Chapter 21: Wren
Iwake before my alarm, the kind of waking that isn’t really waking at all because I never fell properly asleep.I drifted in and out, skin too hot under the blankets, brain replaying the same images until they blurred into each other—Atlas hitting the boards, Finn’s hurt eyes, Kael’s voice going quiet when he realized I was flinching.And under all of it, the soft ping of a text I shouldn’t have opened.
Adrian.
My phone sits on the nightstand facedown like a tiny grenade I’m pretending isn’t live.I stare at it for a long time.The room is gray with early light; the radiator ticks; somewhere in the alley, a delivery truck hisses to a stop.If I were the kind of person who could pretend hard enough, I’d say the quiet means everything is fine again.Normal.Mine.
I’m not that kind of person anymore.
I slide out of bed, pulling the hoodie over my head as I pad to the kitchen.The floor is cold under my feet.I put water on for coffee and lean my hip against the counter while it heats, eyes fixed on the phone I brought with me like I can hold it still by glaring hard enough.My heartbeat is loud in the space between the kettle starting to hum and the first sharp whistle.I pour.I add too much sugar.I take a sip and burn my tongue.It’s something concrete to focus on—this hurts because I did it.Not because someone else decided it for me.
When I finally pick up the phone, my hands are already shaking.
No new messages.
I hate that the absence is its own kind of message.Adrian never pushed during the day before; he always waited for night, for after practice, after dinner, after I was too tired to argue and too raw to lie.He was good at choosing openings.He still is.
I open his last text anyway, because if I’m going to fall apart again this morning, I’d rather do it now, before the arena, before the three men who make my stomach twist with equal parts fear and want see me doing it.
Denver’s the same.
Nothing interesting now that you’re gone.
That sentence should be ordinary.It looks ordinary.If anyone else read it, they’d shrug.Maybe smile.Maybe think he misses me in some safe, distant way that honors what we used to be without touching what we were.
But I hear the old subtext even now: You owe me.You abandoned me.You are interesting because you break, and I like to watch you break.
I delete the thread.Then I empty the deleted folder.Then I put my phone face down again and breathe until the room stops tilting.
I get ready through muscle memory.Leggings.Trainers.Hair up.The hoodie again because I don’t have the energy for zippers or layers or decisions.I ignore the skating poster by the door.I ignore the too-quiet stretch of hallway where a note once slid under my apartment like a dare.I ignore the sting at my sternum when the cold air outside steals my breath as if it’s trying to keep it.
The walk to the T is short.The platform is full of people pretending they’re alone.I board.I grab a pole and watch the dark walls slide by, a blur of graffiti and old leaks and advertisements.I tell myself not to check my phone.
I check my phone.
Nothing.
I’m grateful and disappointed at the same time, which feels like failing both ways.I stare at the cheap metal map above the seats and trace the stops with my eyes like I’m learning them for the first time, like I’m a visitor here, like I could decide to get off anywhere and vanish.
When I reach the arena, the air is colder, drier.Familiar.Home in the way hospitals are home to the people who work there—fluorescent and too loud with the wrong kinds of smell, but predictable, contained, a place where jobs exist, and rules hold.I tell myself that means safety.It doesn’t, not always, but I tell myself anyway.
I head to the training room, flick on the lights, and exhale when it’s empty except for the neatly stacked wraps and the smell of eucalyptus from the cleaner I switched to yesterday.I start small tasks so my brain has something to chew on—replacing the trash bag, sorting gauze by size, checking the med kit inventory.I listen to the building wake up.Doors thud.A vacuum hums somewhere down the hall.Water rushes through pipes like applause.
