Page 61 of Leave a Mark
“I have to go.”
“You spook just like a bir—”
But she hung up before he could finish. Her heart hammered, and she’d broken into a sweat. Wren kicked off her covers and leapt out of bed. She tossed her phone to the mattress just as it started buzzing again.
Ignoring it, she stalked to the bathroom. While waiting for the shower to heat, she stared at herself in the mirror above the sink. Her shag cut looked extra mussed, and her blue streaks needed touching up. She thought about Lee’s what-if scenario — if Marcelle had not answered the door that night.
But Marcelle had answered the door.
Wren’s reflection in the mirror stared back at her. She wasnothinglike Marcelle. What did Lee see when he looked at her?
She peeled off her nightgown and took in her body. Seeing her phoenix, Wren breathed deeper, inhaling safety, exhaling shame.
Her ink.
No matter what lay underneath, her art was beautiful. Flawless. Untainted. And it covered so well. It hid so much.
Wren stepped into the shower and closed her eyes as the stream ran down her face. The water was hot, but, given her state, she wasn’t surprised when her mind returned to a warm rain…
She spent the whole night in Simon’s treehouse, Wren crept back to Mamaw Gigi’s as the sun woke the birds. She usually ate breakfast at Mamaw Gigi’s kitchen counter anyway, but she was always dressed for school first.
“Wren, darlin’, why are you still in your jammies?” Mamaw Gigi asked when she stepped through the front door.
Wren stood there, keenly aware of her missing panties, staring at her grandmother in silence. Darryl had warned her after the first time if she ever told anyone what they had done — they, not he — no one would want her to be their little girl. They’d throw her away. She’d have to live in an orphanage.
Wren did not want Mamaw Gigi, Papaw Dale, and Laurie to throw her away. And she definitely didn’t want them to know what she’d done. But even as she tried to force down her bowl of Cheerios, Wren knew she didn’t want to do it again.
Ever.
After school that day, she went to Simon’s. Instead of playing fort, she insisted they play campout. Wren helped Simon drag his sleeping bag out of his house and up the tree. It was harder to get him to agree to leaving it out overnight, but Wren explained that the sleeping bag would be happier outside, and leaving it out would save them the trouble of dragging it back the next day.
That night, she didn’t wait around. As soon as Laurie closed her bedroom door, and Wren heard her mother’s giggles mixed among the beat of “Pony” drifting from her room, she crept out of the house.
But this time, she was prepared. In her pillow, she’d stashed a can of OFF! along with one of Papaw Dale’s flashlights and her stuffed koala bear.
Snuggled in the sleeping bag, Wren stared up at the night sky through the branches, but this time there were no stars. She didn’t bother to question where the stars had gone before falling asleep, but she knew the answer when raindrops splashed on her forehead hours later.
At first, it was just drizzle, and Wren didn’t mind. The sleeping bag was thick, and it was summer. A little rain would cool her off. But soon, drizzle turned to downpour and lightning split the sky.
Thunder had never yelled so loud.
Wren burrowed into the sleeping bag and inched her way under the shelter of Simon’s plastic lawn chair until it tented her head. The battery of rain on the plastic beat a deafening drumroll that never ended, but the sleeping bag was water resistant, and Wren stayed dry enough.
She boiled in the heat of the sleeping bag, and she jumped with every crack of thunder, but it was better than Darryl.
WREN STEPPED OUTof the shower, dried off, and returned to her room. She eyed her phone as though it were a snake. When she was finally dressed, she plucked up the courage to wake the screen.
One missed call. One voicemail. Two texts. Wren read them first.
Lee:Listen to my voicemail.
Lee:Say yes. It’ll be fun.
She didn’t have to listen. She could ignore it. No good could come from listening.
Wren walked back to the bathroom, scrubbed her towel over her head, and then finger combed her hair.
What had Lee said? If she wasn’t going to listen to his voicemail, she’d have to delete it. The curiosity would drive her mad.
