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“Fern, hurry up!”
The wind rushes through my hair as Wren and I race down the street together. His voice echoes off the houses surrounding us, the sun beating down on my back. “I am hurrying!” I call back, breathless, pumping my legs harder against the pedals.
He glances over his shoulder with a wide grin, dark brown eyes sparkling, before cutting sharply across someone’s lawn. “No you’re not!”
“Not through grass!” I shout despite following him anyways, my bike bouncing on the uneven ground.
We race into the woods behind our neighborhood, where everything suddenly gets quieter and the sun dims. We abandon our bikes leaning against a tree and trek farther in, eventually coming to a massive hollow tree. “I told you it would be fine,” Wren says proudly, slapping the thin wood of our fort as if to prove his point. “It survived the storm ‘cause I’m a good builder.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You mean we’re good builders.”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “But I did most of the work.”
“You did not!”
“Did too. I put up the tarp and wood and stuff.”
“Well I’m the one who dragged all of that over here!”
My brother rolls his eyes, and I take the opportunity to pounce. I jab my finger into his side, right where he’s most ticklish. He shrieks, both of us giggling wildly as he tries to shove my hand away. “Stop, stop!” he laughs, and I relent. He shoots me a look of betrayal, and I snort teasingly. He sticks his tongue out at me, crouching to brush leaves from the entrance.
A small smile tugs at my lips as I take in the view of our hard work. Thick branches lean against the inside of the hollow tree, their ends stuck down into the dirt. Some old plywood sits partially buried on the other sides, while a royal-blue tarp our dad let us borrow stretches across the whole thing.
Wren ducks onto his hands and knees and crawls through the entrance, and I crouch to follow. Inside, it’s mostly dark, save for the camping lantern I switch on in the corner. A few forgotten books clutter the space, along with a flashlight Wren swore he lost weeks ago.
He flops down on one side, crossing his arms behind his head in a makeshift pillow. I lay beside him, the rough fabric of the towel we laid brushing my bare arms. For a moment neither of us talks. We just sit in each other’s company, listening to the soft chirping of birds and the distant growl of someone’s lawnmower.
Then, as if saying his thoughts out loud, Wren murmurs, “When we’re grown up, I want us to live next to each other.”
I nod in agreement, turning my head to face him. “We can buy houses right next to Mom and Dad. Then we’ll barely have to walk to see each other.”
He exhales a contented sigh, absent-mindedly fiddling with a loose piece of bark on the ceiling. “I’m gonna be an astronaut by then. Or a race car driver.”
I laugh quietly, “What happened to being a firefighter?”
He shrugs. “I dunno. It’s not as cool.”
I hum softly in reply. “Well I’m gonna be a veterinarian.” Wren nods in approval, and we slip back into another silence. A breeze blows through the forest, rustling the leaves high above us, and a creek trickles somewhere nearby.
“Do you think we’ll come here when we’re old?” Wren asks, voice lower than before. “Like, when we have jobs and stuff.”
I take a moment to think before responding. “Yeah,” I say eventually. “As long as you come down from space sometimes.”
He smiles the kind of smile that stretches across his face, and holds his pinky finger out. “Promise?”
I link my finger with his. “Promise.”
*
“He’s ten David! Ten! Why is he fighting other kids?”
“I don’t know Maya.”
“What did we do wrong? Something is wrong with him! Fern never did this!”
I swallow uncomfortably, shifting onto my toes as I peer over the stair railing. Behind me, I hear a small indignant noise, and turn to see Wren peering down from the top of the stairs. Shouting resumes below us, but I ignore it in favor of my brother.
“They don’t mean that,” I try to reassure him, but it comes out weak. My ten-year-old brother is suspended. For punching another kid. Wren scowls at me, clearly seeing straight through my empty words.
“Yeah, sure,” he scoffs.
I shrug helplessly, wincing at a sudden shout from downstairs. I grab my brother’s hand and start pulling him down the stairs, ignoring his face of confusion. “Come on,” I say in a tone that’s awkwardly positive, dragging him through the doorway. “Outside.”
“Why?” He asks defiantly once I’ve shut the front door. The smile on my face is plastic, and I’m already heading down the steps. “Because,” I reply. “It’s better than listening to that.”
He huffs an annoyed breath, but starts following me down the sidewalk anyway. We walk in silence for most of the way, heading down our familiar forest trail. I stop not too far in, sitting on a mossy log and motioning to the spot beside me. After a moment of hesitation, Wren takes the offer.
He doesn’t look at me, instead grabbing a few twigs and snapping them repeatedly. I can see the fire brewing behind his eyes, his mind clearly somewhere far away. I watch him quietly, waiting for him to talk. He always does, eventually.
“I want to cut my hair,” he says abruptly, voice sharp and wobbly. “I hate it.”
I blink, completely taken aback. A frown slips onto my face, mingled concern and confusion. “But you always wanted to grow it out?”
He scowls, glaring down at his long brunette hair. I remember when he bragged about how soft and long it was for months. He shakes his head firmly, clenching his jaw and blinking rapidly. “You wanna know why I punched Noah?” he snaps, his voice brimming with anger and hurt. “He kept calling me names. Ladyboy. Sissy. He said my hair makes me look like a girl.”
He sniffles, a few tears escaping down his cheek and straight into the crack in my heart. “So I punched him. To prove I’m not a girl he can push around.”
I swallow, blinking quickly and wrestling the sadness welling in my throat. “Wren…” I say thickly. “I’m so sorry. But you can’t—you can’t just punch people.”
I regret my wording immediately, and his head snaps up with eyes blazing. “Are you kidding me?” He laughs bitterly, the sound sending guilt churning in my stomach. “You’re supposed to be the one on my side!”
“I am!” I reply indignantly, fumbling for words, desperate to backtrack my mistake. “I just mean—didn’t punching him only make it worse?”
He stares at me for a moment, unsettlingly silent. I watch walls slam up behind his eyes, locking me out from a world I never thought I wouldn’t have access to. “Whatever, it’s fine,” he mumbles, as if he’s suddenly given up. “I’m going home.”
My tongue feels thick and useless, ribcage tightening around my lungs. “I didn’t mean—”
I don’t get a chance to finish speaking. My brother turns and leaves without a word.
*
Wren comes home late for the third time this week.
I stay up waiting for him in order to quell the anxiety fluttering in my stomach. I sit with my knees pulled up to my chest, not quite reading the words in the book in front of me. My eyes drift towards the front door every few moments, half of me expecting Wren to come stumbling in deliriously, and the other half expecting a dirt-scuffed kid.
My brother opens the door about two minutes later, shuffling inside and shedding his coat and shoes calmly, as if he isn’t two hours over curfew. He doesn’t look at me when my head snaps up, not even bothering to acknowledge that I’m ten feet away.
“Wren Daniel Oliver!” our Mom hisses, appearing from the kitchen at the sound of the door. “Where the hell have you been? It’s one in the morning and you weren’t answering my calls!”
He shrugs, apparently indifferent to our mother’s manic energy. “Sorry,” he says, voice oddly cool yet pulled tense at the same time. “My phone died.”
She scoffs, rubbing her hand across the bridge of her nose. “You’re two hours late!”
“I was just out with friends.” He avoids both me and my mom’s eyes, expression flat and guarded.
Mom clearly doesn't notice, eyes brightening for a moment and warring with the previous anger. “With…friends?”
I swallow, refusing to watch Wren’s expression. “Mom, he doesn’t have friends.”
Wren scoffs, turning to me accusatorily. “Are you kidding me Fern?”
The brief hope in her face fizzles out like a sparkler. She turns to me, searching my face as if I somehow have an explanation. “Where—where was he then?”
I shrug, staring at my feet with sudden interest. “I don’t know. He doesn’t tell anyone anything.”
My mom makes a sad humming noise, moving to take my brother’s face in her hands like she’s been doing since he was a kid, recoiling sharply not even a second later. “Are you serious Wren?!”
My brother defiantly stares at the ground, expression not betraying anything. I search both his and my mother’s face, stomach twisting with dread.
“David!” Mom shouts, the familiar fire returning to her expression. “Get down here!”
My dad comes stumbling down the stairs a minute later looking vaguely alarmed, hair ruffled and still in pajamas. “It’s one-am,” he sighs, gaze scanning the room as he takes in his wife and son. “The hell is going on?”
My mom turns to him, a renewed spark blazing in her eyes. “What’s going on,” she growls, “is that our son is coming home smelling like cigarettes!”
I freeze, startled, heart jumping into my throat. “What the hell Wren?”
“It’s not a big deal,” he mumbles. “Everyone does it.”
My mom scoffs in disbelief. “Your sister doesn’t do it! You think this isn’t a big deal? You’re fourteen Wren!”
“For God's sake,” my Dad adds, more disappointed than angry. “First the drinking, now smoking? We didn’t raise you like this.”
I stare, shock and guilt sewing my mouth shut. Part of me wants to jump in and defend my brother, but the other half knows how fucked up this is. Wren is practically a kid. This shouldn’t be happening.
“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” my brother mumbles, making a move to escape down the hallway. Dad steps sideways, blocking him.
“Absolutely not,” he says firmly. “We’re talking about this.”
Wren takes a step back, staring up at our parents like they’re strangers to him. His eyes darken, something in his face shifting. “Fine!” He snaps. “You want to act like I’m insane just because I smoke a cigarette? Because I drink sometimes? You want to remind me how Fern is the perfect fucking child? Go ahead.”
“Language!”
I get up off the couch, my book long abandoned on the cushions. “You’re fourteen Wren.”
“And you never did anything stupid when you were fourteen?” he fires back, eyes darting around as he hunches in on himself like a cornered animal. “Oh that’s right, you’re miss ‘I get straight A’s, I actually have friends, I’m so goddamn amazing.” He spits the words like bile, each one piercing straight through my chest and feeding the blaze spreading through my veins.
“This isn’t about your sister,” my mom says sharply, shooting me a look that says do not get involved.
“Then what is it about?” he shouts, eyes brimming with tears now. “Because all I ever hear is how I’m such a screwup compared to her!”
I wince, feeling unreasonably guilty at his words. I know the hurt in his face isn’t my fault, but I can’t help but feel it is. “Wren, you’re not a screwup.”
He laughs a hollow, bitter sound that chills me to the bone. “That’s ironic, coming from you.”
“I’m not lying!”
“Right.”
He turns back toward the hallway. “I’m done with this shit.” He starts to move past our dad, but I surprise myself by reaching out and grabbing his wrist.
He reacts before I can think. His hand wrenches from my grasp, while the other one shoves me backwards so hard my back hits the wall. I gasp sharply as the wind is knocked out of me, tears stinging as they well in my eyes.
“Don’t fucking touch me!”
He turns and storms down the hallway without a second glance. The sound of his door slamming shakes the whole house, my heart racing and breathing shallow. I stare at the empty space where Wren stood before, and realize that maybe I never knew my brother at all.
*
I’ve always hated parties, especially the ones my parents throw ‘for family.’ They’re loud and boring and filled with relatives I don’t even know. So somehow, I always end up sitting on the front porch alone.
It’s a relatively warm evening for March, with a tiny sliver of sun lingering on the horizon. Soft music filters through my earbuds, making everything feel slightly unreal. I can’t help but enjoy the quiet, leaning back against the railing and staring out at the street.
“Ditching your own party huh?”
I glance up to find the source of the voice standing beside me, hands stuffed in his pockets and looking completely out of place in his oversized t-shirt and ripped jeans. I shrug, tilting my head back against the wood. “I hate these things. I don’t get why Mom insisted.”
Wren huffs a low half-laugh. “She likes parties.”
“I guess.”
We both go silent, despite my futile attempts to think of something to keep the conversation going. It’s been months since we properly spoke, and longer since my brother was the one to start the conversation. It’s almost as if we’d been living in different places, despite being under the same roof.
“You want to sit?” I ask eventually, noticing his awkward shifting from foot to foot. Some part of me fully expects snapped refusal, but he just nods and silently sits against the opposite railing. I wrinkle my nose a little at the faint scent of smoke clinging to his clothes. He notices, face flushing with a mumbled, “sorry.”
My music hums soothingly against my ear and I close my eyes for just a minute, letting the mellow guitar and vocals bring me to another world. When I open them again and Wren is still there, I slip an earbud out, extending my hand in a silent offering.
He takes it with a faint hum of thanks, slipping it into his ear and leaning back. We sit in a comfortable silence for the next few minutes, the music being the only noise between us. We don’t really look at each other, but we don’t look away either.
I let myself call that a win.
I tug my hoodie a little tighter against the cool breeze, goosebumps prickling my skin. I watch Wren glance at me once, then again, as if he wants to say something but instead hesitates every time. I wait, suddenly pulled back to a memory of sitting on a log in the woods while my brother cried.
“Do you…remember our fort?” he starts eventually, voice soft and expression unreadable. “The one we built in our old neighborhood when we were kids?”
I smile, sad and warm at once. A thousand memories of our childhood swarm me, stinging like bees. “Yeah. Of course.”
His expression twists into a sad smile of his own, eyes slipping somewhere far away. “Sometimes I wish we never grew up. That we could just stay out there forever.” He laughs, but the sound is more sad than anything else. And for a moment I catch a glimpse of the little boy who came crying to me after school every day.
I don’t want to admit how often the same thought has hit me. Laying in bed at night, wondering what we—what I could have done differently to keep us from ending up like this. So all I say is “Me too.”
“I think I miss being…close the most,” Wren murmurs, looking out at the horizon instead of towards me. “I miss how it was us against the world.”
I suck in a sharp breath, feeling dizzy from the heaviness that hits me all at once. All the crap over the years flashes behind my eyes, and I can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if I had his back more. If I’d actually done something other than listening every time he told me about the things hurting him.
If I’d been a better sister.
I exhale slowly, ignoring the way his face has shifted into concern. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, choking a little on the emotions stuck in my throat. “I wish I’d tried harder to keep us like that.”
Wren’s glassy eyes widen, surprised and pained at once. “You’re—no, no.” He shakes his head, a small tear slipping down his face. “That—none of this shit was your fault. You really think that?”
I laugh weakly, shrugging and blinking against my own tears. “I mean, I’m older.” My voice cracks a little, my throat dry and sticky. “I should have fixed it.”
“No.” The firmness of his words startle me enough to look up and meet his eyes for the first time. He rubs at his watery eyes aggressively with the heel of his hand. “If anything, it was my fault.”
I frown, pulling myself away from the railing and a little closer to my brother. “It wasn’t. It was…” I trail off with a vague wave of my hand, not quite sure what I meant to say.
Wren laughs wetly, finishing my thought instead. “Maybe it wasn’t either of our faults.” He shrugs, throwing up his hands toward nothing specific. “Maybe the world just freaking sucks.”
Then it’s my turn to laugh, the sound releasing some of the heaviness and leaving my limbs a little lighter. “Yeah, maybe.”
He smiles, the movement relieved more than anything else. “We could try again,” he offers. “There’s plenty of life ahead of us.”
I watch him for a moment, taking in the person I haven’t looked at properly in so long. I see the brightness that was missing from his eyes longer than I’d realized, the teenage softness of his face, and the way his crooked smile hasn’t changed since we were kids.
I swat his arm gently, and his face lights with warm surprise at the playful motion. “You idiot,” I reply thickly. “Of course we can.”
Wren’s smile grows slowly, something in the expression impossibly young again. He holds out his pinky, the only one of his fingers that isn’t calloused or burned. “Promise?”
I give a startled laugh, searching his dark brown eyes and finding a million unsaid words, and too many emotions to unpack right now.
But it’s okay. We have time.
I link my finger with his, squeezing extra-tightly. “Promise.”