Page 9 of Rumor Has It

Rebecca had taken the top two drawers, so Wren took the bottom two. They could do this. They were already cooperating without words. Wren could keep hanging out in the lobby until ten at night, and Rebecca could keep leaving the room before five-forty-five in the morning. They could just sleep in the same room and never speak. Hell, as far as roommates went, Wren thought that was actually kind of ideal.

She got dressed, pleased with her game plan, and got her stuff together for the day. It felt weird not having her lucky duffle bag with her, but she had left it in the locker room yesterday. It didn’t make much sense to keep carting it back and forth. It smelled a little, and the contents of it never really changed, but it was part of Wren’s routine and she felt a little naked without it. She decided to take her backpack just so she’d have a place to put her phone, wallet, and headphones for the bus ride over to the stadium.

Just as she was about to head down to breakfast, Rebecca opened their hotel door. This was not in line with Wren’s master plan, but Rebecca didn’t know that. She took a deep breath and prepared to clue Rebecca in on how she thought this could work, but Rebecca spoke first.

“Hey, uhhh, good morning?” Rebecca said, she bit her bottom lip nervously. “Did you see the news?” Rebecca hadn’t looked this nervous around Wren in six years, and she didn’t know how to respond to Rebecca’s uncharacteristic timidity.

Wren nodded. “Yeah, I saw it last night.”

Rebecca took a deep breath, crossing her arms over her chest—a forced and failed attempt at looking casual. “Look, I know you don’t want to talk about it. So, I’m not going to force you to, but I just want to say, I thought about it a lot yesterday and I just want to put everything behind us and start over. I’m sorry. Can we try to be cool?”

Wren’s jaw clenched. “I’ve been trying to be cool this whole time. This really isn’t a we problem.”

Rebecca’s hands gripped her arms, hugging herself tighter. “I just apologized, and you’re going to keep going? Seriously? What the hell?” She kept her voice low, barely above a whisper. The last thing either of them needed was for someone to be walking down the hall and hear them yelling at each other.

Wren took a deep breath. “You’re right.” She held her hand out. “Let’s start over. Hi, I’m Wren. You must be Rebecca.” Wren almost laughed at the shock that flashed through Rebecca’s hazel eyes, the way a slight blush spread across her freckled cheeks. Wren smiled innocently.

“My friends call me Becky.” Rebecca said, as she shook Wren’s hand, gripping more forcefully than necessary.

Wren smirked. “Guess I should stick with Rebecca then.” They shook hands for too long. Wren hated it. She hated the fact that she actually did want to make peace with Rebecca. They were going to be teammates. They were going to have to room together for a year. And most unfortunately, memories of six years ago wouldn’t stop rolling through Wren’s mind. She had compartmentalized them for so long, and now that they had been brought back up, she couldn’t get them to stop. Even if you took away the fact that they had had sex, those few weeks at soccer camp had been some of the best of Wren’s life, and that was all thanks to Rebecca.

Wren had never before—and certainly never had after—opened up to anyone the way she had with Rebecca. She’d laid herself fully bare and Rebecca had used the worst of it against her. The memory of that moment barreled into Wren like an angry bull.

“Why are you like this?” Rebecca asked, clearly fighting back a smile and not a vicious one either, one that belied their past.

“Because it annoys you and that brings me joy,” Wren said matter of factly. They finally stopped shaking hands, and Wren side-stepped around Rebecca and headed out into the hallway. “See you at breakfast, Rebecca.”

Practice was long and brutal. The coaches were not pleased that a photo of Rebecca flipping Wren off was circulating around the internet. Because of it, Wren and Rebecca had to stay an hour after the rest of the team to run sprints. Wren didn’t actually think it was fair—they had already been punished—but she definitely didn’t say that to the coaches. She just ran in silence, though she was breathing pretty heavily at the end. She was incredibly thankful that the whole team hadn’t been punished for their behavior. She hated corporal punishment. So, as much as she hated doing sprints with Rebecca for an hour, it was better than doing sprints with the team for an hour.

Somewhere around their seven millionth down and back run, Wren slowed her pace to jog beside Rebecca. “That’s it,” she said, shamelessly panting. “If Coach T asks, we’re officially best friends. For life. You can be in my wedding party. I don’t care.”

Rebecca snorted out a laugh. “Maybe if we hug, she’ll let our cooldown just be one lap.”

“I’d agree to matching tattoos at this point if it’ll get her to let us stop,” Wren wheezed.

Not long after, Coach T blew her whistle for the last time, spinning on her heel and heading into the locker room without another word to either of them.

They walked back to the locker room together without speaking. They hadn’t actually talked to each other for real since this morning’s conversation. Wren was too winded and exhausted to try and fill the awkward silence hovering between them. There was something to be said about being the only two people in a locker room. Especially given their complicated and messy history.

Wren grabbed her shower stuff and headed into the individual shower stalls. She would just get rinsed off and changed here. Despite Rebecca’s ‘let’s be friends’ attempt this morning, Wren was still pretty certain Rebecca would report her for anything and everything if she could.

“Hey, do you care if I play music?” Rebecca called out from what sounded like a few stalls away.

“Depends. What kind of music do you want to play?” Wren teased. Really she just wondered if Rebecca’s music taste had progressed at all from the non-stop pop-country she’d listened to six years ago.

“Oh my God, never mind,” she heard Rebecca mumble.

“I was just playing with you, dude. Listen to whatever you want. It’s fine.” Wren was more than a little embarrassed to admit that she had spent the rest of that summer after camp listening to country music and hoping Rebecca would call her and explain why she had been ghosted. Wren had held out hope for a little too long, and now she knew the lyrics to too many sad old country songs.

After Wren got herself dried off and into fresh clothes, she headed back out to wait in the main part of the locker room. She tossed her practice gear in the team hamper and got her locker organized for tomorrow’s practice. She could hear her phone buzzing in her backpack, so she dug it out. She had missed a few calls and texts from Andy. It made sense. She was supposed to be done with practice an hour ago, and they hadn’t gotten to talk last night because Andy had gone out.

She answered the call and immediately rushed out into the hallway. The last thing she wanted was for Rebecca of all people to overhear her talking to Andy.

“Hey, Baby,” she said, a huge smile locking into place. She hadn’t expected to miss Andy this much. They had only lived together for a month, but she had already gotten used to it, comfortable with it even.

“Wren? What the fuck?” Andy’s voice was harsh and shrill.

“Whoa, what’s going on?”