32. Poppy Wells

32

Poppy Wells

Many summers ago

S tupid little girl.

Stupid little girl.

Stupid, stupid, stupid little girl.

My fist slammed into the shower wall with a crack. Just as a scream tore its way up my throat, pain exploded across my hand until I felt the ripple effects across my entire body.

“ Fuck !” I moaned, ignoring the questioning looks from overbearing parents who wasted no time shooing their precious children away from me like I was some sort of infectious disease.

You ruin. You ruin. You ruin.

I exhaled deeply, my lungs so greedy for air that I struggled to keep up with their demand. Leaning my head back against the shower wall, the spray of water trickling down my forehead, I sighed. The now abandoned showers looked as lonely on the outside as I felt on the inside. Rusting metal shower heads. Broken, fractured tiles.

“You know, if you put as much effort into surfing as you did punching the wall, you’d be better than me, Wellsy.”

“Fuck off, Ridge. I am not in the mood for your comments, which, by the way, suck ass ninety percent of the time.”

Jasper grinned, a smile toying at his lips. “And the other ten percent, Wellsy?”

“Are even worse,” I replied, sweetly. “So much so they make me visibly gag .”

“You’re something else, Wells.” He shook his head, still grinning. The mere sight of his smile aggravated me to my core. I wanted nothing more than to rip it from his smug face.

But instead, I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say to that. Maybe he’d take the hint and fuck off, leaving me to wallow in my self-pity alone. God knows where my dad ended up. I didn’t even bother collecting my silver medal after the competition.

It was as useless to me as my existence was to my parents.

As soon as my scores came in, my face dropped . My father didn’t waste a second before walking off, his silence, his disappointment, was so deafening I didn’t even hear anything else. I was pretty sure Jasper made some backhanded compliment, but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t even remember how I had gotten here.

All I knew was that if I was here, I wasn’t at home.

If I wasn’t at home, I wouldn’t get beaten.

And that meant less bruises to cover up, which meant less anxiety for me.

So I’d say that made me a genius .

When I opened my eyes, I saw Jasper staring at me, a puzzled expression on his face as he leaned against the shower wall opposite me.

“What?” I snapped.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Except the look in his eyes said a whole lot more than just nothing .

I suppressed a shiver, hiding behind one of my many walls of steel. “Well, it’s obviously something so spit it out, Ridge .”

“Do you maybe want to go and get a smoothie or something from Sunny’s hut? ”

My brows shot up to the fucking sky. “Are you on drugs?”

“What? No—”

“Are you sure?”

“I—”

“Positive?”

“ Wellsy .” He groaned, shaking his head. In a few strides, Jasper reached me. His brows were drawn, almost in anguish. “I just—” He exhaled. “I have this feeling deep down inside of me that is screaming at me to stop you from going home just yet. I don’t know why or what it is, but it feels important . And I—” His eyes locked onto mine. “I ignored this feeling with Lia once before and I refuse to do it again. So please , Wellsy. Just humor me this once.”

I couldn’t breathe.

He knows. He knows. He knows.

“You know, if you just wanted to hang out with me, asshole, you could’ve just said so.” I retorted, deflecting as much as I could.

I needed to get out of here before he found out.

The secret I’d been keeping all my life.

My sad, pathetic life.

“Ha fucking Ha , Wellsy.” His hand rested against the wall beside my head as his other gently brushed my cheek. I repressed the urge to flinch. “Come on, what do you have to lose?”

My breath caught in my throat.

I had everything to lose.

If anyone found out what happened inside my house…

My parents loved me. They did. I knew they did.

They just…had their own way of showing it. That was all.

“I should go…” I whispered, slipping out from under his grip. My heart was pounding in my ears as I gulped down air as fast as I could breathe it in.

“Wait,” Jasper rasped, gripping my wrist and pulling me flush up against him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

I gritted my teeth, pushing myself away from him. “Let me go.”

“Answer the question, Wells.” He ground out, tugging me back, even closer than before. My wetsuit clashed with his bare chest. Of-fucking-course it did.

I edged my chin up, not backing down. “I won’t ask you again, Ridge.”

His fingers gripped my jaw, eyes locking onto mine. “ Poppy .”

“ Jasper .”

For a second, we just looked at each other.

Eye to eye.

Heart to heart.

Jasper sighed, stepping backwards and releasing my chin from his grasp. Every inch of warmth left my body as he did. “You’re a tough kid, you know that?”

“You’re one year older than me. And don’t call me kid, asshole.”

He chuckled that time, clearly tired of hiding his amusement.

“Stop that ,” I gritted out, waving my hand in his face to dismiss him. “It’s unnatural.”

Jasper stepped closer, despite my best efforts at being a bitch to him in hopes that he’d get the hint and leave . “You might be tough, Poppy Wells. Rough, determined, and quite frankly a bit of a bitch sometimes, but no matter how many people you might’ve fooled with that act, you will never fool me.”

And in one swoop, before I could even process his words, Jasper Ridge had scooped me up in his arms and thrown me over his shoulder. Ass in the air and everything. Like a perfectly sane human being, I started smacking and hitting his back as hard as I could so that he would put me back down again, but the asshole just grinned like he found my fruitful attempts amusing .

I was going to kill him.

“Jasper Ridge, so help me god, put me down!”

“Tell me the truth and maybe I’ll consider it.”

I groaned, letting my head fall into the crook of his shoulder. “The truth to what?”

“About how you’re really feeling right now.”

I laughed, the sound anything but humorous. “Annoyed, angry, and just a little bit, I don’t know, pissed off?”

He didn’t laugh. I didn’t know why I expected him to.

In fact, the only indication that he’d heard my remark came from the fact that his grip had tightened near suffocating.

“Fine!” I sighed, shaking my head. “Fucking fine .”

Jasper stopped walking, and soon after I found both my feet planted back on the floor.

“I’m not okay. Is that what you want to hear, asshole? ”

His brows pinched. “Why would that be what I want to hear, Wellsy?”

I scoffed. “Um, I don’t know because you hate me, maybe?”

“I don’t hate you,” he gritted out.

“ Wow . And the award for best actor goes to,” I handed him an imaginary trophy, but he didn’t play along. Instead, he stood there looking at me like I’d slapped him across the face.

“Why is that so hard for you to accept? Is it so hard for you to understand that some people might actually like you, Wellsy?” He exhaled a harsh breath, scratching his jaw as I stood in silence, heart not beating, lungs not breathing. “Just talk to me. Please . What are you so afraid of, Poppy?”

You. My parents. The world.

Myself .

Why was I afraid?

Because every time I went home, my parents gave me a reason to be.

The evidence was sewn across my skin.

Splotches of violet.

Lines of red.

Fading.

Fading.

F a d i n g.

Erased .

I was their notebook.

They liked to scribble in the margins.

But when they got mad,

they ripped out the pages.

Again. And again. And again.

They got mad a lot.

I became so thin.

Because that was the thing with notebooks.

Once the pages were gone,

you couldn’t put any more back in.

And soon enough, all that would be left was the torn paper in the margin.

Evidence of all the paper that there used to be,

but not enough to write even a single word.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” I retorted, crossing my arms across my stomach .

I gripped my hips between my fingers just to check to see if I could still feel the bone.

Pain flooded through my veins as I winced.

Last night’s argument hadn’t faded yet.

“Are you—” Jasper gulped before he shook his head. “No forget it.” He shut his eyes as tight as he could and for a second, I could breathe. “Fuck this,” he groaned, eyes shooting open and latching onto mine, unwavering. “Are you hurt? ”

I hugged myself tighter. “No.”

“Poppy, so help me god , are you hurt?”

Yes , Jasper Ridge. I am hurt.

I am bruised.

I am broken .

Because my parent’s just could .

They could do whatever they wanted to me.

“I am fine ,” I snarled. Because I was .

I was always fine.

“You’re okay, baby.” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the newly forming bruise on my collarbone. “You’re beautiful. Like a little watercolor fairy.”

I was a fairy. A beautiful fairy.

A pretty, dainty, little fairy.

“My masterpiece.”

Turning away from Jasper, I wretched as bile and water dripped onto the sand. My stomach tried to empty itself but there was nothing in it to be emptied. He made sure so. I was a good girl. I stuck to my meal plan.

Instantly, Jasper’s hands pushed their way into my hair, bunching it up into a ponytail as my body dry heaved itself into oblivion. He didn’t say a word, but I knew there were plenty floating around his mind. Plenty that I didn’t want to answer, not tonight.

My knees buckled after a few minutes.

Jasper crumbled down onto the sand alongside me, tugging me into his lap at the last possible second. He immediately wrapped his arm around my back, rubbing it softly as my head was tucked beneath his chin. My entire body was shivering.

“What the hell happened to you, Poppy?”

I didn’t have enough courage to reply.