Page 21 of Goose's Wren

But it’s not just the heat or the ache or the way she looked standing in that doorway like she was waiting for permission to breathe again.

It’s the truth unraveling behind my ribs.

All those years ago, I thought I was in love with Sparrow.Thought her silly little notes and poems were what kept me going when everything else in my life felt like shit.

I kept them tucked in my glovebox and in my pockets.I reread them so often I had the words memorized.I thought they were proof that she saw me...really saw me.

But now...those same words sound different in my head.They sound like Wren.

I hear her voice, softer, more honest, aching, as those old lines play back in my memory.

Lines about watching someone from the shadows.About loving someone you couldn't have.About being overlooked, forgotten, but still loving anyway.

Sparrow never spoke like that.She didn’t feel like that.

And I think about what Bella said.“I saw one once.A page from Wren’s notebook.It was the most beautiful love poem I ever read.”

Christ.

Could I have been wrong all this time?

Was it Wren who wrote those notes?

If it was...that changes everything.

Because if she felt that way about me back then, when she was just the quiet kid always sitting nearby, then what the hell am I supposed to do with that now?

And more than that...Does she still feel that way?

Because I’m not the same guy anymore.I’ve been hardened by loss and years of pretending I didn’t care.I built walls around those memories and shoved them in a box I never opened.

But those words?Those damn words are what have had a hold on me all this time.

Not Sparrow’s face.Not her laugh.Not even her damn betrayal.

It was those letters.And if they were Wren’s...

I sit up slowly, heart pounding in a way that feels unfamiliar and dangerous.

I need to know the truth.I need to hear it from her lips, in her voice, so I can stop spinning circles in my head.

I need to know if the way I’m looking at her now, with all this heat, this want and something deeper, is something she might still feel too.

Because I brought her here to protect her.But now, lying in this bed with nothing but silence and old memories pressing in on me, I know that protecting her isn’t going to be enough.

Not if I want her.Not if she ever truly wanted me.

And God help me, I hope she still does.

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