29. Wren
WREN
The next couple of weeks pass in a blur of classes, internship work, and hanging out with the guys. We spend most of our free time together, and Ronan and I have been flat out organizing everything for the Kings Youth Charity Weekend, which will take place next week.
Tonight, I’m working at the Crooked Crown.
Silas has become a solitary constant when I’m on shift, setting up shop at the bar with his notepad and pen while I pour pints and bustle between tables.
Sometimes he brings his laptop to do coursework, and other times he just doodles, or we play a game of twenty questions, going back and forth answering them throughout the duration of my shift.
I’ve learned so much about him these past few weeks.
Everything from his favorite genre of music—Indie rock with the likes of Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead being his fav bands—to the quiet pre-game breathing routine he slips into while the others line up, a ritual he says sharpens his focus and lets him anchor himself before hitting the ice.
The more time I spend with him, the more I understand him.
Not just his quirks, but the rhythm of how he exists in the world.
We’ve developed our own language: a glance, a gesture, a scribble in his notepad.
I know when he’s teasing, when he’s frustrated, when he wants to share a thought without saying a word.
These little glimpses, these tiny windows into him, have drawn me closer in ways I didn’t expect.
There’s a trust there now, quiet and unspoken, and I treasure it.
I move behind the bar, rinsing out pint glasses.
Letting the warm water run over my fingers, my mind is half on the rhythm of my work, half on the steady presence of Silas at the end of the bar.
He’s leaning slightly on the bar, shoulders broad but relaxed, the sleeve of his hoodie pushed up just enough to show the lean curve of his forearm.
His white-blond hair falls slightly over his forehead, a few rebellious strands catching the light, and I notice the way his jaw tightens when he’s focused.
His eyes—sharp, calculating, and impossibly expressive—follow me with quiet intensity, like he’s memorizing every little motion.
Every time I move past him, his scent of vetiver speaks of the quiet control that defines him.
He’s flipping a coin between his fingers, slow and precise, his eyes fixed on me even as he plays with it.
Lifting my chin, I ask, “What’s with the coin?” I always see him playing with it while staring at me or deep in thought, and I’ve been curious about it for a while now. “Does it mean something, or is it a habit to help you focus?”
His movements stop, the coin sticking out from between his index and middle fingers.
Blinking, he continues to stare at me before lowering his gaze to the coin.
Tossing it in the air, he catches it in his palm before setting it on the bar top and pushing it toward me.
I get my first proper look at it, noticing the darkened bronze tone, worn smooth from what looks like decades of handling.
The edges are softened, rounded, as if hundreds of fingers have traced the rim.
When I lift it, the weight is surprisingly solid, cool against my palm.
The front bears a simple stamped year, pressed with a rough imperfection, while the back is completely flat.
Tiny nicks and scratches scatter across its surface.
It feels intimate, like a talisman that has quietly held meaning for someone. For Silas?
Silas’s notebook slides into my field of view.
Do you recognize it?
I frown, first at the page, then at Silas, before returning my focus to the worn coin.
“No.” Running my thumb over the top of it, I shake my head. “Should I?”
A heaviness sits in the air between us, cloying enough that I lift my gaze, meeting Silas’s eyes. They are dulled by a cacophony of emotions. His shoulders are hunched with a weight of responsibility, like he’s been carrying some sort of hidden knowledge for too long.
I stiffen, sensing the ominous history behind the coin as he, almost reluctantly, lifts his pen and begins to write. When he pushes the notebook across the bar toward me, I hesitate, searching his gaze—for what, I’m not sure—before slowly lowering my gaze.
It takes reading what he’s written two times before the words fully penetrate.
I found it on the ground near your body that night.
My stomach drops so violently that I grip the edge of the counter to steady myself. For a split second, the world blurs at the edges. Bass-heavy music. Wet grass pressing against my knees. The distant sound of laughter somewhere down the street. A hand on my skin.
No!
I blink hard, forcing myself back into the present before the memory can fully take hold. “It could have already been there,” I croak, lacking the strength to make my voice any louder.
He nods, shrugging in a way that says it could have been, but he doesn’t believe that’s the case.
You were near an abandoned house.
“That squatters or druggies probably used all the time,” I argue, not even fully believing what I’m saying. Blackstone was a small college town. While there were drugs around, homeless drug users weren’t really an issue.
It’s the sort of coin a player would get for a commemorative game or for being an MVP.
My mouth goes dry, my breathing turning shallow as I stare at the coin as though simply that will be enough to get it to tell me its history.
So whoever he is…is a member of a sports team.
Licking my dry lips, I rasp, “A hockey player?”
Silas shrugs, and I nod. My thoughts come to me slow and sluggish.
“The street party was open to any BSU student,” I piece together with a numbness I haven’t felt in a while. “Every single student athlete would have been there.”
Plus every Valehurst Kings hockey team player.
“Ronan said you were looking into the Valehurst players…” I begin, scouring Silas’s face.
He nods.
We are. We know most of the team was there, but we’re naturally having difficulties tracing what each of them did and where they went. It’s also possible it wasn’t a player.
I shake my head as frustration wells up inside me.
After years of wondering who attacked me that night, I finally have this piece of evidence.
This token that belonged to him. If only it could speak, I’d know who decided destroying my life was a source of entertainment.
Who hurt me because they wanted to. Because breaking me meant nothing to them.
Except it can’t.
Holding it in my hand, I feel so close and yet as far away as ever from finding out who did their best to break me.
I thought I didn’t want to know who it was. But now, staring at the coin and feeling as though I’m right on the cusp of knowing while simultaneously farther away than ever…I don’t know.
Maybe I do want to know.
Want to be able to look him in the eye.
Show him that he didn’t break me.
Fisting the coin in my hand, my teeth grind, and I snap my eyes shut as I struggle to contain the emotions bubbling just beneath the surface.
Every time I think I’ve come to terms with what happened.
That I’ve found a way to survive. To move on from that night.
Something comes along to remind me that I will never escape my past. I will never be allowed to fully heal.
Angry—at myself, at my attacker, and fucking everything, I smack my hand against the bar top.
“Why did you keep this?” I snap at Silas. “Why would you carry this around?” My voice cracks. “How could you keep a piece of him?”
Unflinching in the face of my anger, Silas holds my gaze. Reaching over, he sets his hand on top of mine. He doesn’t move to give me a written response, but I can see the answer in his eyes.
He couldn’t get rid of it.
It may not have happened to him, but that night changed him in its own way.
And suddenly, the weight in my chest shifts. Because this isn’t just evidence. It isn’t just some forgotten token tied to the worst night of my life. Silas has been carrying this thing around for years. Carrying me. The memory of me broken and bleeding on the ground.
All alone.
The fight drains out of me so fast that it leaves me dizzy. “It’s not fair,” I croak, despair infiltrating the space left in the wake of my anger.
He shakes his head, fingers tightening around my hand. His expression says, it isn’t.
Feeling as though the coin is burning a path through my palm, I extract my hand from beneath Silas’s and hold the coin out toward him.
Keep it, he writes.
I shake my head. “I can’t. I can’t have something that is his when I don’t know who he is.”
Understanding, Silas takes it from me and pockets it. Still, as I go back to my task, I’m unable to stop thinking about the coin. Who it could belong to. There are no identifying features on it. Nothing that I could chase. I can’t even narrow down what sporting event it was handed out at.
“There’s no way to know whether whoever it was is a BSU or Valehurst student,” I muse aloud to Silas. I’ve never given voice to these thoughts. Never allowed myself to truly give much thought to the who of that night for fear I’d drive myself mad.
They could have already graduated.
Silas’s words deflate my sail even further.
“Maybe it’s better if I never know. It’s what I’d decided I wanted, anyway,” I say. “To not know.”
If finding him is what you want, if it’s something you feel you need, then we will do everything in our power to find him. We can ask the team. Talk to players on the BSU team. We will do whatever it takes.
With a lump wedged in my throat, I give Silas a soft smile. Just knowing he—they—would do that if I asked means more than he can ever know. Simply no longer feeling alone in all of this makes it infinitely easier to deal with.
“It’s information I feel like I need, but nothing is going to change what happened.
Knowing who it was. Why he did it. Why he chose me.
” I shrug because what the fuck is there to do at this point?
“Those are questions I’m always going to have, but their answers won’t ever change the fact that something precious was taken from me that night.
No amount of psychoanalyzing it negates what happened.
” Sighing heavily, I finish, “The best thing I can do is find a way to cope with it and figure out how to move forward.”
Silas turns the coin over once between his fingers before writing—
Then we’ll figure it out with you. Every part of it. Lean on us, Wren.