What Grows Dies Here

“So I think I’m an entirely new person,” I told her. “That the Wren from before is dead.”

Zoe scowled at me after I spoke. Full on scowled. “Now that’s bullshit,” she snapped. “I’ll agree what happened is horrific. There isn’t a collection of words to describe how horrific it was.” Her gaze glistened ever so slightly. Zoe didn’t cry. I’d never seen her cry. Not ever. Her chin tilted up, and after a few breaths, her eyes cleared.

“But you, Wren Whitney, do not let shit defeat you. You did not die. You merely came back to life. That’s an entirely different thing. And you may be a little different, that’s true. But you are still you. I can see that. And eventually, you will too.”

Her voice was so firm, so authoritative, I almost believed her. Almost.

CHAPTER FIVE

Last Night - GRAACE

I didn’t want to go to Jay’s place. Didn’t want to look at Stella. The despondent, hopeless part of me just wanted to drive to the airport, leave this all behind and never look back.

But this was Stella.

She was my family.

I couldn’t leave her or any of my girls all behind.

Not permanently. But I needed distance. For however long.

So I entered Jay’s home—now Stella’s, even though I’d always think of her home as that cozy apartment near The Grove—my heels clicking against the floor. I made sure to structure my expression into one that came natural to me before. I’d had fresh extensions put in, my hair now bouncy curls that flowed past my shoulders. My makeup was flawless.

I looked the part.

But Stella saw through me. Sitting on the sofa, eating pork rinds, she saw through me.

I couldn’t let that show, though. The fact that I saw her sadness, her pity, the second she laid her eyes on me.

My gaze flickered to the TV. A housewife had just thrown a drink. “Oh my god, I love this episode,” I chirped. “You’re making me totally tempted to stay, change into sweats, Postmates a margarita and get drunk as hell to watch television gold.” I looked at the packet of pork rinds. “You on Keto or something?” I teased.

“You’re not staying?” she asked instead, latching onto the earlier portion of my little speech.

The hurt in her voice got to me. “I’m on the way to the airport.”

She stared at me, abandoning the pork rinds. “The airport?” she repeated.

I nodded, hating myself for putting that look in Stella’s eyes. I was abandoning her when she needed her friends the most. She didn’t have a mother to guide her through this time. Jay was stuck in villain mode. She needed me.

“I leave for Nepal in…” I looked to my phone just to get a respite from her gaze.

“Two hours,” I said. “And flying commercial means I actually should have left twenty minutes ago.”

Finally, I found the strength to look back up at Stella, to reach for hand. “But I had to say goodbye.”

Stella’s shoulders drooped as she tried to process all of this information. I was known to jet off to foreign countries at a moment’s notice, it wasn’t unusual. Or at least, it hadn’t been.

Everything was different now.

“Why are you going to Nepal?” she asked, confused.

I sighed. “I’m going to hike into the mountains and stay in a monastery,” I forced myself to continue. “Try to get some monks to forget their vows.” I tried for a jaunty joke, but it didn’t land. So I went with the truth. Or a very simple version of it. “I just need to … go.”

Stella gripped my hand tighter. “You can’t leave,” she whispered.

I squeezed her hand right back. “I have to.”

“What about Karson?” she demanded. “He needs you. You need each other.”