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Waverly is seven years old when they finally let Wynonna come home from the hospital. The one Curtis and Gus never let her visit. The one she's spent many long, grey days wondering about. Wondering if they let Wynonna draw in the evenings before bed the way they used to in their pillow forts, blankets stretched from Wynonna's bed to hers and a wall of pillows around them.
Now she wonders if Wynonna will like the picture she worked on all night after she learned she was coming home.
The pink tip of her tongue pokes out of the corner of her mouth as she adds the finishing touches to the drawing at the kitchen table, her short legs swinging to and fro. She can't quite get the hands right—the crayon is bulky and makes their clasped hands look more like joined blobs—but the smiles are perfect. A car door slams outside and Waverly's gaze jerks from the paper to the kitchen window streaked with rain.
Wynonna.
She scrambles from the table and rushes to meet her sister, only to return to the kitchen seconds later. She snatches the picture and its edges crinkle in her tiny fist as she sprints towards the front door. Just as she reaches the living room, the front door is flung open and the knob slams against the wall. Wynonna trudges into the living room, her hair and clothes soaked from the rain. The snarl on her face as she kicks off her boots isn't enough to kill Waverly's excitement, though.
“Wynonna!”
It's all she can say before she wraps her thin arms around Wynonna's waist with all the strength she can muster.
Wynonna is taller than she remembers. The top of Waverly's head barely reaches her chest. Gangly arms wrap around her to return the hug, and Waverly doesn't even care that her sister's dripping clothes are soaking hers. She squeezes a little tighter before she finally steps back and flashes her sister a toothy grin. The one Wynonna gives her is thin and hard—so different from how Waverly remembers—but at least it's there.
“This is for you, Wy,” she says in a small voice before she holds the crinkled and now slightly damp drawing out to her sister.
“Aw, Waves, you shouldn't have,” Wynonna says. She plucks the paper from Waverly's fingers and traces the figures with the tips of her own. The strained smile on her face softens as she studies the clunky drawing of the two of them holding hands. She wipes some rain drops away from her eyes before she says, “Come here, you little urchin.”
She roughly pulls a stumbling Waverly into another hug, one far less awkward than their first. Neither let go until Gus comes into the living room and scolds Wynonna for dripping all over the floor and tracking mud inside.
“Give her a break, Gus,” Curtis says as he walks inside. “She just got here.”
Gus sighs and shakes her head, but she leaves the living room without another word. Curtis winks at the two of them and follows after her so the girls can have their reunion. But the moment has already been ruined and Wynonna has gone all hard and tight-lipped again on the living room couch, her arms crossed over her chest as she glares at her reflection in the television screen. The drawing rests on the table beside her.
Waverly hops onto the couch as well and leans against Wynonna's tense shoulder. No words pass between them, but this is enough for Waverly, as long as she doesn't have to go that long without her sister again.
Six months of butting heads, slamming doors, and screaming matches pass before Wynonna and Gus have their final falling out. Six months of arguing before Gus tells Curtis she cannot handle Wynonna's brand of recklessness. They think they're being quiet, but Waverly can hear them through the vents in the bedroom she shares with Wynonna. The way her sister is sitting on her own bed, her knees pulled up to her chest as she glares at the wall, Waverly knows she can hear them, too.
“She stole the truck, Curtis! If Nedley hadn't caught her joyridin' in those fields—”
“She's only a kid. They make mistakes.”
“You think I don't know that? But she should still know her actions have consequences. Not only did she put herself at risk, but she took Waverly with her! What if something had gone wrong?”
Waverly sees Wynonna wince at the words. Curtis and Gus continue to argue a floor beneath them, and Wynonna's expression darkens with each word. Waverly slips off the bed and, as quietly as she can, starts to push it closer to Wynonna's. It's heavier than the one back at the homestead and even using the full force of her small body, she can barely get it to move.
She takes a deep breath and gives the bed another hard shove. She yelps in surprise when it gives easier than before. Wynonna laughs beside her and when Waverly looks at her with wide eyes, she winks. Together, they scoot Waverly's bed across the room.
Once the beds are close enough, Waverly drapes the blanket over the small space between the mattresses and Wynonna drags her blanket and a few pillows down to the floor. It's almost like it used to be, except they don't have a flashlight to share between them. Waverly doesn't mind. They lay together beneath the blanket and Waverly's old enough to know the night can't last forever, but that doesn't stop her from hoping.
The next morning, Wynonna's bags are packed and she's sent off to a new place to call home. To someone who can give her the kind of guidance Curtis and Gus can't.
Waverly doesn't cry, but she doesn't sleep either, feeling small in a room that is suddenly too big for just her.
She still sees Wynonna bumming around town, usually near Shorty's or the liquor store. Every weekend, Waverly bounces around the house as Curtis and Gus prepare to go into town. And every weekend, while they shop in the small grocery store, Waverly sneaks away and darts down the street to the liquor store, where Wynonna leans against the back wall with a bummed bottle of beer dangling from her fingertips. And every weekend, Wynonna greets her by ruffling her hair.
It's not perfect, but at least she still has her sister
It's the week after Waverly turns ten when Wynonna is arrested for possession and sent to juvie. Waverly doesn't understand what either of those things mean. Curtis and Gus don't explain it to her and they refuse to take her to visit Wynonna, telling her it's no place for little girls like her. Instead, they try to distract her with music lessons, art lessons, even shooting lessons. But late at night, after they've gone to sleep, Waverly is left alone with her lonely thoughts.
When Wynonna is released from juvie three months later, Waverly and Curtis wait for her at the bus stop because her foster parents are out of town. Gus waits in the car. The bus carrying her sister starts as a dot on the horizon that grows with each passing second until its hulking frame rumbles to a stop on the dusty Purgatory road. Wynonna hops off the last step in the same clothes she left in—ripped jeans and a leather jacket—and a hardness in her eyes Waverly doesn't recognize, but she still fondly ruffles Waverly's hair and lets Waverly wrap her in a hug that she stiffly returns.
The drive back to Curtis and Gus's house is filled with a heavy silence that Waverly doesn't know how to fill. When they go to bed that night, there are no pillow forts or late night laughter. In the morning, Wynonna is gone again, sent back to her foster home.
Another year passes and Waverly is celebrating her eleventh birthday with Curtis and Gus, wishing her sister were there to shove frosting in her face. But after Wynonna's second stint in juvie, Gus has forbidden her from coming around the house, so Waverly forces a smile as she blows out the candles and hopes with all her heart that her wish comes true.
Later that night, as she's reading a new book Curtis gave her, a tap at the window startles her. She sets the book aside and leaves her bed to look outside. The sight that greets her makes her smile.
Wynonna.
As quietly as she can, she rushes down the stairs and flings open the front door.
Wynonna smirks. “Happy birthday, Baby Girl.”
Waverly throws her arms around her and Wynonna stumbles a few steps backwards before she stiffly returns the embrace. She reeks of alcohol and her words are slurred, but Waverly doesn't mind. She just hugs her a little tighter to make sure she's really there.
Waverly clings to those drunken, late night visits throughout the years. They only happen once every few months—Wynonna never acts on a schedule—and Waverly often has to guide a stumbling Wynonna up the stairs to the bedroom, but she'll take what she can get. Even if what she gets are usually teary apologies about Willa and Daddy or some slurred speech about demons and how Waverly should never, ever, under any circumstances, mention them to anyone else.
She tells herself the visits are enough.
On those late nights, she has her sister back and that's all that matters.
But Wynonna is always long gone by morning, back to whatever biker camp she's been hanging around, and Waverly is left alone again.
The visits stop right before Waverly's first year of high school.
Waverly fidgets as she sits on the steel chair in the auditorium, fingering the golden tassel of the rope that hangs around her neck. The cap on her head falls to the side and she takes a moment to settle it back in place. Her classmates surround her, each of them wearing a blue and white cap and gown that matches her own. In the crowd of parents, she spots Gus and Curtis with their camcorder and gives them a little wave. Curtis hollers and Gus smacks him on the arm. Waverly shakes her head before she returns her attention to the principal at the podium.
When she is called up to give her speech as the class valedictorian, she can't stop herself from scanning the crowd and searching for the one face she so desperately wishes to see. There's no sight of Wynonna, but Chrissy waves at her and gives her a thumbs up. Waverly forces a smile and walks up to the stage.
Even as she gives her speech, her thoughts are far from the auditorium and graduation. Still, she delivers it perfectly. She has practiced it so many times, she could recite it in her sleep. Actually, she's pretty sure she has recited it in her sleep. All of that rehearsal, yet the one person she so desperately wants to be there to hear it is nowhere to be seen and Waverly's shoulders are heavy with disappointment.
The rest of the ceremony drags by in a dull blur until the students are ushered through the doors to collect the copies of their diplomas. Waverly has just collected hers when she catches a glimpse of a familiar leather jacket that she would know anywhere at the edge of the crowd.
Wynonna.
She winds her way through the mass of bodies, but by the time she breaks free of the crowd, Wynonna is gone. Instead, Curtis and Gus are there with a flashing camera that nearly blinds her.
They don't give her Wynonna's note until later that night in the comfort of home.
The fine stationary paper with golden ropes etched into its borders is filled with hollow words about how proud her sister is, how she wishes she could have stayed, and how much she loves her. The empty words hold no meaning to Waverly, who can only focus on the last sentence; the one where Wynonna says she's leaving Purgatory and Earp County. She reads the sentence fifteen more times—not that she's counting—before she shoves it in her dresser drawer and lets her shoulders sag.
She's happy for Wynonna, she really is. She made it out of Purgatory, which is more than most people can say. Maybe she could find peace somewhere out there in the world. Waverly truly hopes she finds it. After all the town has put her through, her sister deserves peace that isn't found at the bottom of a liquor bottle.
But Waverly's chest still aches at the memory of the scribbled words and the tears still prick at the corners of her eyes. As happy as she is for her sister, it doesn't change the fact that she left.
Wynonna's gone.
Wynonna's gone, and for the first time in twelve years, it was her choice to leave her behind.