DAMAGED

COURT

I had forgotten how ridiculous and unreal the beauty of Washington was. I could breath in with ease. Home. I didn't even know I had missed it until Casey and I were driving roads I hadn't been on in a long time. Avoiding life.

"You need this. I'm glad you didn't back out like always." His voice was gruff. He had been pretty quiet since carrying Kat, drunk and out of her mind away from Will Sullivan. We didn't see much of each other until the airport.

"I'm going to go see Wren, at the hospital." I had come to terms with it, was walking into the pain like it was no big deal. It was going to kill me.

"So your plan is just to pop in the hospital? No warning, just go to her work and have it out? That's moronic. One, she doesn't live in the hospital because she works shifts just like every one else there. You can't just drop in and assume she will be there. Two, how about just don't do it. Let her go, she doesn't need to walk you through your heartbreak and that's where she works man, worst idea yet." He didn't take his eyes off the road. He was parenting me again. I considered opening the door and rolling off the side of the road. Broken bones be damned. He was right. I couldn't just go to the hospital.

"Yeah. Okay. I'm going to see her though. I'll text her." I pulled up her contact; the photo of her in a t-shirt and underwear studying broke me over and over. She had loved me once.

"You still have her in your phone? Seriously?" His quiet coldness was gone; this was Casey verging on a complete meltdown. "I have no idea how we are related, you are such a glutton for misery. Jesus Christ. Text Kat while you are at it and just put the words "we are done." Let that one go. I don't know why I thought you had a chance of changing. Why I thought you were trying to move on. Fuck! I don't want to be involved in this anymore. This was supposed to be you coming home and seeing our family, seeing mom. You put distance between yourself and anyone that was a part of the life you had with Wren and you know what, you held on to Wren and let the wrong ones go. You would have let me go too if you didn't need me." Stunned. I was stunned my brother was shouting, no calm and zero trace of his usual chill. He was angry, angrier than he had been in so long.

"I'm sorry." I was. I was sorrier than even I had realized. I was turning reckless again. I would see them, the family that loved me through this selfishness and then I would go home, my home. I needed the green house, the curving walk paths, the scent of pine and salt. I was losing it.

"I know you are. Fix it. You are capable of fixing it so do that." The shout had gone out of his voice. There was just silence and the wind outside the windows.

"Do they know I'm coming?" I didn't need to say whom, he knew.

"Of course not. I don't like to disappoint them and I didn't believe you were coming until we got on the actual plane." He was so matter of fact. Casey, the truth-teller.

"This car smells weird. Is new car smell also the same smell as "I ate McDonalds on my lunch break in the ugly car on the last aisle" smell?"

***

"Court?" She said my name like I was a ghost. Her voice pulled the scabs off every wound I ever thought might heal. So this was where we would do this, in the parking lot of some small market that hadn't existed when we were children.

"Wren." I couldn't think. I had nothing.

"It's been years." She was nervous, she rubbed her knuckles together. She had been doing that since as long as I could remember. I was trying to smile but I don't know if my face knew that.

"It has." When we were young she would laugh at us, the way I was so wordy and she wasn't. Neither of us had any words today.

"How long are you home?"

"Just until tomorrow and then I'm going to check on my house and then its back on the road."

"I heard you were on tour. Isn't that weird to say? Do you just wake up some days and think how did I get here?" She asked it like she wanted to know. I didn't know what to say, what she hoped to hear.

"I do. How have you been?" I didn't know what she could say that wouldn't hurt.

"Busy, school between shifts. You know, the usual." She shrugged like I did still know but the truth was I hadn't known what it was like with her in a long time. This conversation was more painful than any I had imagined. In this one we barely knew each other, we were acting like the kind of people who didn't hate small talk. We did, when we were a "we". We loathed small talk.

"I'm sorry Wren, for all of it. I knew you didn't love me as much as I loved you and I let you marry me anyways. I shouldn't have let it go so long. I need to get back, Casey is waiting." Her face fell, the way it does when you thought you were in a different place than the one you are in. We wouldn't be friends again, not even tentative nervous explorers in a new phase. We were strangers.

"I did love you Court but just not enough. I'm happy. You will be too." She turned, her hair still bounced in that messy ponytail when she walked away. I let her go. I didn't ask for the whys and the how comes. It wasn't passionate, she didn't explain. You can't bare your heart to a stranger. I saw Casey walking up to the side of me; he threw a subtle nod in her direction when she glanced back.

"You good?" I shook my head. I wasn't good. I didn't know anything could hurt worse than the initial heartbreak but it can and it did.

"I think I'm going to just stay here. Lets go back together." He was right I needed him and if he needed to recharge here than I would stay here.