Chapter 16 Wren
Wren
The porch creaks softly as I rise from the swing, wineglass still warm from where my fingers wrapped it too tightly.
I watched the taillights of his truck disappear over the hill a few minutes ago, swallowed by the trees, leaving me in silence.
A breeze lifts the loose tendrils of hair around my face, cool against the alcohol-and-embarrassment-induced flush still clinging to my cheeks.
The bottle I’d opened is still full and untouched, the air still charged like it was when he was sitting next to me.
And yet he left.
Just like that.
I linger for a minute longer, telling myself it was fine. It is fine. I’m fine.
Not ready to head in yet, I sink back into the swing, legs tucked beneath me as the last bit of moonlight fades behind the night clouds. I hate that I feel like this. Hollow and a little bit foolish. Like I’ve built up something in my head that didn’t really exist.
Maybe it was the wine and the fact that he showed up with a generator when I didn’t even ask, when I was perfectly content to use candles and shower in cold water in the morning and wait patiently for the power company to do their thing.
It felt more meaningful than I suppose it was.
And then he stayed. Had wine. Answered my questions. Let his eyes linger on my lips. His face softened from time to time. I had him smiling.
I could’ve sworn that when he left, there was almost a heaviness in the way he told me good night, like it pained him to say it, like something in him wanted to stay.
But he didn’t.
And I should be used to that by now.
I’ve never been the girl someone chooses—not really.
Not when it counts.
Not the boy in high school, who asked out my best friend instead.
Not my college boyfriend, who ghosted me the second I started talking about long-term plans.
Not Atticus’s biological father, who swore up and down he’d always be there for us, then changed his number when the pressure got too real.
Not even the fiancé who promised me and my son forever then left me standing in a white dress with a sinking heart and a four-year-old who didn’t understand why his mommy cried for days.
You’d think after all that I’d be jaded.
Sometimes I wish I was.
But I’m not.
I’m a hopeless romantic in the most tragic sense of the word; a woman who’s made a living writing about love and devotion and men who move mountains to be with the women they adore—and I’ve never had any of that for myself. Not once. Not even close.
And somehow, I’ve always been okay with it. I’ve always made peace with the idea that maybe I was meant to write the stories, not live them. That the fantasy was always better than the reality anyway. The men I write about in my books are fictional for a reason. They don’t exist in the real world.
But then came Hunter.
Rugged, broody, and heroic, driving up in a big white pickup instead of riding up on a big white horse, though it’s all the same.
At first glance, he seems impossible to read. He’s not warm or flirty. He doesn’t make big declarations or play games or give false hope—at least not on purpose. But every once in a while, he looks at me like he wants to rewrite every rule he’s ever lived by.
God, I can only imagine how it must feel to be chosen by this man . . .
I exhale and rise to my feet, heading inside, flicking off porch lights one by one until the house is cloaked in warm darkness and filled with the distant rumble of the generator outside.
On my way upstairs, I peek my head into my son’s room. Atticus is fast asleep upstairs, sprawled diagonally across his little bed, dreams probably filled with ponies and tire swings and frogs caught in mason jars.
I should be exhausted, but for some reason I’m not. My mind is whirring, replaying tonight’s exchange again and again, wondering if I misread any signs or if there’s more I could’ve read between the lines of our conversation.
I tiptoe downstairs and make my way to my office, that little sanctuary where the words are starting to come easier now thanks to the man who somehow feels the need to both rescue me and keep me at an arm’s length.
Scanning my desk for my sunflower notebook, I don’t see it where I left it. I check under stacks of papers, a pen-filled mug, and various framed photos. It’s nowhere to be found.
Panic sears through me, hot and forceful.
I toss a throw blanket off the chair.
Not there either.
My heart climbs into my throat. I always leave it right here—in the center of my writing desk, where I can’t miss it, where it sits out in the open, silently reminding me there are always words needing to be written.
Just when I’m about to tear the place apart, I spot the white-and-yellow edge peeking out from beneath a pile of mail on the bookshelf.
I don’t remember putting it there . . .
Sometimes Atticus plays in here, so there’s a chance he moved some things around, but panic lingers inside me like a warning bell regardless.
If I lost this thing, it’d be akin to losing a diary.
A writer’s personal words are more precious than gold.
They come from a different part of them altogether.
A deeply personal place that can’t always be easily accessed.
The idea of losing this and someone finding it and reading all the things I never meant to share—especially if it’s one person in particular . . .
I can’t finish the thought.
I center myself with a deep breath and reach for a pen before taking a seat. Cracking the notebook open, I flip past the last letter and find a fresh page.
Emotions swirl with feelings, both in and under my skin, scorching and pressing, full of hope, doubt, disappointment, and determination as I write yet another letter to a man who’ll never read it.
But the sooner I get these words on paper, the sooner I’ll get them out of my head, and that’s the only way I’m going to get any real sleep tonight.
Hunter—
You could’ve stayed.
I would’ve let you.
We could’ve sat on the porch until the moon traded places with the sun.
I’d have poured you more wine, even if you didn’t want it.
I’d have asked more questions and you would’ve pretended to be annoyed but you’d have answered them anyway.
During bouts of silence, we would’ve listened to the frogs by the river as the space between us kept getting smaller.
And eventually—if we were both brave enough—we would’ve closed that space altogether.
You could’ve kissed me.
And I would’ve kissed you back.
Soft. Slow. Like the world was holding its breath just for us.
We could’ve let our guards down for once. Yours built of silence and solitude, mine built of stories and curiosity.
Instead, you left.
And I told myself it didn’t hurt.
I told myself I didn’t care.
But I’m writing this, aren’t I?
Which means I must.
So maybe this is just my way of creating the moment I didn’t get to have.
The moment that might’ve been.
The moment I hope, someday, finds its way back to me. If not with you, then with someone who chooses me. I want to be chosen.
God, I want to be chosen.
I’ve never said that out loud before. Or written it on paper.
And as a highly accomplished and independent woman, it feels jarring to admit .
. . but just once I’d like to be chased, desired, and desperately wanted.
I’d like to be with a man who doesn’t make me earn my place in his life.
Who doesn’t require performance, only authenticity and presence.
A man who tells me I’m enough, just as I am.
A man who makes it clear he’s been waiting his whole life . . . for me.
That’s the whole point, isn’t it?
That’s why I write love stories and that’s why people read them.
The fantasy of being someone’s special person. Their one and only.
I’m realizing now that I’ve always been the chaser, the performer, the one who diminishes her needs in an attempt to be easier to love . . . and where has that gotten me? Pregnant. Alone. Jilted. Confused.
You piqued my curiosity with your enigmatic ways, Hunter. You got me to pick up the pen again. But I don’t think this is healthy for me anymore, fantasizing about you and imagining in my head that you’re so much more than you really are, that there’s any chance we could be something.
That’s just limerence in disguise.
Limerence isn’t romantic.
Real love is.
You’re just a fantasy.
And I’ve accepted now that it’s all you’ll ever be.
—Wren