Chapter 24
Emerson
When I was eleven years old, my brother, Sebastian, and I convinced ourselves that we could build a time machine.
We spent three weeks raiding the old Miller junkyard for materials: scraps of tin and metal, cardboard, wood, old milk bottles, tangled wires, anything we thought might work.
We were so sure we’d figure it out, excited by the possibility of going back in time.
Sebastian wanted to stop Dad from leaving.
I wanted to convince Mom to keep our dog.
We both wanted to secure tickets to a Fall Out Boy concert we’d missed (never mind the fact we couldn’t have afforded them, anyway).
We’d begun our project together, spending nearly every waking hour on it, until, halfway through, Sebastian developed a crush on some girl in his class.
Her name was Blair Calihan, and our grand plans shriveled up like skin after a long bath.
It was never really about the time machine.
It was about fixing things that felt broken, things we couldn’t fix in real life.
There were so many times I’d wished for that time machine.
The day Dad walked out; the day my goldfish died and I cried for, like, seven hours; the time I fractured my ankle and missed six weeks of gymnastics, including a competition.
The accident. Winnie’s illness. So many things.
More than anything, I just wished I could go back in time because maybe the answers were there. Maybe I was there.
Winnie used to tell me that fate was like a whisper.
It nudged you toward where you were supposed to be.
I’d scoffed at the idea, telling her that fate was just coincidence dressed up to feel important.
But now? Now I wished I could go back and ask Winnie if she thought it was fate that life had turned out this way, that I had decided to let the gymnastics scholarship go.
It was the hardest decision I’d ever made.
I could see the disappointment in Coach Tillman’s eyes, even though she said she understood.
For so long, gymnastics had been my safety net.
Without it, I felt like I was free-falling with no idea where I would land.
Maybe I wouldn’t feel so lost if Winnie were still here.
Life was so much harder without her. I missed her all the time—more than I’d missed anyone in my entire life.
And I wished I could ask her what I should do with my life.
But if I’m honest, I already know what she would say—go, try, see what’s out there.
Which is why I’m in Denver. I spent the morning on a campus tour at the University of Denver, seeing if I could picture myself here.
Now I’m back at the hotel, curled up on the lumpy couch by the little bar fridge.
Rain tapping against the window, steady and soft.
The perfect reading weather. I mean, let’s be real, any weather is reading weather, but there’s something about rain and a good book.
On the list? The. Book. Wren. Wrote!!! Like, Wren actually wrote me a book.
Well, truthfully, she wrote it for all of us in the group, but she dedicated it to me.
Seriously, there was a page at the beginning that said, For Emmy, one day at a time.
I still couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even know Wren could write poetry.
I mean, I knew we were all working on our poems for the poetry evening, but she wrote a whole book—Rita would be super surprised by this—and had it published.
Henry helped her. There was a raven on the cover, all dark and mysterious, plus a bluebird—grief and joy. I cried when she gave it to me.
I settled into the couch cushions and flipped open the book.
It was called Thinking of You. The poems hit hard.
Like, rip-your-heart-out-then-give-you-a-hug hard.
I could almost hear Winnie reading them out loud, pausing every two seconds to debate what they really meant.
But then something weird started happening.
The words felt…familiar. Too familiar. The rhythm, the tone, the whole vibe.
It was giving B.W. Paisley. Which was insane.
Wren was not Brooklyn-freaking-Paisley. Right?
Except the more I read, the more my stomach did this weird floppy thing.
Because it wasn’t just similar. It was the same.
The language was so distinctly her that it couldn’t belong to anyone else.
Maybe Wren had contacted Brooklyn for advice, how cool would that have been?
! No. Impossible. Brooklyn Paisley must be far too busy and important.
What if Wren had just copied them? No. Wren wasn’t like that.
And more to the point, I’d already read everything Brooklyn had published!
I stilled for a moment as a small thought crossed into my mind.
I put the book down, scoffing, and pushed off the couch.
There’s no way, I thought.
I paced toward the little bar fridge, yanked it open, stared at the nearly empty take-out containers of last night’s dinner, as though they might hold answers, then slammed it shut again.
My eyes darted to the bed, messy with blankets and in-room dining plates shoved to one side.
I hunted for my phone in the chaos, fingers fumbling until I found it.
I swiped for Instagram. I hadn’t used the app in forever; I’d avoided social media as much as possible.
The thought of posting myself, of my scars being frozen in a photo grid, sitting there for people to comment on, whisper about, it had made me want to crawl out of my skin.
But this was different. I typed “B.W. Paisley author” into search and found her profile.
Verified. Eleven million followers. There’ve been maybe three moments in my life when my jaw has practically hit the floor: the time my mom accidentally bleached my prom dress, the time Brady tried to convince me he was as good as Patrick Mahomes, and the time my jaw nearly detached as my car hurtled across the road (sorry, super dark, I know).
But believe me when I say my jaw was on the ground when the search results came back…
in fact, it was probably fifty feet below the ground.
Because those photos were Wren. Okay, not exactly Wren.
B.W. Paisley had long, dark hair, and glasses, her whole vibe screaming “put together” in that effortlessly cool New York way.
Wren had chopped hair, highlights, and was always in baggy overalls and oversized T-shirts, the whole “please don’t notice me” thing.
But it was her. The more I stared, the more I knew.
I sucked in all the air around me. “Oh my god,” I whispered to no one, pressing my hand against the scars on my neck like that would steady me.
Of course, Wren had always seemed familiar. I must have seen her in those tiny thumbnails that pop up when you google authors’ books. But I’d never really looked closely at them, had I?
I started pacing again, my thoughts spiraling, thinking about everything this meant.
Wren was B.W. Paisley. Wren, who I’d poured my heart out to in the grief group.
Wren, who had written a book just for us.
Wren, who’d sat quietly in meetings, listening like she really cared, like every word you said mattered to her.
I thought about all those times we’d stayed after the group had wrapped up, lingering in the library, trawling through books, me rambling about how hard it was to move forward with these scars that refused to fade.
I stopped pacing for a moment, staring at the angry marks down my neck and arms in my reflection in the glass of the window—an untamed road map.
I thought back to one night after a doctor’s appointment, when he’d told me it was unlikely I’d ever be able to do gymnastics again.
I’d gone home and locked myself in my room, curled up in the corner like I could just disappear into it.
I felt so ugly, so broken. I didn’t want anyone to look at me ever again.
And then I’d reached for one of B.W. Paisley’s old poetry books.
I don’t even know why. It wasn’t like I thought it would fix anything, but I’d picked it up anyway, holding it like a lifeline.
I remember flipping to a poem about finding beauty in imperfection, and I’d started crying so hard I could barely read the words.
It wasn’t some magic cure-all, but it felt like a person had reached through the pages and told me I wasn’t alone.
Her books had felt like a friend when I had none.
And all this time, that same person was right here.
She had listened to me, even when I hadn’t known how to say what I was feeling.
She’d laughed with me, she’d offered to help me get back behind the wheel, she’d given me advice.
And she’d never once told me who she really was.
Why didn’t she tell me? Was it because she didn’t trust me?
I felt a twinge of hurt. Hadn’t we bonded?
But then I thought about the way she carried herself, her hesitation, the way she flinched whenever someone brought up the past. She had always avoided talking about herself too much.
I remembered the day she gave me the book, how she looked at me like it wasn’t a big deal, but her hands had been shaking.
Maybe I should’ve felt hurt. But mostly?
I felt like I was buzzing out of my skin.
This was huge. B.W. Paisley was here. She was part of our grief group.
She’d written this beautiful book. Winnie would’ve loved this.
Rita would lose her mind. And Henry? I mean, he was probably going to faint.
So what now? Do I just casually start following Wren?
Send her a DM? Hey, guess I found the real you.
Yeah, that wouldn’t be weird at all. This was so stressful.
What do you even do when you realize your friend is secretly a famous person?
My thumb hovered, brain short-circuiting, and in the end I bailed and exited the profile.
And then suddenly there it was. The very first post in my feed.
Brady. Smiling like an idiot, his arm slung around some girl, her hand shoved in front of the camera to show off a diamond ring.
We’re engaged.
Engaged? The F?! Since when? My vision blurred as I stared, until a laugh barked out of me, morphing into a snort.
Of course. Of course the forever he promised me would end up belonging to someone else.
Heat rose in my chest—anger, jealousy, and the sheer audacity of it tangled together.
Petty? Absolutely. But did I care? Not even a little.
If Brady could parade around like his life was perfect, then so could I.
Before I knew it, I had Wren’s book in my lap again.
I snapped a photo of the last poem in the book—my favorite, “Winnie’s Lesson”—then scrolled through my camera roll until I found a selfie I’d taken with Wren outside the library.
Perfect. I mashed the upload button and typed out a caption:
B.W. Paisley wrote me a book, because not only is she the best person ever, but also the greatest thing to happen to Everston, Colorado.
I mean, fate had brought her here, right? Surely, it had to mean something. And anyway who was even going to see this? My five hundred followers? But Brady would.
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