little bird // r.keene

xiv. her headstone.

"You bastard!" Wren shouted, striding over to where Daniel stood next to Shannon just outside the garden where he had Robby arrested. "How could you do that!?" She yelled and Daniel didn't stand a chance at dodging her punch.

Wren's fist collided with his nose and Daniel fell like a bowling pin on a strike, he stumbled back, his back pressed against the bars of the fence behind him. "After everything you've done to him?!" She shouted and advanced on him but Shannon got between them.
Security guards from the rehab were making their way over now having heard the commotion. Daniel straightened himself up, he cupped his nose which was trickling blood.

Good. Wren thought.

"I did this to protect him, Wren! To help him!" Daniel reasoned then groaned from the pain, Wren looked at him over Shannon's shoulder.

"When are you ever going to learn that not everyone wants your fucking help, Daniel? I was helping him." She told him in a low voice, just like Robby, becoming tired and defeated. Knowing it was futile. There was nothing left she could do. "He tried time and time again to please you and yet it was never enough, was it? You gave him a home and then ripped it away. He tried too hard to live up to your expectations then you, and Sam, both treat him like shit." Wren told him, "I will hate you forever for everything you have done to that boy, when all he wanted from you was to be accepted!"

"Wren, calm down." Shannon whispered in her ear.

"Wren, he needs this." Daniel told her dimly, giving up on trying to stop his nose from bleeding. Knowing that this was what she wanted; to watch him bleed. "I know you don't see that now, but I promise you, in time, you'll understand."

"I will never understand what you've just done, he trusted you." She told him flatly, a security guard, a tall lean women with a long brown ponytail, placed a hand on Wren's back to lead her away and off the property. "No matter how hard you try and justify what you've done Daniel, you will look back on this and regret it. I promise you that."

And with that, Wren left, her mind once again trailing off as her sight blurred. She had tried so hard to protect Robby from the world because she knew how cruel it could be and yet she had failed.
She had failed terribly.

So, her mind began to run off to dark corners and coming back with reasons for why she was not enough.

It was dark and it was quiet. The only thing Wren could hear was the faint hum of traffic from the main road and the only thing she could see beyond her blurred tears, illumined by the dim moonlight, was a head stone.

Wren was on her knees, hunched over, her arms wrapped around her waist. Her elbows dug into her hips but that wasn't the pain that was bothering her. That pain was kind in comparison to the overwhelming burning, drowning sensation in her chest, her throat, her head as tears poured down her cheeks. Wren stifled a wail, gasping for breath, not even bothering to wipe those tears away. She knew it was pointless... They would only keep coming. There was simply no point in trying to stop them.

She tore her eyes away from the stone, there were no flowers, moss growing at the base, weeds flourishing around it. Mocking her. Wren had always been to afraid to come back. To that very spot since she had arrived back home all those months ago.

Rue Larson.
Beloved Daughter, Sister and Friend.

"Rue, tell me what to do." Wren groaned, overwhelmed by the choking feeling in her, threatening to kill her. "Tell me what to do, I don't know what to do." She sobbed, pressed her palms to the ground, intertwining her fingers in the grass as she gasped for breath.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry it took me so long to come but I need you. Rue, oh my god I need you." Wren yelled as the rain began, "Tell me what to do." She cried, "I should have saved you. Please, forgive me. Forgive me Rue. I miss you"

"I try and try to help other people but all I do is mess up their lives." Wren groaned, tears pouring from her cheeks only to be diluted by the rain as it kissed her skin, "I- I- Oh my god, it's my fault. It's my fault. It's all my fault."

Her shoulders shook with her cries as Wren willed her head up to look at Rue's headstone. "Miguel, Robby, Mom, Will..." She took a long steadying breath that accomplished nothing as she sobbed, "You."

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

At that moment, a man in a long coat, hat and umbrella walked by under the dim street lamps on the main path of the cemetery. He heard the girl's cries and paused before walking over to where she cradled herself beside the neglected headstone.

Mr James held out his umbrella and covered Wren. She didn't look up at him as her cries rattled through her like an earthquake. She couldn't see him in the dark and through her tears. She couldn't hear him over the rain or her own heartbeat. She couldn't reach out and touch him because of how numb she was from the cold and her grief.

Wren couldn't do anything.

"Come, little bird." Mr James touched her shoulder but she didn't get up. Though, realising it was him, she only moved closer to him under the umbrella and continued to cry. Despite he aging joints, Mr James bent down to place a comforting arm around her, rubbing her shivering back in smooth motions.

He'd seen the news, he knew Robby had been turned in. He had a feeling Wren had been there when it happened. He knew Wren had been hiding him for weeks now, there was hardly anything that went on in his shop that he didn't know about.

As soon as he found out at home, he went to the shop to find her, only to discover she wasn't there at all. Mr James knew he had to find her but had no idea where to start looking for her, he didn't know how many friends she had or where she liked to hang out outside The Bookshelf, other than her dojo- which had long since closed for the night.

So, Mr James took his nightly walk to try and brainstorm where she might be, the same route he took every night. All to visit one headstone. Mr James went and saw Rue every night, he had been for two years.

And ever since Wren had arrived back in town and began working and living at the shop, he and Rue actually had something to talk about. He had told Rue all about Wren everyday: How she was doing in school. How she was doing in karate. How she was doing in the shop. Mr James had told Rue's headstone everything every night.

He was on his way to tell Rue about what happened to Robby when he found Wren, talking to Rue- just like he did.