What Grows Dies Here

“You’re here, not with her.” Yasmin’s eyes were practically slits. “And although I would love to change that, you’re the only one who can. Just like you are the only one who can fix her. You’re the only one who knows her. In ways, her best friends of years, decades, do not. Yet. You. Are. Not. With. Her.”

There it was. The full face of the fury that both her and Zoe had been harboring toward Jay and myself. They had both watched their friends fall in love with bad men, without being able to do anything about it.

I tore my gaze from hers to glance at my watch. “It’s almost two forty-five. Do you know what that means?”

Her face contorted into a sneer. “What? Time to torture?”

“At two forty-five, every day, Wren sits at the back of her linen closet, in the very darkest spot in her house. She sits there for exactly fifteen minutes. No more, no less. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t say a word. She just sits there. Staring. Not moving.”

I thought of my beautiful, vibrant woman hiding herself away in the darkness, as if each day she hoped it might swallow her. The thought tore at me. My fist clenched, but the rest of me stayed motionless.

Yasmin had paled. She had not known this little tidbit. None of them did. Wren, my darling Wren was talented. She was playing her part well. Her friends saw through parts of her act, of course. But they couldn’t imagine just how deep her suffering went.

And Wren didn’t want them to see that. She wanted to protect them from that. Because it would terrify them. It would break their hearts.

It scared the absolute shit out of me.

“Wren sits in that closet every day, at that time,” I continued, scrubbing a hand down my face. “No matter what. If you try to take her out of there, as I mistakenly did once, you will hear a scream that will haunt your fucking dreams. You will watch her claw at the walls. You will see the truth of it.”

Tears streamed down Yasmin’s cheeks. I didn’t feel remorse for being the cause of them. She had come in here looking for something, and I was giving it to her.

Be careful what you wish for and all that.

“You will see that no one can fix Wren,” I shook my head. “That she is so deep inside of herself, not even my arms are strong or long enough to take her out. She is the only one who can climb out… If that’s what she wants. If or when she is able. Until that time comes, I will live with her, in that dark, quiet, place for the rest of my fucking life. And I’ll be there, waiting outside the closet for her to come out, making sure that you will not drag her out before she is ready.”

“Two forty-five,” she whispered. “That’s when…” she trailed off.

“The exact time she was shot,” I finished for her. “Yeah.”

Yasmin sunk into the chair in front of her in defeat. She buried her head in her hands, her body shrinking in on itself.

I didn’t say anything as she quietly cried. Didn’t offer any comfort. I had none to give.

Her red rimmed eyes found mine. “Do you think she’s ever going to be the person she was?” she asked, all of her anger gone. “Do you think there’s hope for her to find her way back?”

I didn’t lower my gaze. “Yes,” I said with certainty. “Maybe with someone else it would not be possible, but with Wren, I have hope.”

“I’m sorry.” She wiped at her eyes which now held less hostility. “I’m not going to pretend I like you, but I see what you feel for her. What you lost.”

Her words were tinged in pity.

That punctured much deeper than hatred.

“You have to have hope,” I told her. “That Wren will pick up a shovel and dig her way out from beneath the rubble.” My voice was cold now. Dismissive.

Yasmin heard it. Saw me shutting down. It was an act of self-preservation, not cruelty. I didn’t much care if she couldn’t distinguish that.

She stood, straightening her skirt, stared a moment longer then turned on her heel, leaving me with my thoughts.

My thoughts were of Wren, sitting in a closet, trying to melt into the darkness.

WREN

Zoe and I were drinking together. Goodbye drinks.

I’d booked my flight the morning after Karson left, using a different name because I couldn’t be sure he wasn’t monitoring that kind of thing.

Yasmin was not there because she was working. Because I was not telling her I was leaving. Knowing her, she would chain herself to me in an effort to keep me in one place.