Page 54 of As They Are (Strawberry Springs #2)

WREN

Strawberry Springs Neighborhood Watch

Tammy Jane : If you see this woman, she is BANNED from the diner.

Comments:

Atticus Thompson : That’s Wren’s mom. I knew I had a bad feeling.

Henrietta Brown : Is Wren okay?

Jade Clark : I heard she’s not, and that she left. I saw Henry at the diner. He went off on her as he should have, but it was intense. I can’t imagine how he has to be feeling right now.

Kerry Winsor : No! I loved having her here! What kind of mother upsets her daughter that much???

Jade Clark : Maybe she didn’t feel like a part of the town? I know she was so cool that I struggled to talk to her.

Kerry Winsor : And I only talked to her about the show. There must be something we can do so she knows how much we care!

The house I was working on made me jump for joy when I saw it in pictures months ago. It was an old four-square design with white siding and black mulch. I could tell even then that the outside was original.

The inside was too. It should have been perfect.

But nothing felt perfect. In fact, everything felt ... wrong.

Getting out of the car felt like a chore. Much like getting to Nashville had felt the evening before.

I’d had to fight myself every mile I drove. I didn’t want to be back here, even for a house I thought I was excited to work on. I wanted to be with Henry and Mollie and everyone I’d met in Strawberry Springs.

But there was no room for me.

I kept my phone off, certain that Henry would call and try to convince me that he was fine.

He always did that. He was fine until he wasn’t.

Just yesterday, he’d been pushing back on his own needs over and over.

Just for me. I couldn’t ask that of him, because I knew how it ended.

One day, he’d wake up and resent it all.

It was easier this way. Cleaner.

And yet, it hurt so much.

The goal was to keep moving. To fix this house to feel better. I’d call some of the other people on my waitlist who had submitted interest forms and go from there. Eventually, fixing other things would lift this weight off my chest. It had to.

This would linger for a while. It always did, but I’d stay away until it was a dull ache. Until people forgot me, just like they always did. And when I was a warm memory, just a woman who had come through and done a nice thing, then I’d try to visit Mollie and no one else.

I was better from a distance.

Pushing all thoughts of Strawberry Springs out of my mind, I knocked on the faded red door. It would look great with a new paint job.

It swung open and a woman with shoulder-length brown hair was on the other side. She was followed closely by a taller man with lighter brown hair.

And fuck. Glasses.

Why did it have to be glasses?

“Hi,” I said, holding out my hand to each of them. “I’m Wren.”

“You’re right on time!” the woman said. “I’m Violet, and this is Charlie. Thank you so much for seeing us.”

“I know you’re busy,” Charlie added.

“I like being busy,” I replied, even though the words tasted sour in my mouth. I’d also liked the peace I’d found with ... No. I wasn’t going there.

“Come on in,” Charlie said. “We’ll show you around.”

The house looked just as it did in the photos, with metal cabinets and wood tones everywhere. When I’d seen it, I wanted to brighten it up. Most of it could be updated, but I’d keep the small things in place. Like the trim, the original floors, the color scheme.

But this felt like a home .

Usually, I’d jump out the gate. I’d tell them what I saw their space looking like, how I could preserve history, but make it modern.

This time? I had nothing.

“This is a beautiful space,” I started. “Tell me again, what all are you wanting? It’s okay if it changed in the last few months.”

Charlie and Violet looked at each other. They must have had a lot of talks about this in between then and now.

“We’re still thinking about having kids,” Charlie said. “And I want this to be more ... modern. Kid friendly. It has old wiring, and a lot of sharp edges. I mean, the stairs alone are a tripping hazard.”

“No offense, but I’ve been trying to convince him to tell you we didn’t need much of anything,” Violet added.

“This is his family’s house, so it means a lot to him, but he insists we need to upgrade things.

But he says he’s fine with a complete renovation and you keeping the small bits of charm that you usually do. ”

Charlie looked over the space as he crossed his arms. He trailed over every detail. He must have looked at it a million times. Violet watched every moment as if she knew he wasn’t ready for all of this.

I could relate to that feeling.

“My best friend is having a baby too,” I said. “Another family home. Passed down for generations.”

“Did she upgrade it to make it safer?” Charlie asked.

“Not a thing. In fact, she told me not to.”

Charlie’s eyebrows raised. “But with a kid, it has to be ... something. I wouldn’t be a good dad if I didn’t consider it.”

“He has daddy issues from abandonment. We both do, actually.”

I blinked. For the first time, I felt a smile trying to creep onto my face. She reminded me of Mollie.

Then the crushing guilt came back. Was she trying to call me too?

“Violet,” Charlie said with a sigh. “Really? We talked about keeping that to ourselves.”

“Hey, I’m just letting her know what she’s getting into.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “What’s a little parental-abandonment talk between strangers? I get where you’re coming from. You want to be better.”

“I do,” he said. “And I feel like I have to do this.”

“Even if he doesn’t want to,” Violet added.

“You know, you would be doing a lot better than a lot of parents if you’re just there ,” I said. “You don’t have anything to prove other than that.”

“I’ll be here every step of the way,” Charlie said. “I know that, I just—we saved up for this. We can do it. We can give them a house they’ll love.”

“But will you love it?” I asked. “Because if not, if you’ll miss this, then it’s not worth it.”

“Wow,” Violet said. “You’re taking the words right out of my mouth.”

“When I was staying with my best friend and”—I paused, thinking of Henry—“someone else, it made me rethink what I feel like a home is. It’s the people, not the aesthetics.”

“See?” Violet said. “Now you have even more people on your side.”

Charlie’s shoulders slumped. “It must be obvious if even professionals see it that way. Even if we don’t update the wood, it still needs work.”

I eyed the house. “Yeah, I could see that. The wiring is old. Radiant heat could be swapped for a central system, but we don’t have to touch anything cosmetically.”

“Isn’t that your favorite part, though?” Violet asked.

“I like fixing things,” I confirmed. “I think it needs love. And I’ll go out on a limb and say it has that.”

“She’s good,” Violet said to Charlie. “And I can?—”

“You’re not working on wiring,” he interrupted. “That one’s too risky for you. Anything else, sure, but not that.”

“You work on the house?” I asked.

“I used to live in awful apartments, so I did the work myself. And now I do it here. Though, some things are above my pay grade.” She eyed me. “And maybe below yours? You’re so busy.”

I needed to be, but what they needed mattered more. “I work with some people who can get the work done. I can do a lot, but I’m not certified to rewire a whole house. I do know a guy who does great work.”

After I’d given them the phone numbers they needed, I went back to my apartment. I’d done the right thing, and I knew I had. But now I had nothing to fix.

And I needed to find something.

Usually, my motivation was always there, but this time, I was scraping the bottom of the barrel. I didn’t want to fix things. I wanted to be in a home . Something that felt like what Violet and Charlie had.

All my life, I’d made homes for other people, but I never had a home of my own that felt like mine . The trailer I grew up in, the nice house I wish Mom had accepted me in, and the apartment I’d decorated myself—they were just places to sleep.

Home was with Henry. With Mollie. With Tammy.

And I’d left it behind.

When I shut the door to my apartment, all the emotions I was trying to run from hit me. I missed it. So much more than I could ever say. It was so easy for people to leave me, but it was much harder for me to leave them.

Did that make me weak?

Or should I have taken advantage of every second I could in Strawberry Springs?

It didn’t matter. Henry would have been through his day by now. I bet he’d realized how far he’d pushed himself the day before. He was probably recovering and barely thinking about me. Mollie had to be excited about her scan and all that came with a new baby. And Tammy had Kelsey.

None of those facts helped. They only made me feel worse. I collapsed on the couch and felt like I was somewhere else, somewhere I didn’t belong.

Tears leaked out of my eyes, and I knew I couldn’t go back. I’d started them on the path, and they would continue on until I was nothing in their minds.

A knock on the door brought me out of my misery. I wiped at my face, hoping for once that my red eyes didn’t give me away.

Oh well. The only people who’d ever come to my door were salespeople for security systems. They deserved to feel bad for interrupting my misery.

To my surprise, it was Henry and Tammy.

I blinked. Had I finally lost it? Was I hallucinating now?

Tammy was in her usual work outfit, complete with a name tag that read “Dolly.” Henry, on the other hand, looked like he had just rolled out of bed. He never left the house looking like that.

Guilt hit me. What was he doing? What were they both doing here?

“Hi,” Tammy said. “Surprised?”

That was an understatement. I went to say just that when Henry pulled me into a hug.

“Never do that again.”

Why was I getting hugged? Shouldn’t he be taking his break from me? Shouldn’t he have seen what he’d done?

“Why are you two here?”