She has to remember that Bell doesn’t know.

With Bell knowing a bit more of Wren’s life (but not all), it becomes harder to keep the secrets from her.

It’s all innocent enough. Bell came home from school and immediately began getting paper, markers, pictures, and glue. Señora Flores, Bell’s Spanish teacher, gave her class a family tree assignment. Then you label who each person is to you in Spanish, hence the Spanish class homework.

“Mom? What was Dad’s Mom’s maiden name?”

Wren peers over Bell’s shoulder and sees the cut out photos glued on a sheet of paper with brown marker lines connecting them. Just seeing Hai and herself tied to one another by a mark makes the guilt in her stomach grow three sizes bigger, especially with the related lines downwards with Bell and Greta pictures underneath.

Bell cranes her head with an eyebrow raised, expecting an answer.

“It’s Sun,” she answers quickly.

With the name, Bell scribbles down ‘Sun’ after ‘Lindsay’. Under the full designation is the title ‘abuela’.

“What? Did I get something wrong?” The question startles her so much she almost takes a step back. Wren didn’t notice Bell watching her. Her daughter must have seen her intently looking at her project.

“No, no. I was just admiring your Spanish.”

Bell’s eyebrows raise, clearly not believing her. Wren would scold herself if she could. It wasn’t a very good excuse. “Umm…ok. Don’t be too impressed. Jeremiah helped me a lot with the words.”

“I’m home!” A voice bellows out, thankfully interrupting them.

Well not so thankfully since it’s Hai.

“Dad! Come look at my family tree,” Bell beckons him over, a big smile on her face. It so cruelly juxtaposes how she was just a moment ago with Wren. Wren does her best to memorize this image of her daughter. Eyes bright and happy. Towards Hai.

This is why she hasn’t tell her the whole truth.

“It looks beautiful. It’s perfecto,” Hai compliments, leaning down to kiss Bell on the head, ruffling her hair as he leaves to change into home clothes.

Bell looks towards Wren. Even without reading her mind, she has a pretty good guess on what’s churning in her daughter’s head. She knows how Hai isn’t aware of her soulmate being someone else. But she also can see the gears moving. Bell is smart. She knows that Wren is still withholding information.

It kills Wren to hide this.

“Mom. What is going on?” When Wren is about to object, Bell holds up her hand to stop her.

_There’s something else. What isn’t she telling me?_

Wren visibly flinches when she realizes that she just read Bell’s thoughts without meaning to. Her telepathic powers had always come so naturally to her. Maybe too naturally.

Thinking back on many instances in her life, has she been unconsciously reading people’s minds, not intentionally doing so?

In the first time that Wren can remember, her gift that has gotten her out of many hairy situations might be a curse. She violated her daughter’s privacy and trust. She manipulated Hai and Greta and so many others.

If it’s hurting her to keep this from her family and it’s hurting her family to keep this from them, then why is she keeping it from them?

She is getting tired. So tired.

But this would blow up her whole family as she knows it.

This decision has big stakes. She’s been mulling over it since Bell found out Wren manipulated her to forgetting her soulmate. And seeing her daughter’s broken expression now and her unconscious use of her powers, she knows what has to be done.

She checks her phone and sees Greta texted that she’d be home soon. Good.

“I think it’s time for a family meeting.”

It’s time for her to lay all her cards on the table.

Face up.

———

This was originally going to be written in Bell’s perspective, but then I realized with what I wanted to convey, I needed to write it in Wren’s pov.