#& answer.

[oflightfeet]

🍦📚

🍦 favourite ice cream flavour

Wren prefers anything chocolate. Comfort is found in Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie, which is a staple in their freezer at this point. They hate lemon ice cream, for the record. It’s one of the few foods they refuse to eat at all costs.

📚 last book you read

Wren suffers from reading-too-many-books-at-once disease. Their currently-reading shelf on goodreads has five books on it as of right now, which is something they would really rather not talk about. The book they most recently finished is Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, however. It took them much longer than a short book like that usually would, due to the added weight of Zach ( @zachariaswinchester ) having lend it to them. They intend to have it delivered to Bellum Nova’s offices soon. 

Their currently reading includes A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, Lanny by Max Porter, The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin, a Stevie Nicks biography and Crush by Richard Siken.

[oflightfeet]

💌

💌 last person you said i love you to

Wren doesn’t say these words often, nor lightly. The concept of love is something warm and cherishable, to be sure, but also something scary. With it, after all, comes the possibility of loss and grief, two things they have had their fill of. To verbalise the feelings of affection they carry for someone isn’t easy, and there are plenty of people around them that they love that they haven’t told this to ( see, for example, Ravi and Jessica, or even Kyung-Soon ).

They tell Vincent The Cat that they love him near daily, but I doubt that one counts as an answer. Nor do their tweets professing their love for various musicians, right?

I think it’s most likely Thomas that they said this to last; their fear of losing him has already been solidified, so why not verbalise what he means to them as well? They love him, and it is scary, but so many things are these days. So fuck it.

[oflightfeet]

🍽️ last meal you ate

Late at night on the fifth of March, Wren regained some appetite post-poisoning and indulged in dry cornflakes and later a cup of ginger tea. It was, admittedly, a very depressing meal, but light and dry enough for it not to upset his stomach much. A few hours later, they also munched on half a banana.

[oflightfeet]

😢 most memorable time you cried

The sheets have been freshly washed. Wren lies in Jim’s bedroom, who himself sleeps on an air mattress on the floor of his sister’s bedroom, so they can have their own room. It’s nice, really, of Jim’s parents, to make the space for them on such short term, to give them their own corner in their house even if it’s for a short while. But Wren wishes for their own bedroom, with the flowers painted on the windowsills and the storybooks lining their wall. For the creaky chair in which their father sat when he read to them. For their old sheets, that smell differently than these.

Wren is eleven years old and their father has been dead for less than twenty four hours. Tomorrow, the social worker will come back. Tomorrow, more will happen. But for now, you need to sleep, that’s what they keep saying.

Wren does not sleep. Wren cries. These are the kind of tears you cry in childhood, where your entire body seems to convulse with the sadness. Shoulders shaking, snot pouring, salt drying out the skin of your reddening cheeks, near-choking as you struggle to breathe. Wren cries until they exhaust themselves, eyes glued shut with the salt that came from the pits of their young body. 

And they remember, that first night of without, quite often and quite startlingly. 

[oflightfeet]

📷 What was the last photo you took of?

[oflightfeet]

👫 Who would you put before everyone else?

The instinct to say myself is strong, nauseatingly so, and Wren is momentarily thrown off by it. It’s not selfishness that makes them have that knee jerk reaction: it’s instinctive, animal-like. Something that comes with feeling like life is just surviving and not much more for your formative years. It’s an ugly answer. Wren pries themselves from their gloomy thoughts, not interested in reflecting on their teen years, not interested in reflecting at all.   In stead, they think on an answer, but the truth is there is none but that initial one. Wren is self-preserving, a deer in headlights, choosing flight over fight time and time again. Safest not to rely on anyone, and not have anyone rely on them in return. A lonely existence. Still, their mind considers a few names. Thomas. Leon. Somehow, even Rafael ( they’re not sure if it’s out of genuine care or because it would look good ). Wren hates this question. They straighten their back, cock their head. “Stevie Nicks.”

[oflightfeet]

☎️ If you were in trouble, who is the first person you would call for help?

Wren knows the answer immediately, but does not utter it right away. They think it might look better, if the answer doesn’t lie on the tip of their tongue –– as if they have multiple options, a long list of people on speed dial. As if the people they trust hasn’t been reduced to a handful, or less than, for years now. But they don’t wait too long, either. “Thomas.” An answer even an outsider might understand, if they had ever laid eyes on Thomas –– big and burly and strong. Someone who seems like they might punch trouble in the face. It’s not just that, though. Wren’s trust is not easily won, and yet he has it, and it does not feel like something they want to run from. ( Sometimes they feel weighed down with a feeling of indebtedness towards Thomas, though they don’t voice it. One day, perhaps, they’ll repay him, or one day, perhaps, they’ll learn that not everything in life has to be a transaction. ) They give a smile. “I mean, have you met the guy? He makes any trouble look like nothing.”