25. Poppy Wells

25

Poppy Wells

“ S HUT UP!” I yelled, covering my ears, blinking back tears.

I was a complicated problem that no one cared enough to solve.

The scrubbing brush fell.

It splashed as it hit the water.

I felt the droplets coat my skin.

I wanted to wash them off.

I wanted to wash my skin off.

I wanted to tape her mouth shut, I wanted to scream, I wanted to do something other than rot away in this house.

I hated myself inside this body, I hated myself and I wished it would all just stop.

My cheeks burned. I hadn’t even realized she’d slapped me.

“I lost my son because of you,” she cried. I could smell the alcohol on her breath. It danced a mockery over my skin. “He punished me nonstop because you lived. You worthless child, all you do is cause pain!”

“Is that why?” I shouted back. I wanted her to hear me. I wanted her to see me over the empty pill bottles and spilled wine staining the carpets a deep crimson. “You hate me because I’m the only child left who isn’t in a grave?”

She didn’t slap me again, but I still felt her phantom touch on my skin.

Picture frames shattered. Lips screamed. Doors slammed.

“Mom, please ,” I begged, watching as she broke, and broke, and broke . She screamed and mumbled, and I didn’t know what to do. I froze. I watched as she destroyed everything.

It would be down to me to fix it. To put everything back together again.

If only I could’ve pieced our family back together.

If only I could’ve stopped him that night.

I knew… I knew it wasn’t my fault but I’d heard the words so much that I started to believe them.

I trailed after her as she moved around the room, picking up shards of glass, smashed glasses, empty bottles. My fingers were bleeding but I couldn’t really feel the pain. She tore up the notebooks I had left sprawled out across the sofa last night when I fell asleep.

That was my fault—I never should’ve left them there.

I picked up the old photo frames and went to place them in the trash when she stole them from my hands, cheeks glistening just like the crimson crime scene scarring my hands.

“You ruined them!” She cried, reddened eyes piercing into my own.

Her words were her weapon, and I scarred each time she opened her mouth.

“How could you?” Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes as the stinging sensation fluttered across my skin like a butterfly. “He was my son!”

AND I WAS YOUR DAUGHTER.

I kept my lips shut. I swallowed the words. And I breathed .

“All you do is ruin, Poppy.”

You did that, mom. You did that all by yourself.

Not me. It was never me .

She suddenly paused, swinging her head in my direction. Those ghost-like bloodshot eyes found mine and locked onto them. “Where’s your surfboard, Poppy? You didn’t have it when you came back in.”

I was surprised you even remembered that, mom.

“I—” My fingers crept up to the back of my neck and pinched the skin there and until little red droplets coated my fingertips. I rubbed the evidence away and didn’t stop.

Rub. Rub. Rub.

Pick. Pick. Pick.

Over and over and over again.

“I l-lost it…” The words fumbled their way out of my mouth, my feet subconsciously taking a step backwards. My cheeks burned as her palm connected with my skin, heat blossoming in the absence of her vicious touch.

Again and again and again.

“Mom—” I choked out, barring my arms in front of my face. “Please, listen to me!”

I begged her.

Pleaded with her.

But she couldn’t hear me.

She didn’t want to hear me .

I wasn’t a pill bottle so why would she notice me?

I caught her arm before she could hit me again and pressed her head so she laid against my chest. Brushing a strand of hair from her face, gently soothing her, I whispered, “You’re okay, mom. You’re okay.”

It took everything in me to keep my rage quiet, and my self-destructive thoughts even quieter. Her sobs racked through her small, malnourished frame, tears slowly sliding down my stomach.

“You’re okay,” I breathed, over and over again until she tiptoed to the edge of exhaustion.

It was around two the next morning when she finally picked herself off the floor and locked herself in her room.

Three when she stopped screaming and sobbing.

Four when everything went quiet again.

My limbs were sluggish, my eyes burned. I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned until it looked like a home again. I washed away any trace of what happened like it never existed in the first place. She’d wake up and forget. She’d go along with her day without wondering why the house was miraculously fixed again.

I wished someone could fix me like that.

Golden sunlight filtered through the worn-out, gray blinds covering the windows. Padding down the hall to my room, I turned on the little lamp but it did very little to light up the room. The bulb was probably on its last legs.

Just like me.

I threw off my hoodie, my favorite worn-in red marvel hoodie, and chucked over the side of bed. It was a small, single bed I think they got from a garage sale many years ago. There was a little, wooden bedside table next to it by the door with a small, dainty lamp on it. I had a moderate sized closet filled with a few hoodies, tops, and an empty hanger for my wetsuit, and there in the corner, was a little black box filled with cash and seashells and Polaroid photos my mom took of us ages ago. They remind me of the happy times—times when we were all together, and although we might not have been happy, we were all alive, and that used to be enough for me.

Sometimes, I just wanted it all back. I wanted my life back. When me and my dad went to comps out of state, I picked out a seashell from each beach. There were a few from beaches in California, Washington state, but most of them were from here in Oregon. I took one each time I surfed down at Hollows Beach. They all looked similar but each one told a different story, and I think that was what I liked most about them—that each one allowed me to escape from this suffocating town. That I had a chance to see more of the world than I would’ve been able to see.

By the time I finished sorting out my room, I’d gotten a total of two hours sleep before I had to wake up for the guys first surfing comp of the new season. I could’ve just skipped it, but it meant a lot to Jasper, and how would it look if his (fake) girlfriend missed his first competition? I didn’t want to embarrass him, he didn’t deserve that after what he did for me yesterday.

Tugging on the same hoodie and shorts from yesterday, a small sigh escaped my lips. I’d do the washing when I got back at around lunch time. Taking out a post-it note from my bedside table, I scribbled down a note to my mom letting her know I’d be back at midday.

She never read them. I didn’t know why I bothered.

I skipped out on breakfast, heading straight to the door after I’d cleaned myself up a bit. I needed to look at least a little bit presentable today. It was a big day for them both, and it would’ve been for me too.

No. Don’t think about that Poppy. Not today.

Beads of sweat ran down the back of my neck as I tugged at my hoodie, trying to cool myself down. It was just about reaching ninety degrees outside today, the mid-afternoon sun blazing down from above me.

You could’ve just worn your bathing suit.

No, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t let them see.

See what?

See me.

I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out the sunlight and the voices. I didn’t want to remember. I didn’t want to remember all that she did to me. All that she said to me last night. Living through it was one thing, being trapped by the memories of it was another. Sit there and tell me to get over this, to stop being a pathetic little girl throwing a temper tantrum just because her mom hated her and her dad left her. Go on. I dare you .

Think, Poppy. Think of something else. Think of the waves crashing against the shore and returning to sea. Think of the ocean, your home. Think of Jasper, your—

Wait , what?

My eyes shot open as I shook my head. Nope . I would not think about him.

Maybe Jasper would go back to hating me. Maybe he’d realize that this whole thing was stupid and that I wasn’t worth even fake loving.

I knew that, my mom knew that, everyone knew that—so why didn’t he ?

I’d never been deserving of love, and any slither of an inch I might’ve had was ripped from me when he died. All parts of me shattered. I was half the girl he used to know. At least he wasn’t here to witness the disappointment I’d become, the wreckage that his family had turned into.

Maybe… maybe if I had been a better older sister. If I had looked out for him more. I was so focused on keeping myself from slipping below first place that I hadn’t realized he had fallen under the waves. Drowned . Dead .

I craved to have our father’s attention on me—for once, I wanted to be the most important thing in the universe. I wanted to feel like a normal little girl. I wanted to feel something other than emptiness. I thought, you know, if I won all those competitions, he had to be proud of me—that he’d want to show his little girl off to his friends, bursting with joy over how talented she was.

I wanted him to see that he didn’t need a son because I could be more than enough for him. All I wanted, more than anything in the world, was to be enough for him, and I never, ever , was.

And my mom ? I knew from a young age that I would never be worthy enough in her eyes. I was a disappointment from the moment I first opened my eyes and she saw an emerald, green pair looking back at her.

The eyes of her husband, the eyes of an abuser .

I never had a chance against her. How could I? His blood ran through me, and when she looked at me, all she could see was him .

If I just had blond hair like Oliver, if I just had fair honey-brown eyes like her, maybe, just maybe, she could’ve found a single inch of her heart spare enough to give to me.

“You see this, Poppy?” she grabbed my hands, and pressed them against the purple-blue bruise painted across the side of her cheek. “This is your future. Forget the shiny trophies, forget the gold medals and rosy, red ribbons—this is how you will end up. Just like him. You have always been just like him.”

“I didn’t do anything, I swear!” I screamed, trying to pull myself free of her grip. Each tug made her grip tighten. I was useless against her.

“Not this time. Not next time. But one day, mark my words Poppy, you will find someone you love and you will ruin it, because that is all you two are capable of doing.”

I could recite those words by heart—letter for letter, word for word.

I was so scared of becoming like him that I refused to let anyone love me in fear that I would ruin it all. I saw how she was, and I never wanted to do that to someone else.

She knew I was a monster before I even had any claws, but the only true monster of the two of us was the one who told her six-year-old daughter she wished she was never born—that her entire existence was a waste of space, of air, of hope, of dreams stolen from other kids who deserved them more .

That she was a life not worth saving.

I was a life not worth saving.