34. Poppy Wells

34

Poppy Wells

I stood there silently as my mother yelled at me. Not completely present but wishing I was anywhere but here . Threats as raw as venom rolled off her tongue just as easily as the words, I love you, used to caress my heart. It had taken all of four minutes after I’d walked through the door for her to start self-destructing, pushing her own grief onto me.

Plates shattered, shards of glass scattered across the kitchen floor in a desperate attempt to scare me, but little did they know, all I wanted to do in that moment was slice it across my skin until the entire world was painted red. Until my heart sank into the earth and my tears rusted away the nails holding each broken, tattered piece together.

Heat blossomed across my cheeks in waves, my pale skin meeting each caress of her palm in an embrace that was anything but gentle. Anything but motherly affection .

Anything but love.

I was holding onto this life by the skim of my fingertips but as my body grew tired of fighting, I couldn’t help but wonder if it would just be easier to fall .

The chime of the clock striking two in the morning pulled me from my thoughts. My mother had eventually tired herself out and locked herself back in her room with a fresh bottle of Vodka and a new bottle of pills that were most likely stolen. That steel door was closed, and I was once again shut out of her life.

So easily detachable.

So easily removed like a smudge of gravy on a dinner plate.

The house reeked of that coppery tang of fresh blood and nicotine packets. I’d already swept away all the glass shards and taken care in putting away all the remaining utensils and unbroken plates. The electricity cut out halfway through vacuuming, so I finished it off with my hands gripping onto the old, wooden broom. Though, I think I just pushed the dirt around instead of actually cleaning it.

Not that she’d notice whenever she decided to crawl back out into the real world.

As if my thoughts summoned her, my mother appeared in the hallway wearing a dainty pink satin nightgown that he gifted her for valentine’s day a few years ago. It still looked brand new from the day he got it. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her wear it before now.

“Did you forget something?” I asked, nonchalantly, wiping the blood smears across my thighs. Each cut stung but I relished in the pain, hoping it would be enough to get me through the next few hours.

“I don’t know what you expect from me, Poppy,” she sobbed, hands covering her eyes. If only I had her eyes, would it all be different? “I don’t know what you want from me anymore!”

“To love me regardless, mom!” I yelled hoarsely, my throat burning with the truth of that statement. “To love me like a mother should love her daughter.”

That was all I’d ever wanted.

To be loved by her.

To feel loved at all.

Her small, frail body collapsed to the floor in a puddle of tears .

“You are no daughter of mine! You are nothing to me,” she sobbed between screams. Her fingernails clawed at my skin as I dipped my arms around her body, hauling her up from the floor. Hooking an arm around her waist and placing her arm around my neck, I walked us both into her room. She sobbed harder with every step we took.

For one moment— one small moment, I wished to be normal. To have a normal life, normal relationships… To. Just. Be. Fucking. Normal . But more than that, I wished for someone to look at all the fractured pieces of me and take care in putting them back together. I was so sick and tired of forcing and nudging them into places they didn’t fit. So damned tired of wishing on stars and hoping my silver knight would come and fix the broken mess my life had become.

That I had become.

“I know, mom,” I mumbled as I tucked her beneath the sheets that were cold beneath the pads of my fingertips. “I know.”

I placed a fresh glass of water on her bedside table and closed the door behind me as I left. Waves of rage crashed over me with every step I took towards my bedroom door. Slamming it shut, my fingers automatically found their way to my hair and pulled on it so hard I thought it’d rip from my skull.

I needed to scream .

To do something other than stay inside this hell hole of a home.

I was going to die within these walls someday.

I was helpless once again.

Whenever I felt like this before, like the world was closing in, I would’ve just snuck out and grabbed my surfboard. The ocean had always been my safe space, the only place in the world that seemed to understand me, listen to me. But I’d lost the one thing in the world that brought me comfort. That piece of myself—that final piece of hope—was shattered and lost and unreachable now, and I knew I would never be whole without it.

Maybe I should’ve taken Jasper up on his offer to help me get past this mental block. At this point, I’d do anything if it meant staying out of this house and being able to be out there in the vast blue without plunging into a panic attack or worse .

I wanted that piece of me back—it was the only thing that made me who I was before every inch of me bled purple bruises and knew the brutal touch of salty tears caressing an open wound.

It was the only part of me that mattered . The only part of me that Jasper loved, even if it was fake. Could I trust him enough to be vulnerable like this? Could I trust him enough to find that missing piece of me and not crush it into dust? To let him see behind all my walls?

Start taking down some of those walls you hide behind.

His words rang in my ears. He didn’t know what darkness lurked behind them—the nightmares that slivered between dreams, swallowing them whole. My entire being was nothing but a black hole.

Tugging my old headphones over my head, I let the music drown out the world—let it cradle my mind and soothe away every tumor of darkness inside my head that had been growing and festering ever since the night I learnt why even ghosts couldn’t look me in the eyes. Just like him.

All my life I’d spent toeing the line between who I was and who I was becoming, and somehow, Jasper Ridge had taken all my worries and blown them into the wind like dandelion seeds.

A million different alternatives ran through my head, each passing with a certainty that nothing good would come from picking up my phone and saying those dreaded two words.

In the end, all it took was one glance at her closed door for my fingers to type out the letters and press send before I could even register what they were doing.

I’m in.

I threw my phone across the room before I scrambled to delete it. What was done was done now. I just had to hope it was the right thing to do. It was . It had to be.

Staring down at my hands, I glanced at the open gashes coating my skin. At the marks left behind that told more stories than words ever could. I was decorated in stitches. Bathed in a million lost dreams. These were the hands of a girl who had fought and lost in every single way. Who had kept losing, and losing, and losing until she had nothing left to lose.

Wincing as I brushed them against my legs, I made a headline to my bedside table, pulling out a small white box I’d hidden there. Carefully unwrapping it, tugging at the small pink ribbon bow curled around it, I took out the small vanilla cupcake from inside. It wasn’t anything special, but it would have to do.

The small, vanilla-white frosting was topped with pink heart sprinkles and a singular rosy strawberry with a white candle in the middle. For every birthday since Oliver died, I’d used this singular candle. It was barely surviving the flames anymore; a small, delicate thing it’d become, just like me .

Retrieving a match, I lit the candle and watched as the wax started to melt and drip slowly down the stem. Heat fanned across my rosy cheeks, and I blew once, watching the flame disappear. My eyes closed as my lips pursed.

“Make a wish, Pops!” Oliver grinned up at me, his small cheeks glowing.

Ruffling his hair a little, I smiled right back at him. “Okay, okay, but just for you, monkey.”

I closed my eyes. “Are you ready?”

He nodded giddily, and in one swift breath, we both blew out the candle.

“Happy birthday big sissy,” he giggled, crumbs coating his mischievously grinning lips.

I smiled right back, ruffling his already messy hair.

“Happy birthday to me, indeed.”