“Yeah, fine,” I said.
“I’ll get this,” Laird said, walking over to the mess.
“Laird,” I said. He picked up the top of the bin and turned to me.
“Thanks.”
He grabbed the rest and walked toward the house. “Get those peas on that soon. It’ll stop the swelling.”
“Your father mentioned you were bringing a friend,” Mom said.
“She, um, couldn’t make it.”
“You sure everything’s okay?”
“I wanted you to meet her,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around her. My chin rested on top of her head. When had she shrunk?
“Next time,” she said, pulling away and beaming. “Grier has been talking about you all day. Come on, there’s a ton of food.”
“Sounds good.”
TWENTY-ONE
WREN
I RAN.
Mostly because I didn’t know what else to do.
Maybe I was trying to outrun Grayson’s Mike Pearson confession.
Or maybe I was trying to sprint away from the awful feeling that I’d been humped-and-dumped again. At least, this time, I was the one doing the dumping.
Whatever the reason, I booked it like I’d never had before.
Five blocks, long blocks, after I’d left the A&P parking lot, a jagged pain seared up my right side under my rib cage, letting me know how not a runner I really was. I doubled over in the middle of the sidewalk, hands on my knees, panting. I collapsed onto the front steps of a large yellow house. I leaned on the slightly rusted railing, sucking in gulps of frigid air until my breathing became almost normal.
The pain grounded me in the moment. I could focus on my breath and not on the haunted look in Grayson’s eyes when I’d left. The look that made me feel like I was abandoning him, when, let’s face it, he sort of deserved to be abandoned. Giving me a stolen necklace?
No matter how much time had passed since it had been taken—the necklace belonged to someone else. Someone it probably meant something to. Like it meant to me. I tore open my scarf, reached for the chain, and stopped just short of yanking it off my neck. I undid the clasp and tucked it into my coat pocket.
I trudged on, finally realizing what it was I was running from—the urge to go back to Grayson. I still felt that magnetic pull, this sense of belonging with him . . . and I hated it. I couldn’t go back to him now . . . possibly ever.
I’d known there was more to Grayson. Some part of himself he kept hidden. These were things he did before we were together. Could I really hold that against him? Everything that had happened between us up until this moment had been genuine. Hadn’t it?
But . . . Allegra. The mental picture of them leaning toward each other; the way she’d looked at him. That would take a while to get out of my head, whether or not it meant anything. I wasn’t entirely sure the fact it was meaningless to Grayson made me feel any better. Was he capable of being so heartless?
I couldn’t go home either. My mother would grill me about my change of plans, and I wasn’t ready to face that kind of interrogation. There was one place I knew I could go, no questions asked.
Maddie opened the door, eyes popping as she pulled me in.
“Wren, what the hell? Were you running?” she asked as I whipped off my coat.
“Kind of,” I answered, trying to catch my breath. “Jazz is certifiable if she’s willing to torture herself like that.”
“No argument here,” she said, holding out her arms for my coat. The acrid smell of hair dye hit my nose. Maddie’s mom was in the kitchen with a styling client. She gave me a quick wave with a small brush covered in thick, white highlighting goop. There was another scent too—craft glue—and as Mads hung up my coat and pointed me toward the dining room, I saw Jazz sitting there sprinkling glitter over something. She stopped when she saw me, like I’d caught her doing something wrong.
“Hey,” I said.
“Wren? What are you doing here?”
Maddie sauntered into the room. “She’s caught the running bug, Jazzy.”
“No freakin’ way,” I answered as my breathing finally returned to normal.
On the dining room table, there were three rows of cardboard-cutout teacups with names in script across the rims. They’d been in the middle of a project.
“We’re working on this for the NHS mother-daughter Christmas tea.”
“Yeah, I maintain a 4.0 average so I can make glittery teacup place cards. I’m so proud,” Maddie interjected as she sat back down on the dining room chair, one leg curled beneath her. She pulled on the sleeve of her oversize black sweatshirt, revealing a sliver of shoulder, and grabbed a Sharpie.
I picked up one of the place settings. Jasmine Kadam, it read in fancy calligraphy that I knew was Mads’s handiwork. My emotions were raw, right at the surface. I wanted to crush that stupid, glittery teacup in my hand, hating the fact that I didn’t have one of my own. Try again next semester. What if I didn’t get in? There were no guarantees.
But there were no guarantees in life either, were there? The Camelot. My sister, Brooke’s, perfect life plan. Grayson. Even my friendship with Mads and Jazz was changing, evolving. With the NHS they were part of something I wasn’t—and maybe never would be.
One thing I could guarantee was that I wouldn’t be denied entry into the NHS because I was quiet. Quiet could be a lot of things—fierce, thoughtful, compassionate—but never deficient. That teacher evaluation was just a piece of paper. I had to stop letting it define me.
“You both should be proud. It’s an awesome accomplishment,” I said, my voice high-pitched as I put down the place card on the table. “Much better than being a part of the lame-ass Spirit Club. I made a woman throw her tea at me and cry at today’s service project.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be with Grayson?” Jazz asked. Her question cracked my cool facade. The tears flowed freely, right in front of their baffled faces. I sniffled and sat down in the chair at the head of the table.
“I think we broke up.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Mads asked, coming over to me.
“What happened?” Jazz asked, right behind her.
I didn’t want to lie, but how could I tell them the truth? What Grayson had confessed was so surreal, I could hardly wrap my mind around it, let alone explain it. What would they think of him?
“I don’t want to talk about it here,” I said, motioning toward the kitchen, where Maddie’s mom was singing softly along with “Livin’ on a Prayer” as her client gabbed with her about an upcoming baby shower she was attending.
“Break time,” Maddie said.
“We have only five more to go,” Jazz said.
“Let me help,” I said, grabbing a bottle of silver glitter.
“You sure?”
I stood up and shook the glitter over Maddie’s head, laughing. “Yep!”
“So that’s the way you want it,” she said. “I think gold is a good color for you.” She grabbed a different bottle and shook it at me.
“Are you guys completely out of your minds?” Jazz asked.
We both turned on her; she backed away, laughing. “Please don’t.”
“Beg,” I said, glitter poised over her head. She darted between us, grabbing her own bottle.
“I’m faster than both of you, so go ahead, try it.”
“Take the right,” Mads said. We cornered her, and suddenly there was a frenzy of glitter. The three of us sparkly and laughing.