Chapter 56

Poppy

We spent Black Friday with our heads in the toilet bowl.

Literally.

We all got food poisoning. Harper swears that it ' s not from her pie. She thinks it ' s from the stuffing that the caterer made. She said, ‘ One should never trust that nasty green crunch. ' She was referring to celery.

Henry thinks it ' s from the ‘ soup ' or rather melted whipped cream Harper and Kent made. She gave us no option when she poured the liquefied bowl over the pie.

The pie? Well, it wasn ' t terrible. It was tasteless, not sweet, nor sour, not like a vegetable, just bland. That ' s better than too salty, right?

Regardless, my bets are on the food Harper made. I ' ll never tell her that. I don ' t think I ' ll have to. This scared her enough not to try to bake for a while. A day of puking will do that to you.

***

" Julian," I call out, too scared to sit up or move from the bed. I ' m covered in sweat. Drenched, like I had just gone down a terrible slide at a waterpark.

" What!" he jerks from sleeping on the cot. Since he refused to leave my side, the hospital finally brought in a cot so he wouldn ' t have to be a sardine and sleep on the small couch.

He rushes from the bed and stumbles towards me. " What ' s wrong, Pumpkin." He grabs my hands and digs them out from the covers.

I can ' t move. Stiff as a board.

" Pumpkin," His eyes scan me. The straight deadline is my body.

" I want to move," I plead.

Confusion knits his brows. " Ok, let ' s sit you up. Are you feeling sick again? The food poisoning should have passed." He reaches behind me, sliding his hands under the sheets to help guide me. It takes force, which increases his worry.

" No. It ' s not the food." I whisper. " I wanted to move, but I couldn ' t."

He ' s silent and then sits on the edge of my bed. " You called me for," his worry softens. "I ' ll always come when you call. I love you." He bends down and kisses my forehead. I know it ' s covered in sweat, but he doesn ' t care. No matter how disgusting I am, he doesn ' t seem to see it.

I feel all my emotions curdling up my throat.

" This is why I didn ' t want to talk," I shout suddenly. Happy, but I can ' t see his face entirely in my dark room. " I don ' t want to cry. To feel! But you all keep pushing me to talk. To feel!" Then the flood waters burst, my body shakes, and he holds me as I cry.

" I wanted to move off Andrew's lap, but I was scared he ' d shoot."

" You did the right thing, Pumpkin."

" But I didn ' t fight. Again. I let Andrew violate me again," I sob.

I know he doesn ' t know how to respond to that, so he holds me tighter. " He ' ll never hurt you again."

" He does every night when I close my eyes."

" It ' s going to fade, Poppy. It will. You have to trust me. One day, years from now, you ' ll think about it. You might even cry again. But you know what?" He begins to rub circles on my back. " You ' re going to realize that you went years without thinking about him. Slowly, he ' s going to fade because you ' re going to have a life filled with so many new, loving memories that will outshine every bad one."