Page 25 of Under the Waves
Quietly, she added, “I didn’t want to be alone tonight.”
I closed my mouth.
Today was the reminder of the day that CPS separated her and all her siblings a few years ago. She refused to talk about what happened when she was with a placement family. Not a single word. When she came back home to Hawthorne Hills half a year later, she was completely different—she refused to say a word to anyone formonths. It took everything to get a small smile or a little nod out of her.
As much as it was exhausting, my patience was always infinite for her. The best I could do was to be by her side and occupy her mind—we baked everything in at least three of my mom’s old baking books, surfed every single wave the ocean could muster each morning for the rest of the year. We had a movie night at Sonny’s every weekend and managed to watch every Disney movie at least twice.
Jakson and I even reenacted the Moana movie for her when it got really bad one night. I multi-rolled Maui and some other side characters and Jakson had the time of his life pretending to be Moana—he even bought a costume and everything. It was a size 7-8 years old and barely fit round his legs, but he did it anyway. Though, I think him being that chicken was the most hilarious thing I had ever seen him do.
I knew he did it all for her.We both did.
We didn’t question why it was always Disney movies that we watched that year. If Lia wanted to watch them all, we watched them all. Simple as that. Part of me thought that it was because she was scared of losing the little girl inside her so she did everything she could to preserve those good memories and make new ones over the ones that haunted her.
Lia was a stranger to her own childhood because she had to grow up too fast, and I think once she realized that, she did everything she could to slow time down. She feared disappointing her younger self more than she feared the memories that came with it.
Lia Davis had been lost in the darkness without a light for so many years that she had forgotten what it felt like to have ahome—forgotten what it felt like to feel loved, and no matter how many times we both wanted to change the ending, Peter still lost Wendy, just how Lia lost herself.
Her, Jakson, and I were always together that year and nothing could separate us. We became her light, herhome. No wonder Sonny turned around and came back as soon as she’d said those words to him. It was what I would’ve done. How could I fault him for that?
“That’s my girl,” Jakson beamed. “Saving my ass, again.”
He wrapped his arms around Lia’s waist and playfully twirled her around in the air. She shrieked and forcefully threw her arms on top of his, smacking his hands, demanding he put her down. He pressed a whisper of a kiss to the side of her cheek, and you could see the tension in her body dissipate at his touch.
I knew that Lia could reach into the darkness and pull him back to the light, but I never considered that Jakson might be the only one who could do the same for her. Part of me wanted to be surprised, begged for it even, but deep down…I knew.
He was her jedi knight in shining armor.
But Lia? She was hiseverything.
I pretended to gag, to which Jakson rolled his eyes as he set Lia down on the sand. She nestled into his side subconsciously. The both of them suddenly looked past me and gaped. As I turned around, her words met me halfway.
“Spiderman.”
Only one person called meSpiderman. My childhood nickname.
And there she was, marching down the beach towards me—Poppy Maria Isabelle Wells. Her lips were pulled into a thin, furious line.
My jersey was long gone from her tanned body.
“Wellsy,” I mused as she neared, “good to see you’re still in one piece.”
When she reached me, she wasted no time before punching the underside of my jaw. I stumbled backwards a few steps into Jakson, who grasped the side of my shoulder with a tight grip. Poppy didn’t stop there, though.No, Poppy Wells didn’t do anything half-arsed. She flung her hands against my chest, smacking and pushing against my chest in a furious frenzy.
“Youasshole!” she yelled, eyes swollen and reddish.
I grasped both her wrists, tugging them to lay againstmy chest. Each squirm of her body fighting mine just made me pull her closer towards me.
“Whoa, Wellsy. You don’t want to bruise my ego too, now, do you?”
“Oh no, I do. You need knocking down a few pegs,” she smiled, teeth bared, “or perhaps being knocked out altogether. That seems fair, don’t you think?”
Jakson snickered behind me.
People began to gather around us, no doubt thriving on this drama. I leaned down to her, my breaths caressing her earlobe. “Is this where you want to do this, Wellsy? I mean, I’m all for an audience,” I smirked, and she took that as an invitation to knee me in the gut and twist her wrists free.Fuck me. If I forgot why people called her the Orca, I sure as hell didn’t now.
“You’re an asshole, you know that, Ridge? You haven’t changed at all. I’m not even sure why I thought you would.”
I tasted something bitter on my tongue the moment the words left her mouth. I’m not even sure why I thought you would.Why was that replaying in my head? I pushed her words away and plastered a smirk on my lips. I didn’t have time to play this sappy game with her.