Wolfgrove Academy

Chapter 5

"Thanks Steele"

Steele takes one more deep breath in before placing Wren back on her feet. Her slight weight feels like nothing in his strong arms, but placing her down like that, he feels empty. He wants to be like the others, he wants to hold her for longer, but they have never had that relationship before and he is not sure whether she is willing to start now. Wren drags her hands down his chest. He is the only one with his tie in place and somehow it sets off his eyes even more. His white shirt feels so thin over his muscular body and the heat nearly burns the tips of her fingers. Steele just watches her with quiet contemplation.

Zero steps forward, wrapping his arm around her shoulder, and Wren looks at him. It is hard to remember the exact feeling that Zero gives but sometimes when she was feeling down or feeling alone, she would imagine what it would be like to have Zero right there beside her. Even in her wildest imagination, she couldn't ever emulate that feeling. But now, being back around him, she slips straight back into it like it is the easiest thing in the world. He is different than the others. With the others, she had to work hard to gain their trust and make them open to the friendship. With Zero it was different. He joined because he wanted to, everything with Zero was always easy and the feeling of him once again guiding her through the motions is such a relief. It may feel the same as before, but Wren is different, she is struggling to have the confidence that she once exuded. She took the first step and now she is lost, so she leans against Zero, willing to let him guide her.

Wren is confident she can get back to what she was. It is just something that will take a little time.

Zero turns her body away from Steele, leading her directly towards the sofa. He sits down, pulling Wren down beside him and Griffin sits on the other side, it is just as it always was. Now it has a different feeling. Wren understands that it is the same sofa, but before the bodies weren’t so large, she can feel the heat from the bodies on both sides, it feels more confined than it did back then. It isn't different in a bad way, because now she feels like she is wrapped in a cocoon of safety, of love, of light, it is so different to what it has been like in the last four years. She has felt like she couldn’t fit in anywhere, but here, here she just slots in seamlessly. She has the strangest feeling that they were awaiting her arrival, just leaving a space open and that knowledge nearly makes her break, the girl who no longer felt like she was wanted feels truly accepted.

Steele sits on the single sofa alone, his posture is casual, but anyone that knows him well knows that every sense is open. Zero twists his large body to face Wren, his arm wrapping around her shoulder and she melts into his body, surrounding herself with that calm.

"What happened, how did you end up back here in our final year?"

Wren looks at Zero’s excited violet eyes, reaching up and brushing his hair back with her fingers. His hair has the ability to make him look like he has always just come off the beach, he has a windswept surfer look, it is the most calming look she has ever seen. Looking at Zero is like staring out into the ocean. It is enough to relax her whole body and there has never been another that can make her laugh like he can.

"To tell the truth, I have no idea how I ended up back here. I have no idea why. Rebekah just announced it two days ago and before I knew it I was back here"

"Who is Rebekah?"

The four years have been strange for Wren, they have seemed to drag, but at the same time it all happened in the blink of an eye. So much has happened but right now she is starting to feel something more, a little peace settling over her heart. She has no intention of getting into the sob story that has been her reality.

"That is something I don’t want to get into right now, I want this to be a happy time"

Wren looks away from Zero, turning to Griffin and looking over his shoulder at the canvas on the wall.

"You picked it up"

Griffin was the only one that knew about the canvas. It was going to be a surprise for the other two, she knows it was him and that means the world to her. Griffin looks at Wren’s face, which is so close, his voice is so quiet. He tried to do everything he could for her, since he couldn’t do anything as meaningful as actually getting her back or convincing his mother that Wren was not the enemy, he took the task of getting the canvas that Wren was so excited about. He made it to be her last wish or maybe he got it so he could feel guilt every day of his schooling life so he could remember the person that was so obviously missing from their group, even though it was impossible to forget.

She was their founder, she was the one that brought them all together, so after she left they were just stuck together with no real purpose anymore, all the things that held the group together sort of faded out when she was gone. They were only together because they had been, it had become a sad tribute to the effect Wren had instead of a pure friendship.

"You were so excited about it, I had to get it"

Griffin doesn’t air his guilt, he doesn’t tell her how much it hurt to look at the canvas when he first hung it. There are a million things he wants to tell her but he can’t, not just yet, he needs to pick a moment away from the others when it is just the two of them. Wren was always the closest person to him, even his mother never came close. Wren loved him the way he was instead of the way she wanted him to be. He hasn’t been able to fill that position in his life and he is desperate to rekindle that and there is the massive hole in his life that Wren left behind.

Wren ordered the canvas the day of the photo. It took a little effort to be able to pick it up without her present, but it was the least he could do.

"I never expected…"

Wren doesn’t want to talk about the incident or what the last four years have been like, but they sit like a boulder on her heart. She knows she needs to say it all but she doesn’t know how to say it, she doesn’t even know how to tell them that the Wren they knew is gone, all that remains is this hollow shell that somehow keeps a smile on her face.

Wren’s hand plays with the hem of her skirt, the phone she took the photo on was smashed during the incident and she hasn’t been allowed one since. She thought that photo was gone forever, just like the friends she once had. It is hard to believe that both are still intact.

Griffin places his hand on hers, stroking her fingers, that has been her nervous habit since he has known her, but he has rarely seen it, since she has been in the room. He has seen it many times and it pulls at his heart to know that they aren’t the only ones that have had a hard time. He always hoped that she was living a good life but, from what he has observed, all his hopes for her may not have come true.

Wren has always been the light, having an ability to see the good in anyone even when they can’t see it in themselves. He has the strangest feeling that Wren can no longer see it in herself. He will repay that favour if she needs it. She sculpted him into everything he is today. He hates to think of what he would be like if she never came into his life.

"Of course. I got it, we wanted you right there beside us, you said it would brighten up the place and it did…. To an extent"

Griffin leans forward, closing his eyes as he presses a soft kiss to her forehead, savoring the feeling of her warm soft skin against his lips, it has been so long.

"Nothing could brighten this space like having you back"

Wren leans into the kiss, not allowing his lips to leave her, even though he had no intention of doing so.

"I am glad to be back"

"Not as glad as I am… we all are, to have you back"

Griffin doesn’t even have to think twice about speaking for the others. There has been something missing and they all know what it was.

"Tell me what has been happening since I left?"

Zero laughs as he maneuvers her body, so that Wren's head rests on his shoulder. He lowers his head, resting his ear on the top of her head.

"You know this place, it is always the same"

Zero turns his head to kiss the top of her soft black hair. He can’t get enough of her scent, his nose lingers in the pitch back strands a little longer than he should but he has to breath her in, imprint it into his memory, scared that she will fade away the next second. If this is a dream, then he doesn’t want to wake up.

"It was the same in every way but so very different without you, trying to adjust to our new normal"

Trying to fill the gaping hole that she left in their lives. Wren's fingers intertwine with Griffin’s as he leans his whole body over on the small sofa, resting his own head on her shoulder.

"Now that I'm back, does that mean I have thrown your life into chaos once more?"

Zero answers without missing a beat, he craves who he was before, he misses that person and Wren made him that. He thought he always was, but once she was no longer there, he realized that he was better with her, she enabled him to be everything he wanted to be.

"Just because it was our new normal didn't mean any of us liked it"

Even after four years, it was impossible to feel normal. Wren was the one that brought them all together and made a bunch of misfits into a cohesive group. Without her, they are just three very different people that are stuck together. She was the blend. She made everything right.