Page 122 of Under the Waves
“The noises in my head. They aren’t so loud when you’re around. It’s like you scare them off.”
I smiled softly. “I’ll scare as many of them away as I have to, Jasper.”
He grinned lazily at me as he whispered, “Even coaches? His voice is the loudest of them all.”
My fists automatically clenched as soon as the words left his mouth. If his coach had zero haters, you better believe I was a deaddeadwoman.
“Especially his,” I reassured him. “Any shit he tells you is wrong, okay? He doesn’t get the right to put this much pressure on you to the point where you’re breaking down nearly every day, Jasper. That isn’t right.”
Trust me,I wanted to say,I know just how it feels to never be good enough, to never be able to live up to their expectations of you.
“You’ve let your own teammates down this season more times than I can count. You’re supposed to be their captain, boy. Act like it,” he recited, head hung low between his knees, caged in completely. He looked as heartbroken as I felt listening to how his coach treated him. I seriously wanted to rip his coaches head from his—
“You aren’t letting anyone down by allowing yourself to feel, Jasper,” I whispered, shuffling so I sat beside him, leaning my head back against the marbled walls. It only just occurred to me then that I had never actually been inside Jakson’s parent’s bathroom before. I’d seen more of his grand, luxurious home tonight than I had in my entire life. It seriously looked likesomeone had planted money in a patch of grass and watered it until it grew into this intricately decorated mansion. I knew his parents wererichbut I had no idea they werethatrich.
Despite being the Calloway Empire’s heir, Jakson Calloway was one of the most small town, ray of sunshine, down to earth guy’s I’d ever met. If you’d have told me he was a heir to a billion dollar empire, I wouldn’t have believed you. There was something so humble, so honest about him that I couldn’t place.
“You don’t understand. I need to be strong for them. They need me to be unbreakable. But I’m breaking, Poppy. I’m breaking and nobody can see it but you.”
I didn’t know what courage suddenly possessed me that had me leaning down and pressing a small kiss to the top of his hair but hearing him utter those words aloud made me realize that maybe Jasper had needed whatever it was between us all along, just like I had. Maybe we weren’t so different after all.
“They need you to be their captain, Jasper. They just need you to be you.”
“I don’t even think I can even be their captain properly anymore,” he muttered under his breath, shaking his head as he glanced up at me. The redness of his glassy eyes made my chest cleave in two. “I can barely keep them in check anymore. I’m losing them, Poppy.”
“What about Jakson and Lia, though?” I asked. “You still have them, Jasper.”
“I did…Ido, but have you seen those two? They’reinseparable. He looks at her like she hung the moon, Wellsy. For fuck sake, he literally bought her every single Taylor Swift and Gracie Abrams vinyl just because she mentionedoncethat she adored their music.” He sighed, resting his head back against the wall. “They have each other…they don’t need me anymore.”
“That can’t be true,” I offered.
“They need me to be strong, Poppy. They need me to be the foundation that keeps them upright. I’m drowning myself to keep them above the waves.” He shook his head lightly as he let out a breath. “And besides, I hadyou. I had this rivalry…” He paused, biting down on his bottom lip. “I didn’t know how much I needed this thing between us until I lost it. Until I lost you.”
I gulped, my heart racing beneath my skin. “I treated you likeshit though, Jasper.”
The golden boy tried and failed to smile.
Again, and again, and again.
He shrugged like he didn’t have a care in the world when I knew all too well that he cared way too much. “I was used to it.”
“But you shouldn’t have to be used to it.”
“Neither should you,” he retorted, using my own words against me.
I couldn’t stop myself from letting a little smile escape my lips. He always managed to do that to me.
Tugging at a curl that had fallen loose in front of my face, Jasper captured my attention as he whispered, “I’m sorry for saying what I did. I wasn’t angry at you…you didn’t deserve any of it, and for that, I am truly sorry, Poppy.”
“I’m your Wellsy, aren’t I?” I asked, stroking his hair. He nodded within a second, leaning into my touch. “Yours. No one else’s. Just like how you’re my Spiderman, aren’t you?”
He nodded again, this time slower as if he was unsure. I wanted to take every single thought of doubt in his head and burn them. He was stronger than he realized. Jasper Ridge didn’t give himself enough credit for everything did for the people around him.
“You are. You always will be. No matter how much you drive me to the brink of insanity. Next time, whenever you feel angry, or sad, or anything at all, justtalkto me, Jas. I am on your side.For infinity. You have to know that I’d always choose you.”
The words came straight from my heart, surprising me as they left my lips before I even had the chance to think about them.
Jasper looked at me like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss me senseless or start sobbing. Pulling himself up to a sitting up position, he crossed his legs and held out both his hands in front of him, motioning for me to take them. I scrunched my nose as I smiled, slightly confused yet intrigued as I took his palms in mine.