Chapter 46

Poppy

They say bad things come in threes.

I don ' t know who said that, but they're wrong.

Why am I surprised? People often are.

My bad things have come in dozens, and another one happened this morning. Some local kids vandalized the gravesite, and unfortunately, my parent and brothers' graves were affected.

The silver lining, yeah, there is one. Henry and I are going to visit the graves together.

We never have.

It ' s long overdue, like a Blockbuster VHS tape. So long that half the people alive today won ' t even know that reference.

Julian and Harper are meeting with Theo, who has a team that is hunting down Andrew. He ' s still MIA. They think Andrew offed himself somewhere, and it ' s only a matter of time before the authorities find his body. That or he ' s trying to exit the country somehow.

I think Andrew ' s too cunning and vain. He ' s a master painter, and whatever image he ' s trying to show to the public will work in his favor. It always does.

The media storm over Oliver Sinclair ' s murder is monotonous. As it should be, I guess.

Oliver got what was coming. He abused his son, and eventually that caught up with him.

I ' m not excusing what Andrew did.

Never.

It ' s just a pattern that often repeats in abuse. One day, someone snaps, whether it be the victim or the abuser. That day, Andrew snapped.

Could I? Would I ever be made so small that I snapped and killed Andrew?

I grip the bouquet of poppy flowers in my hand, the crinkly wrapping paper making a sound that fills the silence in the car. Henry and I haven't spoken much. It still feels surreal that he's here, and I'm sure it's the same for him.

The poppy flowers we got are white with a saturated dark center—just black and white, so unlike the events in my life. There's a question I've been dying to ask Henry, and I know when I do, it's going to throw a lot of color into the mix. Nothing is just black and white anymore; there are so many layers.

I clear my throat, channeling my best friend Harper, who would be brave enough to ask, "Where were you the day of Peter ' s funeral?" I ask. My voice sounds choked, but inside, I feel like a can of soda that ' s been shaken—so eager to explode and hear what he has to say.

The car veers slightly. My question jarred him.

I forgave Henry for ignoring me. Part of forgiving means filling in wounds with some type of healing answers.

His fingers grab the steering wheel with a white knuckle force. " I should have been there."

I nod. " Yeah, you should have. Your absence didn't just punish me, but it also made Peter suffer too. He would've wanted you there." I admit, " I'm not trying to be cruel; I just have to be honest."

" I know."

" Andrew showed up after the service," I confess. " He threatened you. He told me if I went to anyone, he would go after you and that you would be buried right next to Peter." I fear that if I look in a mirror, my complexion will be ghostly. I should have bronzed to cover up my sickness. Emotions."I was so scared; I didn't know where you were," I glance at Henry and watch his chin drip, " but I know how stubborn you are, and I knew if you ran, you must've run far. I prayed Andrew would never find you. It kept me awake for so many nights."

I can only see the profile of his face, but I can tell it's painted with very dark emotions. " I ' m sorry."

" I didn ' t tell you so you ' d feel guilty," I mutter.

Henry raises his chin and looks ahead with great focus. " I got on a bus and kept going." Henry begins.

I sink into my seat, but I reach up and grasp my seatbelt, bracing myself for the blanks he ' s about to fill in.

" Later that day, I ended up in a bar near a shipping port. It smelt terrible." He inhales as if personally haunting himself with the memory. " Like guts and fish. Death. It made me feel closer to Peter. Made me feel like I was dead too." Henry admits.

Oh, Henry.

I roll my lips, wanting to cry.

" I wanted to get shit-faced; I wanted to die. Peter was my twin, but he stopped being that when Mom and Dad died. He became my parent then. In a way, we both lost a parent again. I knew I could never fill his shoes." He licks his lips but keeps his eyes on the road. " I tried to get drunk, but the bartender stopped me, which provoked me to punch him. I got my ass beat and was tossed outside into a puddle of fish juice." He snorts sardonically, " I just laid in it, in the filth and stench. Then, like some dark angel, a shadow fell over me. A man watching everything, lurking in the shadows, he didn ' t intervene when they beat me; he only stepped in when I wanted to give up."

" Who was he?"

" A friend I had yet to meet."

A pang of jealousy fills me.

" He taught me how to read the world when everything in it was painted red," Henry mutters quickly. " He didn ' t agree with what I was doing to you, but he understood why I kept you away. You are who you surround yourself with, Poppy. I ' m not darkness. I ' m a void."

His words shock me, but they are true. After losing so much, your palette changes. You ' re less saturated and less colorful. Muted. Like a fall or winter scheme.

" But," Henry glances at me, " You still have light. Hope. You still try to see the good in people. I didn ' t want to be the bucket of acid that was poured into your spirits. That slowly eroded you until you dissolved."

" Henry,"

He shakes his head, " It ' s the truth. I ' m scared, Pops."

My nickname. A tear falls, landing on my lips. I lick it off, swallow it, and hope I can remember the sound of my nickname on his lips.

" I don ' t want to corrupt you."

" What if I ' m the one that corrupts you? What if I make you believe you can be good again? Be a brother again." I challenge him.

" I never considered that."

" I ' m not shocked. You never were the smartest." I try and joke.

It works, he smiles.

" Harper," He shakes his head, " As annoying as fuck as she is," he shrugs, " She was the best medicine for you. She healed you after Mom and Dad and after Peter. She kept the light in you alive."

I nod and snort, " She ' s only gotten worse with age."

" I ' ll never be able to thank her."

" Oh, you will; trust me, she ' ll find ways. Don ' t say I didn ' t warn you."

He turns the car, passing iron gates with metal flowers wrapped around the stakes. I know a gravesite should be scary, but this place—well, it ' s pretty, if death could be beautiful. It ' s like a nice frame around a picture. Manicured lawns, green grass, and rose bushes wrap around the drive-in. Butterflies fly around the flowers. I feel sad for them and the flowers to be surrounded by death 24/7.

Henry turns the car into the gravel parking lot, which changes the feeling I just had. It is no longer a smooth road but now course and bumpy, as if it ' s preparing you to visit the dead.

We park, and both pause before we get out. It feels like we ' re about to do something monumental, like we ' re going to walk on the moon, our steps uncharted. We ' ve never been here together to pay our respects. It feels like we each need a space suit with a life supply in it.

Are his lungs as tight as mine are?

Probably not. Henry does more cardio than I do. Well, he always did in the past.

I press my lips together and wait for him to move. Go on, Henry, move. Open the door.

He might be my older brother, but sometimes someone older and more hardened needs a helping hand.

Slowly, I unbuckle; the click makes the hairs on my arms rise. I touch the door handle and glance at my brother. Our eyes meet, he nods, and then we do what we should have done long ago.

***

Blood-red spray paint is streaked on rows of graves. The site manager said it happens from time to time. Kids dare each other to do it, thinking it will provoke ghosts.

Ignoring the paint, Henry and I walk to our family ' s places. There ' s a maintenance man trying hard to scrub off the paint from Peter ' s gravestone. When Henry told the manager we were coming today, he said they ' d work on our families' headstones first.

The maintenance man is hunched over, wearing a grey shirt and a huge sunhat, the kind you see men wearing when they're on an island. His bright yellow gloves reach his elbows and move with vigor and force as he tries to get rid of the paint. A bright blue bucket is by his side, and a stiff-looking brush makes a slight scraping sound as he scrubs the polished stone.

Henry and I were advised to stay a few feet back, but even from this distance, we could smell the fumes from the paint remover. At least the man cleaning the paint is wearing a proper mask to protect himself.

I grasp the flowers in my hand, not ready to set them down. That would make this real.

I try to take in the details of today as I make a new memory; it ' s both happy and sad. Henry ' s with me; we ' re here together. There ' s a bird chirping and a slight breeze in the air. I imagine my parents sent that bird to sing so we ' d feel them.

" What do you think Mom, Dad, and Peter would think of us now?" I blurt out.

I can ' t stand the silence. It feels like a rash spreading.

I wait for Henry to reply as I watch the maintenance man keep trying to scrub off the paint. I ' m tempted to tell him to leave it. We can just buy another headstone. Peter would hate to watch someone labor over this.

" I think they would each think something different," Henry replies heavily. "Mom would be heartbroken for our relationship." His hazel eyes look at her grave. There ' s only a little splash of red paint on it. " She ' d be furious with me."

I swallow. " She ' d be happy now." I look at the stone meant to represent my mother. The only thing similar to her is that serif font. It ' s elegant and classic, like Mom. Her hair was never out of place, and her makeup was simple yet flawless. She was so pretty. I always wanted to be like her when I grew up.

Henry nods, but it doesn ' t reach his eyes. " I think Dad would disown me, and I think Peter would bury me alive in his grave." He replies quickly as if his words are fire, burning the tastebuds off his tongue.

Nothing tastes the same after death.

Oh boy. That was painful to hear.

I asked for it. I needed to hear it to help me heal.

" How do you think they would react to how we acted?" Henry questions.

" I think, like you, mom would cry, then she ' d lecture us how our terrible decision has caused her early onset wrinkles." I try to smile. " I think that dad would, well, I think he would cry too because no parent wants to see their kids fighting. Dad would have forced us into a room until we talked again."

" What about Peter?" He whispers. I hear the sorrow in his tone when he says his twin ' s name.

Glancing down, I looked into the black heart of the poppy flowers. My heart felt like that—dead and dark. It doesn ' t now. It ' s beating, which at times feels more painful than when I felt numb.

" I think Peter wouldn ' t judge us. He'd only care about healing us. He ' d do what he did after Mom and Dad died. He ' d be a Band-Aid. We lost our Band-Aid, and we bled out for a long time."

" I wish I was like Peter," Henry mutters.

" I don ' t. I loved you each for different reasons."

" Since you used the past tense, I ' m gonna take it that you don ' t love me anymore," Henry utters sadly. " I can ' t blame you. I haven ' t loved myself for a long time either." He discloses.

His confession makes me feel like we're both on the operating table, trying to be healed. Our hearts are cut open, laid bare, exposed to the cold, sterile air—the truths. It's invasive, necessary, and overwhelmingly raw.

" Henry, I never stopped loving you."

" You ' re right. You loved me too much. You stayed fighting for so long."

"That ' s what Peter would have done. He ' d keep fighting." The wind whips around us, carrying the abrasive sound of the maintenance man scrubbing at the paint vandalized onto our parents ' and brother ' s gravestones.

" I know we are going to have conversations that make us angry and others that make us cry," I say, catching Henry's eye. "I ' ll keep fighting if you let me."

Each scrub the man makes against the stone echoes through the air, relentless and necessary. It's invasive, the way our wounds are exposed to the harshness of the world. But there's healing here, too, in the meticulous clearing away of each unwanted mark.

"Some wounds that have been left to fester have to be exposed in order to treat them and heal them properly. Maybe that ' s what we ' re doing here today—cutting open the hurt to clean it out, once and for all," I tell Henry as I reach out and grasp his hand. His skin is callused. I wonder what hardened his hand so much?

" When did you get so smart?" His lip tugs up, and a lightness begins to shine in his eyes.

" Around the age of nine months old. Genius struck early." I joke.

I lean into him, suddenly feeling like a small girl again, except this time, the carousel of life has spun me right into a puddle of hopeful tears. Who knew cemeteries could double as therapy sessions?

" We should come back when it ' s cleaned," Henry suggests, the atmosphere around us lighter.

" I ' d like that." I step forward, clutching the flowers like a piece of my past I'm about to release. I ' ll just put these down, and we can head out."

Henry nods, a gesture loaded with the weight of unsaid words. His eyes don ' t leave the font spelling out Peter ' s name. Letters etched in stone now represent his twin.

Approaching the maintenance man, I clear my throat. " Excuse me," I say, my voice surprisingly steady. " Sorry to bother you." I gesture towards the grave, but the man doesn't look my way. " I'm going to leave these flowers here." I gesture to the side where they won't bother his cleaning. I can ' t help but notice the mask digging into his skin, those thick black protective glasses making him look like he ' s about to weld the tombstone back to dignity. " Thanks for trying to fix this, and I'm sorry again that you have to clean this."

I kneel down and gently place the flowers on the ground. My fingers hesitate before I release them.

There. The past is finally finishing, and soon, I can truly start a new life with Julian and now with my brother. A smile traces my lips.

The maintenance man ceases his scrubbing abruptly, his movements sharp and deliberate. He grabs his bucket, tosses the brush inside with a clang that pierces the somber silence, then starts rummaging through it with rough, hurried gestures. Suddenly, he pauses and looks up through the shadows cast by his protective glasses; his voice cuts through the chilly air, gruff and hauntingly familiar, " Oh, Poppy, always apologizing for everyone else."

A sharp and sudden shiver slices down my spine, its graveled tone clawing at the raw edges of my nerves. It is unmistakable and hauntingly familiar.

My devil.

My demon.

My monster.

My heart stutters, dread pooling heavily in my stomach over the man who just spoke those words.