I Drew the Blank Straw for Eighteen Years Chapter 06

I Drew the Blank Straw for Eighteen Years Chapter 06

I had no idea any of that was happening back home.

Three hours later, my flight landed safely in Montreal.

I’d barely stepped out of the arrivals gate when I spotted a guy holding up a welcome sign for Ashcombe.

“Hi, I’m Wren. New student at Ashcombe. I’m from Rutherford.”

“Hey, I’m Callum. Sophomore at Ashcombe. Also from Rutherford.”

We looked at each other and laughed.

With Callum’s help, I settled into life at Ashcombe fast.

Classes during the day, part-time work whenever I could fit it in, research in the evenings.

On weekends, I’d hang out with my roommates.

Occasionally Callum and I would go to academic events together, picking up new things.

Exhausting-but nothing compared to how suffocating those eighteen years in Rutherford had been.

Back home, my needs always came last.

Here in Montreal, I only had to live for myself.

Once she started college, Vivienne lost her private tutor. Surrounded by genuinely brilliant classmates, she turned out entirely unremarkable.

Marielle never grew out of her wild streak-skipped class repeatedly her first semester and got forced into repeating the year.

Mom and Dad tried everything to get her to focus on schoolwork.

She just compared them to her wealthier art-school classmates and complained that they weren’t good enough, that they never gave her enough.

The fights between Marielle and my parents got more frequent, more vicious.

One day, Mom went and cleaned out my old room.

Bed, desk, curtains-all restored to how they used to be.

Marielle wasn’t happy about it, said she had nowhere to put her paintings now.

“Sweetie, you can put them in the storage room. There’s space.” Mom tried to reason gently.

“That room’s disgusting, covered in dust. How am I supposed to put anything in there?”

Her voice was thick with resentment.

Dad, holding down his temper, finally said,

“That’s where Wren lived for three years.”

Marielle slammed the door and shut herself in her room, furious.

Days went by without her speaking to either of them.

When Mom and Dad brought food and left it outside her door, she’d kick the tray over.

Bowls shattered, broth spread across the floor.

Looking at the daughter they’d spoiled for eighteen years, they stood frozen, a hollow ache lodged in their

chests.

After one final blowup with Mom and Dad, Marielle packed her things and moved out for good.

Ever since restoring my room, Mom went in every day to clean it, sometimes spending half the day in there.

She kept hoping to find some trace of me.

But aside from those cheap old “birthday presents,” there was nothing of mine left to find.

Dad started pulling out the only two photos he had of me from the thick albums.

The first, taken when I was six.

In the family photo, I was crammed at the very edge, half my body cut off from the frame.

The second, from middle school graduation.

The focus was all on Vivienne and Marielle; I stood off in the corner, not smiling.

He’d look at those two photos, over and over, wiping the dust off, again and again.

The beef and tomato stew became the centerpiece of the dinner table-but no one ever touched it anymore.

Julian went around asking anyone who might know my new number, desperate to find out how I was doing

in Montreal.

That day, when I opened my messaging app, and a painfully familiar friend request popped up.

[Wren, it’s me. I’m sorry. I know I was wrong about you. I want to know how you’re doing in Montreal. Could you message me back?]

In the past, every time this account sent something, I’d have opened it instantly, unable to wait.

Now it didn’t stir a single ripple in me.

I closed the screen.

Callum was walking toward me with a cup of coffee.

Montreal is over a thousand miles from Rutherford-far enough, I thought, to shut out everyone I never

wanted to see again.