Page 174 of Under the Waves
She didn’t need to be fixed.
She needed to be loved.
“Stay with me, Wellsy. Hang in there just a little bit more,” I gritted out as I jogged down the path with her in my arms. It was taking every inch of strength inside me tonotturn around and run towards the hospital. The only thing keeping me going towards my house was the sound of her screams—how she refused to be taken there. I’d never heardanything as raw, guttural, and horrifying.
I didn’t think I would ever be able to get those sounds out of my head, nor the way she looked right now. Beaten and bruised. Bruised and beaten. By her own mother.
Her. Own.Mother.
I wouldn’t let her go back there.
Icouldn’t.
Knowing…
With a soft, saddened sort of smile, Poppy whispered, “Isn’t it beautiful?”
I didn’t need to follow her gaze out towards the sea where golden hues settled in the distance over the shoreline.
“Yeah, it is,” I said, except I wasn’t looking at the sunset.
I was looking ather.
The frail girl in my arms had become everything to me. I ran the first half an hour with her tucked against my chest not knowing if she was evenbreathing. She could’ve been dead for all I knew. I could’ve been carrying a dead girl in my arms all that time.
I didn’t even check. I just ran.
I ran and hoped with every fiber in me that the universe would let us have just a little bit more time.
“Why do you hate me, Jasper?” she said, breaths starting to slow and even out.
“Poppy…” I exhaled, tightening my grip on her body. “Ineverhated you.”
“You did.” She cleared her throat. “Youdo.”
I went to speak but she pushed her fingers against my lips. “Shh. It’s okay. I don’t hate you for it. Not anymore. Because you, Jasper Ridge…you make me want to stop running,” she whispered. “I lied before, when I said maybe we should’ve stayed strangers. You’re the only thing keeping me afloat in this ocean. I would’ve drowned a long time ago if you hadn’t given me a reason to make it through another day.”
“Poppy—”
“How could you like someone like me?” she asked, barely above a whisper. The uncertainty in her voice made my heart shatter into a million pieces.
“How could Inotlike someone like you, Wellsy?”
In every person I crossed paths with, I searched for thefragments of her. It aggravated me. It drove me to the point of insanity because I knew, deep down, that she was one in a million. She was my Wellsy, broken parts and all.
“I’d choose you, you know?” I offered her a small truth.
In every lifetime, Wellsy. Every. Damned. One.
“I can’t…Ican’tlet you waste your time on me when you have the final surfing competition coming up. I can’t—wecan’t—”
“I can and I will.”
She sighed, shaking her head with a wince. “I’m nowhere near getting past this stupid,stupidmental block, Jasper. It’s a hopeless case to even try and unravel.”
I’m a hopeless case to even try and unravel.
“You’re worth it, do you hear me? We’ll get you past that mental block, Wellsy. I don’t care about the competition, I care aboutyou. You are worth so muchmore to me than somestupidcompetition.”