My eyes closed as I tried to chase away the lump in my throat. When I opened them, Poppy was watching me like she always did—in complete adoration.
Rising higher on my knees, I leaned closer, seeing Poppy’s eyes soften as I pressed my forehead to hers, as carefully as if she were a china doll. As soon as our skin touched, I drew in a long breath, and whispered, “Poppymin.”
This time it was Poppy’s tears that fell to her lap. I pushed my hand into her hair and held her close. “Don’t cry, Poppymin. I can’t stand to see your tears.”
“You mistake their meaning,” she whispered in return.
I moved my head back slightly, searching her eyes. Poppy’s gaze met mine and she smiled. I could see the contentment on her pretty face as she explained, “I never thought I would hear you say that word to me again.” She swallowed hard. “I never thought I would feel you this close to me again. I never dreamed I would feel this again.”
“Feel what?” I asked.
“This,” she said and brought my hand to her chest. Right over her heart. It was racing. I stilled, feeling something in my own chest stirring back to life, and she said, “I never thought I’d ever feel fully whole again.” A tear fell from her eye and onto my hand, splashing on my skin. “I never thought I’d regain half my heart before I…” She trailed off, but we both knew what she meant. Her smile dropped and her gaze bored through to my own. “Poppy and Rune. Two halves of the same whole. Reunited at last. When it matters most.”
“Poppy…,” I said, but couldn’t fend off the whip of pain cracking deep inside.
Poppy blinked, then blinked again, until all her tears were gone. She stared at me, her head dropping to one side, like she was working out a difficult puzzle.
“Poppy,” I said, my voice husky and coarse. “Let me stay awhile. I can’t … I can’t … I don’t know what to do…”
Poppy’s warm palm landed gently on my cheek. “There’s nothing to do, Rune. Nothing to do but weather the storm.”
My words became trapped in my throat and I closed my eyes. When they opened again, she was watching me.
“I’m not scared,” she assured me confidently, and I could see that she meant it. One hundred percent meant it. My Poppy. Tiny in size but filled with courage and light.
I had never been more proud to love her than I was at that moment.
My attention dropped to her bed—a bed that was bigger than the one she had had two years ago. She seemed too small for the large mattress. As she sat in the center, she looked like a little girl.
Clearly seeing me looking at the bed, Poppy shuffled back. I could detect an edge of wariness in her expression, and I couldn’t blame her. I knew I was not the boy she waved goodbye to two years ago. I was changed.
I wasn’t sure I could be her Rune ever again.
Poppy swallowed, and after a moment’s hesitation, she patted the mattress beside her. My heart raced. She was letting me stay. After everything. After everything I’d done since I returned, she was letting me stay.
Making to stand up, my legs felt unsteady. The tears had stained my cheeks, grated my throat to soreness, and the grief, the surreal revelation about the pain of Poppy’s illness … it had left a residual numbness in my body. Every inch of me broken, patched back up with Band-Aids—Band-Aids over open wounds.
Temporary.
Futile.
Useless.
I toed off my boots, then climbed onto the bed. Poppy shifted to lie on her natural side of the bed, and I, awkwardly, lay on mine. In a move so familiar to us both, we turned onto our sides and faced one another.
But it wasn’t as familiar as it once was. Poppy had changed. I had changed. Everything had changed.
And I didn’t know how to adjust.
Minutes and minutes of silence ticked by. Poppy seemed content to watch me. But I had one question. The one question I had wanted to ask her when the contact stopped. The thought that had burrowed inside of me, turning dark for want of an answer. The one thought that made me feel sick. The one question that still had the potential to rip me apart. Even now, when my world couldn’t shatter anymore.
“Ask me,” Poppy said suddenly, keeping her voice low so as not to wake her parents. Surprise must have shown on my face, because she shrugged, looking so damn cute. “I may not know the boy you are now, but I recognize that expression. The one that’s building up to a question.”
I ran my finger over the sheet between us, my attention focused on the movement I was making. “You do know me,” I whispered in reply, wanting to believe that more than anything. Because Poppy was the only one who ever truly knew the real me. Even now, buried under all this rage and anger, after the distance of two silent years, she still knew the heart underneath.
Poppy’s fingers moved closer to mine in the neutral territory between us. The no-man’s-land that separated our bodies. As I watched our two hands, straining for each other, but not quite reaching, I was engulfed with the need to get my camera, a need I hadn’t felt for a long time.
I wanted this moment captured.
I wanted this picture. I wanted this moment in time, to hold onto forever.
“I know some of your question, I think,” Poppy said, pulling me back from my thoughts. Her cheeks blushed, deep pink spreading over her fair skin. “I’ll be honest, since you’ve returned, I don’t recognize much. But there are times that there are glimpses of the boy I love. Enough to inspire hope that he still lies in wait underneath.” Her face was determined. “I think, above anything, that I want to see him fight through what has him hidden. I think seeing him again is my biggest wish, before I go.”
I turned my head away, unwilling to listen to her talk about leaving, about the letdown I was, about the fact that her time was running out. Then, like a soldier’s act of courage, her hand breached the distance between us and her fingertip grazed over mine. I turned my head back around. My fingers opened at her touch. Poppy ran her fingertip along the flesh of my palm, tracing the lines.
The hint of a smile came on her lips. My stomach sank, wondering how many more times I would see that smile. Wondering how she found the strength to smile at all.
Then, slowly retreating to where it had lain before, Poppy’s hand grew still. She looked at me, patiently waiting for the question that I still had not asked.
Feeling my heart race in trepidation, I opened my mouth and asked, “Was the silence … was it only about … your illness, or was it … was it because…” Images from our final night flashed into my brain. Me lying over her body, our mouths pressed together in slow, soft kisses. Poppy telling me she was ready. Us losing our clothes, me watching her face as I pushed forward, and afterward as she lay in my arms. Falling asleep beside her, nothing left unsaid between us.
“What?” Poppy asked, wide-eyed.
Taking in a quick breath, I blurted, “Was it because I pushed too far? Did I force you? Pressure you?” Biting the bullet, I asked, “Did you regret it?”
Poppy tensed, her eyes glistening. I wondered for a minute if she was about to cry, confess that what I had feared these past two years was true. That I hurt her. She put her trust in me and I hurt her.
Instead, Poppy rose from the bed and knelt down. I heard her pulling something out from underneath. When she rose to her feet, in her hand was a familiar glass mason jar. A mason jar filled with hundreds of pink paper hearts.