Page 151 of Under the Waves
My brows tugged together at her words. “Why can’t you tell me?”
“Because,” she sighed, “you’ll see me differently. Youwon’t see me anymore, just the faults and the problems and theerrors.” Her voice broke on that last word. “And I don’t…I don’t want you to see me that way.”
“I won’t ever see you like that,” I rushed to say. “Prometo.Você é meu coração,Wellsy.” When she didn’t reply, I added, “Você é meu. For reals, Poppy Maria Isabelle Wells.Estou guardando você para o infinito.”
Just say something, Wellsy.
Tell me you’re still breathing.
“Per l’infinito,” she whispered, and my legs stopped running. I stood there, in the middle of the road, frozen to the concrete. “That’s right, right? Oh my god, if I said it wrong and it means something else, I promise I didn’t mean whatever I said by accident—”
“You learnt Italian?” I rasped in disbelief.
She went quiet before adding, “I wanted to surprise you.”
Poppy Wells learnt Italian. For me.
“I’m surprised,” I replied.
“In a good or bad way?”
I chuckled. “In a good way, Wellsy.”
She sighed in relief. “I just…I just thought it would make you happy.”
There were tears in the corners of my eyes as she said those words—those words that held the power to shatter my heart into a million tiny pieces.
I started running again, refusing to let another second pass where she wasn’t in my arms.
“I’m happy, Wellsy,” I replied, my words coming out as half laugh, half sob. “Thank you.”
She was it for me.
I didn’t need any more proof.
Poppy Wells made my heart beat.
I turned onto her street. Her house came into view.
Carefully treading around the side of her house, I walked up to her window. I held my breath as I neared, a faint yellow glow of light filtered through the blinds.
“You still there, Wellsy?” I asked.
Her voice filled my ears a second later. “I’m here, my Spiderman.”
I repressed a groan, closing my eyes for the briefest second. Reopening them, I exhaled, getting a grip on myself.
“I’m outside.”
“No, you’re not,” she countered. “You’re on your way home.”
“I am home,” I said. “Open the blinds, Wellsy.”
A second later, the blinds covering her window parted and a pair of sad green eyes stared back at me. Every muscle in my body relaxed at the sight of her unharmed face. Living and breathing. Heart beating.My Wellsy.
The phone fell from her grasp, hitting the floor with a thud. Her gaping lips and wide eyes latched onto me. Poppy took a step forward, her palm raised and faintly grazing the glass, almost as if she were in a daze.
Then, she turned around and sprinted out of her room. Three seconds passed until the lock of the front door unclicked, and those gorgeous, brown curls reappeared.