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Sits back while my family lays the blame at Jax’s feet without saying a word.
There was no denying that one hurt worse than all the others, a visceral shooting pain straight through the heart. But I wasn’t that woman, you know?
I wasn’t that person who spoke without thinking. I wasn’t the one who unleashed her temper without a script. Maybe to my detriment, I thought just a little bit too much before acting. Made sure that whatever those actions were, the waves I made as a result wouldn’t cause any damage.
And here I was. Hurricane fucking Poppy. Leveling the immediate area and leaving nothing but a heaping pile of drama in her wake.
With a groan, I got up from the table, notebook tucked under my arm and the pen between my teeth. The kitchen was clean, a plate of freshly baked muffins sat on a cooling rack underneath the kitchen window, and when I glanced out into the front, Mom’s car was still parked in its normal spot. In the fall, Cameron built her a fancy chicken coop, and she loved spending time out there, so with the safe assumption that she was with the chicks, I sliced up an apple and some sharp cheddar cheese, broke a muffin in half, and went out onto the front porch to wait for her to come back.
I always chose my dad’s favorite chair when I sat outside, which was maybe a silly way to feel closer to him on days when I missed him most, but it helped.
With the plate sitting on the side table, I ran my hands over the arms of the chair, felt the dings and scratches from years of sitting and taking his coffee there. I let my eyes flutter closed at the warmth of the sun on my face.
“Oh, Dad, if you could’ve seen this one,” I said with a tiny smile. “I’m sure you would’ve been the one making me laugh right now. God, Greer had ahammer.”
I always liked the idea that he could hear us. That he knew what was happening. Maybe it was naive, but sometimes thesimple act of saying something that I’d want him to know out loud helped ease some of the twisting ache coiled in my chest since he died.
I’d asked myself a million times over the past few months what he’d think about all this. If he was alive, if I’d have confided in him about Jax. It was so easy to say that I would have. That if I’d had his calm, steady presence, I might have made different decisions. But the truth was much more complicated than a few simple questions, even if he had asked them.
There was a level of uncertainty that still clouded big decisions without my dad. How do we proceed? Who’s taking his place for this event and that event? That massive, empty spot where he always stood, who was going to fill it? At Christmas, there was a stilted moment of pause before Ian stood and slowly picked up the carving knife when Mom unthinkingly laid it next to the turkey and took her seat.
My hand curled around the notebook in my head, thinking about how many times Dad caught me making a list to help move through a situation that was stressing me out.
“Feel better now, Popsicle?”
He’d kiss the top of my head and pat my shoulder.
I laid my own hand on my shoulder and squeezed. It didn’t feel the same.
“Not yet,” I whispered to no one but the trees. “But hopefully soon.”
He’d have calmed everyone today. I knew it. He’d have spoken up in a way that I couldn’t quite manage, the sheer magnitude of how overwhelming it was to see him weighing my tongue down like an anchor, muting any words that I might have said if I was a little more prepared.
Protective to a fault, my family was. Usually just to put people outside of our circle.
This was someone inside it. Very inside of it. Maybe, somehow, that made all of this even worse to my siblings, nomatter how much they loved Jax on any given day. No one, and I meanno one, saw this coming.
My phone dinged, and I pulled myself from my looping, swooping thoughts.
Jax: Are you home?
Jax: I’m heading to talk to Cameron, but I’d like to stop there first if that’s okay with you.
My heart stuttered at the sight of his name popping up on my phone’s screen.
“Better get used to it,” I muttered. I was staring down the barrel at years of interactions with Jax.Years. And that was before you started thinking about graduations and college and weddings and grandkids someday. I’d needeight thousandnotebooks before this was over.
“Oh God,” I whispered shakily. “Settle the fuck down, Poppy.”
Maybe,maybe, I had a tendency to go a little overboard with my long-term projections.
Me: I’m home.
Doing my best calm pregnant person impersonation, I waited for Jax to appear, methodically eating the apple and cheese so there were no hungry freak-outs upon his arrival. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust myself to stay levelheaded, but until you feel those pregnancy hormones, you didn’t evenknowhow little you were actually in control.
But the exact moment I heard the rumble of the motorcycle engine, that whole calm pregnant person was exposed for the utter bullshit it was. Would there ever be a time that I wasn’t so thoroughly affected by his presence?
I sat still, hand over my bump, watching him astride that beast of a machine, his eyes covered by aviator sunglasses andhis jaw coated with dark hair. I’d never seen Jax with a full beard, but I was afan.
