It was my fault. It was one hundred percent my fault, and I deserved every single bit of ire and fury this girl was currently giving me. My head was spinning, and that’s the only reason I could not respond to her, why I couldn’t say a single word.
“Now you listen to me,” she whispered, her voice hard, “if I see you around here one more time, if I catch wind of you trying to see her in the hospital? You won’t live to see another sunrise. You wouldn’t be the first person I’ve gotten rid of, and you probably won’t be the last. If you value your pathetic, miserable life at all, you will turn around and forget Wren exists. You’ve done enough to fuck her up.”
The first time she threatened me, I was too stunned to really hear it. A part of me knew she was always serious, but here andnow… there was something different about her. A deadly sort of calm, and the way she off-handed mentioned that I wouldn’t be the first… I believed her. I believed every word she said.
This girl was no saint. She was no angel. She had a darkness inside her that she only let out at certain times. To push her would be the biggest mistake I could make right now.
Such a small girl with such a killer attitude, but she was in Wren’s corner, and she was only saying these things to protect her. To protect her from me. Nothing she said was a lie. I was the miserable, pathetic one. I did this to Wren.
A girl like Wren could never be happy with someone like me. I’d only drag her down.
The breath I finally let out was explosive, and I took a step back from her as I muttered, “Okay.” It was all I could say, the only word that I could get out. My mind was still racing with everything I’d learned, the world still spinning way too fast, but all I could do was sayokay.
I wasn’t the guy who accepted consequences, even if said consequences were a direct result of his actions. I was the guy who played around without a single care in the world, and I relished that light feeling. No weight on these shoulders. No responsibility pushing me down into the mud.
But the mud was where I belonged.
I turned away from her and walked with my head low. I reached the sidewalk and kept going, and just like I did Friday night, I never looked back. I didn’t have to. I knew she’d be watching me, making sure I left. Wren’s roomie had her back, and I had absolutely no right to be upset about it.
Wren was in the hospital. I wasn’t a praying sort of guy, but that night, as I lay in bed thinking about the one girl in the entire world I shouldn’t, I prayed to whatever god would listen.I’d give anything to make sure she was okay.
A part of me assumed I’d see Wren eventually, so I didn’t try to bother her after that encounter with her roomie. I thought I’d at least see her in psych class, where we had to do a group project together—the psychology of avoidance.
But I never did. She never came back. In fact, the professor pulled me aside a week or two later and told me that I could either join a different group or that I could do the project by myself and choose a different topic.
I didn’t choose a different topic, though. I couldn’t. Even though I wasn’t good at anything involving research or writing, I did my best to write a paper on the psychology of avoidance. I did the in-class presentation all by myself, too. Got a C-plus, which wasn’t bad, but it was no A-plus like I knew Wren would’ve had.
She never came back, and I couldn’t find her on social media anymore, which I took to mean she blocked me even though we were never friends to begin with. I didn’t really use my profiles much anyway, not anymore. Still, it would’ve been nice to see pictures of her recovery, to watch from afar as she got better. Instead, I was in the dark, a darkness I wholeheartedly deserved.
Now that it’s a brand-new semester, I should be ready to start fresh, to start new. I should forget all about the chaos of last semester and put a new foot forward. Be better. Forget about Wren, because obviously she didn’t want to see me.
I couldn’t do that, though. I couldn’t forget about Wren. I couldn’t get the girl out of my mind, even after all this time. I thought of her when I went to sleep at night. I thought about her when I woke up. Hell, I even dreamed about her. Somehow she became a part of me, and after everything was said and done, I couldn’t shake her memory.
Campus is huge. Thousands and thousands of students. The sidewalks get busy between classes, especially those first fewdays of the semester, when everyone is showing up, before people start to skip and flake out.
I don’t expect anything as I walk between classes. I wear a baggy hoodie, my bag on my back. Monday early afternoon, and I am actually carrying all of my textbooks to class like some nerd. Maybe Wren rubbed off on me after all, or maybe I’m trying to materialize her.
A silly thing. In a campus this large, with this many students, the odds of seeing her are slim to none. Heck, she might’ve gone home after the accident and never came back, transferred to a new college.
Fate must have something in store for me, though. A big, neon sign that points at me and laughs, because during my walk to my next class, I swear I see her, the girl who’s been on my mind for months on end.
Wren.
I slow to a halt when I think I spot her, causing some other students to bump into me and give me dirty looks for stopping in the middle of a sidewalk, but I don’t care.
She’s a good hundred or so feet away. I only get bits and pieces of her around the crowds, but it has to be her. She’s walking along a perpendicular sidewalk to the one I’m on, with her head down and her chin stuffed into the puffy jacket she wears. She wears her pants tucked into her boots, the same bag she had last semester slung over her shoulder.
I blink a few times, wondering if I’m seeing things, if it’s all in my head or something. Maybe she’s not really here and it’s just some girl with the same bag and the same posture, the same mousey brown hair and tendency for clothing that’s a few sizes too large for her.
No, it’s her. It has to be her. It has to be.
I stand there, watching her through the crowd, until I can’t see her anymore. I don’t know where she’s going, if she’s going toher next class or what, but seeing her for the first time in months does something to me.
Everything I’ve been drowning in. Everything I’ve tried so hard to ignore. Everything I’ve come to face and accept these past few months. Seeing her makes me feel it all.
And she doesn’t see me. She is totally, blissfully unaware of me and my gaze.
Immediately, I want to follow her, to go up to her, grab her by hand and… do things I probably shouldn’t want to do. Throw all caution to the wind. Forget about her roomie’s threats and cold, deadly promises. When it comes to Wren, a few moments of her time might just be worth it.
