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“I wanted to say thank you,” she huffed, rolling her eyes in clear annoyance at my lack of response. It was shitty, and I knew both Ames and my long-dead parents would have been disappointed in my lack of manners, but listening to Wren ramble with a shy smile on her face was worth the bad karma. “For figuring out what happened atIn Bloomand offering to be my bodyguard for however long. I know we haven’t always gotten along, and I know recently I’ve been playing into it, but I thought after yesterday and last night that maybe we could be friends.”
The word soured my gut so quickly I dropped the fork, Wren flinching when it clanged against the ceramic of the plate. I stood up from the stool, stepping closer until Wren had to tilt her head at an uncomfortable angle to meet my eyes. I wasn’t wearing my boots, but I still stood eight or so inches taller than her, and I liked making our differences clear as I enunciated, voice rasping out of my throat as I gritted between my teeth, “We arenot-” my eyes flicked down to her apron for a moment before I continued, “friends.”
I watched as Wren’s eyes filled with tears, eager for them, unable to get their taste out of my mouth since I forced her to walk home in the dark. But before they fell, Wren shook her head, getting her emotions under control until her sadness was replaced with anger. She pushed me with both palms, forcing me a step back until she darted over to the counter and grabbed the pancakes I had only half-eaten, dumping them - plate and all - into the trash can.
After that, the tenuous truce between us (the beginning of afriendship, as Wren referred to it) fractured back to the quiet tension that had emerged after our fight at Ames and Alex’s house. I refused to break the silence between us, and no amount of wordless taunting on my part seemed to break Wren.
Any glancing touches were met with tension instead of goosebumps, and I quickly stopped trying, hating the sight. She didn’t make me a special breakfast again, though she was softhearted enough to make twice as much food as needed every time she cooked or get extra whenever she ordered out, leaving it on the counter like a silent offering to an angry god. And each day I spent in her space, breathing her air while she avoided me, that’s how I felt: Angry. Off-balance. Dangerous.
It didn’t help that I spent less time with Wren than I expected in the days after my refusal of her friendship. Turns out a bodyguard wasn’t needed often when you spent so much time around people like Alex and Dev. Twice, Alex encouraged me to drop Wren by the house, offering to watch her so I could run errands for the business. Ames invited her over another time for help in the fall garden that would soon need to be harvested. Dev found time to stop by the apartment orIn Bloommore than once, despite being neck deep in his Cillian assignment, “relieving” me of my duties for an hour or two at a time. The three of them found every opportunity to rip her away from me, as if I were the one she needed protecting from.
Which was how I found myself lying to my sister on Saturday morning.
“Wren forgot her sunglasses back at the apartment, so we have to turn around,” I told Ames over the phone, attempting to infuse the correct amount of annoyance for the imaginary scenario.
I then spent the next five minutes shutting down every reasonable protest she had to continue our original plan to drive to the apple orchard together. No, she couldn’t borrow Ames’s sunglasses because she had a “vision for her first apple picking outfit” (actual words Wren had spoken the night before when she had broken her vow of silence toward me to ask what I planned to wear). No, the three of them shouldn’t wait for us because Wren had no idea where the sunglasses were and it could be a while. No, we didn’t need their help looking, because then we’d all be late so instead why didn’t the three of them go ahead and I’d text when we left?
“Oh, and Ames?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let the guys give her shit for it. She already feels bad enough, and I don’t want to deal with her tears in the car.” Lies. I’d enjoy dealing with her tears in the car. But I’d rather not have to explain why I was lying about Wren having a pair of emotional support sunglasses.
I left the bedroom to find Wren pouring coffee into two travel mugs, leaving mine sitting on the counter as if it weren’t for me. I gritted my teeth at her lack of eye contact, grunting instead of thanking her properly because I couldn’t help being a grumpy bitch.You better fix your attitude, I reminded myself, recalling why I had just jumped through hoops to drive Wren alone this morning. Thankfully, I had an hour to get my head on straight.
Except forty-five minutes later, I still drove in silence as Wren stared out the window, watching the evergreens turn to giant oaks, leaves changing colors in a burst of reds, oranges, and yellows. I watched the clock for another ten minutes before finally forcing my mouth to open.
“Ames and I come here every year,” I offered, holding out that small piece of personal information with bated breath, as if it were a bomb rather than an innocuous fact she already knew from my sister. Wren didn’t answer, but her head swiveled toward me for the first time on this car ride, and I took that as a positive sign. “Our parents brought us when we were kids every year. They died in the spring, and we were still pretty fucked up about it six months later when fall rolled around. But Ames woke me up one morning, called my school, and told them I was sick. She drove us up here, said she refused to have us miss a year and regret it for the rest of our lives. And we never stopped coming.”
Wren waited, and I felt her eyes still on the side of my face as I drove. The road was almost empty, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn toward her, knowing I’d lose my nerve. I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to do this. I never apologized - either outright or indirectly - to anyone but my sister. And even with Ames, it usually just took a coffee to ease any guilt I felt.
But with Wren, all I knew was this off-balance feeling, this sinking in my gut the past few days every time Ames or one of the guys stole Wren away as if she asked them to. As if she used every excuse she could to get away from me. And even though I didn’t look at her, Wren sat still, waiting, as if she knew I was slowly destroying my pride to get out my next few words.
“I’ll be your friend. While I protect you, I’ll be your friend.” The words came out guttural, almost unintelligible, but Wren didn’t make me repeat them. Instead she asked the one question I wished she hadn’t.
“Why?”
“Because I can’t stand the silence.” I hated how the words sounded coming out of my mouth. Weak, pathetic, desperate. Too close to an admission of other things I couldn’t name.
“Okay, then. Friends.”
I grinned then, reveling at how easy it was to earn Wren’s forgiveness. That’s when I finally looked over at her, making sure all the depraved thoughts running through my mind were reflected in my eyes as I told her, “But if you think ourfriendshipis going to prevent me from playing my games with you, you’ll be sorely mistaken.”
Wren didn’t answer, turning away so that she was looking back out the window, but I would’ve sworn I saw a small smile curve her lips at my threat.
Five minutes later, I pulled onto the small, curvy road leading up the mountain that housed the apple orchard, my Jeep slowing to a crawl at times as we caught up to traffic and waited for pedestrians to cross the hiking trails that intersected with the road. Eventually, the canopy of trees opened up to scenic views and the crisp air that came with high altitudes and fall weather.
I rolled down the windows so Wren could smell it, stifling a laugh when I heard her sucking in deep breaths as if she’d never left the city before. It might’ve actually been the first time she’d been this far from a city, considering she grew up in a large city out west before moving to the smaller city here.
I quickly pulled into one of the last parking spots, shooting Ames a quick text to figure out where the rest of them were. They’d only beat us by ten minutes. Luckily, we found Wren’s sunglasses shortly after I called Ames. Or at least, that’s what I planned to tell her.
As Wren reached over to unbuckle her seatbelt, I reached into the center console, grabbing something out and tossing it into Wren’s lap. “Wear these.”
She picked up the sunglasses slowly as if they were a trap rather than a gift, turning them over in her hands as she took them in. She traced her fingers over the curved octagonal shape of the gold frames, then gently touched the red lenses of the sunglasses, bright as a candy apple. It was what made me buy them the day before, after Dev kicked me out of the apartment and I came up with this plan to steal Wren away. The type of apple picking sunglasses I imagined Wren picking out for herself.
“You…bought these for me?” Wren’s voice was breathless, almost awed, and I didn’t like how happy this small gift to cover my lie made her sound.
So I hopped out of the car, grunting at her before I slammed the door in her face, “Keep it to yourself.”
