The Infinite Moment of Us (28 page)

He swung at Charlie, but he broadcast the punch the

way a four-year-old might, and Charlie dodged the blow.

The bouncer’s friends circled in, and so did P.G.

“You guys need to leave,” P.G. said.

“Or I could shove your head up your ass,” the bouncer

said.

“Or you could leave. Tessa, call the police.”

Charlie glanced from Starrla’s friends to Starrla. Her

expression was careful, but her eyes burned as if she had a

fever. She started across the room.

Pain skyrocketed through him. One of the bouncer’s

friends had thrown a solid uppercut to his solar plexus.

He couldn’t breathe, which meant he couldn’t warn Wren,

except Starrla wasn’t going for Wren. Not yet. She made a

beeline for the coffee table, for the oversize gold box.

“Hey, no!” Tessa cried.

“Aw, a pwesent,” Starrla slurred. “For me?”

“Charlie, help,” Wren whispered.

Starrla opened the box.

c h a p t e r t w e n t y- o n e

It was a snow globe. Not a gun, but an ornate

snow globe, and inside the globe was a farmhouse with

a picket fence. From
The Wizard of Oz
, Wren thought dis-jointedly. Because there’s no place like home.

Starrla lifted the snow globe and looked at Wren. Her

eyes glittered. She couldn’t seem to focus quite right. “Is

this from Charlie?” she said. “A happy, happy house for the

two of you to live in?”

Wren had nothing. No words, no thoughts, no . . . noth-

ing. She was hollow inside, and when Starrla raised the

snow globe, she did nothing.

Glass flew everywhere, and water, and snowflakes, and

everyone jumped..

Starrla stepped on Dorothy’s miniature farmhouse,

grinding it against the floor with the toe of her shoe, and

Tessa cried, “What is
wrong
with you?”

Starrla swayed but righted herself. She held Wren’s

gaze. “There. Now it’s broken, just like Charlie.”

Wren turned to Charlie, who was pale. She wanted to

go to him, but
she
was broken. A bird with no wings. Her words stayed broken, too—broken boys, broken birds,

broken words—but she forced them out, using sheer will-

power.

“No,” she said. “He’s not broken. You’re not broken,

Charlie. Stop looking like that.”

“Oh, but he is,” Starrla said. She veered toward Charlie

in her awful high heels and baby-doll socks. “Want me to

tell her, baby? Want me to tell her how broken you is? But

it’s okay. I’m broken, too.”

“Starrla,” Charlie said. “Please.”

Wren didn’t understand. “Please”? “Baby”?

The guy Starrla had come with, the one in the leather

jacket, took a step, glass crunching beneath his motorcycle

boot.

“Hey, Star—”

“Tyson, shut up,” Starrla said, and Tyson held his hands

out, palms forward.

There was something not right with Starrla, and it

wasn’t just her eyes. Everyone saw it, and the energy in

the room grew charged in a different way than before.

“Baby,” she said again. “I need you, baby. That’s why I’m

here. I need you, and you need me!”

“No,” Charlie said. His throat worked. “You need to

leave.”

“You’re kicking me out?” Starrla said, her voice rising.

“That’s how you treat a damn dog, Charlie. Toss it in the

garage and throw away the key. That’s what your junkie

mom did, right? Locked you in the garage like a mutt from

the pound?”

Charlie went pale. Wren’s stomach dropped out.

“Starrla—” he tried.

“What, Charlie?” Starrla demanded. She gestured at

Wren. “You like her tits better than mine? Okay. Do you

suck them like you sucked mine? Okay, that’s super. That’s

great. Have fun. But do you cry on her shoulder first,
boo
hoo hoo
, and tell her all about your poor sad childhood?”

Wren started to cry.

Starrla graced her with her skit-around gaze. “Oh, you

didn’t know?” She barked a laugh. “Guess there’s a lot you

don’t know, bitch. Oops.”

“Star, c’mon,” Tyson said.

Starrla reached for Charlie, but he stood frozen. Sud-

denly she sank to the floor. “Charlie,” she whispered. Wren

was no longer visible, it seemed. Tyson was invisible, too.

Starrla could only see Charlie. “Honey, baby, please. You

loved me once, you can love me again. We’re alike. Nobody

else understands us. Nobody but you. Please?”

Charlie shook his head again, and something left Starr-

la’s eyes. Wren saw it.

“Fuck you,” Starrla said, and she took a slice of glass

from the floor and slashed it across her neck.

It cut deep. Blood spurted onto Starrla’s skin, her dress,

the floor.

Then
Charlie moved.

“Starrla!” he cried, dashing toward her and catching her

crumpling body. Tyson, too, was instantly at her side. He

knelt beside her as Charlie pressed the heel of his palm

against her wound.

“Did you call the police?” P.G. asked Tessa.

Tessa nodded. “I did. I did. I called 911! They said they

were coming. They said they’d—”

Sirens blared. Lights flashed through the windows

of Tessa’s front rooms for the second time that night. One

ambulance, two police cars.

One EMT bandaged Starrla’s neck and took her stats.

Another asked questions. Starrla was unconscious, so

Tyson answered some and Charlie answered others. He ran

his hand down his jeans, and it left a red trail.

Wren pressed herself against the wall. She went from

hot to cold to hot. Sweaty-hot. She wrapped her arms

around her ribs.

“All right,” the EMT said. To her colleague, she said,

“We’ll need the gurney.”

“Hey, what?” Tyson said. “Why? What do you need a

gurney for?”

“Standard procedure,” the EMT said.

“What do you mean, standard procedure?” Tyson said.

“She’s fine. She’s hardly bleeding, see?”

Hardly bleeding? Her bandage was soaked through.

“Suicide watch,” the EMT said curtly. “Someone who

tries to kill herself isn’t ‘fine.’”

She strapped Starrla to the gurney. Starrla’s skirt rode

too high, and Wren, ridiculously, wanted to fix it for her.

She didn’t know how to fix things, though. She didn’t

know how to fix anything.

Tyson shadowed the EMT. “Will she have to stay over-

night? Will she be all right? She’ll be all right, right?”

Tyson cared about Starrla, Wren saw from afar. And so

did Charlie, who stepped forward and said tightly, “I’m her

cousin. I’ll ride with her.”

Wren sank into herself, and Charlie looked at her over

his shoulder, and everything
was
broken. Baby. Please. No.

“How long they keep her will depend on her evalua-

tion,” the EMT said. To Charlie, she said, “If you’re coming,

let’s go. Everyone else, out of the way.”

“Wren, I’ll be back,” Charlie said.

She might have shrugged, or maybe not. And then he

left.

With Starrla.

The rest of the night was a blur. One of the police cars

trailed after the ambulance; the remaining officer stayed

and took statements. Tessa’s mom was called. The broken

snow globe still needed to be cleaned up, but at some point

Tessa had whisked away the champagne flutes, and nobody

ratted anyone out. The drama with Starrla had sobered

everyone up, so the officer just gave them a lecture on

responsible behavior and keeping themselves and their

friends safe.

“Understood?” he said.

“Understood,” everyone said, except for P.G., who nod-

ded maturely and said, “Yes, sir.”

Tyson and the other two guys took that as their cue to

leave. After scribbling a few more lines in his notepad, the

officer followed suit.

“What the fuck?” Tessa said when she, Wren, and P.G.

were the only ones left.

P.G. rolled his shoulders and rotated his neck. “It’s my

fault,” he said, unusually subdued. “I didn’t lock the door.”

“What?” Tessa said. “No. You didn’t barge into my house

uninvited. You didn’t shatter my snow globe. You didn’t . . .”

She dropped onto the sofa. “
Jesus
. What just happened here?

Did that really just happen?”

P.G. sat beside her and pulled her close.

“Jesus,” Tessa said again. And then, “Wren. Come sit.”

“No thanks,” Wren said. She was inside herself and

outside of herself at the same time, and all she knew was

that she had to leave this place, this world, this unwanted

dimension of honey-baby-please. She didn’t like Starrla,

and yet she felt horrible for her. So, so sad for her, and for Charlie . . .
Toss it in the garage and throw away the key.

Wren shivered. Feeling sad for herself, on top of every-

thing that had just happened, was just so wrong.

“I think I’ll . . . I’m just . . . I’m going home.”

Tessa raised her head from P.G’s shoulder. “Wren. Stay.”

Everything buzzed. “Sorry,” she said. “I can’t.”

“Is this because of Charlie? Because he . . . ?”

Wren walked to the kitchen, grabbed her keys and

overnight bag, and headed back through the den. “Sorry

about your snow globe,” she told Tessa.

She left, because Charlie was already gone.

For Wren, that was it. The cold set in. She knew she was

wrong to refuse Charlie’s calls and ignore his texts, but she

couldn’t figure out how else to be, because she despaired

of ever crossing the chasm between them.

Starrla knew Charlie better than she did. She knew

about his past, all the terrible things he’d never told Wren

because he thought Wren wouldn’t understand.

She’d been so sheltered growing up.

She was trying to change that. She was trying to live

more, experience more, be more, but it all felt hopeless.

She would never catch up with him. She would never

understand all he had been through. She would never

be able to absorb his pain, to make things better, to fix

him. He didn’t need fixing, not in Wren’s mind, but if
he

thought he did, and yet he couldn’t come to her, or thought

he couldn’t . . .

How could she be his everything if she, herself, wasn’t

enough?

Anyway, what was the point? She was leaving for

Guatemala on Monday. It felt unreal, and she’d long ago

forgotten why Project Unity had seemed like a good idea,

but there it was. She had her ticket. She had people wait-

ing for her, eager to meet her and put her to work. She’d

have a purpose. At least she’d be useful to someone in

some small way.

Was it good of Charlie, and right, to ride with Starrla

to the hospital?

Of course. Charlie helped Starrla even though Starrla

was Starrla, even though she tried to hurt him. He didn’t

say, “Look at me, I’m off to save the world!” He just did

what needed doing, even when the world was so unfair.

(Charlie, as a boy, locked in a garage. Her heart broke.)

He was more of a hero than Wren would ever be. He

was good and noble. Wren loved him for it, but she hated

herself for being so small.

I didn’t choose Starrla over you,
he texted late Saturday night. You know that, right?

Yes, she knew that. It killed her that he felt the need to

say so.

She’s going to be fine, and she says she’s sorry, he tex-

ted on Sunday morning.

That’s good, Wren thought. Her heart still hurt and

hurt.

I love you, Wren. So much. Plz don’t shut me out again.

Can I come over?

Can we talk?

Plz?

On Sunday, after a painful lunch with her parents, she

curled up in the fetal position on her bed. 14 text messages,

4 missed calls, her phone said. She was such a baby.

Her dad rapped on her door. She knew the sound of his

knuckles hitting wood. She’d know it anywhere.

“Wren?” he said.

She shut her eyes and pushed hard on her eyelids. She

didn’t want to; she didn’t want to.

She had to, or there’d be more questions. More fuss.

More worry, especially after she hadn’t been appropriately

appreciative of her parents’ gift during lunch. They’d given

her a tote bag packed with textbooks recommended by

one of the Emory professors Wren’s mom worked with.

They’d said that if she was going to go through with her

Project Unity plan, then she could at least get a head start

on her college curriculum in her downtime.

Her dad knocked again, and Wren sat up. “Come in.”

He came, holding something behind his back. Another

book? “Wren, are you all right?” he asked.

“Um, yeah. I guess.” She made herself smile. “Yeah, I’m

fine.”

“Is it the flight? Are you worried about flying? You

always get worried about flying.”

“Dad, I’m fine with flying.”

“You’re being very brave. I thought, maybe because it’s

an international flight . . .” He cleared his throat. “You’ve

got your passport? You know how to fill out the customs

form?”

She nodded.

Her dad exhaled. “Is this about your mother and me?”

“What? No.”

“I think it is. I think we—I—owe you an apology.”

What?
she thought. Her father, offering her an apology?