Page 109 of Under the Waves
Jasper looked at me like he wasn’t afraid; he beheld every broken and ruined part of me and was not afraid. Not of who I was. Not of who I used to be. He didn’t see failure in my scars, he saw strength and resilience andcourage. Jasper saw light where I saw darkness, saw possibilities where I saw failure. He was not afraid of me.
“What are you doing?” I hiccuped. I was cradled into his side, sitting on his lap as he held me tightly to his chest with one hand, the other hand drawing small patterns across my back.
“Giving you a hug,” he replied instantly as if it was the most natural sentence in the world.
I paused. “Why?”
Jasper cupped my cheeks in the palm of his hands and looked straight into my eyes as he said, “Because sometimes, Wellsy, even the strongest of fighters need to be held.”
And that was all it took for the tears to start pouring from my eyes once again. Not once did he falter nor look at me like I was the monster they all claimed me to be. Jasper just held me tightly to him and soothed me until all my tears dried out.
“No one has ever put as much effort into my birthday as you have today, Jasper,” I hiccuped between sobs, letting the words fall from my lips and join the tear-stained patches on his costume.
I didn’t know why I said what I did but there was a part of me, deep down, that felt like I owed him because growing upI love youalways came before anI’m sorry.
I love you, Poppy. I’m sorry.
All my life growing up, love was only an excuse to hurt me. Now I started to wonder if that was the reason why I was so numb to affection, why I felt like I didn’t deserve it. Because to me, it never felt genuine. It never feltreal. I kept waiting for the punch line. For the disappointment. There was always a catch to being loved in my household, always aprice.
And even if Jasper said there wasn’t, I couldn’t drill out the way I’d been raised.
In fear and not love.
Yet that did not deter him from trying to teach me how to fall in love with myself and my life again.
“This is nothing, Poppy,” Jasper rasped, looking away. “If I wasn’t so caught up in everything that had happened with Jakson, I would’ve planned something better. Something that was worthy of you.”
“Hey,” I whispered, capturing his gaze in mine. “You have done more than enough for me, Jasper Ridge. More than I could ever ask of you. You never had to do any of this, yet you did, because that’s just the type of person you are.”
“I actually had another gift I wanted to give you but I kinda got nervous and chickened out of giving it to you,” he admitted, running his hand through his golden-brown curls.
“You did?” I asked. “But you’ve already gifted me the best night of my life.”
“I—well,” he looked down and pulled an envelope out of his pocket that looked like it was near bursting; the sticky tape was worn and starting to peel away. “Here.”
He handed the gray tainted envelope to me, watching intently as I peeled open the seal. I gasped as I saw the hundreds of letters piled up inside it. A handful of them fell onto my lap, some decorated with little doodles and marvel references, and some that were pages and pages full of words.
“Jasper—” I glanced up at him, teary eyed.
“There’s a letter for every day you were gone,” he admitted, glancing back at me with a pair of heavy golden eyes. “I…I didn’t know how much our rivalry—you,how muchyoumeant to me until you were gone. You didn’t even say goodbye, Poppy. One day you were here and the next you had disappeared off the face of the earth like Thanos snapped you away. I waited at that first surf competition—waited for you to come and throw a snarky comment at me, or roll your eyes, or give me that classic Poppy Wells glare that has made a permanent residence inside my heart. But you never came. I spent the entire day sitting on that beach, watching the waves crest the shoreline wondering what I had done wrong.” His voice broke just as something inside me cleaved in two. “That was the last day I saw the Orcas out there in the ocean. It’s like they are a part of you, Poppy. Only when you came back did they return also.”
“I guess I must be magic,” I tried to jest but it came out more like a strangled sob than a laugh.
“Yeah,” he exhaled, “I guess you must be. I wasted so much of those years being angry at you, Poppy, when I was only really angry at myself for letting you go. I don’t know why I wrote to you every day you were gone, it’s stupid, but it was the only thing keeping me sane. I didn’t only lose you in those years Poppy, I lost myself, too.”
“I’m here now,” I breathed, cupping his face in my palms. “You found me.”
He nodded slowly, shaking against my skin. “You found me, too, Wellsy. Please don’t ever go away again.”
“I won’t,” I promised, knowing that I couldn’t keep it. “I won’t let you fall under the waves, Jasper Ridge.”
Jasper smiled softly at me as I wiped away a single tear that had fallen down his cheek, just as he had done for me mere minutes ago. His head fell against the crack of my shoulder, nose buried against my neck as his breaths fluttered across my skin. I let myself fall against him too, drawing small circles with my nails across his back.
“There’s…um…” Jasper cleared his throat. “Something else I wanted to give you.”
“You can’t—Jasper, this is too much.”
“You’re worth it.”