Her eyes fill. She blinks it back. Twists the blanket edge.
"Okay." Small. Fierce. "Okay."
We talk. About nothing first—hospital food, terrible TV, the nurse who keeps calling her sweetie. Wren does a devastating impression—drops her voice an octave, rounds her shoulders, purses her lips into a concerned pout. "'How are we doing today, sweetie? Did we eat our breakfast, sweetie?'" Ilaugh so hard my ribs ache. The sound surprises me. I haven't laughed like that in weeks.
She tells me about the view from her window, which is a parking garage, which she's named Gerald. Gerald has a leak on the third level. Wren's been tracking it. "Every time it rains, a little waterfall comes off the northwest corner. It's actually beautiful if you squint."
Finding beauty in a parking garage leak. That's Wren. Someone who sings lullabies in concrete cells and I find comfort in her endless optimism.
We circle the facility without landing on it. She mentions the food there once, wrinkling her nose the same way. I mention the fluorescent hum. Neither of us says the rest. We don't have to. It lives between us the way it always will—shared knowledge, shared walls, shared air.
A trauma bond that potentially brought two people together who desperately needed friends.
"Tell me about your life," she says. Pulling her blanket higher. Settling in. "Your real life. Before."
So I do. I tell her about Margot—the apartment, what life was like before moving in with the Graves. I tell her about community college, the creative writing class I keep falling behind in, the professor who pushes me because he must see some talent. That’s at least what I tell myself.
I tell her about Cornerstone—the bookstore where I shelve and catalog and occasionally read entire novels during slow shifts while my manager pretends not to notice.
Although, after going missing I’m sure my job has been given to someone else.
I don't tell her about the brothers. Not yet. Not because I'm hiding it—because I don't know how to explain it. What would I even say? I live with three stepbrothers who are also criminals and also alphas and two of them have had sex withme and the third one put his hand on my neck in the kitchen yesterday while his father poured wine ten feet away.
Yeah. Not yet.
"That sounds nice," Wren says. Quiet. She's looking at her hands on the blanket. The IV tube running across her knuckles. "The bookstore. Having a place like that."
"It's minimum wage and my boss chews with his mouth open. I’m not sure he’ll want to hear from me after a couple of no-call-no-shows."
"Still. A place to go. Something that's yours."
The weight of what she's saying settles over me. Wren doesn't have a place.Didn't, I correct myself. Past tense now. Because now she has me, and through extension, the Graves are taking care of her for now.
"You'll have that," I say, pointing at the folder. "A place. Bane made sure of it."
She nods. Twists the blanket edge. Still processing the folder on her nightstand, the apartment photos, the account balance. The fact that strangers built her a life while she was lying in a hospital bed.
I recognize a piece of myself in her…
That same inclination towards not trusting anyone. To expecting the worst in people and being wary of those who want to help.
I think it’s why things are so easy with her. We’re like mirrors.
"I'm going to be here tomorrow when they discharge you," I say. "I'll drive you to the apartment. You won't walk into an empty room alone."
Her chin does the thing. The tremble. She presses her lips together hard.
"Really?” Her voice trembles a bit on the question. “I mean, you don’t have to. You have already done more than enough.”
I offer her a smile. “I want to. You really don’t know how much of a comfort you were to me in that room before Bane got there. You eased up the fear just enough for me to breathe. I couldn’t just walk away from someone like that.”
Her lips pull into a smile and she wipes a tear.
“Talk about a fucked up meet cute.”
I can’t stop the laugh that erupts from my chest.
Yeah, seriously.
