When I finally lifted my head and checked the clock again, the anger from yesterday came crashing back.
“Poppymin,” I whispered, hearing the strained anger in my graveled voice. “I … I have to go.”
Poppy stiffened in my arms. When she shifted back, her cheeks were wet. “I know.”
I felt tears hitting my cheeks too. Poppy gently wiped them away. I caught her hand and laid a single kiss on the center of her palm. I stayed for a couple more minutes, drinking in every inch of Poppy’s face, before forcing myself to leave the bed and get dressed. Without looking back, I slid through the window and ran across the grass, feeling my heart tear with every single step.
I climbed through my window. My bedroom door had been unlocked from the outside. My pappa stood near the bed. For a brief moment my stomach turned at the fact that I’d been caught. But then the fury flared within me and I lifted my chin, daring to him to say something, anything.
I welcomed a fight.
I wouldn’t let him shame me for spending the night with the girl I loved. The one he was ripping me away from.
He turned and walked away without saying a word.
Thirty minutes passed in a flash. I cast a glance over my room, one last time. Lifting my backpack, I swung it over my shoulder and walked outside, my camera hanging around my neck.
Mr. and Mrs. Litchfield were already on our driveway, standing with Ida and Savannah, hugging my parents with their goodbyes. Seeing me walk out the door, they met me at the bottom of the steps and hugged me goodbye too.
Ida and Savannah ran to me and threw themselves around my waist. I ruffled the hair on their heads. When they stepped aside, I heard a door being opened. I lifted my eyes and saw Poppy running. She had wet hair, clearly having just showered, but she looked more beautiful than ever before as she sprinted to where we all stood, only me in her sights.
When she arrived on our driveway, she stopped briefly to hug my parents and kiss Alton goodbye. Then she turned to face me. My parents got into the car and Poppy’s parents and sisters moved back toward their house, giving us some space. I wasted no time holding out my arms, and Poppy ran into my chest. I squeezed her tight, inhaling the sweet scent from her hair.
I put my finger under her chin and tilted her head up, and then I kissed her for the final time. I kissed her with as much love as I could find inside my heart.
When I broke away, Poppy spoke through streaming tears. “Kiss number three hundred and fifty-six. With my Rune on his driveway … when he left me.”
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t stand the pain she was in—that I was in too.
“Son?” I looked over Poppy’s shoulder at my pappa. “We have to go,” he said apologetically.
Poppy’s hands tightened on my shirt. Her big green eyes were shining with tears, and it seemed like she was trying to memorize every part of my face. Finally releasing my hold on her, I raised my camera and pressed the button.
I captured this rare moment: the exact moment when someone’s heart broke.
I walked to the car, my feet feeling like ton weights. As I climbed in the backseat, I didn’t even try to stop my tears. I watched Poppy standing to the side of our car, her damp hair blowing in the breeze, watching me leave, waving goodbye.
My pappa started the engine. I opened my window. I held out my hand and Poppy took hold of it. As I gazed into her face one last time, she said, “I’ll see you in your dreams.”
“I’ll see you in my dreams,” I whispered back and reluctantly let go of her hand as my pappa drove the car away. I stared back at Poppy through the rear window, watching her wave, until she was out of sight.
I held on to the memory of that wave goodbye.
I vowed to hold onto it until that wave welcomed me home again.
Until it once again stood for ‘hello’.
Rune
Oslo
Norway
A day later I was back in Oslo, separated from Poppy by an ocean.
She and I talked every day for two months. I tried to be happy that we at least had that. But as every day ended without her by my side, the anger inside me built. My hatred for my pappa increased, until it broke something inside, and all I could feel was emptiness. I resisted making friends at school, I resisted doing anything that would make this place my home again.
My home was back in Georgia.
With Poppy.
Poppy didn’t say anything about my change in mood, if she’d even noticed. I hoped I’d hid it well. I didn’t want her worrying over me.
Then one day, Poppy didn’t return my calls, emails or texts.
Or the next day, or the next.
She dropped out of my life.
Poppy simply vanished. No word, no trace.
She left school. She left town.
Her family all upped and left without notice.
For two years she left me completely alone on the other side of the Atlantic, wondering where she was. Wondering what had happened. Wondering if I’d done something wrong. Making me think that maybe I’d pushed her too far the night before I left.
It was the second moment that defined my life.
A life without Poppy.
No infinity.
No forever always.
Just … nothing.
Poppy
Blossom Grove, Georgia
Present Day
Aged Seventeen
“He’s coming back.”
Three words. Three words that sent my life into a tailspin. Three words that terrified me.
He’s coming back.
I stared at Jorie, my closest friend, clutching my books tightly to my chest. My heart fired off like a cannon and nerves overwhelmed me.
“What did you say?” I whispered, ignoring the students around us in the hallway, all rushing to their next classes.
Jorie placed her hand on my arm. “Poppy, are you okay?”
“Yes,” I replied weakly.
“You sure? You’ve gone pale. You don’t seem okay.”
I nodded, trying to be convincing, and asked, “Who … who told you he was coming back?”
“Judson and Deacon,” she replied. “I was just in class with them and they were saying that his daddy has been sent back here by his company.” She shrugged. “This time, for good.”
I swallowed. “To the same house?”
Jorie winced, but nodded. “Sorry, Pops.”
I closed my eyes and took a calming breath. He was going to be next door again … his room directly opposite mine again.
“Poppy?” Jorie asked, and I opened my eyes. Her gaze was full of sympathy. “You sure you’re okay? You’ve only been back here a few weeks yourself. And I know what seeing Rune will do…”
I forced a smile. “I’ll be fine, Jor. I don’t know him anymore. Two years is a long time, and we haven’t spoken once in that time.”
Jorie frowned. “Pop—”
“I’ll be fine,” I insisted, holding up my hand. “I need to get to class.”
I was walking away from Jorie when a question popped into my head. I looked back over my shoulder at my friend, the only friend I had kept in touch with in the past two years. While everyone thought my family had left town to care for my mama’s sick aunt, only Jorie knew the truth.
“When?” I mustered the courage to ask.
Jorie’s face softened when she realized what I meant. “Tonight, Pops. He arrives tonight. Judson and Deacon are spreading the word for people to go to the field this evening to welcome him back. Everyone’s going.”
Her words felt like a dagger stabbing my heart. I hadn’t been invited. But then again, I wouldn’t be. I left Blossom Grove without a word. When I came back to this school, without being on Rune’s arm, I became the girl I always should have been—invisible to the popular crowd. The weird girl who wore bows in her hair and played the cello.