30. Poppy Wells

30

Poppy Wells

“ I f it isn’t Jasper’s little Wellsy!” Jakson announced as I peered sheepishly around the door.

I didn’t know what possessed me to come here today, on my birthday of all days, but I knew if I spent it inside that house, I’d end up going mad or worse . I didn’t want to be around Jasper, either. Things between us were fine. Good , even, but I—I didn’t know how much of it was real and how much of it was fake. I felt like he knew more about me than I did about him. Hell , I didn’t even know if he’d told Lia and Jakson that we were only pretending to be in love with each other or not.

“Well, don’t just stand there, come in!” he chirped. “I know, I know I’m irresistible. It’s a Calloway thing.” He threw a signature Jakson Calloway wink in my direction as I hesitantly stepped towards the hospital bed. My shoulders eased with every step, the tension dissipating from my body .

Maybe that was what everyone meant by the Jakson Calloway effect ; the fact that his infectious, golden smiles had the power to instantly put you at ease. That was just who he was. It was a part of him, just like how this ugly, looming darkness was a part of me too.

“Me and you, Pops. We’re friends, aren’t we?” he asked me, tone encouraging.

“Sure,” I shrugged, a loopy smile hanging on my lips which was only there because of him.

Stupid Jakson Calloway and his stupid sunshineness.

“Well, even if you said no, you’re still my friend Poppy. You’re one of the three best people I know.”

“Who’s first?” I asked, cautiously.

Jakson glanced at me then, face completely devoid of his usual devilish humor as he said, “My wife.”

My lips loosened just as my eyes widened to the size of golf balls.

“You should’ve seen the look on your face, I’m dead! Actually dead, Pops! Call the nurses my poor, little heart can’t take this torment,” Jakson snickered, the sound full of happiness like a little kid at Christmas. “Oh, you are too easy to tease, little Pops.”

I rolled my eyes, huffing as I wrapped my arms around my waist. “I’ll leave in a minute and then you can laugh yourself to death alone,” I countered, just as serious even though it was taking everything inside me not to laugh.

“Nooooo,” Jakson whined whilst looking down at me with these big puppy dog eyes and the cutest little pout of his lips. So that was where Lia’s siblings got it from, I thought. “You can’t leave, little Pops. You’ll break my heart, and Jasper’s too. You know you’re his everything, right? That boy would die for you. No questions asked.”

My heart cleaved in two at his words, aching to the beat of them. No matter how many times I tried to convince myself it was the medication talking, there was this tiny hint of truth to his words that I couldn’t get out of my head.

“You’re a good friend to him,” I whispered after a moment. “To Jasper, and to Lia. More than they give you credit for.”

Jakson’s pouty smile disappeared, replaced by a hollow, empty look. Gone was everything that made him so him. It was like looking at a ghost weighed down by the weight of its scars. Wires and IVs lined his arms, coated in cotton white bandages that were a muddied red around the edges. The disinfectant clean scent of the hospital ward crept into the room. Small beeps of the ECG shattering the second of silence.

In a fraction of a second, as swift as a click of a finger, that golden grin reappeared on his lips like it had never left in the first place. I’d put money on the fact that I had just become one of the very few people in the entire world who had witnessed the small slip in his mask, the breakage of the facade he had kept alive for so long now.

“They’re like family to me, little Pops. I’d do anything for them.”

“But that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice yourself in the process,” I whispered, barely. The weight of my words slowly dawned on me, the reality of what I just said sinking into my very bones.

“I could say the same thing to you,” he winked but there was no humor, no light behind his eyes.

“Yeah…I guess you could.” I sighed. “I know it’s not my place but I’m…worried about you, Jakson.”

His smile didn’t falter. “I’ll be okay, Pops. You know I will. All these wires and machines will be gone by next week.”

“That’s not what I was talking about.”

Now that did make him pause.

“I’ll be okay,” he repeated, but this time, it seemed like he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince me.

“That’s the thing though, Jakson. You don’t always have to be.”

“Your wrong. I do. I have to be because, if I’m not, then who else will be? You’ve been around long enough to see our group, Pops. It doesn’t take a genius to see all the sadness surrounding us all. One of us has to be the light the others can follow,” he whispered, almost hazily like he was in some sort of trance. “and that just happens to be me.”

“Well, I’m here,” I replied, “for when you don’t want to be just okay anymore.” I smiled softly, a small grin playing on my lips. “Even Jedi’s need breaks from saving the galaxy from time to time. ”

I knew, deep down, it wasn’t the world as I knew it that he was trying to save.

It was his world, his Blue.

Jakson chuckled, color returning to his cheeks, light reigniting in his eyes. “You’re one hell of a woman, Poppy Wells. Jasper’s a lucky guy.”

“I think I’m the lucky one here,” I laughed, fingers itching to peel off the scabs trickling down the back of my neck.

“You owe yourself more credit, Pops. There’s a strong, confident genius somewhere inside that head of yours just waiting to escape.”

I hummed. “That’s rather a poetic way to put it.”

Jakson winked at me. “I guess Lia’s books have taught me a thing or two. Especially those little red tabs.”

Little red tabs? What?

Jakson laughed at the puzzled expression on my face, waving it off as his smile faded along with the sound of his happiness. “So, little Pops,” he mused, clicking his tongue. “What’s your deep dark secret, hmm? What made you as broken as me?”

“You’re not broken, Jakson,” I whispered, quietly. Truth was, he could very well be as broken as me. Maybe we were as broken as each other, but I wouldn’t know.

I didn’t know him well enough to know.

“Ahh,” he nodded, biting down on his bottom lip. “It’s okay, Poppy. You don’t have to tell me anything. Even if you did, I promise I wouldn’t tell anyone. Jedi’s honor.”

I smiled, picking at my nail beds frantically. “Isn’t it Scout’s honor?”

“Meh. That’s boring. Star Wars is much cooler than scouts. Who wouldn’t want to be a Jedi? That’s just plain stupidity.”

“I wouldn’t know, I haven’t watched many Star Wars movies. I’m more of a Marvel girl myself.”

He mocked a gasp, those widened green eyes looking at me in surprise. “WHAT? How is this even possible, Pops? I’m wounded, I really am. I better knock some sense into that boyfriend of yours. I mean, seriously, how could he let this happen? This is a serious betrayal of our friendship.”

I nodded, biting down on my lips. I should’ve corrected him. I should’ve told him that Jasper and I weren’t each other’s anything, yet alone romantic partners, but instead, I kept my lips shut. I swallowed down the words, keeping them locked up inside my deep, dark soul. Just like all the other words I keep.

His small smile faded with the growing silence between us. I wasn’t one who hated the silence, and I never really had this need to fill it, but for some reason I found myself wanting to. “I guess…I guess I grew up in the dark, Skywalker.”

I tried to laugh but the sound came out more of a strangled sob.

God, I really was pathetic.

I didn’t want to spill my entire life to him. I couldn’t do that to him. He was lying in a fucking hospital bed for god sake—

Despite how many whispers I’d heard about the boy who breathed sunlight, and truly had a Jedi’s courage when it came to standing up for those who couldn’t, I couldn’t help but notice the small white bandages wrapped across his wrists.

Maybe I was overthinking this.

Maybe he was just cut up by the rocks.

But what if he wasn’t?

What if Hawthorne Hills sunshine protector was really just reflecting everyone else’s light because he was losing all of his own?

Get a grip Poppy.

He isn’t you.

Stop pushing your own problems onto everyone else.

Maybe if you ask him,

maybe he’ll tell you just how deep he cuts.

Then you could go deeper.

Because it will never ever be enough.

What was the point of it all,

if you still aren’t sick enough.

Jakson gazed out of the window, lost inside his own mind—a feeling I knew all too well. After a moment, he replied so quietly I thought I’d imagined it at first. “I grew up in the dark too, Romanoff.”

Romanoff.

How did he know that Natasha was my favorite character?

I closed my lips.

Swallowed too loudly.

Stuffed my trembling fingers into my pockets and willed them to just stop for once .

Jakson Calloway just offered a piece of his raw, truest self to me and I couldn’t breathe.

“What is it for you?” He asked me.

I dug my nails into the palms of my hands.

Pain. Pain. Pain.

All I ever felt was pain .

He exhaled a broken laugh. “It’s lonely, isn’t it? Always too quiet…until it isn’t.”

He sees right through me.

They see right through me.

I see right through me.

“But most of all, Poppy, it’s the pretending. I’m happy , right? I’m so happy all the time. My life is great, right? I get to party, get to do whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want to do it. It’s who I am. It’s all they know me as. Hell , it’s all I know me as.”

He inhaled a shaky breath and went silent.

I bit the inside of my cheek, about to speak when he cleared his throat and wiped the back of his palm across his dampened cheeks. “I’m sure little Blue and Cap will be back soon.”

I nodded slowly, accepting his change of topic.

Accepting the dismissal.

“Little Blue?” I questioned.

“Sorry, I meant Lia.”

Interesting.

“I’m guessing Cap is Jasper?”

He nodded, grinning goofily at me. “Damn straight, little Pops. You’re one and only.” He added a wink with that last part that had my cheeks heating no matter how hard I tried to fight it. Stop betraying me, body.

“Has he always been so…”

“Jasper?” He finished for me. I nodded, looking away. I didn’t know why I said that. I mean, I knew him. Of course I did, we’d been at each other’s throat since we were old enough to hold a surfboard. But Jakson knew him—the version of him I didn’t get to know.

I just…I guess I just wanted to know about that side of him.

The part of him he kept locked away.

Jakson sighed. “He’s…He’s Cap. I don’t really know what to say, Pops. He’s always been the type of person to take some sort of responsibility for everyone else’s problems. That’s just who he is as a person; he feels too much. It’s been that way since the three of us were little. He always took some sort of brotherly responsibility for Lia and her siblings, and I know they have an unbreakable bond that was formed long before I came along. The only thing is, little Pops, is that he always looked so exhausted . Like the weight of trying to be perfect for everyone else was breaking him little by little each day.” He glanced at me then, glassy eyes softening. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you how grateful I am that you gave him that release from all of the outside world; a small space in the in-between where he didn’t have to be perfect for anyone. He—he started looking happy, Poppy. You did that.”

“I thought he hated me all those years,” I gulped, my voice hoarse as the words burned their way through my throat.

“I saw the way he looked at you, you know? Like you hung the stars across his darkness. I always thought I knew when my best friend was happy, but Poppy, with you…I’ve never seen him smile like that before and it was all because of you . All those years…he didn’t just want to be better than you, Poppy. He wanted to be with you. He may have not known everything that was going on in your life back then, but he knew enough to sick by your side at every heat. Even if you tormented the hell out of each other, he knew you needed it. He let you have that part of him because he only ever wanted to see you smile. It’s so rare these days.”

I gulped down the knot of words forming in my throat. “So should you,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” he grinned, biting down on his lip to hide a wince…but I saw it. I was a master at covering up my emotions at home. I knew. I knew it all too well . “I’m always smiling.”

“None of them are real, though, Jakson.”

His smile disappeared as my words sank in. I could see his mind working trying to process what I’d said. It was like I just told him the government was corrupt and controlling our every move with the way he looked like he couldn’t understand why I’d said what I did.

After a moment, he whispered so quietly I thought I’d imagined it. “As long as it keeps the ones I love smiling, I’ll fake as many as I have to make sure they never have to feel the way I do.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Wait. No that came out wrong. I cleared my throat as he stifled a grin. “What I mean is…Well, we aren’t close, like at all, so I don’t really understand why you’re trusting me with this…”

He smiled lazily. “I don’t know,” he shrugged sullenly, “I know that you feel like a piece of you is dead inside…I just felt like you could use with knowing that you aren’t alone. I see you, too, Poppy Wells, and I think all your imperfections are nothing but beautiful.”

I was damn near sobbing my eyes out over a boy who almost died, twice , and had only met a few times. No wonder everybody was drawn to him. If his golden charm didn’t draw you into his orbit, then his words certainly did.

“Did you just quote Harry Styles to me, Jakson Calloway?” I laughed through my sobs. What a mess of tears I’d become. “I think you might just be my new favorite person.”

His face lit up like a puppy that had been told it was a good boy. “What do you think, Pops? Should we ditch these losers and run away to some far away country where no one even knows our names and our pasts are as memorable as the old, rusted road signs we’ll cross on our way?”

I always forgot that Jakson wasn’t just a simple small-town boy like the rest of us were. His family were some big shot city folks who owned Calloway Empires which was a huge, generational, old money type of brand or something. I didn’t know much about his family or him at all really, apart from the fact that he followed Lia around with these big, golden retriever puppy eyes and did everything he could to make his best friends laugh.

Perhaps there was more to him than the jokes he told so effortlessly.

“I’m sure Jasper and Lia wouldn’t be very happy with us.”

He groaned, throwing his head back against the pillows. “Ugh, you just ruined our little fantasy. I’m heartbroken, Pops. I accept payment for this emotional distress via knock-knock jokes or shoulder massages.”

I couldn’t stop myself from giggling like a damned little girl.

Jakson Calloway you are made of sunlight, and I love it .

“Why not something simple like cookies?” I asked.

“I only eat Lia’s baked goods.”

“What?”

“I only eat Lia’s baked goods,” he repeated casually.

“Well then I’m afraid I’m in debt to you, Sunshine Boy, because I don’t know any jokes.”

He gasped dramatically. “What! This is simply absurd, we must change this right now.”

And that was what we had been doing for the last fifteen minutes—me making an absolute fool of myself, laughing like I was genuinely on drugs, whilst Jakson educated me on the art of telling knock-knock jokes.

He truly was one of the funniest guys I’d ever known.

Nurses flooded into his room, occasionally checking his vitals and whatever else they did before letting me know that visiting hours were coming to a close for the day.

This wasn’t how I had planned to spend my birthday, but Jakson Calloway had somehow managed to turn one of the most miserable days of my year into something much more special.

He may not have given me a physical present, but I had gotten something much more valuable: friendship .

As I turned to leave, I turned around and walked back to the side of Jakson’s bed. Without thinking, I threw my hands around him and hugged him. His body tensed underneath mine before relaxing into my embrace.

I pulled back just enough to whisper in his ear, “If you ever get tired of pretending, tired of protecting everyone else, I will always be here for you Jakson Calloway. You don’t have to pretend with me. After all, we’re Hawthorne Hills fucked up partners in crime, right?”

Leaning back, I offered him a small smile and ruffled his hair. Just as I pulled away, he grasped my hand and squeezed it once gently.

Thank you.

I read the words in his eyes, the ones he did not need to speak aloud.

Always, I squeezed back.