Besides, Jo-Jo had said that everything would work out the way it was supposed to. I'd taken her words to mean that Owen and I weren't done, that she saw a future for us. It might take a while, and there might be a lot of heartache along the way, but we'd get there. I knew we would. I had to believe we would.
I just had to.
I carefully tore the sheet with Owen's rune out of my sketchpad and propped it up alongside the others on the mantel. Maybe it was time for a change regarding the drawings. I'd always thought of them as the runes of my dead family, but maybe, maybe I could start thinking of them as tributes instead. A way to celebrate the people I loved.
Or maybe the love Owen and I had shared was just as dead as my mother, sister, and Fletcher.
No, I thought. Our love wasn't dead. It was just a little battered and bruised. It would eventually heal, and I was determined to do everything I could to help it along. If that meant giving Owen time and space to himself, then that was what I was going to do - no matter how much I just wanted to be in his arms right now.
"Come on, Gin," Bria said in a loud voice. "The wine isn't going to open itself!"
"Be right there!" I called back.
My friends had come to cheer me up, and I was going to let them. So I had a broken heart - so what? I'd gotten through worse, and I'd get through this too. This time, I was just grateful that there were people here for me, people who cared about me.
I looked at Owen's rune a final time, then fixed a smile on my face and headed into the kitchen to eat, drink, talk, and laugh the night away with my friends, my family.