Purposefully accidental, p.3
Purposefully Accidental, page 3
“I didn’t go on that long.”
“You did. Maybe we were all very drunk, but I remember you clinging to your pool cue as Wren Acker was on the TV in the corner, accepting her Oscar. You went on and on about how she wasn’t all that.”
Okay, maybe she’d gone on a little. Casey had thrown bar nuts at her head to shut her up.
“It wasn’t that bad. But yes, we are speaking of the same Wren Acker.”
“Ha!” The burst of laughter was loud in the otherwise empty room. “You know you muttered something about a grudge against her later and wouldn’t tell me more.” She grinned. “Do I get to know now?”
“It was nothing.” Madison shrugged. “Some people just rub you the wrong way.”
Casey snorted. “Nope. There’s something there.” She paused, chin inclined a moment as she considered Madison. “We could grab a bite after work? You could fill me in?”
Another olive branch. Madison wanted to reach over and grab it. Her fingers twitched on the arm of the worn chair. She could go. Chat with Casey over some food. Maybe have a drink like they used to. Maybe some of the others could go.
Casey’s eyes were trained on her. Hopeful. But buried there was a hint of what always came up—pity.
It was there.
Madison gave a tight smile. “I can’t today, sorry.”
Casey barely flinched, used to it by now. “Okay, Mads. Message me if you change your mind.”
There was more of that pity there now, and Madison didn’t need that. She grabbed her phone out of her pocket. “I have to run; a patient’s results are in.”
“See you around.”
Madison paused at the door, hands grasping the handle. “Of course,” she threw over her shoulder, like she meant it.
She wished she meant it.
Chapter Three
Wren would like to go home now. Her blissful forty-eight hours were being eaten into, her shoulder ached, her head had six stitches—just like Madison had said it would—and her whole body kind of…hurt.
Annie had told her it was normal as she had a very slight concussion, but if she had any nausea—there was a whole list after that—she should call a doctor.
So, Wren was going to go home, sit in her house, feel a bit sad and sorry for herself, and be alone. Which had been, really, all she’d wanted for those forty-eight hours.
She still hadn’t checked her phone.
Instead, she’d spent the last few hours just staring at the brilliantly white wall. Annie bustled in every now and again, took observations, asked her the day. One of those times Wren had said, “December 25th,” and Annie’s head had snapped up, then she’d laughed at Wren’s cheeky look.
Maybe she was bored.
But every time she considered reaching for her phone to read something, or chat with anyone, the dread of what her messages and emails would be saying rose up. Never mind what the state of her social media would be.
Finally, several hours in and waiting for discharge, she picked her phone up. Squinting one eye closed, she looked down at it.
And groaned, very loudly, dropping her head back on the pillow.
“Bad news?” Annie asked, slipping into the room.
Wren turned her phone around so Annie could see the lock screen. Even as Annie looked at what Wren was showing her, she popped the probe onto Wren’s finger that would spit out the digital numbers of her heart rate and who knew what else.
The fact that Wren didn’t know what that would be after shooting eight episodes of an award-winning medical drama miniseries made her flinch internally. No wonder Doctor Friedman had made a face about accuracy in it.
“152 message notifications?!” Annie shouted. She winced, head whipping around, then she seemed to remember they were in a room with no one else. She turned her attention back to Wren. “Is that your Twitter notifications? Is that a joke?”
“Nope.” Wren pouted at her screen. “I’m too scared to open it, but I’m bored.”
“That’s horrifying. I get one message and think eh, I’ll reply later. Then forget. How do you manage all of that?” Annie pulled her little flashlight out and held it up, Wren well used to this routine by now. She nodded and Annie flicked the light over her eyes.
“Well, a lot of it will be emails my team can answer. A lot will be alerts. But, well—do you have a big family?”
Annie nodded emphatically. “Huge. Twenty cousins.”
“Well, if there were a trending article about you on all social media and then, I don’t know, maybe some radio hosts talking about how you had a car accident, what would happen to your phone?”
Annie grimaced. “Nothing good.”
“Yup.”
Annie leaned in conspiratorially. “I feel like we know each other fairly well now, right?”
Wren side-eyed her. This was not going to be good. “What have you seen?”
“Well…” Annie pressed her lips together, apparently amused. Nope. This was not going to be good. “There are several viral TikToks of you with blood all over your face, waving to people through the cracked window of your car. You look…deranged. You’re smiling like you’re on the red carpet.”
Annie was trying not to laugh.
Wren made a whimpering noise, even as her lips twisted in a self-deprecating smile. “Yup, that sounds like me.”
“They put a voiceover of the guy who hit you shouting, ‘I killed Wren Acker!’”
“Oh. Oh, good.” Annie was definitely laughing now. “That’ll really add a nice tone to that.”
“In one of them your hand is kind of cupped, like a queen waving.”
“Okay! I get it!” Wren tried to glare at Annie, but it must have been pretty weak because Annie just kept chuckling. “My mother is going to kill me. Who waves after a car accident?”
“Someone in shock?”
“Bet they’re saying it was drugs.”
Annie stopped laughing.
“Oh my God, Annie, are they saying I was on drugs?”
“…No?”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I really am. Those clickbait articles work fast, huh?”
Wren slumped back into the pillows as Annie put her little flashlight away and grabbed the chart hanging at the end of the bed. “You have no idea. Did they link it to my coming out yet?”
Annie’s head whipped up. “I thought you hadn’t looked?”
“I haven’t, they’re just that predictable. They were running out of gossip about that, so anything to make their articles more clickbaity.”
Her mother was really going to kill her.
So of course, that was when the door was flung open and her mother stood, hand on the doorframe, staring in.
Sunglasses pushed on top of her head, shoulders back, dressed head to toe in workout clothes, yet looking as fresh as if she’d been in a spa, rather than working out. Which was very possible. Her auburn hair, color tended to religiously every four weeks, was messily piled on her head in a way that seemed casual, but which Wren knew she spent a lot of time on to achieve. The color was rich, incredibly dark, the red shining out when the light hit it just right. Exactly like Wren’s. Wrinkles fanned around her eyes as their cool brown swept over Wren.
“Honey, thank God. Are you alright?”
Wren tried to give her a smile, but the smile trembled a little. Oh, no. She’d been completely fine and now her mother shows up and suddenly she’s weeping. Her eyes filled and she nodded. “I’m fine, Mom.”
Her mother must have seen the expression on her face, and Wren swallowed down a lump in her throat as her mother strode over and wrapped her arms around her, cautious of the arm in the sling, one hand on her head, pulling Wren against her chest.
Wren gave a pathetic little sob. “I really am fine!”
She clutched her mother’s forearm with her one good hand, IV no longer attached to the cannula in it.
“Then why are you crying?” her mother asked, pressing her lips into Wren’s hair.
“I’m not crying,” Wren said, while crying.
The door snicked shut as Annie gave them some privacy. Her mother pulled back, eyes sweeping over her again, hands still on her, Wren still clutching her forearm.
“Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know! I really was fine. Then I saw you and I guess I realized that it was actually really terrifying.”
“Oh, honey.” Her mother pulled her in again, and Wren let her. A hand ran up and down her back gently, soothing. “It could have been worse.”
It could have been, and that was probably what had Wren so shaken up out of nowhere. Her mother pulled back again, then sat primly in the chair next to the bed, folding her legs. With a final pat of Wren’s knee, she moved closer and scrutinized Wren’s forehead.
“How bad is it?” she asked.
Wren shrugged. “I haven’t looked under the bandage.”
“Did they send the head of plastic surgery? I insisted they did.”
“Yes, Mom. And you didn’t need to threaten their jobs to do that.”
“It was a mild threat. Very small.” Her mother held her hand up, fingers barely held apart. “Not even really a threat.”
Wren tried to glare at her, but when it came to her mother, it was definitely a ‘pick your battles’ kind of situation. “Still, not necessary.”
“You may not think so, but your looks are important in this industry whether you like it or not.” She gave a prim shrug, already moving on. “What happened? The press has decided you were drunk driving after some kind of lesbian party.”
The word ‘lesbian’ left her mother’s lips with more emphasis and difficulty than Wren would have liked, but that was what it was.
“Yes, I was high, drunk, and performing cunnilingus while driving. That’s why I crashed.”
It took her mother a second and then outrage swept over her face. “Wren!” But there it was. Her lips pressed together, the smile twitching on them unable to be repressed.
“I can see you laughing.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
“Stop being ridiculous and tell me what happened. You were not eating out a woman.”
“Mom!” This time, the outrage flew out of Wren’s mouth, even as she felt her lips twist up in delight at the words that had come out of her mother’s mouth. Who knew she had it in her?
“What, only you can do that? What is it you all say? Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” She raised an eyebrow at Wren. “What happened?”
“Some guy T-boned me at an intersection. The light was green, I’m in the clear.”
“Good.” Her mother gave a nod. “I hope he’s in a world of trouble. And it’s your shoulder and your forehead?”
“Apparently, I have a very mild concussion, they’re not too concerned. Annie, the nurse, she told me they’d give me discharge information.”
“They’re not sending you home today?” Her mother’s already very straight back straightened further.
“Mom, there’s no need for me to be here. They wouldn’t send me home if it wasn’t fine.”
“I’ll be having a word with your doctor.”
Great. Exactly what Wren needed. Her mother scolding the doctor that Wren had pushed over in nine-year-old gay panic.
“Please don’t,” Wren sighed.
“Mhm.”
Well, that meant she would.
“You look like you’re in pain, do you need me to get the nurse?”
“Nope. Pain’s fine.”
Her mother glared daggers at her. “Have you looked online?”
Wren shook her head. “I’ve avoided it until now. My notifications are ridiculous, though.”
“Yes, they would be with that terrible clickbait. I really wish you’d let us sue one of them, one day.”
Wren closed her eyes, exhaustion sweeping over her. “Not today, Mom, please.”
“Fine.” Wren opened one eye. Her mother’s lips pressed together, her eyes on her sling. Miraculously, her mother let it go. “Do you know anything they’re saying?”
“Just what you said. They’re insinuating I could have been high and somehow dragging up my coming out. Anything else?”
“You’re in photos, waving at people, grinning and covered in blood.”
Wren winced. “Yeah.”
“What on Earth came over you?”
“I barely remember it. I don’t know. Shock?”
“That’s what I told Tyrone to say. He’s all over it.”
“Of course he is. He’s the best PR manager ever.”
“Waving, Wren? Really?”
Wren gave a fake, forced smile and a one-shouldered shrug to her mother. “Sorry?”
“Yes.” Her mother rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you are. Especially after that stunt last year, I very much believe that.”
“Coming out wasn’t a stunt, Mom.”
“You know I don’t mean that, I mean how you did it.”
“I was bored of being in the closet.”
“You couldn’t have simply waited a bit longer?”
Why? Why did they have to have this argument now? They’d had it a hundred times since then. Wren refused to feel bad. Her mother refused to not be mad about it.
“I didn’t think I should have to wait! Being out isn’t what it was before. Lots of people are out. And the more of us that come out, the safer it is.”
“All I wanted was for you to wait a bit longer.” Her mother’s jaw was clenching a little. They would never agree on this. Her mother had been involved in Hollywood since she’d been born. There was no way she could shake the idea that coming out would kill Wren’s career. That she’d be dropped and shamed. It came from a place of concern, but it was stifling. “And I was right. Offers have slowed down.”
“Slowed down but not stopped. And I have the second season of The Downfall, and then new projects in the pipeline. There’s that one with Marcus Daily.” Which her mother had pushed her to consider. Wren did not want to work with that man again. But the pressure from all sides after coming out, to show her mother her career was not dead, had been immense. She still hadn’t agreed.
“Which is a miracle you got after that stunt.”
“It wasn’t a stunt!”
“Wren Amelie Acker, you went out from that restaurant with your ex, kissed her, then pulled your jacket back to show that crass, ‘Batman may not go down, but I do’ T-shirt while making a very inelegant gesture.”
“What, this one?” Wren held up her index and middle fingers to her mouth and stuck her tongue out between them.
Her mother stared at her, completely stone-faced. “Yes, that one.”
“Maybe it was a bit crass.” Wren smirked.
“If you didn’t have your shoulder in a sling, I would throw that pillow at you.”
“Mother! I’m hurt by the threat of violence.”
Her mother appeared ready to walk out, as she often did when Wren was like this. It wasn’t Wren’s fault that her mother brought out the teenager in Wren, even at thirty-five.
“You have an image.”
Wren sighed. Maybe she should throw her a bone. “Mom, I know. And I—I know how hard we’ve worked. But I was tired of being in a closet that wasn’t mine. I never wanted to be in it. And I understood your reasons for a while, but it was getting harder to ignore that staying in the closet was starting to feel selfish.” Her mother’s mouth opened to protest, and Wren hurried to keep talking. “Selfish for me. If someone wants to stay in the closet, I can empathize. But I didn’t feel that need. I’m in an incredibly privileged place in life and I needed to come out. I understand why others don’t, and I don’t judge them for it. But every time it came up, you shut it down so hard. I tried to convince you all to let me do it in a way you’d have been more comfortable with. You weren’t on board. So, I did it my way.”
“With cunnilingus jokes, Wren?” Her mother sounded exhausted.
Wren grinned. “Hey, you made one earlier. My crassness is clearly genetic.”
The glare her mother levelled at her made Wren sink back a little. That glare twitched a little, as it was always wont to do. “What’s done is done, anyway.” Her mother sniffed.
Her mother would never acknowledge Wren had done something she’d needed to do. She’d never apologize, even if Wren’s words one day made sense to her. And Wren would forgive that, because she knew her mother had just been trying to protect her.
So, Wren would keep making vagina jokes at her to make her uncomfortable.
“After that display, from your usual poise, it’s not surprising they think you’re on drugs.”
Wren scoffed. “Sure. Because coming out and kissing someone means you’re on drugs.”
All this teasing her mother was making the twisting in her stomach that had appeared after talking about Marcus Daily go away.
“You know what I mean, Wren.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“When is this doctor coming? I want to talk to them about wanting to send you home.”
“I’m fine to go home. They did a CT scan and everything.”
“We’ll see.”
Oh, God. Wren dropped back against the pillows.
“Do you want me to call Tyrone?” her mother asked.
Wren made her best pathetic face. “Yes, please.”
As always, the pathetic face worked. “I’ll go now and call him. Do you want anything?”
“Coffee!”
“Should have guessed that one,” her mother muttered, standing. “Can I see the stitches?”
“They said not to remove the dressing until tomorrow.”
They’d said no such thing.
Her mother eyed her, and Wren just blinked up at her innocently.
“Okay. I want to talk to the head of plastic surgery, then.” Of course she did. “Find out about minimizing scarring.”
“Sure, Mom.”
“I’ll be right back. Want a pastry?”
Wren lit up. “With chocolate?”
“I’ll see what they have.”
