weirdo.”

My mouth went dry, my cheeks burning. If I could have just vanished right then and there into another plane of existence, I would have done it in a heartbeat. 

One more year, I told myself. Just one more year, and I’d escape this nightmare that is the American public high school system.

Mentally repeating the thought over and over, I dropped my head to the desk, buried my face in my arms, and pretended to be comatose until the bell rang.

So yeah, you could say class went great. 

The rest of the school day played out as usual. I had lunch alone because, as much as I hated to admit it, Sean was right. I had literally no friends.

It was okay, though. I just sat alone at the end of a table, rewatching the third Owen Thorn movie while chewing on one of our cafeteria’s mediocre tuna sandwiches. The sandwich was dry, the bread slightly stale, and the tuna bland. But I barely noticed as I lost myself in the familiar scenes of Owen Thorn battling dark forces, finding a comforting escape from my less-than-stellar reality.

After lunch, I trudged through the rest of my classes, each one more boring than the next. The teachers droned on, their voices a monotonous hum that barely registered as I counted down the minutes until the final bell. 

Next up was the bus ride home, where I once again sat alone, scrolling through Ao3 to see if anyone had updated the Owen x Y/N fanfic tag. When no one had, I let out a resigned sigh and switched to Wattpad. 

Just as I was finally getting to a good part (Owen and Y/N were literally about to kiss!), the other kids’ shrieking somehow managed to cut through my noise-canceling headphones. 

With a groan, I leaned back, trying to ignore the chaos and focus on my fanfiction, when I felt something squish against me. I yanked off my jacket to find a wad of gum stuck to the back. My heart sank. Yeah, okay, so that was never coming out. 

At least today couldn’t get any worse. 

Finally, I stumbled off the bus and made my way home, my feet dragging with the weight of another uneventful day. The routine felt so ingrained that it barely registered that today was different from any other. 

That was, of course, until I pushed open the door and was greeted by a chorus of cheerful shouts, my family leaping up from behind the table like an overzealous jack-in-the-box. 

Well, all of my family except my older brother. Aiden hadn’t been there for my birthday since I was twelve.

“Happy birthday, Niko!” my mom called out, presenting an ice cream cake that had clearly been melting for the past ten minutes.

Eighteen candles flickered on the cake, painfully reminding me that today I was an official adult. They blazed like they had a vengeance.

“Can we give him his present now?” Bridget piped up, her voice bubbling with excitement.

Mom gave her the most ‘mom’ look imaginable. “Let him blow out the candles first.”

“Please, please, please!” Bridget said, bouncing on her heels. “I’m just too excited!”

“Bridget—” Mom started, but my sister ignored her, brushing past and shoving a large book into my hands.

I looked down at it and my breath caught. 

No freaking way! 

The book was a heavy leather tome, solid and reassuring in my hands. Its rich brown cover was worn smooth in spots from years of handling. Gold embellishments swirled in intricate patterns, catching the light and shimmering as I tilted it. The ornate designs framed the title in elegant script: Owen Thorn and the Lost Wish.

“Oh my God!” My eyes had gone so wide I thought they might burst from my head, sheer joy overtaking me. “This is a real first edition Owen Thorn book!” 

Bridget’s grin stretched ear to ear. “It took me forever to find one! It wasn’t cheap, but Mom chipped in, and we managed to snag it just for you.”

“Owen Thorn?” My dad’s expression hardened as he turned to my mom, a vein throbbing in his neck. “I thought we agreed not to buy him any more of that crap.”

All the happiness I’d felt a second ago drained out of me, like a water balloon that had just been popped.

Mom gasped, her eyes widening in shock. “We’ll discuss this later,” she said, quickly regaining her composure. “There’s no need for that kind of language in front of the children.”

“They’re not children anymore, that’s the point,” Dad snapped, sweeping a burly arm toward us. “Bridget is twenty one, and now Niko’s eighteen. You can’t keep supporting him being this into kid stuff. It’s not normal.”

My breathing had begun to quicken, a knot forming in my throat. 

“Am I wrong, Niko?” Dad’s hand rested heavily on my shoulder, firm but attempting reassurance. “Your brother was the star of the football team at your age. Don’t you wish you could be more like Aiden?”

Of course, I wanted to be more like Aiden. I had wanted to be like him my entire life. But no matter how hard I tried, there was no reality I could even be a fraction of what my older brother had been. I knew it. Dad knew it. Everyone who had ever met me knew it. 

That sinking feeling of wanting to disappear straight out of this plane of existence was back. The pressure in my chest intensified, and I glanced at Bridget, who looked as if she were bracing for a storm. The room felt smaller, the walls seeming to close in. 

“Dad, I just… I…” I swallowed hard, trying to find my voice. “It makes me happy—”

“Jake McDougle’s boys all play football,” Dad said, his gaze intense, “and my kid is still playing dress-up and watching movies meant for little kids. How do you think that makes me feel?” He shifted his focus to my mom, his voice rising as the vein on his neck bulged. “That’s why I said we were done with this nonsense, Allison. Aren’t you tired of everyone looking at our son like he’s a freak?”

My hands trembled against the book. A dull ache spread through my core, like my rib cage was contracting in on itself with the intent of squashing my heart like a bug. Something burned at the corners of my eyes, and, to my horror, a small sniffle escaped me.

My dad’s expression softened ever so slightly. “I’m just trying to look out for you, bud. Aren’t you sick of being treated like this just because of some stupid book?”

When he noticed the tears welling in my eyes, he gripped my shoulders and shoved me toward the cake, forcing me to face the mocking flames flickering from the eighteen candles.

“Pull yourself together, Niko,” he said. “You’re a man now, not a boy. And men don’t cry.”