Page 61 of Under the Waves

Those guys may have been older, outranking him in every way, but to him none of that mattered. By the first week, everybody knew to leave Lia alone than to brave his wrath. I didn’t even know if she knew why everyone stopped picking on her, probably thinking it was a miracle from the heavens when it was really just her best friend looking out for her in every way he could.

Jakson Calloway was Lia Davis’s protector, but most importantly, herfriend. They coexisted in this universe together where no one could even reach them. They were two stars who orbited each other, and when one of them dimmed, losing sight of the light, so did the other—because no timeline existed where those two did not give everything for each other.

“He definitely bet her to go out with him, Blue,” Jakson chuckled just as Lia glared at him. Sonny winked at me as he walked over and sat down next to her. She reached over to take Hudson from his hands, but Jakson lightly kissed her hair before whispering something in her ear. A small, relieved smile tugged on her lips as she relaxed into his side, her head rested just below his chin, pressed against his chest.

The rest of the movie passed in a haze. End credits toPrincess and the Frogrolled onto the screen but no one but Poppy and Belle were paying attention. I didn’t know when, but Belle had sneaked closer to Poppy, now huddled into her side; the two ofthem whispered throughout the second half of the movie, singing along to the songs, sharing secrets…something was breaking inside my chest, and it felt like I couldn’t breathe when I looked at them together.

Myfamily.

“Can I have the last cookie, pleaseeee,” Logan pleaded, eyeing the lonesome cookie on the plate in Poppy’s lap. She looked to Lia, unsure, but she was half asleep on Jakson’s chest.

My gaze slid from the two of them towards the girl who had begun haunting my dreams. This morning when I found her—the memory of it had plagued my every waking thought since. Especially the look in her eyes when she confessed that she thought she wasbroken.

I knew I needed to stop trying tofixother people, but how could I just turn a blind eye to what she’d said? She wasn’t broken, not to me. She was everythingbutthat. Beautiful. Courageous. Resilient.Fuck. She deserved to beshownshe was loved. More than fruitless words and unfilled promises. I’d show her just how loved she really was, even if she killed me in the process. After all, she hated me and I hated her.

At least, that was what I’d spent the last few days reminding myself.

With the plates all cleared, Jakson playfully badgering Lia with Hudson drifting to sleep on his chest, and Lucas still on the floor with his twin playing firefighters, I followed Poppy into the hall. With everyone distracted, nobody seemed to notice us both slip out of the room.

Poppy reached for the door handle just as a heavy weight felt like it was thrust through my chest like a knife.

Don’t go.

“What?”

I looked at her, brows crossed.

“You said something?”

“I—”Fuck.How was I now getting tongue-tied around her? “Why didn’t you tell me you had a mental block when we made that bet?”

“I didn’t think it was relevant,” she shrugged, turning to go.

I reached out to her, grasping her first between my fingers. Just as my skin brushed her own, she flinched. “Like hell it isn’t relevant, Poppy.”

“Look, I don’t need you, okay? At all, actually. I don’t evenknow why I agreed to this stupid bet in the first place. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

For a moment, we both stood there in the silence until the glassy look disappeared from her eyes and the door was already half open.

“It’s not a mental block, you know.” I called out to her as she walked down the driveway. Screw everything, she needed to hear this regardless of how painful it was. “You can’t surf anymore because of the person you see when you’re out there, right? It’s not a mental block, Poppy. It’s PTSD and it’sserious. You can’t throw a bandage on it and expect it to heal!”

I blinked and suddenly the house was empty again.

Poppy was gone and she didn’t even say goodbye.

22

Poppy Wells

The walk back home was a deafening sort of quiet. An eerie sort of silence.

I didn’t want to go home.

Didn’t want to step through that door.

Be confined by those walls.

Haunted by those screams.