Chapter 31 Wren
Thirty-One
Wren
The day dragged after Lili and her sister left. The museum felt empty despite all the guests, especially when Tate wandered
off too. We’ve exchanged a few words, but as long as Eryn is avoiding me—and by extension, him—things aren’t going to be okay
between us.
Eryn hasn’t answered my texts or voicemails, and every time I try to catch her at the café, her coworkers give me the same
excuse: She’s busy, can’t leave the kitchen. I keep going back, though. I don’t know what else to do.
And I miss her. I miss the way she would smile at me like I was the only one in the room who mattered. I miss how excited
she got watching someone try a dessert she made for the first time. But more than that, I miss the space she used to occupy
in my life, a space that now feels eerily hollow. It’s as if I’ve forgotten how to breathe.
That night, I stay later than usual at the museum.
I don’t want to rush home, where the silence is too loud and my thoughts are too heavy.
So, when I finally leave, it’s well past closing.
I drive by the café, hoping to catch a glimpse of Eryn through the windows, but instead of seeing her inside, I spot her outside—her shoulders hunched, the soft amber light of the streetlamps casting a warm glow around her.
She’s wiping down the tables, but her movements are sluggish, almost mechanical.
She drags her hand across the surface of the table with an exhaustion I’ve never seen in her before, her face drained of its usual spark, a hollow look in her eyes that cuts deeper than I’d expect.
Then, a guy steps out of the café. Elliot, I’m guessing, since I don’t recognize him. He’s wearing an apron and holding something
small between two fingers as he approaches her. I see her look up, and for a split second, her entire expression softens.
He says something low, probably teasing, but it’s enough to make her crack a small smile before she leans in to take the bite
he offers her. When she grins at him, clearly impressed with whatever he gave her, his face brightens, and before he can stop
himself, he sweeps her up in his arms, spinning her around like something out of a movie. She laughs, and I feel a strange
ache in my chest as I watch them. The sight is both beautiful and brutal. She looks genuinely happy, and it’s not the kind
of happiness I’ve seen from her in a long time.
He sets her back down, almost sheepishly. I can tell by the way he steps back that he realizes it might have been a little
too much, a little too sudden. His hands linger awkwardly at his sides, his grin a bit more bashful now.
She laughs again, shaking her head in that way she does when she’s letting someone off the hook. But then, her gaze trails
over his shoulder, and her smile falters. Her eyes catch mine through the windshield, and the warmth in her expression disappears
in an instant, replaced by a tight, unreadable tension.
She stares at me for a moment longer while my hands grip the steering wheel and my pulse grows too loud for the quiet of the cab. Elliot finally says something to her, inclining his head toward the door, and without a word, she nods and follows him inside.
I drive off after that, turning down side streets and bumping over dirt roads, staring out at parts of the island that I rarely
see anymore. It’s maybe an hour later when I pull into my driveway. I’m both surprised and somehow not to see Eryn sitting
outside on the curb.
She’s still in her Petticoat uniform, brushing dirt off the back of her shorts, standing stiffly, which lets me know she’s
been waiting awhile. Even so, I take longer than usual to get out of the truck, as if metaphorically dragging my feet might
make the moment last longer, unwilling to face what’s waiting.
I wheel over to her, stopping a little farther away than I would have before.
“I can’t stay long,” she says, her voice barely a whisper, “and I’m not ready to talk.”
Any hope I had evaporates the moment I hear the rawness in her voice. The way it cracks at the edges cuts through me like
a knife.
“I just needed you to know . . .” She pauses, struggling to get the words out, her voice thick with emotion. “I’ll still be
the museum’s mermaid for the boat tour and for the upcoming exhibit reveal if you need me.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I protest. I hadn’t even thought about the exhibit. But she doesn’t owe me anything. She doesn’t
owe anyone anything.
Her eyes drop to the ground. “I don’t want to let anyone down who already bought a ticket,” she murmurs, her voice trembling.
“And your dad depends on me.”
I swallow hard. “This isn’t about my dad or a stupid exhibit. It’s fine, Eryn. You’re not . . .”
I see the way she flinches when I speak, her whole body tensing, and the pain of that reaction hits me harder than anything
else she could say.
“There’s so much I need to say to you,” I continue, my voice quieter now. “I don’t know if you listened to any of my voicemails
or—”
She starts to shake her head slowly, dropping it lower with each pass.
“Er, can you at least look at me?”
She winces at the shortened form of her name, but to my surprise, she does meet my gaze, tears shimmering in her eyes.
“Eryn.” I’m the one who sounds broken now. “I’m so sorry—” But I cut off my own words when she visibly braces as though trying
to shield herself from what I might try to say next.
So I stop.
And when she turns to leave, I let her go.
I carry her expression with me as I head inside, making my way to my bedroom next to the kitchen. It used to be the dining
room, until Dad walled it off and converted it for me after the accident. My old bedroom upstairs is just a storage room now.
Dad’s hunched over the kitchen table, the two pieces of the FeeJee mermaid laid out in front of him.
“Head fall off again?” I stop in the doorway. “That’s the third time this year. Why not just retire it?”
“It’s one of McCleave’s original exhibits. I just need some time to figure out a better support structure.”
Right, except there’s never been a good way to attach a monkey skull to a fish body, and after more than a century of repairs, some more destructive than others, it’s not looking good.
“Do you even have the tools you need here?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
He looks up at me, exhaustion dulling his expression. “I ran out of coffee at the museum.”
I eye the beer bottle beside him, and he grunts in response.
“Late for you too. And did I see Eryn outside?”
It’s not really a question, given the large window to the front yard beside him, but I still hesitate, unsure how much he
saw or heard. “Yeah.”
“She didn’t come in?”
Obviously not. “She had to go.”
He nods slowly. “Guess she didn’t want to get us sick, huh?”
That’s what I told him to explain her absence for the last few days, but I knew he didn’t buy it. I wheel fully into the kitchen.
“She’s not sick, which you clearly know.”
“I know something’s wrong,” he shrugs, “but I don’t think it’s the flu. A lot of people who are usually like salt in the sea
with you are suddenly nowhere to be seen. The new girl’s cutting her shifts, Tate won’t leave the janitor’s room, and now
Eryn shows up crying. It’s not looking too good.”
“It’s not feeling too good either, but I don’t really feel like getting into it right now.”
He doesn’t move. “I have two theories. Wanna hear them?”
“No,” I groan.
He holds up one finger. “Something happened with Eryn and Tate, maybe he told you about it, and now nobody’s talking. Doesn’t exactly explain the new girl’s absence, though.”
I lift my head wearily. “Lili. Her name is Lili.”
He sighs. “So it’s the second theory then.”
I don’t say anything.
“Oh, son.” Two syllables, yet they pack so much sympathy and disappointment together. “Did something happen?”
I shake my head. “But I wanted it to, and Eryn knows.” It sounds bad when I say it out loud, somehow worse than when it was
happening.
He rests his forearms on the table and drops his head, not saying anything. He’s not looking at me either, although it’s a
different kind of not looking than Eryn was doing outside. His silence isn’t a shield; he’s listening, and he’s thinking.
“I never thought I’d be capable of hurting someone who loved me. I never wanted to be like her,” I murmur. Even though we haven’t talked about my mom in years, I don’t need to elaborate. He knows exactly who I’m referring
to.
Dad pushes the precious specimen to the side with one arm like it means nothing as he reaches back into the fridge with the
other, grabs two beers, and sets them on the table. I don’t drink often, and I’ve never shared a beer with him before, but
I guess we’re cutting through a lot of tape tonight.
I take the bottle, feel the cold condensation against my palm, and he takes his, opening it with a dull pop that echoes in
the quiet kitchen.
“One time only, you understand? There’s a reason I don’t like talking about the past.”
I nod quickly, but I’m not sure what I’m about to hear.
He takes a long swig, draining half the bottle before he speaks again. “You know the fields down by the Hawthorn’s place,
the hills heading toward the Wyer’s Valley?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “This time of year, they light up with fireflies,
so many it’s like walking through stardust. As kids, we’d go chasing after them, trying to catch them in jars or our hands
to watch them glow. I never caught one . . . until Kerry.”
Even now there’s a light in his eyes when he talks about her, a tenderness that both hurts and captivates me. I want to not
understand, but I have those memories with her too. Instead of shoving them away like I have in the past, this time I let
one sweep over me.
I feel my tiny legs struggling to toddle up that hill, stubby hands reaching, my little fists clenching. I can almost feel
the softness of the fireflies’ wings between my fingers now as the cool summer night wraps around me. And I remember my mom—her
hands, larger than mine but delicate, gently coaxing my hands open.
Her face is clear in my mind, lit up with awe as she watches the glow of the fireflies disappear into the night sky. “Some
things can’t be caught,” she said to me, and even in that perfect moment, I remember her sadness and my own as she dropped
my hand.
“She was happy at first, I know she was,” he continues. “We’d go swimming in the ocean every night and she’d let me chase
her through the tall grasses that sprung up along the shores. And when I caught her—” His smile turns softer now, private.
“Well, that’s how we got you.”
My bottle is dotted with condensation, but I haven’t taken so much as a sip, and I don’t now, no matter how much I’d like
to numb myself.
“I knew, even then, what kind of life she wanted, just like I knew I could never give it to her. I tried to pretend I didn’t see her fading, and she let me.
Until she couldn’t anymore. Because just like those fireflies, the ones in jars or trapped inside hands, if you didn’t let them go, they’d die. ”
“And you let her go.” I can’t stop the bitterness that seeps into my voice or the way my fingers tighten almost painfully
around the neck of the glass bottle. I’m about to push away from the table when he says something I never expected to hear.
“I didn’t let her go, Wren. I just opened my hand.”
It’s the closest he’s ever come to condemning what she did, and I’m struck silent hearing the vulnerability in his voice,
the quiet regret.
He drains the rest of his beer, then stares at the empty bottle for a long moment, his fingers tracing the label. “There’s
nothing worse than being with someone when you know they don’t really want to be with you. I lived that life for three years,
and it’s taken me sixteen more to realize it would’ve been kinder for her to let me go from the start. I’m not saying I regret
it, and you’re the reason I don’t, but all these years and I still don’t know how to let go inside.” He forces his hands apart
with obvious effort. “It’d be easier if I could hate her, I know that. But every time the fireflies are here, I remember the
girl she was, and how, for a time, I got to call her mine.”
I haven’t forgotten the fireflies either, and while I don’t think I’ll ever stop being angry at her for leaving us, I don’t
think I can blame him anymore for choosing not to hate her.
His voice drops lower now so that I have to strain to hear it when he continues.
“You said you didn’t want to be capable of hurting someone who loves you, but Wren, we all are.
The difference is what you do after. If you want Eryn, then you do whatever it takes to win her back.
” His head stays tipped forward, but his eyes lift and hold mine.
“But if you don’t, then it’s far kinder to be honest with both of them sooner rather than later. ”
I feel pinned by his stare, absolutely frozen in place.
“Do you love Eryn?”
I would have answered that question without hesitation a month ago. Now, I can’t find the words as I finally break free from
his scrutiny.
“I’m not gonna say this right. I don’t know how, so I’m just gonna say it.” Dad takes a deep breath. “Accident or not, you
are worthy, do you understand me? Don’t let your own hang-ups or the mistakes that your mother or I made make you think otherwise.”
He hits his fingers against the table, drawing my gaze and making sure he has my full attention. “I’m not saying what you
did was right. You know it wasn’t, and you have to do everything in your power to make it right with the people you hurt.
But after that, Wren, you have to be able to forgive yourself. And then you have to think about what you really want, not
just what you feel like you should want.”