44. Poppy Wells

44

Poppy Wells

E very muscle in my legs screamed at me as I ran. I didn’t know where I was running to, but something inside me just knew where to go. It felt like I was like I was running towards the other half of my soul.

Moonlight shone through the clouds, dimly lightly a path for me to follow. My cheeks were still stained with tears, still raw and hurting. My mother…as soon as I’d pocketed the pills, she’d woken up and demanded where they were.

“What have you done with ‘em, Poppy?”

All her words were slurred.

Her eyes blank and glazed.

She wasn’t here. Not really.

My mother was a ghost of herself.

“D-done w-with what?” I hurried to say. Except, all my words came out scrambled and weak. I was always so weak when it came to her. Always so. Damned. Weak .

She grasped onto my arm, her nails digging into my wrist so deeply blood began to stain her fingertips. I shook beneath her touch.

“I won’t ask ya again, girl. Where are they?”

I couldn’t breathe.

My heart was thundering in my ears.

So loud. It was always so damned loud.

I couldn’t hear myself think.

I couldn’t think of an excuse.

I couldn’t …

Her other palm slapped my cheek. My head snapped in the other direction from the shear force alone. We were both frail, both malnourished and weak, but whenever her hands touched my skin, it felt like I was a trembling kid and she was a hundred times stronger than me.

“YOU TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE!” She screamed.

My face burned.

My wrist bled and bled and bled as she dug harder and harder into my skin.

Just stand up for yourself, Poppy.

You’re stronger than she is.

Just believe in yourself.

Except, I couldn’t because deep down, no matter how hard I pretended like I was unbreakable on the outside, on the inside, I was still just a scared little kid who just wanted to know why she was so unlovable. Why everyone hated her. Hurt her.

She let go of my wrist and I had half a second to breathe before she picked up a book I’d left lying out and smashed it against the side of my head. I collapsed instantly to the floor, hands grasping my head as my limbs collided with the floorboards. Pain shot through my head, and I felt for sure I was going to die.

She was furious. “YOU’RE LYING!”

I wanted one of the neighbors to hear her.

I wanted someone to knock on the door.

I wanted someone to stop her.

But I was never that lucky.

I gasped. “I-I’m not l-lying, mom!”

I was lying. I was a horrible, cheating, flaming liar .

“I have n-no idea w-where your pills a-are…”

She didn’t believe me .

I could see it in her eyes.

With a frustrated scream, she turned, picked up her empty bottle of wine, and threw the bottle against the wall above my head. Glass shards rained down on me from above. Shielding my eyes, I tucked myself into a small ball as tight as I could. Every part of me was trembling. I don’t want to be here anymore, I thought in that moment. I don’t want to be alive anymore. I can’t do it anymore. As she gasped for breath, running her hands through her hair, I managed to pull myself to my knees and make a headline for the bathroom. I ran down that hallway and I did not look back until the bathroom door slammed shut behind me and my back sank down the frame until it hit the floor.

I’d been running ever since.

For miles and miles.

The gray clouds that once covered the moon now begun to pour down with rain. My hoodie and jean shorts lasted longer than I thought they would until they became completely soaked through and through. My whole body was shivering.

I didn’t know how long I’d been running, how far I’d been running with soaked clothes and glass shards wedged into the skin of my feet and arms. My stomach pinched with nausea and my head pounded against my skull. Yet, I did not stop running. Not until Jasper’s house came into focus and I knew in my heart that this was where I was meant to be.

My pace slowed down as I neared. With a wince, I pulled out as many small shards of glass from my arms as I could without screaming the whole neighborhood awake. He was going to ask questions. Questions I couldn’t answer.

This was a stupid idea.

But…I had nowhere else to go.

Just before my knuckles made contact with the wood of his front door, it swung open.

Jasper stood before me in his gray sweats and Marvel hoodie.

His lips parted slightly like he wanted to say something but nothing came out.

He didn’t know what to say.

I didn’t know what to say.

The rain still poured down from above, completely drenching me in its wake.

But Jasper still didn’t say a single word .

Didn’t ask me what was wrong or what I was doing standing outside his house at three in the morning in the pouring rain.

Instead, he just opened his arms.

And I walked right into them.

“You’re safe with me,” he whispered, pressing a gentle kiss to my hair as his hand drew idle strokes up and down my back. “I’ve got you, Wellsy.”

Those words were all it took for the tears to erupt from my eyes once again and before I knew it, Jasper had picked me up in his arms and slowly lowered us both to the ground.

For hours, we sat like that in the thundering rain on the edge of his porch, him just comforting me silently as I cried and cried and cried . The weight of everything was just. Too. Much .

“Shhh, you’re okay, Wellsy,” he soothed, stroking the back of my head. “Just let it out.”

I was crumbling and I didn’t know how to stop myself from breaking.

“I c-can’t d-do this a-anymore,” I sobbed, unable to catch a breath. “I c-can’t l-live like t-this anymore.”

And it was true. I couldn’t see any other future for me than this.

One of these days, my mother was going to kill me.

I knew it deep down in my bones.

Letting my head fall into the crook of his neck, I hid myself away from the world.

From him. From myself.

Jasper just tightened his grip. He didn’t let go.

“You can, Wellsy. I know you can. Just for a little bit longer, okay?”

I couldn’t even look at him.

“I’m broken, Jasper. I’m broken and I don’t know how to fix myself anymore.”

“I’ll help you put yourself back together again, Wellsy. You don’t have to do any of it alone. Not anymore.”

His words…I didn’t deserve them.

I didn’t deserve him.

“Why are you h-here, Ridge?” I sniffled, shuddering and gasping for air as my cheeks began to dry out and my chest became a little lighter.

He answered immediately. “You needed me, Wellsy. ”

“I didn’t think, I just ran,” I admitted.

“You ran to me,” Jasper added.

I didn’t have any strength to disagree. To fight him.

I was so damned tired of fighting him.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I came?” I whispered against his neck, closing my eyes as the sound of his heartbeat fluttered against my skin.

I wasn’t used to people caring about me.

To people sticking around for me.

“That’s not important right now,” he answered, wrapping strands of my hair around his finger and coiling them. “ You are, Wellsy.”

“I’m sorry,” I admitted, exhaling a heavy breath.

“What for? There’s nothing to be sorry about, Wellsy.”

“I’m taking up space in your life that you never offered to give. I don’t want you to have to deal with all my burdens too.”

All my words rushed out of my lips before I could stop them.

“Wellsy…” He sighed, gently brushing a strand of my hair behind my ear as he cupped my cheeks. “You can take up as much fucking space in my life as you want to. Hell, take all of it. I want all of your problems, il mio stupido. Ti voglio in ogni lingua, in ogni futuro. Poppy…I want you .”

My heart was thundering in my chest.

His eyes locked on mine. They were glassy and red, no doubt like my own, but they were also full of love . Jasper was smiling at me as a tear dropped down his cheek, and without thinking, I brushed it away like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Brushing his hair from his eyes, I let my hand linger, cupping the side of his face as I whispered, “You can’t possibly mean tha—”

“I do.” He cut me off. “I mean every fucking word of it. The only parts of my life worth remembering are the ones with you in it, Wellsy. I want you in my life. Fuck , I need you in my life. You’re the reason my heart beats, Poppy.”

My chest cleaved in two. Sinking into his chest, Jasper wrapped his arms around me and didn’t let go.

“I’ll buy you another hoodie,” I mumbled against his neck, too embarrassed and overwhelmed to let him see the mess I had become. “I promise.”

Jasper just chuckled, continuing to draw lazy strokes up and down my back. “I don’t care about my hoodie, Wellsy.”

And he didn’t.

He just held me, not once letting go.

“Thank you,” I whispered, eyes heavy and exhausted. “For being you, Jasper.”

“Always, Wellsy.”