Tonight, the place is buzzing, but none of it makes it past the static in my head.I sit hunched on a stool at the far end, a beer sweating in front of me, staring at the foam like it might give me answers.
It doesn’t.
Nothing does.
Not the whiskey I had earlier.
Not the noise.
Not the dim lights or the bartender’s half-hearted flirting or the game playing muted on the TV overhead.
My thoughts keep circling back to Wren.
Every time I blink, I see her face when her phone buzzed earlier — that flash of terror she tried to bury in a second.
And every time I breathe, I feel the tight ache in my chest from watching her swallow her panic like it was her job.
I should’ve said something.
I should’ve followed her.
I should’ve been braver.
Instead, I’m here.
Drinking.
Thinking.
Failing.
I’m about to flag the bartender for another when movement at the corner of my vision hooks me by the throat.My stomach drops before my head even turns.
Because there she is.
Wren Harper.
Alone.
In this bar.
At nine p.m.
Looking like she’s barely holding it together.
She slides onto a stool two seats down, unaware of me at first, her shoulders curled inward, her hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands.The bartender asks what she wants, and she murmurs something too soft to hear.
When her drink comes — something pink, something sweet, something she only orders when she wants to forget things — she lifts it with hands that shake.
Fuck.
I straighten, pulse suddenly thundering in my neck.
She doesn’t look up until her second sip.Her eyes flick sideways, land on me, and widen like she wasn’t expecting a familiar face.
“Finn?”she breathes.
Her voice is small, soft, frayed at the edges.It makes something inside me break clean in two.
