Page 69 of Under the Waves

Wait, what?

My eyes shot open as I shook my head.Nope. I would not think abouthim.

Maybe Jasper would go back to hating me. Maybe he’d realize that this whole thing was stupid and that I wasn’t worth even fake loving.

I knew that, my mom knew that,everyoneknew that—so why didn’the?

I’d never been deserving of love, and any slither of an inch I might’ve had was ripped from me when he died. All parts of me shattered. I was half the girl he used to know. At least he wasn’t here to witness the disappointment I’d become, the wreckage that his family had turned into.

Maybe…maybeif I had been a better older sister. If I had looked out for him more. I was so focused on keeping myselffrom slipping below first place that I hadn’t realized he had fallen under the waves.Drowned.Dead.

I craved to have our father’s attention on me—for once,Iwanted to be the most important thing in the universe. I wanted to feel like a normal little girl. I wanted to feel something other than emptiness. I thought,you know,if I won all those competitions, he had to be proud of me—that he’d want to show his little girl off to his friends, bursting with joy over how talented she was.

I wanted him to see that he didn’t need a son because I could be more than enough for him. All I wanted, more than anything in the world, was to be enough for him, and I never,ever, was.

And mymom? I knew from a young age that I would never be worthy enough in her eyes. I was a disappointment from the moment I first opened my eyes and she saw an emerald, green pair looking back at her.

The eyes of her husband, the eyes of anabuser.

I never had a chance against her. How could I? His blood ran through me, and when she looked at me, all she could see washim.

If I just had blond hair like Oliver, if I just had fair honey-brown eyes like her, maybe, justmaybe,she could’ve found a single inch of her heart spare enough to give to me.

“You see this, Poppy?” she grabbed my hands, and pressed them against the purple-blue bruise painted across the side of her cheek. “This is your future. Forget the shiny trophies, forget the gold medals and rosy, red ribbons—this is how you will end up. Just like him. You have always been just like him.”

“I didn’t do anything, I swear!” I screamed, trying to pull myself free of her grip. Each tug made her grip tighten. I was useless against her.

“Not this time. Not next time. But one day, mark my words Poppy, you will find someone you love and you will ruin it, because that is all you two are capable of doing.”

I could recite those words by heart—letter for letter, word for word.

I was so scared of becoming like him that I refused to let anyone love me in fear that I would ruin it all. I saw how she was, and I never wanted to do that to someone else.

She knew I was a monster before I even had any claws, but the only true monster of the two of us was the one who told hersix-year-old daughter she wished she was never born—that her entire existence was a waste of space, of air, of hope, of dreams stolen from other kids who deserved themmore.

That she was a life not worth saving.

Iwas a life not worth saving.

26

Poppy Wells

Ilooked in the mirror,

but only imperfections looked back at me.

Each one called out to me like a siren’s song.

Their voices filled the silence inside my head

with whispers of stolen promises and forgotten secrets.

I saw my tired face,

wavy curls falling beside my cheeks

and disappearing far beyond my shoulders.