Me & The Fertile Band Part Four - Wren

The bubbly one sends me an address and a time and a string of emojis I don't understand until I look up the location.

It's a trampoline park. It's closed. She has a key.

She answers the door in pink — because Wren is always in pink — and she tells me to take off my shoes and then she makes me jump. We jump. We fly. We land in foam pits and laugh like two people who have temporarily forgotten why they're actually here.

Then she reminds me.

I have spent two years underestimating Wren Okafor. I have watched her play drums like she's trying to commit a felony against her kit. I have seen her smile at strangers with a warmth that makes cynicism feel criminal. I have never, not once, guessed what she is actually capable of.

She shows me. And then she tells me something I wasn't expecting — something that started long before this competition, back in a parking lot in Bakersfield, on my second day.

She's been paying attention longer than I knew.