#SWMContest Entry | Wren

Wren

This is an entry for AvaViolet 's #SWMContest to win a signed copy of her book. This entry is titled Wren and includes 500 words.

The room was built for children, with concave walls and a low ceiling. Garish paintings were sloshed on the walls by hasty hands, covering geometric wallpaper. The carpet was plush and littered with paper scraps, the floor barren. My eyes struggled to adjust from the snowstorm outside, shadows dancing in the corners where light from the windows couldn't stretch.

He met me in an enigma. The bags beneath his eyes made him ashen and his fingers trembled under gloves. "Where is she?" His voice was anything but steady and engulfed the stout room.

"She's not here," I answered. He halted with tense muscles.

"What?" His eyes pleaded for truth. I decided to give it to him.

"I called you," I stated, and he nodded grimly. "You were upset. The connection was poor because you were in the forest." I paused to compose. He cleared his throat, ushering me to continue. "You refused to meet me in the dorms." My voice was thick.

"Thin out the tedious details," he demanded. I didn't acknowledge it.

"I told you we found her," I said. He erupted in harsh movements, gripping my shoulders and slamming us into the wall.

"And you said she was okay," he seethed, and if we were anywhere else, I would have called him melodramatic. "You lied to me!" I tapped his fist with a chilled fingertip and he released me.

His gaze followed me to the corner, where I gestured to a door. "She's through there." I didn't enter with him; I saw her body every time I blinked. Blonde hair matted at the temple. Clean skin. Pink jacket, embroidered with her name—Wren, like the songbird. Quiet veins, no rhythm. Ice blue sneakers. Sallow skin aged with torture, exhibiting the toils her body tried to endure. Blank eyes, open. I had left them untouched.

He returned with heavy brows. His mouth hung open and his arms were in the air, like he was holding her but forgot to stop. He didn't speak; his face displayed every emotion his tongue restrained. He bit his words as they coalesced, but his skin was glass and I could see every vein woven beneath.

You lied to me, he had said. You said she was okay. I studied him, his empty arms, his broken posture, his tousled hair. My words were fallacious; I was deceitful. Was it worth it, to get him here unharmed? I met his eyes. His cheeks glistened with moisture. No, it wasn't. Driving to him, I would've met storm, but brought him to his sister, prepared and comforted. He would be crestfallen but accompanied. Before me, he stood alone. He didn't have Wren, the girl who chased her name through the trees, and he didn't have me, the liar, the fool.

I pulled a small lilac mitten from my waistcoat. Left hand. Gold detailing. White stain. I offered it, eyes brimming with tears.

He accepted it and fell to the ground, his heaving body a tapestry of human trauma.