Page 52 of Under the Waves
Fuck. She was going to kill me for this.
I didn’t hesitate a single second before crashing my lips to hers, breathing air into her lungs. I kept two of my fingers on her pulse as I kept trying to bring her back to consciousness.Fuck. What was she doing out there like that? How long had she been out there—no. I wouldn’t think about that. Icouldn’t.
I saw her on the beach last night. She wasfine—she was breathing andaliveand now…she was limp in my arms almost dead.Fuck. My throat constricted and I remembered to breathe myself. Realizing Pepe was still on the beach, turned away from me with his hands over his ears, I called out to him.
“Hey Pepe, we’re going to play a game, okay?” I rasped. “Yougo back to the house as fast as you can, I’ll time you, and if you can get your dad to come down here in under one minute, I’ll get you that snow cone you love from Sunny’s. Deal?”
He looked at me before nodding slowly, his eyes lingering on Poppy’s frail body in my arms.
“Hey, look at me.”
Slowly lifting his eyes to meet mine, I saw the fear that lingered there. I had to take his mind off this. I didn’t want it to create a mental block for him. “Are you ready?”
He jumped up to his feet.
“Ready…set…g—”
Before I could say the wordgo, Poppy coughed up a bunch of salt water onto my shirt. Relief burst through me and I had the urge to hug her with every fucking fiber in my body.
“No—no hospitals. No one.” She rasped between gasped breaths.
I ignored her. “GoPepe.”
Weakly, she slapped my cheek and scrambled out of my arms. She tried to stand but ended up falling back down onto her knees.
“You nearly fuckingdiedPoppy—”
She interrupted me, plunging straight into defensive mode. “But Ididn’t. I didn’t fucking die, okay? I know you wish I did but I didn’t. Hooray!” she exclaimed, forcing a smile onto her lips which ended up looking more like a scowl. She barely had the energy to fuckingsmile.
“But you could have! Don’t you get that? Are you seriously that fucked up, Poppy?”
“Yes!” she yelled, flinging her hands in anger. “Iamthat fucked up. I am fuckingbroken, Jasper. I am broken.”
I couldn’t breathe.I was broken.
“You aren’t—”
“I am.” She breathed a weak laugh and shook her head. “I am,” she whispered, voice breaking. She drew in a breath, steadying herself. “I can’t—Idon’twant to be this version of me anymore, Jasper. I can’t live this life where the entire world had abandoned me. I can’t do it anymore. I’mtired, Jasper. So fucking tired.”
Her confession stuck me like a knife to the heart. I had no idea where it came from. Maybe she was just too exhausted tocare right now, but I felt something tighten in my chest. She trusted me with those words, despite herself.
“There is no version of you that does not deserve to be loved, you hear me?” I said straightly, not even hesitating to say those words because they were fucking true. In every way. “You arenotfucking broken, Poppy. If you saw yourself through my eyes, you’d understand how fucking amazing you are. You are the only who knows how to make me so riled up by just a simple glance,” I laughed, but the sound came out strained.
Poppy shook her head at my words, dismissing them. Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine. I wanted to know what was going through her head right now. I knew nothing past the act she put on with me and I’d never cared enough to look deeper, but now? Now I wanted to know every fucking thing about her—what she liked, what her favorite fucking flower was. Her birthday, her favorite season, her stupid coffee order or cupcake flavor. Anything.Everything, if it meant that she’d look at me like I was more than just a favor to be asked.
All those years, I’d let her spar with me during our surfing competitions because Iknewshe needed it. I didn’t know how, I just…knew. And I needed it, too—needed something real for once in my life. I desperately needed my scores to go up and she was the only missing part from my life. It had to be her, it just had to.
“Look at me,” I demanded. “Dammit, Poppy,lookat me.”
She did and I could see in her eyes that she truly believed she was broken. I didn’t know what she needed right now. Did she need me to be mean? To fall back into the comfortable waters we both knew all too well. Did she want to be comforted? I had no fucking clue.
“Did you do it on purpose?” I rasped.
She stared at me for a full minute before shaking her head slightly. “I didn’t—no.”
“But you didn’t fight it?”Fight the waves to stay alive.
She nodded. Once. That was all the answer I needed for my chest to calve in two. She didn’t fight it—she didn’t fight tolive. I had no idea she felt like that; felt like she was so alone that not being here anymore was easier than staying here. How many times at comps or heats had I seen her with a smile on her face with her dad and been so fucking jealous that she had one tosupport her when I had no one?