Chapter 7 - Wren

Wren

I don't remember the walk back to staff housing. One second we're outside the pack house with the party still glowing behind us, and the next I'm sitting on the edge of my own bed with my shoes still on, staring at a wall I've stared at a thousand times before and somehow don't recognize right now.

Briar hasn't stopped talking since we got in the door.

“…and I mean it, Wren, I've never seen anything like it. You didn't even flinch. Adrien freaking Conrad, standing right there, and you just looked him dead in the eye and torched the whole thing down. I would've thrown up. I think I actually might throw up right now just from watching it happen. I'm serious, my hands are still shaking…”

“Briar." I let out.

“…and Serena's face, oh my god, did you see her face? She looked like somebody slapped her; I don't even think she knows what to do with herself right now, and Bron just standing there like…”

"Briar."

She stops. Finally looks at me properly instead of pacing a track into my floor, and whatever she sees on my face makes her stop talking completely, which for Briar is basically an emergency siren going off.

"Hey." She sits down next to me, slower now, careful. "Hey, you're not okay. I've been so busy freaking out I didn't even… Wren. Talk to me."

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. My chest still has that torn feeling in it, dull now instead of sharp, but it hasn't gone away, and every time I breathe too deep it pulls, like something's stitched wrong underneath my ribs and every movement tugs at the thread.

"It hurts," I finally manage.

"The rejection?” I nod.

"I don't know what else it would be." My voice comes out smaller than I want it to. "I thought it was supposed to be quick. Like ripping a bandage off. Everyone always says it like it's fast, like it's over once you say the words."

"Maybe it just takes time to settle,” Briar says, shrugging.

"Maybe." I don't believe that, though. Something about the ache feels wrong in a way I can't explain, less like a wound closing and more like a wound that's decided not to close at all, staying open and raw no matter how much time passes.

Briar watches me for a long moment, chewing on the inside of her cheek the way she does when she's deciding whether to say something.

"I think we should get Miriam," she says finally.

"It's the middle of the night,” I say.

"I don't care. You're sitting here holding your ribs like you got stabbed, Wren. That's not normal, even for a rejection. I've seen rejections before. My cousin went through one two years ago, and by morning she said it just felt like a bruise. You look like you're in actual pain."

I want to argue with her. I don't have the energy for it, honestly, and some small, scared part of me is glad she's suggesting it, because the ache hasn't faded at all in the last hour, and if anything it feels like it's settling in deeper, curling around something under my ribs like it's decided to stay.

Miriam answers her door in a robe, hair loose instead of pinned back, looking every one of her years for once instead of the sharp, put-together woman who runs the clinic during the day. She takes one look at my face and doesn't ask questions, just steps back and waves us inside.

"Sit," she says, already reaching for her bag. "Shirt off, just the shoulder. Let me see."

I do. The lamp light in her kitchen is harsh and yellow, and I watch her face carefully as her fingers press gently along my ribs, testing, methodical, the same way she's checked me over a hundred times growing up for scraped knees and kitchen burns.

Her hands stop.

“Miriam?" I whisper in fear of what she might be seeing.

She doesn't answer right away. Her fingers are pressed just below my collarbone now, right over the spot where the ache is worst, and her face has gone very still, very careful, in a way I've genuinely never seen on her before. Miriam doesn't do careful. Miriam does brisk and blunt and matter-of-fact, always, even when she's stitching something that should probably hurt worse than it does.

"Tell me exactly what happened tonight," she says quietly. "All of it. Don't leave anything out."

So I do. The ballroom, the pull, running with Briar, the stairwell, Aida finding us, Miriam's hands go very still at that part, though she doesn't say anything, the study, Bron, the kiss I don't tell her about in detail but she seems to understand anyway from how I stumble over that part of the story, and then Adrien, and the words I said, and the way something tore when I said them.

When I finish, she's quiet for a long moment; long enough that Briar shifts uncomfortably on the stool beside me.

"Miriam. What is it? You're scaring me."

"I need to check something." Miriam's voice has gone strange, tight in a way I don't recognize. She reaches for the collar of my shirt, pulls it gently to one side, exposing the small crescent-shaped mark on my shoulder blade that's been there my whole remembered life, the one she's told me a hundred times to keep covered and never once explained why.

Her fingers brush over it, and I watch her face do something complicated, fear, maybe, or something close to it, tangled up with something that looks almost like grief.

"Miriam." My voice comes out small. "What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing's wrong with you." She says it fast, too fast, the way people say things when they need to believe them as much as they need you to. She pulls my collar back into place, gently, and sits back on her heels, studying my face like she's trying to memorize it. "The pain you're describing. It's not typical for a rejection."

"What does that mean?"

"It means a normal rejection burns hard and fast and then it's done. What you're describing is a thread instead of a wound, something that hasn't closed.” She stops herself, shakes her head, and I watch her visibly decide not to finish that sentence. "It means I need to keep a closer eye on you than usual. That's all."

"That's not all," Briar says flatly. "You've never looked at either of us like that in your life. What aren't you telling her?"

Miriam's eyes flick to Briar, sharp, and for a second I think she's going to snap at her, tell her to mind her own business the way she does when she thinks we're pushing somewhere we shouldn't. Instead, something in her seems to deflate, just slightly, some old tiredness settling into her shoulders.

"There are things about you, Wren, that I've kept quiet for a long time," she says finally, quiet, careful, as if each word costs her something. "I did it because I believed it kept you safe. Tonight…” She stops again, jaw tight. "Tonight made me start to wonder if keeping quiet is still the safest thing to do."

My whole chest goes cold, colder than the ache under my ribs, colder than anything that's happened all night.

"Miriam. What things?"

She doesn't answer right away. She stands instead, moving to the window, staring out at the dark like she's checking for something, though I can't imagine what she'd be looking for at this hour.

"Not tonight," she says finally, quietly, her back still to me. "You're exhausted. You're hurting. It's not the right time for this conversation, and I need to think about how to have it properly, without making things worse than they already are."

"You can't just say something like that and then not tell me.” I blurt out.

"I can, and I am, because I need to be careful, and being careful takes time I don't have right this second." She turns back around, and whatever was on her face a moment ago is gone now, smoothed back into the calm, brisk healer I've known my whole life. "Go home. Sleep, if you can. I'll check on you tomorrow, and we'll talk properly then. I promise you that much."

I don't believe her, not entirely, not with the way her hands were shaking slightly when she pulled my collar back into place. But I'm too tired to fight her on it, and the ache under my ribs is pulling harder now, insistent, like something waking up slow after being asleep a very long time.

Briar walks me home in silence, which never happens, and doesn't say a word until we're standing outside my door.

"That was not nothing," she says finally.

"No," I agree. "It wasn't."

I lie awake long after she leaves, staring at the ceiling, one hand pressed flat against the thread still humming faint and stubborn under my ribs, and I think about a crescent-shaped mark I've never questioned in my whole life, and a woman who just looked at me like she was seeing a ghost.

Something is wrong with me. Something has always been wrong with me.

And for the first time in thirteen years, I think Miriam might finally be scared enough to tell me what it is.