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I still had my stitches in, and I guess I needed to make an appointment with a doctor to get them removed since I hadn’t heard from Salvatore, but I wasn’t in agony anymore.
As soon as I could take that damn thing off, I did. It was nice to be able to use my arms at work again.
“Oh, that. I had a little, ah, strain,” I said, since it wasn’t a full lie. It had been a strain on my shoulder to be shot.
“A strain? Bad enough that you were wearing a sling. And you didn’t tell me?” Wren asked, her emotive eyes letting me know immediately that she was hurt by the very idea.
“It was no big deal, really. It was just bothering me, so I wore the sling so I didn’t make it worse,” I told her.
“Whit, I know you’ve always been the mom figure in this relationship, but you can lean on me too, okay? Lord knows I’ve leaned on you enough,” she said, her gaze sliding away.
“Hey, that’s what family is for,” I told her, not wanting to bring up the topic, knowing it was never good. It was better, when we could, just to breeze past it and focus on more positive things. “So, how are classes?” I asked, scooping some too-liquid lasagne onto a plate for her. My instinct was to give her a giant portion, but I went for one the same size as mine.
That was the right thing to ask.
Because Wren lit up.
“Oh, it is so great,” she said, eyes going bright, taking her plate over to the couch to sit down, using her legs as a table. I grabbed us some drinks and headed over to join her.
Our parents had always been strict “eat at the table” types.
When I took Wren in, I’d never had space for a proper dining room. Besides, it always felt more casual and intimate to eat on the couch. And when we were trying to navigate our new living dynamic after our parents were gone, it was helpful to have that lack of formality. It helped us open up to each other.
“Yeah?” I asked, slicing open my lasagne with my fork so it could cool.
“I never thought I would enjoy it. You know how much I hated school when I went.”
It was more that she had a lot of issues with her peers giving her a shit all the time, making it hard for her to focus and apply herself in class.
I never understood that whole situation. I hadn’t exactly been popular in school, but no one ever teased me. And I’d been kind of pimply and oily and awkward. They would have had ample reason to pick on me.
Wren, however, had never gone through an awkward phase. She’d always been pretty and kind and good.
But maybe that was the problem.
The other girls saw her as a competition or something.
Which was absurd since Wren never dated in high school.
“I think college is so different because you get to explore your interests and passions.”
“That’s true,” she agreed, face bright. “But, yeah, I’m so loving it. I even found a study group to hang out with at the library. It’s so hard to make friends as an adult. And, yeah, I mean… I’m a little older than most of them, but not by too much, so it has all worked out.”
“I’m so happy you’re loving it.”
“Did you like college this much?” she asked.
“Yes and no. I didn’t have a lot of friends.” Or any friends, to be exact. I’d gone to one frat party, got so drunk that I blacked out and woke up with a butch woman sitting guard over me, then half-dragging me home while lecturing me about the shitty guys at college parties and what they’d been known to do to unconscious girls, and then I never really attempted to be a part of that scene again. “I loved some of my classes, though.”
“And all of the extra reading time,” she said, smiling.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t exactly have a lot of reading time.
I’d gotten a partial scholarship and a couple textbooks paid for by family, but it wasn’t nearly enough. And not wanting to be fresh out of college and handling debilitating debt, I’d decided to work my way through. Which I did.
I worked a night job at a supermarket and then did odd jobs on the weekends.
I’d been the queen of couponing and figuring out free ways to spend my off time. Which meant a lot of time in the library or the park, or just window shopping with a coffee I made at home so I didn’t waste a bunch of money on to-go fancy coffee.
