Page 65 of Tall, Dark, & Ginger

“Five years.” I conjure up images of the bar, my friends, and then I see myself snuggling next to Wren in my bed. I see steamy showers, horror movie marathons, his laughter filling my space. I see us cooking together in the kitchen at the house, me making messes and him smiling proudly at me for trying. I see a future I’ve never pictured before.

I open my eyes slowly to see a grinning Indy. “Like what you saw?”

“Yeah. It was good.”

“There’s your answer. That’s when I knew. When there wasn’t a future I wanted that didn’t include Salem. If all you wanted was to fuck around, you’d know that by now.”

I nod, swallowing the lump of emotion in my throat.

“I get that it can be scary at first—I was there. But man, I gotta tell you, nothing compares to going all in. I never knew I could feel this way about a person. If he wasn’t ready when I told him, I would’ve waited for him to get there. I would’ve kicked things up a notch to romance him even harder.”

“He deserves…” I shrug. “The world. I don’t know if I can give him that.”

“You don’t know his definition of ‘the world.’ He might already have it. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“Thanks, Indy.”

“Anytime.”

The doors to the patio open and Florian, Carlos, and Wren come out. Wren smiles, taking the seat next to me.

“Everything okay?”

I nod, lifting his hand and kissing it in front of everyone. “Everything’s perfect.”

TWENTY-FOUR

WREN

“Doyou want to talk more about your family dynamic, Wren?” Maisy asks, smiling warmly at me.

I shrug. “I don’t know. Is it relevant?”

“Most likely, yes. Our experiences in childhood shape who we become as adults. What is your father like?”

“Gone. He left when I was young, so I don’t really remember him.”

“No contact?”

“No. My mom won’t talk about him either.”

“How does it make you feel that your dad left and your mother won’t talk about it?”

I shift in the armchair, folding my arms over my chest. “I don’t think about it much. He’s an asshole for leaving. My mom’s life was really hard after that.”

“In what way?”

“Hard to make ends meet and raise two kids by herself. She tried to find other men, but they never stuck around too long either.”

“Mm-hmm. How do you view your mother’s attempts at relationships?”

“She’s not good at them, but that’s a family trait. My sister’s had two quick marriages that ended in divorce and my mom can’t keep anyone around longer than a few months. She’s hard to be around. They both are.”

“What do you mean?”

“My mom seems to get off on making me feel bad for wanting more from my life. They don’t live far from me, but they act like it’s thousands of miles away and if I don’t come over I’m ignoring them. But I hate visiting them. All they do is make me feel like shit for being who I am.”

Like I took an invisible lid off my thoughts, I spill all about my childhood and teen years—the endless jabs about my feminine traits and lack of interest in supposedly manly pursuits. The teasing when I would get caught looking too long at a man, my mother’s attempts to “make me straight” by buying me men’s magazines with nude women inside. The crying and praying, my sister teaming up with my mom to bully me into doing what they wanted, but mostly, the guilt trips over looking like my father, as if I had anything to do with that.

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