I made rules for loving Wren.
Rule one: never say it first unless she said it first.
Rule two: never ask questions whose answers might hurt.
Rule three: never mistake being important to someone for being the person they choose.
Rule four: absolutely never write the rules down.
I broke rule four on a Tuesday.
That afternoon Wren called while I was folding laundry.
“Tell me I'm not crazy,” she said instead of hello.
“You're crazy.”
“You're supposed to ask what happened first.”
“I know you. It saves time.”
She laughed, and there it was again—that ridiculous warmth that arrived whenever I made her happy.
We talked for forty-three minutes. About nothing. About everything. About a show we both hated but kept watching. About dinner. About how tired she was.
Then someone called her name in the background.
Her wife.
Wren's voice changed—not badly, just naturally, turning toward the life that existed beyond me.
“I gotta go,” she said. “I'll message you later.”
“Yeah. Go.”
“You good?”
Always that question.
Always at exactly the wrong time.
“I'm good.”
Lie number four hundred and something.
After we hung up, the apartment felt too quiet.
I opened my notes.
29.
Wren,
I think the hardest part is that nothing is wrong.
You aren't cruel to me.
Your marriage isn't some prison I'm supposed to save you from.
Nobody betrayed anybody.
I simply arrived after a door had already closed.
And sometimes I stand outside it wondering what the room would have looked like if I'd gotten there first.