Page 117 of Under the Waves
Jakson chuckled, lips tugged up into an amused grin. “Does she now, Cap?”
“Hmm,” I muffled. “I was thinking of getting her one by the Goo Goo Dolls. Dizzy up the girl. There’s a song on it that…I don’t know. It just reminds me of her.”
Of us.
“Which one?” He asked.
I sighed, scratching my jaw. “Iris.”
I don’t want the world to see me,
‘cause I don’t think they’d understand.
When everything’s meant to be broken,
I just want you to know who I am.
“She isn’t unlovable, you know?”
She was anythingbutthat.
He turned to face me then, seriousness and understanding glinting in his eyes. “I know she isn’t, Cap. I believe you.”
“She thinks she is, though,” I groaned. My heart ached for this girl—this little surfer girl with the big green eyes and a heart so fractured it was falling to pieces at her feet.
She was my rival. My nemesis. My enemy.
Yet Poppy Wells wasn’tjustmy childhood rival anymore. She’d become so much more than that. I found myself wanting to sew each fragmented piece of her broken heart back together delicately by hand. Wanting to stitch closed every gaping wound left by the hands of another and show her the pure amount of strength lying beneath her scars.
Because if she was a canvas, she would’ve been the universe’s greatest masterpiece.
I just wished she saw herself that way too.
But that was what she had me for now.
I’d look after her.
“I’ve never seen someone so convinced that they don’t deserve to be loved, to befoughtfor.”
Jakson grasped my shoulder. “Then show her that she isn’t any of those things. Help her fall back in love withliving, Jasper. Show her that there is more to life than just surviving each passing day.”
Show her that she isn’t unlovable.
“Yeah, I could do that,” I nodded, cogs turning inside my mind as I pieced together a plan for Mission: saving Wellsy. I wouldn’t let her fall under the waves. The world would have to tear me apart limb by limb to stop me from reaching her, but even then, I’d find a way to crawl home to her.
When I finally looked back at Jakson, he was grinning like an idiot. My cheeks heated as I pushed his face away.
“Shut up,” I groaned, hiding my face in my hands. “Go away.”
“No, don’t you dare,” he chuckled so hard he ended up grasping at his chest, “let me get a camera, I have to show Lia how hard you’re blushing right now.”
“Where is Lia, anyway? I haven’t seen her around.”
Even though we both knew Lia shouldn’t be here, we were both tied around her little pinkie finger enough to know that she’d definitely bribed her way into coming tonight. That, and Jakson didn’t have the heart to tell her no.
“‘Living vicariously through Novie,’” he air quoted with a sigh. A puzzled expression must have painted my face because he clarified, “She’s just talking to Nova about ballet. Apparently, her and Emmeline, you know, the blond-haired figure skater who runsBookmarked?Well, they’vestarted teaching junior classes at Halle’s ballet studio. I think Lia wants to go back to the studio, you know? But every time I try and talk to her about it, she shuts down on me. I don’t know what to do.”
“Maybe just give her some space to try and figure out what she wants to do in her own time? Who knows, maybe having Nova back in town will help her? And speaking of a certain Spaniard, I didn’t know she was back in town.”