Chapter 36
“Dammit,” I growl, tossing my phone on the seat and refocusing on the road ahead.
I called Wren on the way to the hospital to get checked out last night.
On my way home from the hospital, with Gus casting concerned side-glances so often that I worried he was going to total my truck.
After a panicked phone call with my mom, who was suggesting she drive back from New Hampshire in the middle of the night. As soon as I woke up this morning.
She hasn’t answered a single call or text. Not since the string of undelivered texts and missed calls from her finally came through when we made it back to land last night. I’ve listened to her automated voicemail so many times that I could recite it from memory.
I’m working today, even though Dusty strongly encouraged me to take the day off, and I left home a half hour early so I had time to swing by Wren’s mansion on the way to the marina.
I could have died. I didn’t, obviously, but I was expecting a glad you’re okay text from her, at minimum.
Weirder still, Gus said Wren was worried. That she was at the marina. That she was the one who got the Coast Guard to send five times the resources they normally would for a small rescue. And then she disappeared, allegedly, shortly before we returned to shore.
None of it makes any sense. Obviously, I didn’t intend to stand her up last night. And even if she knew I was okay from updates at the marina, her lack of checking doesn’t explain avoiding my attempts to talk to her.
The strangest, worst part?
Wren is carrying a suitcase out to her convertible when I pull in her driveway. I debated parking on the street because I wasn’t sure what, if anything, she’d told her parents about me—about us—but apparently, time is of the essence.
Because Wren appears to be leaving. And not on a short trip either. There are already several suitcases piled in her car.
I shut off the engine and jump out of my truck. She barely reacts as I slam the door shut, simply tossing the latest bag on top of the rest before adjusting her sunglasses.
“What the hell is going on?” I call out, striding over to her. “Why aren’t you answering my calls? Why are you … packing?”
I glance at the stack of bags. She’s packed.
“I’m leaving,” Wren replies.
Simple. Straightforward. Succinct.
I stare at her. Am I awake right now? Did I die last night after all? Am I about to hear my alarm and be in my bed?
But I blink rapidly, and nothing about the scene in front of me changes. Blue sky. Blue hydrangeas. Blasé blonde.
“You don’t have to leave until the twenty-ninth.”
There’s a spasm of some emotion on her face, but it disappears before I could assess what it was or determine if I imagined it entirely.
“I’m leaving early. I’m bored.”
“Bored,” I repeat.
“Yes.” She waves a dismissive hand around. “I tried the whole quiet, normal, small-town summer thing, and I’m over it. Gia got tickets to see our favorite band next weekend, and I haven’t been to Europe in months. The South of France is gorgeous this time of year. Have you ever been?”
“To Southern France? No.”
“You should go. It’s—”
“Gorgeous. Yeah. You said.” I feel like I was just spun around in circles, then instructed to stay standing.
“Well, I’ve got a couple more bags to grab,” she says brightly, spinning toward the porch. “Don’t you have wor—”
“Wren.” I grab her hand before she can walk away. “What the actual fuck is going on? You’re—you’re acting like a different person.”
“No.” She shakes her head, yanking out of my grasp. “I was pretending to be a different person. This is who I am, Sawyer. I get bored. I don’t waitress. I don’t do … exclusive.”
“Is that what this is really about? Because I asked you about other guys? You’re scared because this thing got real between us?”
“If you’ll recall,” she says icily, “I was the one who tried to make this real between us a long time ago. You’re the one who’s been scared.”
“I said I was sorry about that. And I’m not scared now. I’m in this, Wren.”
“Yeah? How often are you planning to fly to California to visit me?”
“I—”
“Or drive into the city to visit me? How exactly did you think this ‘thing’ ”—she uses air quotes, which strikes me as unnecessary—“was going to work between us? Or were you expecting me to continue being the one who always comes to see you?”
I don’t have answers, let alone whatever ones she’s looking for. I just accepted that I am, in fact, in love with her, that she isn’t a passing attraction I can successfully ignore.
“Why are you leaving?”
She scoffs. “I just explained—”
“At all,” I clarify. “Why are you leaving at all? You said when we were sailing that you don’t even want to go to college.
So, don’t. Stay here. You have money from waitressing.
A trust fund. You have options, Wren, a hell of a lot more than most people do.
You’re going to California to, what? Make your family happy?
You’re fearless, Wren. You jump off cliffs, and you give me shit.
You don’t commit four years of your life to getting a degree you don’t really want, just because it’s what you’re expected to do. ”
“You don’t get it,” she says.
“You’re right; I don’t. Stay, Wren.”
“I. Can’t. I-I changed my mind, okay? I’m allowed to do that.”
“Changed your mind about college? Or about me?”
Wren exhales. There’s another spasm of … something on her face, so I push harder.
“Because you seemed sure about not wanting to go to college when we went sailing. And you seemed sure about us when you told me you didn’t want anyone else yesterday. What the fuck changed between then and now?”
She hesitates, and I think something I said finally got through to her.
But then she holds a hand out to me. “Goodbye, Cap.”
I stare at her, not reaching for her offered palm. I shove my hands in my pockets instead. Fuck ending this like a business meeting.
“There were a few moments last night when I thought that … when I thought that we might not make it back to shore. And all I could think about was how much I wanted to have one more conversation with you. What a fucking waste of last words that would have been, huh?”
Then I turn around and walk away.
She says nothing. Does nothing to stop me.
And I’m awfully devastated by it, for someone who was supposedly convinced we’d never work out.