Page 173 of Under the Waves
Part of me wondered if she did know, at least something, but was simply refusing for whatever reason. But the other half of me just remembered that she hated conflict and shut herself down whenever someone brought it up, in fear she’d start some sort of argument.
With a sigh, Kai tipped his head back and looked up at the stars. For a moment, he stayed like that, glancing up at the heavens with the weight of the world on his shoulders. With one last glance back, like he was expecting her to come running back to him, Kai shook his head, pocketed his hands, and walked back up the beach without a single look back. The look in his eyes was hollow and empty, and the sudden coldness that washed over his features was like that last moment of realization had hit him like a steamroller.
The friend group I’d spent my entire life fighting for was falling apart at the seams. After all, we were just a bunch of lonely and broken kids searching the big, wide world for others like us. There were no rules tying us to each other, no invisible strings, but for some reason, I never thought there needed to be.
My naive mind thought that maybe, for just once, these people would stay in my life without me having to tear myself apart to keep them there.
Something was wrong, wrong, wrong…
“Yeah, wrong in my fucking head,” I groaned, shaking awayall the thoughts that decayed my mind. Following the path off the beach, I let my feet wander, carrying my body to wherever in the world I was destined to end up.
Except, when the golden sand turned to pavement beneath my feet, the last place I thought I’d end up right now was right outside Poppy’s house. It was hauntingly silent. Miserable, even, like death haunted its every wake.
I followed the small, pebbled path round the side of the house to where her bedroom window lay. Edging it open like I did before, I hauled my body up and over the window ledge. I had no idea what I was doing, but I needed to be near her right now. She made all the voices inside my head stop. All the doubt, all the self-loathing…it all stopped when she was near.
When I turned around, I was greeted with an empty room. A coppery tang tainted the air, and my body immediately tensed up, a wave of uneasiness rolling through me.
Something was wrong.
Something was wronghere.
Inside this house.
“Poppy?” I whispered, glancing around frantically like someone had just ripped open my chest and given me minutes left to live. “Wellsy, where are you?”
It wasn’t until I stepped closer to her door did I see her; a mere small figure curled up on the floor, beaten and bruised within inches of her life. Instinctively, I raced over towards her, dropping to my knees at her side. They tore open as I grazed them against the already blood-soaked floorboards. It looked like a fucking massacre in here. A complete blood bath.
What the fuck happened, Wellsy?
“Jasper?” Poppy moaned in agony, her eyelids slightly ajar as she attempted to open them. I doubted she could get them open any further due to the fucking massive amount of swelling around them.
“What the fuck happened, Poppy?” I rasped, cradling her small frame in my arms as she coughed up splotches of blood that landed as droplets on my shorts and staining them. “Wellsy, who hurt you? Who did this to you?”
Her eyes rolled backwards into her skull, knocking her head backwards as she slumped against me. Completely lifeless, she lay in my arms, wholly limp and unresponsive.
“No, no, no, no. Keep talking, Wellsy,” I cried, stroking the side of her cheek, urging her to come back.To come back to me.“Don’t slip away from me. Not now, not ever. I can’t survive losing you.”
“You already have once before,” she whispered, barely.
“Open your damn eyes, Poppy!” I shook her again and again until her eyes opened once more. Every part of me was trembling with the fear of losing her. My heart was hammering inside my chest like someone had taken an axe to it.
“Stay with me,” I pleaded with her, only to be met with two lifeless green eyes that didn’t open again.
“Come on Poppy,” I cried, refusing to give up on this girl. “Just stay with me.”
Nothing.
“Poppy, please…”
The words died in my throat as I scooped up her limp body in my arms.
Stay with me…
59
Jasper Ridge
“Ijust want to be fixed,” Poppy choked out between sobs, clutching onto my neck loosely as I carried us both out of that house and towards the rising sun. Blood oozed from several different cuts across her face and dripped onto my shirt. She looked so fragile, sobreakablein my arms. Her head kept falling backwards as she slipped in and out of consciousness.