Page 79 of Under the Waves

the

world

went

silent.

28

Jasper Ridge

“I’m going to kill that bastard,” I scowled, scrunching my fists by my side.

How could he have done that to her?

How could he have just left her like that?

“No,pleasedon’t do anything,” Lia begged me. “Please, Jasper.Please.”

“He’ll be sorry he ever walked out on you like that—”

Poppy tightened her grip on my hands that still lay around her waist. I completely forgot—I was so at ease with her, just lying there with her under the sunlight listening to the waves…she made me lose all sense of time. Being with her was like my own wonderland and there was nothing more I wanted to do than get lost with her and just forget the world that was so adamant in tearing us apart.

She squeezed my hand again. I guessed it was to stop me from getting up and marching over to the guys and punching Jakson, so he had a matching black eye. He could worry about looking sexy for his fucking drunk hookupsafterI’d finished beating the shit out of him.

One rule.

One. Fucking. Rule.

That was all I gave him.

Don’t, under any fucking circumstances,hurt her.

But he did and now he was going to wish he was in one of Belle’s fairy tales because there was nothing happy about the way this would end for him.

“Listen to her, Jas.Trusther. You don’t need to jump straight in at a hundred miles an hour to save her. To save all of us. Justbreatheand let Lia talk, I’m sure it will make more sense once we know the whole story.”

Why did she have to make so much Goddamn sense?

You don’t need to jump straight in at a hundred miles an hour to save her. To save all of us.

How could I not? Lia was my family—that girl was like my little sister, and I’d go to the ends of the earth on her behalf. She’d fought alone for too long in this cruel world so the least I could do was have her back.

I’d grown up with her—all those years side by side, separated by only a fence…but that never stopped us. I remembered building a fort of pillows with her in the living room, sneaking popcorn and a million stuffed teddies, and streaming cheesy 90s Rom-coms on her dad’s laptop.

I also remembered how she disappeared afterwards for days and then came back like it was nothing.

Perhaps it was just a one off?But it wasn’t.

Every time she came back, she was a little lessLia.

She quit ballet without even a word, stopped giggling and smiling all the time.

Some days I didn’t evenrecognizeher.

Yet, all I could do was hope that she wouldn’t ever lose herself.

There were times when Lia tried to push me away, times when she was so scared about how I would react to the ugly and dark side of her life.

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