Young Writers Society

Jeff turned around to start heading back to the theater, figuring he would catch Effect or The Actor waiting to hear the news.

A couple of minutes passed, and he soon caught a glimpse of The Actor. Oh, they must have gone the same way, then. Hopefully he didn’t look silly talking with all the strangers.

“I just heard back, and she said she’s all fine, so thank you for your help,” Jeff raised his voice to still be heard over the regular pedestrian noise. “I’ll be heading home now.”

Wren froze when she heard Jeff suddenly speak up from nearby.

...Or should she call him Jewel, just to get into the habit? She wasn't sure how this part of hero work was supposed to work. She knew he was Jeff now. It felt weird calling him Jewel in her head. But she also didn't want to slip, especially when she wasn't really sure how she wanted to tell Jeff who she was.

She was going to. She had to. It felt wrong not to let him know who she really was when she knew who he was, and she knew Jeff. He wasn't going to tell anyone, and it would probably make both of their lives a lot easier if they knew who each other really were.

Wren hurriedly slipped her phone away.

"Could you, uh, stay?" she nervously asked. "We need to talk about something. But I need to help Effect first, so, er..."

She shifted uncomfortably.

"It won't take long," she promised. "The talking to the director and Effect. And probably the talking with you, too, but I'm not really sure about that."

The Actor wanted him to stay? Well, his parents were probably still working, so they wouldn’t know if he got home later than usual.

“Uh, okay, sure. I’m happy to help,” Jeff said, still hesitant to stick around. He kind of felt like he blew his cover, but the first fine he spoke probably made him sound twelve.

He wished he had two pockets to shove his hands in, but he only had one that fit his phone.

Not to mention, why would The Actor even want to talk to him? Oh sheesh. Now he was even more nervous.

Just like Wren had predicted, it didn't take long to talk to the director with Effect. She did her very best to focus on it, but her mind kept flickering back to where Jeff was waiting for her. By the time that the director promised to look into the actor and not press charges against Effect for disrupting the show, Wren was barely registering the conversation.

Wren left Effect with the director with a promise to check in again later.

Then she left the theater.

Wren wasn't sure where she wanted to go, at first. She didn't have her own Batcave or some kind of secret lair. She felt like something this important needed to be said far away from other people - but she didn't have anywhere private enough to go.

She didn't tell Jeff where they were going, even when she finally realized that her feet were instinctively taking her back to the cafe. It wasn't the main route there - it was the back route, the one that led to the fire escape she always entered her room through. To anyone who wasn't used to the route, it was probably confusing and seemed more than a little random.

"This is my secret hideout," she awkwardly said. Her face turned bright red; her gaze dropped down to the concrete underneath their feet. "It's not really much of a secret or a hideout, but you're the first person I've brought here as a hero..."

She glanced up at him.

"We just have to climb the fire escape," she said. "I can go first, if you want."

Jeff didn’t know whether he should scream or start blogging about being able to see The Actor’s secret hideout. Ugh, his heart could not withstand any more surprises

“Oh, um, sure. I’ll be right behind you!”

Wel, that was obvious. This was why he didn’t have many friends. He cursed his automatic brain-to-mouth function.

The fire escape wasn't new. She could hear Jeff was he climbed it behind her, and was sure that her parents could hear the two of them climbing it from inside of the cafe's kitchen, too.

Pausing on the edge of her open window, she took a deep breath.

This had sounded like a better idea when she was leaving the theater. Seeing her room would be anticlimactic after calling it her secret hideout - and she was sure Jeff was going to question her decorations.

But there was nothing else she could do about it now.

She slipped inside.

Or tried her best to. She used shifted back before she got to her window, and The Actor was big compared to her. Wren had to awkwardly move around before she could easily get into her bedroom. When she finally did, she almost tripped over her own two feet - she barely caught herself before she almost went tumbling into her bed.

She looked back at the window and gave Jeff an awkward smile. Her room was on display now: her bookcase for actual books, her comic shelf, her theater and comic posters, and the tiny little bulletin board above her desk where she put her favorite pieces of art. Right now, the one on display was the drawing she had made of The Actor and Jewel with the Flash and Nightwing - she had just colored it in the other day.

Jeff smiled, hoping he didn’t seem rude even with his mask still on. He tried his best not to trip going up the fire escape, as he had never really been in a building that had that attached.

Inside the room though, his eyes were drawn instantly to the colors of different books. Wow, did The Actor really find comics interesting? He supposed it had be true, as this was their room.

“So,” he started, “what did you want to talk to me about?”

Jeff turned to face The Actor, while also catching a glimpse of a drawing, and it seemed familiar to him, but he couldn’t place it.

Wren faltered.

A small part of her had been secretly hoping that the room was all that Jeff would need to put two-and-two together. But it wasn't like he had ever been in her room before, and he probably didn't know her well enough to recognize that everything The Actor was interested in was also everything Wren was into.

Wren awkwardly shifted.

"...I don't know how to do this," she admitted. "I haven't ever revealed my secret identity to someone before..."

Jeff blinked.

Wait, what? The Actor wants to tell him their identity? His hands were already waving before he started talking.

“Why would you want to do that, though? I’m so confused.”

Jeff mumbled even while he walked closer to the bulletin boards. “

Also, I think I know where that drawing is from now, it was ... my friend’s. My friend’s. Wait, why do you have it?”

A shockwave scattered his brain cells. “Oh my gosh are you Wren’s brother?”

He put his hands over his eyes.

Oh, kill him now. He was such a mess.

Wren blinked, too.

"What?" she said. She frantically glanced around her room, trying to figure out what exactly had made Jeff think that. She was an only child - she didn't even have a brother! And maybe she didn't know anything about adults, but she thought her room would have given away her actual age. It didn't really look like the kind of room she would expect a college student to have.

...Then again, she wasn't planning on changing it when she went to college in a few years...

She hurriedly shook her head.

"I'm not," she said. Then, when she realized he was hiding his face, she quickly added, "But that was a really good guess! I probably would have guessed it, too. Because the alternative probably doesn't make much sense, and, um, I do my best to hide my identity..."

Now Wren wanted to hide her face behind her hands, too.

She took a big, deep breath.

"Jeff," she said, her voice quieter than she had expected it to be, "I'm, uh...um...I'm Wren."

What.

What?

What!

Jeff stammered, not knowing if he was speaking aloud, or he was just shouting in his head, "Y-you know my name and Wren's name, uh, oh my gosh, what!"

"AHHH!" He screamed into his hands.

This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real.

"How did, you." Jeff opened his mouth, staring at The Ac-- no, Wren, now. "Wait, did you know the whole time? Were you just messing with me?"

Well, he already screamed, he might as well cry next. Jeff reached up to take off his mask, trying to cover up his eyes, as he knew there was going to mess of tears.

"Do you happen to have a tissue, and could I please use one?" He said, amidst his sobbing. "Also, I'm sorry. I think I lost my mind there."

Jeff was trying very hard to not sprint away from this room. For one, he was a bit worried he would pass out somewhere, and two, he was going to have to see Wren at school anyway, so this conversation probably needed to happen in some capacity.

"So, uh, hi, I guess. I hope I didn't scare your parents from screaming just a second ago."

Wren frantically looked around her room. There were tissues out in the hallway, but it would be wrong to leave Jeff here by himself right after that reveal. Instead, she managed to find a roll of paper towels she kept forgetting to bring back out into their living room.

"Is everything okay up there?" her dad shouted from downstairs.

"Ev-" Wren started to say, only to catch herself when she realized she was shouting back with the wrong voice. She thought for a moment, imagining her own voice instead. When she finally spoke a few seconds later, it was her voice that came out of her mouth.

"Everything is okay!" she shouted back. "Jeff and I just got back early from the show!"

She waited a moment.

When it seemed like her dad was satisfied, Wren turned back to Jeff - holding the paper towel roll out like it was a very poor peace offering.

A moment later, she was standing in front of him as herself.

"I didn't know," she whispered. "I-I didn't realize it until you said you were looking for me at the show. I didn't want to say anything with Effect there, and then I thought it would be bad to say that somewhere that wasn't private..."

She pushed the roll in his direction a little more.

"I'm really sorry," she said, even though she wasn't really sure what she was apologizing for.

He sniffed.

"Thank you," Jeff added when Wren handed him the paper towel roll. He tried to take a full breath, calming his nerves.

After wiping his nose, he looked back at her. "You don't have anything to say sorry about, it's cool."

"It's more than cool, you're literally The Actor! The Actor! Oh my gosh."

He sunk to the floor with the realization.

"Not only did I act dumb in front of The Actor, I acted dumb in front of like, my only friend."

Jeff curbed the urge to shriek.

The moment that Jeff started complimenting her, Wren's face turned the brightest shade of red she had ever had around him as both his civilian and superhero self. Even though Jeff knew that The Actor was really just her, he still thought she was cool. She didn't know how to deal with that.

"I acted dumb, too!" she frantically reassured him. "I kept slipping up when we were talking to each other before. I scared you in the park, I said I was a college student because I blurted out that I had school, and I almost mentioned meeting you as Jewel when you came to the cafe the next day and saw my drawing. I...I've been really dumb, too!"

Jeff took a deep breath. They both went about this the wrong way, not that he ever expected The Actor to be someone he knew. That was all literally in the past now, though, so now they could move on.

“Nah, no worries. I mean, I laughed at you once you got spray paint all over, which wasn’t cool of me, but it seemed totally different to how I pictured, you, well, er, The Actor. I know I definitely learned a lesson from all this.”

“Wait,” he said, facing Wren. “When did you figure out it was me? Because I thought I slipped up like a dozen times.”