Chapter 19 #3
Damn it, he was right. Wren was notorious for powering through in the name of a good time.
Had one too many drinks but not ready to go home yet?
Have two too many! Deal with the fallout later.
That was always her motto. Being beholden to this child inside her, having a greater purpose, was inexplicably causing her to make better decisions. It was starting already.
“OK, fine. I’ll go say goodbye, but will you meet me by the sharks? I really want to see them before we go.”
Arthur’s face went stone white. Wren could almost see the memory replaying behind his eyes. “Oh. I don’t know…”
“Please?” She touched his hand. “For me?”
“OK,” he agreed. “See you there in a minute?”
Wren was just able to grab Charlie before she and Tristan were set to make their grand entrance to the reception.
“Little busy, Wren,” Charlie said, air-rehearsing some multistep dance routine, hidden away behind a tank of Finding Nemo clownfish a few dozen feet away from the reception.
“I know. I just wanted to catch you before we left.”
“You’re leaving?!” Charlie came to a stop mid-thrust.
“It’s for the best. There are so many ways I could ruin the rest of the night for you. I could go into violent, screaming labor; I could puke all over whoever’s sitting next to me at dinner.”
“I think it’s just my least favorite sister. I’d be fine with that.”
Wren briefly considered telling her friend about what she was planning to do.
She always told Charlie every single thing she was thinking or considering, and even a lot of things she wasn’t.
That’s how deeply psychic their connection was.
But she didn’t tell her this. Charlie wouldn’t have been upset.
Wren and Arthur weren’t going to make a scene and steal the spotlight.
They’d just steal a quiet moment or two in a quiet hallway and that would be that.
There were some things, now that she and Arthur were a family, that were going to have to stay between them.
That was one way her relationship with Charlie was going to have to change. And that led her to say:
“I think you’re right, by the way.”
“Right about what?”
“Maybe fighting to keep everything exactly the same between us is a battle we’re never going to win, you know?”
Charlie smirked. “Are you saying we have to evolve?”
“To be clear, I don’t wanna. But…I’m never going to give up on us, and you’ll never get rid of me. But you’re right that we do have to figure out what it looks like to grow together.”
“So instead of drinking and walking around HomeGoods, you think, maybe we could, like, just sit and have a glass of wine one night?”
“And…talk?”
“And talk.”
“Well, you know me. I’ll try anything once.”
“God,” Charlie said, fanning her eyes. “I really should have married you.”
They laughed.
“I think it would be better if I left without making a scene. It was a beautiful wedding, you were a beautiful bride, and I’m so happy I was there to see you get a new number one.”
“You’re always my number one, you know that.”
“You can keep telling Tristan that to keep him in line…”
“You know I can hear you,” Tristan muttered.
“…but it’s not true. And that’s OK,” Wren said.
They hugged. Wren felt ten years younger in Charlie’s arms. Like a carefree kid. The irony was not lost on her that there was literally a kid between them now, the hug a little more spaced out than before. That was just the way it was going to have to be.
Wren was extremely nervous walking down the dimly lit ramps of Shark Alley. Sweating, trembling, fiddling with the ring in her clutch like some big old doof. Was this what guys felt like all the time? It was a miracle anyone ever got engaged and that more people didn’t puke from the nerves.
She rehearsed what she was going to say as a sandbar shark swam by her behind the thick glass, almost escorting her.
You good? Need me to eat anyone for you?
its dark eyes seemed to ask. She would tell Arthur that he had always been her future, but she was only just now able to see it without fear.
She would not apologize for saying no all those years ago, but she would create a beautiful, full-circle moment that would say it all. He would get it. He would say yes.
Arthur was waiting for her at the bottom, as promised, his silhouette popping against the blue water behind him. A hammerhead shark glided right past him. It was eerie and beautiful, and just a little scary, for many reasons.
“Hi,” Arthur said, watching her approach. She could see the apprehension in his eyes. This place held a lot of pain for him, she understood that. But hopefully she could change that.
“Hi,” she said.
“You look beautiful.”
“So do you.”
He laughed.
“No, really, you do,” she said. “Blue must be your color.”
They stood there together and watched the sharks for a moment. It was hypnotic and peaceful. A few other wedding guests quietly perused around them, everyone in a near silent trance.
“You probably remember the last time we were here,” Wren said. Her voice was so shaky, betraying her.
“I do,” he said. “It’s OK. We don’t have to talk about it.”
“No, we do. There’s something I want to say.”
“OK.”
She took a deep breath. “You mean more to me than I could possibly say, Arthur. You have always been my future, my everything. I’m sorry it took me so long to say this.”
He smiled, but with a confused crinkle in his brow. “So what are you trying to say?” Her heart beat even harder; she was sure he could hear it. This was it, this was the moment.
“Arthur, I—”
“Arthur?!” a voice cried out. They both whirled around. There, in a black dress and gaudy gold necklace, was Linda Kellerman.
“Linda, hi,” a flabbergasted Arthur said, accepting a stiff hug from a slightly wobbly Linda, who was holding a glass of white wine. “What are you doing here?”
“I sold Charlie and Tristan their first condo, right before the market went to shit. And I go way back with her parents. What are the odds, right?”
As much as Wren usually loved an awkward, unexpected interaction like this one, she really wished the lady would saunter away, or maybe fall over and roll the rest of the way down the slaloming ramps. She was ruining the moment.
Suddenly, Linda locked onto Wren. “Wren, I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to say it yet, but…congratulations.”
“Usually you say congratulations after someone has the baby. All I’ve done so far is have unprotected sex. But thank you.”
“No, I mean— Oh.” Linda went serious, turned to look at Arthur, looked back and forth between the two of them.
“You haven’t told— Nothing. Nothing at all.
You’ve just got yourself a good man here, that’s all.
So congrats on that, congrats on the baby, congrats on the sex.
All of it. I’ll let you two get back to it. ”
Linda sauntered away, unaware or unbothered that she’d just laid a grenade in the middle of their conversation.
“So you were saying how I’m your future, your one true love, et cetera,” Arthur said, trying to play it casual.
“Arthur, why was she congratulating me?”
“Probably because of the baby. You’re obviously about to pop any day now. I don’t know why she couldn’t think to say that in the moment, and not make it weird, but I’m sure that’s what she meant.”
Wren wasn’t buying it. The weird panic in Linda’s eyes, the look back and forth between the two of them, the catching of her tongue. Wren was used to belly rubs and goo-goo-ga-gas and people staring at her stomach, and this was not that.
“She said, ‘You haven’t told—’ What haven’t you told me?”