52. Poppy Wells

52

Poppy Wells

B efore I could register what I was doing, my legs were already running, carrying me towards my other half, my home . Each voicemail that filtered through my headphones made me sprint just that extra mile harder to reach him.

I didn’t know how I forgot–how I let myself forget that today was the day of his big competition. I promised him I would be there for him and now…now I’d just let him down. Given him another reason to doubt me. To hate me.

As pavement faded to sand beneath my feet, I searched the darkness for him. It only took my eyes a few seconds to find him sat on a lone sand dune by the rising water’s edge, arms wrapped tightly around his tucked up legs. That all too familiar Spiderman hoodie clung to his frame, hiding his face from me.

“Hey,” I exhaled heavily as I reached him, stopping just a few steps away from him.

The second he turned and his saddened, droopy eyes met mine, I knew I had hurt him in ways I couldn’t even begin to understand. Under the heat of his stare, my fingers reached for the back of my neck and began to scratch in that all too familiar rhythm.

I had let him down.

The words repeated over and over again inside my head until they were all that I was. I had let myself become so consumed by my own life that I had completely forgotten that he had one too.

How selfish could I be?

“Poppy,” he said.

Oh.

Not Wellsy , just Poppy .

His messy, brown curls, coated in droplets of salt water, stuck to his forehead, just as the light in those once golden eyes died. His entire body was slumped down, defeatedly, but that did not stop Jasper Ridge from trying to smile–to cover any hint of exhaustion and emotions up.

In that small fraction of a second, he looked like Jakson.

“I–” I started to speak before he interrupted me.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything. I shouldn’t have put so much pressure on you to come. It’s okay, you can just…you can just come to the next one.” He tried to smile–tried to reassure me just like he did for everyone else. Even though it was me who had disappointed him, who had let him down, it was his words that made me feel as if he thought he was truly to blame for this–like it was his burden to carry for believing in me and our promise.

“Jasper–” I stepped forward towards him just as he stepped a fraction of a step backwards.

Oh.

Silence stretched before us, thick and heavy in an almost suffocating way. I desperately wanted to reach out towards him, to tell him how sorry I genuinely was but I knew–I knew my words wouldn’t be enough.

Standing up, Jasper dusted off the sand clinging to his swim shorts and hoodie before turning to me, barely able to look me in the eyes .

“I…I am sorry, Poppy. About today. I didn’t think about how seeing me surf and compete would affect you. I’m not mad at you, don’t worry. I just…I just wish you could’ve been there today, that’s all. But I am glad you are okay and well. Have a good night,” Jasper said, nodding his head slightly to me in acknowledgment before walking away from me and up the beach.

“Stop, Jasper,” I breathed, gripping onto his shoulder as he passed me. “Please, stop.”

“Why?” he said, “so you can tell me whatever story it is that caused you to miss my competition that you promised me you’d come to? I don’t…I don’t want to hear it, Poppy. Not tonight. Please .”

“Why aren’t you mad at me? Why are you making excuses for me and blaming yourself even though it was me that fucked up?”

“Because I don’t want to say the wrong thing tonight and ruin us!” He exclaimed, gripping tightly onto my shoulders, just as I had done a few moments ago. His harsh breaths fanned across my skin as I stared up at him open-mouthed, completely lost for words. “I can’t…I can’t lose you , Poppy. I won’t let myself lose you. So for both of our sake, please, just let me go.”

“You know, not everyone is your problem to be fixed!” I yelled, letting the words tear me apart. My throat burned with the knowledge that I was ruining the very friendship that had been my only anchor since I moved back to town, but he had to know that exhausting himself trying to hold together friendships at his own expense was utterly stupid and ruining him. I didn’t…I didn’t want him to ruin himself.

“That is just who I am!” Jasper yelled back, equally as maddened by this as I was. “I fix people, I please people. It’s all I know how to do, Poppy,” He shrugged, throwing a broken, loopy grin my way that looked nothing short of devastatingly heart shattering. “It’s all that I am.”

“No, it isn’t!” I breathed, my heart cleaving in two as I strode up to him and gripped his saddened cheeks in my palms. “You are so much more than that, Jasper Ridge. So much more, can’t you see that?”

Jasper wrapped his arms around my waist, head burrowed into the side of my neck as he said, ever so quietly, “I don’t know anymore, Wellsy.”

“That’s okay, too,” I whispered, gently stroking the back of his neck as my nails grazed softly against his skin. All I wanted in that moment was to hold him, to show him the gentle side to love that was never available to either of us growing up.

After a second had passed, I leaned backwards. “I’m sorry.”

He sighed. “I forgive you, Wellsy.”

“You shouldn’t,” I shook my head.

“I’m not like them , Poppy. I won’t hurt you just because you made a mistake .”

Them. My parents.

“Someone has hurt you, Wellsy. They keep hurting you. I know something isn’t right, I know it. It consumes my every waking thought. What they’ve said to you…It’s not right, Wellsy, you have to know that! I’m sorry if I’m off base here, but from what you’ve said…what I’ve seen …on your body…the marks, the bruises, the scars …I…” He shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, if you need somewhere to stay, if you need—”

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t—

His eyes searched mine as I took a step away from him. Then another, and another, until we were almost an ocean apart. Every part of my body felt hollow in his absence.

Abort, abort, abort , the thoughts in my head chanted.

He knows too much.

He knows…

He…

“I’m sorry, I didn’t…” Jasper started to speak but his words were lost to the night as our gazes burned into each other. “Poppy, I–”

“It’s okay,” I repeated his words from earlier. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay. I hope you get home safely, Ridge. And I’m sorry, again. About your competition.”

He knows. He knows. He knows.

Abort. Abort. Abort.

Scrunching and flexing my fists, letting my nails dig into my palms, I forced myself to smile and wave as I began to walk up the beach and back towards the home that still had its tentacles wrapped around me, even now .

I ruined everything I touched, and I refused to let myself ruin him too.

“Why can’t you stop running for one second, Poppy? We’re supposed to stick together through all the hardships, not abandon each other!” Jasper yelled halfway across the beach to where I stopped dead in my tracks. Despite the distance between us, his words managed to pierce through my skin so deeply as if he had wielded the blade himself.

“Because I don’t know how to stop!” I replied, turning around frantically to face him, trying to keep myself from falling apart at the seams—I’d survived too much to let it all be undone by the words of a man. Nothing about my life had ever been linear, and I’d known from the start that recovery wouldn’t be any different.

I was doing this for myself— I was healing the child inside of me who burnt herself out trying to please her father, thinking her only worth came from his validation.

“We’re supposed to do a lot of things, Jasper Ridge.”

Like not fall in love with each other.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he rasped, looking at me with these saddened, hopeless eyes. It took everything in me to look away from him then. Every inch of my strength.

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter, just forget I said anything,” I breathed, shaking my head.

Just as I turned to walk away, Jasper jogged up the beach and reached for me. His fingers barely grazed my arm before he pulled back, stepping away from me.

“Please, Poppy. Just stop ,” he rasped, refusing to look away from me. “You don’t have to run away from this. You don’t have to run away from me. ”

“I can’t!” I yelled back, throat burning. “It’s all I know how to do!” I took in a breath trying to calm myself down before I said something I couldn’t take back. “You were right…we shouldn’t do this now—”

“At least come home with me,” he pleaded. “We don’t even have to speak to each other until tomorrow if that’s what you want. Just come home with me. Don’t go back there, Wellsy. Don’t—”

“I’ll be okay,” I whispered, tears building in the corners of my eyes. “Don’t worry about me, Ridge.” I shrugged out of desperation, shaking my head. “I’m stronger than I look. ”

“I can’t ,” he rasped. “My entire heart is inside of you, Wellsy.”

I shook my head again, tears staining my cheeks. “Then take it back. I don’t—” Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it. “I don’t want it. I don’t want us—”

“You’re lying,” Jasper barged forwards with such force and precision, it took all the air out of my lungs. “Wellsy—”

He reached for me.

He reached for me and I stepped away.

“Poppy…”

“I can’t,” I said, voice breaking. I’m sorry, Jasper. I’m sorry.

I took a step backwards.

And another.

“You don’t get to do that!” He choked, jabbing his finger in my direction just as I flinched backwards. “You don’t get to pretend like you’re the only broken one of the two of us! But you know what I think? I think you like feeling sad and broken all the time. You’re addicted to feeling sorry for yourself, Poppy. It’s sick. You’re sick . Just like he was.”

I recoiled backwards as if I’d been physically slapped across the face.

Just like him.

Jasper paused, biting down on his lips.

“Poppy—” he sighed, stepping forwards.

I flinched.

My hands shook violently by my sides as my ears rang, chanting those three words over and over again until it became all that I was.

Just like him.

Just like him.

Just like him.

“Don’t run away from me, Wellsy. Run towards me, please,” he pleaded with me, trying desperately to reach me despite the growing riptide between us, pulling our bodies apart in different directions. “Promise me, if you ever get tired of being alone, you’ll remember that I will always be right here waiting for you. Shout at me, yell at me…I don’t care, Wellsy. Just come home to me.”

Pick. Pick. Pick.

My fingers frantically dug into the skin at the back of my neck, ripping apart old wounds whilst creating new ones, digging straight to the core—straight to the error that was me. I couldn’t hear him.

The ocean was so far away now, so distant. A sweet, echoing lullaby.

“Maybe we should’ve stayed strangers,” I cried, letting the words rip me open—letting the weight of them tear me apart until the pain consumed me. The sand beneath my feet faded into those old, too familiar floorboards, and with each step away from him, I felt my heart shatter. Piece by piece.

That way I wouldn’t have ruined you, too.