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He should’ve known better when the gulls didn’t cry that morning.
He wakes most mornings to their calls floating in the open windows over the crashing waves of the English Channel, the perpetual soundtrack to his walled city. But today he awoke to bellicose waves playing a solo prélude and the absence of his sister’s humming in the kitchen, the charged stillness weaving a thin sense of foreboding into the air. Maybe if Auden was raised on the survival instincts of a sailor he would’ve been able to detect the imperceptible change of pressure in the air or the way the ocean would occasionally still as if waiting with bated breath. But Auden was raised on the survival instincts of a killer and rain was rarely noteworthy enough to be of any importance in his line of work.
He finds a note from Astoria in the kitchen that she’s out for errands and will be back in the afternoon. The wall clock reads a quarter past nine. Too damn early. He glares as if he can intimidate the thing into skipping ahead two hours. It stares mockingly back. No surprises jump out of it, the tacky little cuckoo clock that sings at random intervals instead of on the hour that Astoria insisted she had to have when they made their way through Germany. It was a bitch to transport, but he was never one to not indulge his sister’s whims. And it’s nice to now pretend it was a souvenir they got on holiday instead of a two-week stint spent in abandoned warehouses trying to outsmart and outrun the ill-timed coincidence of an old colleague.
As unusual as it is to wake up to an empty apartment, Auden is relieved to have avoided any backhanded remarks at his increasingly late starts on the day. His habit of restless nights and late mornings shouldn’t be so worrying when he has nothing he’s supposed to occupy the days with. Read. Hike. Sail. Paint sometimes. Write letters he’ll never send. Study French. All things he can do perfectly well at 2 a.m. when the moon is looming over the water, casting ghost-like shadows around town, alone save for his screaming thoughts. He knows it’s because she misses them eating breakfast together, knows it’s because she’s worried about him in a way she doesn’t know how to fix. But he doesn’t know how to fix it either, doesn’t even know what parts of him need fixing and which are just dead. Doesn’t know if he cares enough to learn the difference. Maybe it’s just nihilistic burnout, growing pains from figuring out what you’re supposed to do with hands that were created solely to destroy until he destroyed himself enough to realize maybe he should just run away from it all, take his sister’s hand and his blood money and find a place their psychotic family wouldn’t think to find them. Where the ghosts ceaselessly haunting him couldn’t find him.
He’s doing fine. He’s learned to notice when his hands start to shake, when the ringing in his ears drowns out his sister’s laughter next to him, when he finds himself scanning the crowds for faces he hasn’t seen in years, when he finds himself making jokes for someone who’s not around anymore to laugh at them. He’s doing fine.
He’s fine.
He flops down on the sun-soaked sofa and falls back into a fitful sleep.
“Please don’t tell me you just woke up,” Astoria says in lieu of a greeting when he calls her three hours later.
“From a nap,” Auden replies around a yawn. “I woke up at 9.”
“Those aren’t naps, dummy, it’s just going back to sleep.”
“‘If you’ve gotten out of bed and eaten breakfast already it makes it a nap’.”
He’s quoting himself. Even over the phone he can hear his sister roll her eyes.
“Did I catch you before you went to the market?”
“You’re in luck, I’m there right now. Are you good with beef stew this week?”
Faintly, behind the static, he can hear the bustle of the open farmers market, can picture the packed stalls of produce and fresh fish and bouquets that Astoria can never resist bringing home. He hums in affirmation and contently listens to her bubbly chatter with the vendors as he pulls himself up to get dressed. She really is annoyingly better at French than him.
“Auden? You still there? What did you want me to pick up?”
“Hm? Yeah, can you pick up oranges while you’re there? And maybe more bread if they have epi ?”
“You didn’t eat the oranges before they went bad last time,” Astoria chastises. “There’s still juice leftover.”
“That was breakfast.”
There’s a long pause. “Actually…there’s a good deal on apples today, I was thinking of getting some.”
Auden immediately sours, coming to a stop in the middle of shimmying into a pair of jeans to properly hiss into the phone. “Bring apples into our home and I’ll throw them out the window.”
He can practically hear Astoria roll her eyes at his threat.
“Auden, you need to grow up with the apple thing already, why don’t you just try—”
“I’m technically the adult here and it’s my money! You’re not buying apples!”
“ Fine, ” she huffs, knowing she pushed the apple debate as far as she could without it developing into something far more serious. “I’ll get your dumb pre-juice orange juice, but only if you get me a latte and croissant aux amandes .”
“Yeah yeah, I’m heading to the cafe to read for a bit, I’ll be home with your coffee before dinner, kay?”
“Kay,” she repeats distantly. “When you…when you get home I need to talk to you, so don’t stay out too late. Everything’s fine though! It would just be better to not do it over the phone.”
“Aster, is everything—”
“It’s okay! I promise. The market’s just—oof—a little crowded today! I gotta go, I only see two epi left and that jerk from across the street is about to get them. Love you, bye!”
She hangs up before he can say anything else. Weird.
He tries to shake the feeling that something’s wrong as he walks down the rickety old stairs of their apartment building. He always feels like they’re about to give out on him, that has to be it. Or maybe the nightmares he’s been having. Or the fact that Astoria brought up apples, knowing it would get under his skin. She knows why he can’t stand them and knows better than to think that’s another part of him that needs to be fixed. Should’ve just said they gave him a stomachache, not trust issues.
The breeze off the coast is picking up as Auden walks down the quaint cobblestone roads. The antique buildings that tower overhead and press in close to his sides used to feel claustrophobic, but a year has waned them into feeling like security. Like the cafe at the end of the road, they’re now his. Some of the few things he let himself consider “his”; his lifestyle didn’t allow for luxuries like possessions and home, but that’s also something this past year has given him. He allows himself the big living room window that overlooks the sea and streams warm sunbeams onto the weathered floorboards. He allows himself his sister’s smile and the press of her lips onto his cheek. And he allows himself the cafe near the harbor with the best pain au chocolat in the world and the rickety table against the back wall that overlooks the harbor, a cinema screen of constant coming-going coming-going coming-going of faceless sailors and nondescript fishing boats. There lies a sense of security in the certainty that nothing lasts forever; people, boats, storms—they’re always coming-going coming-going coming-going.
Auden opens the cafe door to the distinct smell of espresso and freshly baked pastries greeting him warmly. His eyes flit over the display, spotting Astoria’s beloved almond croissants, and sighs in relief; she wouldn’t forgive him for coming home empty-handed. He wants to claim his table before ordering, he’s already heading toward the back of the shop when—
Auden’s heart leaps into his throat.
Rusty fight-or-flight reflexes kick in a moment too late, allowing the table’s lone occupant the precious seconds necessary to look up from the window— what used to be his window but would never, could never, ever be his again— and lock eyes with Auden, all-too-familiar hazel eyes widening in recognition.
Auden is out the door before he even has time to breathe.
He should’ve known better when the gulls didn’t cry that morning.
It meant a storm was coming.
“Pack your stuff, we’re leaving in three minutes.”
“ What?! ” Astoria cries, startled from putting away the groceries as Auden bursts through the front door.
“We have to go,” he repeats, already in his bedroom and artlessly shoving clothes into a knapsack. “Location’s been compromised.”
“How, by who? The White Whale is still—”
“ Astoria. It doesn’t matter, when I say we have to go, we have to go. Move. ”
Usually, she’d be at her closet in a flash so she’d have every second she could to fold her beloved dresses neatly into her bag. Usually, she’d garner the urgency of the situation by how fast he came in through the door alone. Usually, she’d be calmly packing up the first aid kit and batteries and kitchen knives and canvas tarps and maps and all the inevitably useful little things Auden couldn’t be bothered to remember. Not wringing her hands and biting her cheek, glued to the same spot at the counter.
He shoots a glare at her on his way to the living room to gather every photograph, journal, hastily scrawled grocery list in a different language, every last piece of identity that tied them to that place. “ Two minutes, ” he warns, “Astoria, what the hell—”
His eyes fall on the bag of apples lying innocently next to the sink. It’s enough to freeze him. He stalks over, Astoria looking decidedly caught as she silently watches him snatch up one.
“Why would you buy these, you know why I hate them.”
The look on her face says it all as piece by piece falls into place. He isn’t liking the picture it makes out.
“That’s what I was going to talk to you ab—”
It all clicks.
Auden chucks the apple out the window.
“You better have not invited him here, this better be an awful coincidence,” he says lowly. “Because you know damn well how reckless and dangerous that would be. You know we can’t trust anyone.”
“Don’t you trust me? You think I would invite someone here without a reason, without precautions?”
“Did you?”
He watches Astoria stare at the floor, watches her fidget with her rings, watches her bite her lip in trepidation. He never prays but god, he prays right now it isn’t true, that this is all an awful coincidence or one of his lucid nightmares he’ll soon wake up from.
Astoria slowly looks up, eyes glassy. “It wasn’t without a reason, it’s Wren .”
The sound of his name hits like a slap to the face. She continues, voice barely audible over the sound of blood rushing in Auden’s ears.
“I thought…I thought maybe if you just saw each other again you would realize how much you miss your best friend,” she says helplessly.
“My best friend is dead,” he seethes. “He died on a job when we were sixteen and he made a choice that he thought was worth destroying himself for. Whatever that thing is you tried to set me up on a coffee date with, it’s a stranger. I stopped knowing him a long time.”
“Wait, what?! He was at the—you just saw him—” Astoria’s eyes go wide in horror. “He wasn’t supposed to…Auden, I promise I didn’t know he was there, I would never set you up to walk into something like that. I was going to ask if you would want to see him when you came home tonight and then we could make the plans together. This morning he agreed that would be best…”
“So he just happened to also be running errands in fucking France this morning and you randomly ran into each other? You don’t think that’s a little suspicious? You don’t think that means he hasn’t been tracking us?”
“Of course he’s been tracking us!”
“Him and who else? There’s no way he found us working alone, we’re both too good at what we do. Staying here isn’t safe anymore, we’re leaving.”
Astoria’s face is unreadable.
Auden is sorting the groceries into what they can take and what they have to leave behind when she speaks again, taking both of his hands so he has no choice but to look at her. Her hands shake but her voice does not.
“I know you don’t want to tell me what happened between you and Wren, I know you think you can’t trust him anymore. But can’t you trust me when I say we’re safe?”
Auden looks at her earnest baby blue eyes, the apples on the counter and the flower boxes lovingly grown by Astoria’s patient hands, the half-finished needlework on the sofa from the Sundays they spent with the sweet old lady who lives below them, the bookcase of french novels he’s finally able to understand, their paintings on the walls, their pictures on the fridge,
the scattered mess of kicked-off shoes and crumpled grocery lists and stray clothing draped on the backs of chairs and unfinished crosswords in the newspaper and dirty dishes in the sink, the mess that grew only when a place was lived in—was home.
He looks at his window with his view of the harbor and his sunbeams streaming across his weathered floors. And he looks again at his beloved little sister, his whole life. He only lets out the barest hint of a sigh before Astoria is pushing him away.
Dammit, she’s gotten too good at reading him.
“Aster—”
“I’m not leaving! We don’t need to, we’re still safe. I made sure it was safe.”
He huffs in frustration, raking his hands through his hair. After everything, how does she not get it?
“Aster, how can we be safe if someone from our past knows where we are? That world is too twisted and tangled to keep secrets.”
“I know that! Wren knows that! We never exchanged any traceable information, never said anything that wasn’t coded, and I never told him our location. Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I’ve gone soft? I gave him clues less than breadcrumbs so that if he ever found us it was because he was looking , and you know if he went looking for us he would be careful—and he already was looking, Auden, and he found us and he waited until it was safe.”
“Astoria. Please. We don’t know who could’ve followed him. Let’s at least go to The Lakes for a couple of days to see who else the tide drags in.” He’s near begging now, imploring, grasping at any foothold he can find to get out of facing what’s coming for his doorstep, what he’s tried to outrun for the last twenty months, three weeks, five days…
“He’s been here a week already,” she replies primly. Her shift in demeanor definitely means she thinks he’s being unreasonable. Which is ridiculous because—
“Wait a week?! ”
“Yes, he’s been camping in the woods so he doesn’t come into town too much. I knew you would impose some sort of precautionary waiting period so I saved you the trouble.”
Even now, her attempt at masking her irritability is almost funny. She always leans too hard into her “polite and proper lady” mannerisms when she thinks it’s the only way he’ll reason with her. He has no idea where she learned pragmatism; their entire family is hopelessly melodramatic.
And Auden is no exception. Which explains the incessant whirlwind of “he’s been here. In my town. Walking my streets. Sleeping in my trees. In my forest. Walking on my beach. Looking at my ocean ” in his head that is rapidly convincing him this is the end of the world—the end of his world, at least. Two years of hiding, a handful more of constant running, all for it to crumble to nothing He can see it now, the pillars of his falsified sense of security disintegrating to ash.
Either Astoria doesn’t notice or she thinks she can get through to him with more “reason and sensibility”.
“We’ve been planning this for months to make sure he knew all the rules and wasn’t followed. He cares about keeping us safe as much as you do. ”
Auden numbingly registers months and tries not to let it seep into his golden memories of their time in Saint-Malo like a poison. He tries to focus on the sound of his sister’s voice and not the weight of her betrayal. The weight of what she doesn’t know and what he never, ever wanted to burden her with.
He tries to focus on making sense of the how and the why and the when . “But how,” he asks through gritted teeth, “did you even give him clues ? How would he know where we were to get clues ?”
“Paris isn’t too big for coincidences, Auden. And two years of searching can make it a whole lot smaller. ”
“He hasn’t been looking for us for two years, Aster,” he mutters despite himself. Despite the facts he knows his sister wouldn’t twist. But two years of tracking but not a single phone call? “And Paris? We didn’t even move to France until a year ago, how would he…?”
“Wren remembered I said I always wanted to visit the Louvre!” His sister smiles, looking a little too pleased for someone with a bounty on her head and apparently also a memorable list of places she can be found.
“So he...camped out in the Louvre for two years? Waiting for us to magically appear n the same gallery hall as him?” he asks flatly. “That’s a ridiculous plan, there’s no fucking way it would work out.”
“But it did, didn’t it?”
He scowls at the knowing, borderline victorious, grin she’s shooting him. Because it really did sound like a stupid plan that bet dangerously high stakes on despairingly low odds and delusional hope…and that had always been Wren’s specialty.
But Auden learned to question things that were too good to be true before he learned how to talk.
“It still doesn’t make any sense how he was able to find us,” he insists. “And it doesn’t make it any less dangerous now that he has.”
“Do you really think he doesn’t know that?” Her facade cracks a bit, exasperation and irritation leaking out. “Is it really so hard to believe that he cares about you?”
He keeps his expression guarded and says nothing. Shifts his gaze to stare out at the empty street. Tries to gauge how much time he has left to run before his past catches up with him. Wren’s unwelcome arrival is dredging up old baggage Auden was content to leave in the wreckage of their fallout, was content to wait for it to sink slowly into the depths of his memories until maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad to think about, until maybe it wouldn’t hurt at all. But already, words unspoken are being washed up to the forefront of his mind, messages in bottles he thought would never come back, thought they’d have no one to come back to (but Wren did come back. And suddenly all those letters addressed to a dead man and journal pages filled with his anguish and rage aren’t enough. Auden has spent years daring Wren to end this unbearable radio silence, but now that this moment has arrived at his doorstep, he suddenly can’t think of a single thing to say to cut through the static).
As Auden and Astoria stand in stony silence in the kitchen, the clock ticks on. The empty street offers a far greater sense of foreboding than any indication of their approaching visitor could. The waves crash louder and louder in the distance. What was once a gentle breeze floating through the window above the sink now blows harsh and howling, tussling the pale blue curtains and threatening to slam the shutters closed. The first crack of thunder sounds in the distance. And they both know.
The storm has come.
But Auden isn’t ready to face it.
The air crackles with electricity, a metallic tang blooming on Auden’s tongue. He can’t be sure if it’s from the distant lightning over the horizon or blood from biting his tongue for all these years. Pages and pages of letters written to the fireplace come flooding back, all the unspoken words poised for a fight on the tip of his tongue. Auden can see the ink stains on his fingertips. The bloodstains on Wren’s. He brushes past Wren (who’s sitting on the front stoop eating that fucking apple he threw out his kitchen window ) without a word onto the cobblestone road and feels the first drop of rain.
Auden is very aware he is, as Astoria likes to put it, “throwing a tantrum.” But he thinks it’s only fair he be allowed his share of melodrama. At least his version of a tantrum is sulking through alleyways in the rain, drawing out the clock a little longer before he has to face what the tide dredged up, and not making kamikaze deals with the devil.
His jaw still clenches at that thought. Of that September. But his self-deprecating sorrow had long burned down to a viscid, bitter anger he knows will burn on the way back up his throat, knows will leave him and Wren both bloodied and bruised and heaving.
And isn’t that what tantrums are supposed to do?
Civility, he thinks bitterly, was never really an option for them.
Hours later, the rain is still coming down in sheets, the waves tugging and sloshing angrily at his ankles. Auden’s long past the point of cold, wishing he at least had something warm to wrap his numb fingers around. He’s soaked down to the bone but he can still taste the blood in the air, feel it caked underneath his fingernails, a memento no amount of rain or time seems to erase. He doesn’t want to go home, doesn’t want to see the proof that it’s been invaded, permanently tainted by what the rain swept in.
But home is a tricky thing.
He learned long ago that home isn’t a place but a person. And it hurts so much more to feel the walls crumble down what was once an impenetrable fortress into powder so fragile that it was impossible to imagine it once stood with fortitude.
Home.
He wishes he could go back, longs for it more than anything. Back to a security stronger than his sins and an unfounded optimism that everything would work out despite the odds and an outstretched hand that was never farther away than an arm’s reach.
Home.
His heartstring sutures still ache at the thought, the wound they’ve crudely tried to sew shut giving phantom pains from time to time. It’s a scab he’s never been able to stop picking at, the kind you only let heal enough to make the pain of ripping it open the next time that much sweeter. The kind of scab you can’t stop picking at because it’s become a part of you. The kind of scab you keep picking at because you can’t remember how else you passed the time before.
Home.
The thought suddenly makes his blood boil.
Climbing through a slippery windowsill with a soggy tray of coffee is embarrassingly more difficult than Auden expected. Dammit, he’s getting soft.
He’s in the middle of debating if this is a head-first or feet-first type of entry (when did he start having to think about it?) when the wilted tray is lightly plucked from his grasp.
He freezes, caught.
“Nice of you to remember my latte this time,” Astoria quips.
He shoots his sister a withering glare and grumbles, “croissants are in my bag.”
“They better be dry, unlike you .”
He can see the way she eyes his muddy shoes in disdain as they leave prints over her precious hardwood floors. He feels zero guilt dirtying them up after she triple-cleaned them the day before knowing now she only did so in the name of “their guest” .
“Dry off before you join us in the kitchen. I don’t want you tracking any more mud into the house.”
Auden knows she only acts this matter-of-fact and bossy when she’s staving off a fit of guilt. He wishes she didn’t learn it from him.
“Astoria,” he says carefully. “I really don’t want to talk to him.”
“Then why did you come back? And bring coffee for three?”
Her blue-eyed stare is icy and piercing. He doesn’t know what to say. “I didn’t want to be driven from my own home” is too petty. “I don’t want him to think I hate him” is a petulant lie. “I don’t want him to hate me” is too painful of a truth. He just spent hours stewing in the rain and he still doesn’t know what to say.
“Dry off before joining us,” Astoria says again, softer this time. “Just hear him out. And be civil. ” She doesn’t shut the door behind her. Wren’s amicable chatter (in his kitchen. with his sister.) drifts clearly into his bedroom.
Why did he stop for the fucking coffee? He had spent a good ten minutes staring at the cafe menu he knew like the back of his hand—whatever he chose he could never order again. Should he get something he knew Wren would hate? As if he didn’t still remember his coffee order? Or should he get him his usual, show his hand that it’s something his brain won’t let him forget? But what if he didn’t take his coffee the same and Auden made a fool of himself for nothing?
He needed something that couldn’t be ruined. Something utterly devoid of meaning, no room for extrapolation, something devoid of emotion and memories and gachapon meanings, something—
“Oh, black coffee. How’d you know I like it this way?”
Auden struggles to keep his grimace down. “I just figured we have milk and sugar at home so you could fix it however you take it,” he mutters into his tea. (French breakfast. Strong enough to keep him awake, bitter enough to keep him alert. He likes it well enough, but won’t miss it if this goes sour and he has to purge it from his life forever.)
“No, it’s perfect,” Wren returns easily.
Auden takes a too-hot sip of tea and says nothing, letting his bitterness steep into the air.
He listens to Astoria’s attempts to get them to engage in small talk, listens to Wren inquire about their hobbies and how they’re liking the coast, listens to his sister laugh at Wren’s overly animated stories recounting his travels, listens to Wren saying everything and somehow nothing at all, listens to the telling silence between “are you still working?” and “I’ve actually gotten back into antiquing. Remember that collector we met in New York, Auden?”
He jumps at the sound of his name. At the sound of Wren calling his name. “Huh? Kinda, it was a long time ago.”
He doesn’t know what to do with his face, knows frowning will come off rude and just make this godawful tension worse, knows he can’t stand to look directly at Wren in his kitchen with his sister like this some stupid dream he can’t wake up from. He just keeps sipping at his tea (this unbearable conversation has somehow gone on long enough for it to cool to a tolerable temperature), wondering how long he has before someone notices he already drained the paper cup.
Wren gives him a calculated glance Auden feels more than sees. He’s not in the mood to figure out what it means.
“Well, I ran into him a while ago and—oh!”
Wren jumps as the cuckoo bird springs from the kitchen clock. It’s 9:07. He stares, face painted with confusion, at the singing bird. Astoria excitedly explains that it comes out at random, isn’t that so fun? Auden can’t help but watch as Wren’s face lights up in childlike wonder, his hazel eyes sparkling with laughter as he’s suddenly transformed back into the boy who was Auden’s best friend, the boy who saw the wonder and joy in everything, the boy whose heart was bigger than his head, the boy who promised to never leave his side, the boy who promised they’d always be a team.
Wren turns, still laughing, to catch Auden’s stare. And everything suddenly seems so easy.
It makes him feel sick.
Auden stands abruptly, his chair squeaking his protest. “Gonna take that as my cue, I’m off to bed! Woke up with the sun, I’m exhausted.” The lie falls off his tongue with practiced ease.
“Auden, wait—”
Wren catches his wrist, halting his escape to his bedroom. Auden stares, affronted, at the ice-cold hand on his wrist. He steels himself and lifts his gaze to Wren’s, eyebrows raised expectantly.
“I, uh, I’m…um...” sorry? You can start with a simple fucking‘sorry’? “staying the night, Astoria said I could? Because of the rain? Is that, um, okay?”
Auden yanks his arm free. Of course, he thinks bitterly. Why did I think you would… “Do what you want,” he mutters. “Good night.”
He knows Wren knows he means it as a goodbye.
“You’re leaving.”
It’s not a question.
Auden freezes, halfway through the living room to the front door. Guess he’s awake. He doesn’t know if he should be surprised. Some twisted part of him feels a twinge of victory at the thought of Wren staying up all night to watch the door, willing the sun to fully rise and mark the first night they’ve shared a roof in a long, long time. Wren was always sentimental like that. And naive.
“Yes,” Auden replies. It doesn’t come out as cold as he would’ve liked. He prays Wren unlearned how to read his ambivalence, prays he can’t see the telltale shake in his fingers in the inky shadows of the apartment.
“When will you be back?” Wren asks instead of where are you going or why or I’m coming with you .
“Not sure,” Auden returns instead of when are you leaving .
“I see.”
It’s all so stilted Auden can barely stomach it. What happened to the wide-eyed little boy he grew up with who blurted out every little thought without consideration? Who was painfully honest to a fault? Who asked exactly what you were keeping from him, even if it got him into trouble? The answer’s seared into his memories red-hot despite the two years he’s spent trying to forget, to understand, that cruel September night. It’s in moments like this he wished he’d learned to. He’s still bracing for a fight he knows won’t come.
Coward.
The sofa lets out the slightest creak as Wren sits up, the blankets slipping to the floor softly.
But Wren doesn’t say anything.
And Auden can’t get himself to open the door.
Just say you’re sorry just say you’re sorry just say you’re sorry just say you’re so—
“I’ll keep Astoria safe, I promise,” cuts through the suffocating silence.
“If you don’t I’ll fucking kill you,” he bites out too quick, just barely enough over his shoulder to see Wren silhouetted against the window. It would be an achingly familiar sight, raven black hair soaked by unadulterated moonlight reminiscent of nights spent staying up too late talking about anything but mission strategies and the weight of the world on their narrow boyish shoulders, if not for the impassive stare he feels prickling up his neck. He swears, even in the dark, he can almost see those once painfully familiar hazel eyes shine unreadable and cold.
He doesn’t wait for a response. Know’s it’ll pin him there if he does, until Wren unravels him into something he’d like to think isn’t him anymore, something left gutted and betrayed on a windy rooftop in some foreign country.
This time, Auden is the one walking away.