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On one of those occasions, she’d left to get us some lunch and buy some staples for the house—cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and paper towels. I could hear her downstairs in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboard doors as she made a dozen fucking lists about where she wanted to put things.
She worked on one of them while we sat on the floor of the bedroom and ate the subs she’d picked up in town.
“What about Holland?” she asked, wiping her thumb in the corner of her mouth.
I arched an eyebrow. “What about it?”
“As a name,” she said.
“That’s not a name, it’s a fucking country.”
“I think it’s cute,” she stated.
Setting my sub down, I motioned for the paper in her lap.
With a tiny eye roll, Poppy pushed the notebook in my direction. There was a girl column, in bright pink—Evelyn, Holland, Gemma, Cecily, and Rosie. My eyes snagged on the last name, thumb brushing over the letters, and my brain did that thing again, picturing a button nose and big brown eyes. Dimple in her cheek, just like her mom.
Thinking about a little girl named Rosie with those eyes and that smile, knowing how thoroughly I’d be tied in knots over her, a wild sort of emotion clawed up my throat, and I tried clearing it out. Tried and failed.
“Boys are on the other side,” she added. The weight of her gaze on my face made my skin feel hot, but I ignored it for the time being, turning the paper over to find a deep blue ink with another small list of names.
Isaiah, Miles, Lucas, Hayes, and Griffin.
My brow lowered.
“What?” she asked.
“Not Timothy, after your dad?”
Poppy closed her eyes, resting her head against the wall, and I saw how much effort it took for her to swallow. When she opened them again, her eyes were red and a little glossy. “I’m not sure I could handle a first name,” she admitted. “A middle name, maybe. Whenever I see his name on something, I feel a little pinch of sad in my heart. Something that’s just for him, you know? Like I want to protect that feeling as long as I can.” She sighed. “Grief is weird. Some days I can gohours without thinking about the fact that he’s gone. It wasn’t like that the first couple of months. It just changes one day, and you don’t even realize how it happened. It sneaks up so quietly, this invisible barrier that slowly stretches out the amount of time between those thoughts. And then you go, oh yeah, I’m stillreallysad about this.”
When the first tear slid down her face, I had to force myself to stay still because the urge to gather her up in my arms eclipsed my common sense in no more time than a heartbeat.
Poppy sniffed, using her lunch napkin to dab under her eyes. “Sorry. Sometimes I don’t know whether I should blame hormones or if it’s just … me.”
“Don’t apologize,” I told her, voice rough and heart raw. “You should miss him. I think any time we lose someone that important, missing them is what makes us know we’re not dead inside.” Invisible fingers strangled my throat, trying to keep those words down, and Poppy’s eyes glinted with instant curiosity. I kept talking because the last thing I wanted was more questions. “Not many people can put up with all the shit your siblings used to pull and still keep their head, but he was one of them.”
Poppy emitted a watery laugh, another tear escaping down her cheek. She didn’t wipe this one away.
I’d always admired her ability to feel out loud, the absolute fucking bravery that it took to wear her heart on her sleeve. Most people didn’t feel safe enough to do that, but Poppy did. In her grief, in her optimism, in the ownership of her flaws, even in her years of misguided feelings toward me, she showed a strength that ten of me wouldn’t have been able to master, and for once, because of her, I wanted to know what that felt like.
Do something.
Do something.
This wasn’t the same kind of restless energy that had mewanting to sprint and run and go somewhere to clear my head. It was something deeper, pulled from a vital place inside my head, urging me into action that might obliterate the firmly defined line she’d drawn.
It was a worthwhile risk because the thought of her being so sad was more than I could bear. Staring down at her, chest in knots, I moved my hand without permission and caught that tear with the edge of my thumb.
Her skin was so fucking soft, even damp from her tears, and I swallowed hard, cursing my own weakness. There was the slightest catch in her breath, and I ignored it as I pulled my hand back to the safety of my lap.
“There’s a lot of people in this world who aren’t worth your tears, angel, but your dad is one of them.”
In the delicate notch at the base of her throat, I could see the fluttering of her pulse.
When she moved one of her legs, Poppy’s notebook fell off her lap, the pencils hitting the floor, the melancholy mood efficiently snapped.
I blinked down at the ground, and Poppy seemed to be gathering herself as well.
