25. Wren
25
WREN
T his is weird. I don’t know what to think. Just when I’ve barely gotten over the last insane thing Briggs did, something else happens. We sleep in each other’s arms. He kisses me.
Now, I’m just as uncomfortable as I ever was before, but not because of him or anything he’s doing. Because of me, I don’t know how to act once we’re in his truck.
He hasn’t said a word for most of the drive back to the dorm. By the time we got out of bed and went downstairs, his dad was nowhere to be seen. Probably sleeping it off, like Briggs said under his breath as we walked out of the house. I’ve lived with enough drinkers to know how that goes. Buck is probably sleeping it off right now, too.
“Listen.” We’re on campus and pulling down my block by the time Briggs grunts. “I’m going to give you my number. I want you to text me the second anything happens. Got it?”
“Got it.” This isn’t the first time I’ve felt like Briggs is my savior. I’m still not sure what to think about that as he taps his number into my phone and saves the contact. “Here. The second anything happens.”
“You think something’s going to happen?”
His mouth pulls together in a tight line. “It better not. But if it does, I want you to call me.”
I don’t like how that sounds. Is it crazy to wish I could go back to when he was the worst thing I had to worry about? Rather than question my sanity, I hurry out of the truck and across the sidewalk, my shoes slapping the pavement. It probably looks like I’m doing a walk of shame. I guess I am, in a way. Right now, what I care about more is getting up to my room. I could use more sleep. Maybe when I wake up, I’ll be able to understand all these weird feelings I’m having.
The first thing I notice is the way scraps of paper float away as the door swings open. They blow around, landing haphazardly, like dead leaves on a windy day. My drawings. How did this happen?
My eyes dart around, taking in one image after another. Art supplies scattered everywhere. My bed stripped, mattress on the floor, pillow torn apart. My drawers overturned with my clothes everywhere.
None of that affects me the way the sight of a note on the desk does. My stomach sinks to my feet and turns into a block of ice when I see it, though something pulls me to it. Like I’m a fish on a line. It reels me in until the block letters are legible.
LAST CHANCE, ROACH. LEAVE OR DIE!
My head swings around while my heart pounds sickly against my ribs. The closet door is open. It’s empty. The bathroom is as much of a mess as everything else, but there’s nobody inside. I’m alone.
I’ve never been more alone.
Right away, instinct makes me reach for my phone to text Briggs, like he told me to. He can’t be all that far away yet. He’ll get me out of here.
Somehow, common sense cuts through the panic. It stops me before I can pull up the messenger.
Briggs is the only one with the key to this room—besides me. He didn’t give me time to lock the deadbolt before he dragged me out of here. He could’ve given his key to one of his asshole friends and had them do this. That could have been why he was determined to pull me out and go to that party.
It all makes a sickening sort of sense. He would never treat me with genuine care. He wouldn’t let me sleep in his arms unless it meant being able to hurt me later.
But what do I do now? Somebody is literally making death threats at this point. What am I supposed to do, stay here and wait for them to show up again? If they really want to kill me, I don’t think a deadbolt is going to stop them. They could probably break the door down—it’s not like anybody around here would help if I screamed.
The first face that comes to mind is Maya’s, but I can’t do that to her. She doesn’t need to be dragged any deeper into my bullshit. She’s already done so much for me, anyway. Everybody has a limit to their patience.
What am I supposed to do? Where can I go? Buck probably has somebody else staying with him by now. He’s always got friends looking for someplace to crash for a little while.
I know the answer before I’m ready to accept it. It’s the only other option. There is literally nobody else in my life.
She doesn’t sound good when she answers the phone. Like she drank too much last night. Big surprise. I can’t remember a time she was able to stop at one drink. “Well, to what do I owe the honor?” Mom asks with a snort.
“You know I wouldn’t ask you this unless I really was in trouble.” I have to take a deep breath. “But I need someplace to stay for a few days. That’s all.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
What did I expect? Maternal instinct finally kicking in? After all these years, I think it’s safe to say that will never happen. “Like I said. If it wasn’t important, I wouldn’t bother you. I’m living in the dorm now,” I explain, picking through the clothes on the floor, making sure nothing else was done to them before I throw them into a bag to take with me. “Somebody’s been messing with me. I just walked in and found a note telling me I need to leave or die.”
All at once, my fear turns to something harder. Anger. “You were determined to get me in this school, and now somebody here wants me to die. I need somewhere to stay for a few days while I try to figure out what is happening. Please.”
I’m actually surprised she doesn’t keep me waiting. “God, yeah. Okay. Come over.” I’m pretty sure I can hear the clinking of empty bottles before she ends the call. Like she’s trying to rush through straightening up.
I’m not going to stay around here to give her extra time. Once I have a few days worth of clothes and all the toiletries I absolutely need, I get the hell out. This time, I make sure the deadbolt is locked. At least I’ll know if there’s any damage to the door that somebody broke in. I don’t need to go in and see it for myself.
Driving to Mom’s reminds me how different my life has been from Briggs, Maya, everybody. Her apartment building sits in the middle of the roughest part of town, even worse than where I lived until not long ago. There are broken blinds in some of the windows, and the dumpster alongside the building is overflowing with bags and bags of rancid garbage. Right now, all that matters is nobody inside wants me dead.
By the time I reach the fifth floor—again, I would rather take the stairs—there’s something besides staying alive on my mind. Reminding Mom she’s the reason I’m attending Wicked Falls University sort of reminded me, too. Why am I there? How did she get me in?
First, I have to adjust to the sight of her when she opens the door. She’s thinner than the last time I saw her. Her hair is a little stringy. I’ve seen her after she’s been on a bender, but there’s something more long-term about this. Like it’ll take more than a shower and aspirin to pull her out of it.
“Hi.” She steps aside to let me in after that warm welcome, but I’m too glad to be safe to care. As far as I know, nobody can find me here.
“You smell like chlorine. And what did you do to your hair?” she asks once the door is locked. “You cut it? Why? When?”
“Not that long ago. I…” I can’t do this. Pretending I wanted a change, like I had any say in what was done to me. There’s a lump in my throat. I can’t swallow back. It rises until my eyes sting. “Mom, it’s awful. It’s terrible. Somebody cut my hair while I fell asleep in class. They cut off my whole braid, and that’s not even the worst part.”
Things have to be bad for me to pour my heart out to her, but it’s been so long, and I’ve been carrying all of this around by myself. Telling Maya is one thing. She’s my friend. But even telling a negligent mother is better than not telling her at all.
I drop to the sofa with my bag at my feet and bury my face in my hands. “Every day, Mom. Every day, somebody does something or says something to humiliate me.”
“Oh, Wren…” There it is, right on schedule. The disbelief in her voice. Just like the disbelief I got when I tried to tell her about her boyfriend, who would “accidentally” open my bedroom door while I was getting dressed. And the others.
“No.” Her head snaps back when mine snaps up. “You are not going to tell me I’m wrong, I’m being dramatic, or I’m making things up. You see this.” I run my hands through my hair, shaking it out. “You know I wouldn’t have done it on my own. Go outside, take a look at my car, see where I stripped the paint off because I had to remove the word slut from it. Somebody gave me a spray paint job while I was in class one day.”
“Slut?” Her lips pull back from her teeth in a grimace. “Why would they call you that?”
“I guess they assume it runs in the family.” Right away, I regret it. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, but not fast enough to keep the tears from filling her eyes. “But it’s kind of true, too. All the things people are doing to me is because of you, the affair you had. And the men before that. Everybody hates me there because of your reputation—and besides, I don’t belong, anyway. We’re from completely different worlds.”
She runs her sleeves under her eyes before releasing a shaky breath. “And there I was,” she whispers, “thinking I was setting you up for life, getting you in there.”
“How did you do it?” I’m practically ready to leap across the sagging couch and tackle her for information. “How did you get me in? Why?”
“I’m not going to have this conversation with you right now. What you’ve told me?—”
“What I’ve told you is my reality, and I need to know why it is. Did you do something bad to get me in? Something… I don’t know, something somebody else would resent you for? Hate you for?”
“Now you’re being dramatic,” she scoffs.
Wrong thing to say. “Yes, because this isn’t even the first note I’ve gotten! I’ve been threatened and assaulted and taunted and vandalized, and that’s not even the full list! This is pretty damn dramatic for me, Mom!”
“Robert!” she snaps. “All right? Robert got you in.”
Robert? “Robert… Weston?” I whisper, remembering the conversation I had with Briggs about it.
Her head bobs before she wipes her eyes again. “Right.”
“Why would he do that?” When I remember the reaction he had when he saw me last night, I have a hard time believing he would go out of his way to ensure my education.
“I told him to.”
“And he just… did? What even gave you the idea?” Something is not adding up. “Are you blackmailing him or something?”
“We made a deal.” Her voice is thick with tears, but somehow also flat. Emotionless. “If I did what he wanted, he had to do what I wanted. And I wanted you to get out of this.”
Slowly, she turns her head to look at me. “I want better for you. I want a good life for you. How else were you ever going to afford college? You would end up just like me, and I can’t stand that idea, because you’re better than me!” Now there’s fire in her words, enough to heat the air between us. “You’re smart, and you have talent, and you’re going to have a good life!”
“What did you have to do, though?” I need to know. No matter what it is. “You said you did something he wanted in exchange.”
Turning her head to face the TV, she says, “I made my choice. That’s all you need to know.”
“Choice? What choice? Tell me!” My hand closes around her arm. I think of Briggs, all the times he’s grabbed me this way. But this is different. I’m not doing it to hurt her.
“I…” She keeps me waiting through a deep breath before blurting it out. “I was pregnant. I got pregnant by him, and right away, he told me I had to have an abortion.”
My hand drops to the faded cushion under me. “Oh, Mom…”
“Like I said, I made my choice.” She runs her hands over her flushed cheeks. “I told him I didn’t want to at first, and then he offered to get you into the university for free. Because he knew how much I wanted that for you.”
“He did?”
“I told him I wanted a better life for you. I told him how smart you are, how creative and how you’re the one thing I’m proud of. He knew that. He knew that was the only thing he could offer that would make me agree.”
All the air leaves my body in one deep sigh. “And what did I do it for?” she asks, almost laughing. “It could get you killed. I could get you killed. And I already killed my… my other…” Folding her arms over her stomach, she closes her eyes, shaking from the force of fresh sobs.
She did it for me. All these years, I was sure she didn’t care, that I was just an inconvenience she was stuck with. There were times I wondered if she wished I wasn’t born.
And now here she is, crying over a baby that will never be because a disgusting, evil man made her choose between us.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” It’s a little awkward, reaching out to rub her back while she cries, but it’s all I can do. Right now, we’re both victims.