Page 66 of The Beginning and End of Everything
"No, but death can’t feel betrayal.” He turns back to his speed bag. “He’d want you to live."
Live, not desecrate his memory.
* * *
The last thingI expected when I got home was for Poppy to be dressed in a pair of tight jeans—she had no business wearing—and telling me, we were going out.
She insisted it would be good for us to get out of the apartment and away from the bar, but I hate people. I never used to. Hell, there's a lot of things I never used to do or dislike. Now though, crowds are an issue.
Poppy sits next to me, throwing nervous glances my way as the tube fires along the tracks. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to regulate my breathing. It feels like the walls of the train are pressing in on me, no doubt because it’s buried beneath the weight of an entire damn city.
"You all right?" she asks.
"Yep." My fists clench so hard that my knuckles ache.
Poppy grabs my hand, prying my fingers apart. "It's all right." Slowly, she rubs her thumb over the crease of my sweat-slicked palm to ease away the stress and strain she clearly sees in my body language.
This shouldn't even be an issue. People ride the tube every day, but I’m on high alert. Every instinct I have forces me to scan my surroundings for threats, needing an escape route at all times. The human drive to survive is all-consuming, and when you've been in the kind of places I have, that instinct goes into overdrive.
The most normal situations pose the ability to become hostile in an instant. Only this isn't war. And it doesn't matter how many times I tell myself that, my mind can't over-ride primal drive. My body can't forget the trauma.
The second the tube stops at Knightsbridge, I push to my feet, tearing my hand away from Poppy and shouldering through the crowd. People shout and curse, but I don't care. I don't stop until I reach the street. The smog of the city air has never felt so enticing.
By the time Poppy catches up to me, she's out of breath.
I don’t give her a second’s reprieve. "Okay, so you dragged me into the center of this shit-hole city. Now what?"
"Don't know. Just thought it would be nice to get some fresh air." She says this just as a double-decker bus sputters past, the thick smell of exhaust filling the air—irony at its finest.
"So fresh," I grumble. "Carbon monoxide poisoning, just what I always wanted."
I plop my arse on a metal bench beside the railings down to the subway. "I'm just going to sit here until you make up your mind."
A wry smile works over her lips. "You really want to leave that decision up to me?"
"Tell you what, you make a decision and I'll tell you whether I'm coming with or going home."
"Tower of London, then Madame Tussaud’s, and The London Eye."
"I'm going home." I stand up, and Poppy grabs my arm with a laugh.
"You can't leave me here." She pouts, and that always did get to me.
"I'm not doing the tourist shit. Do I look like a small Japanese man?" I point at her while she laughs. "And I'm not carrying you around."
"I didn't ask you to, now did I?" She takes my hand and tugs me down the congested sidewalk.
"I've heard that shit before." I swear, I spent half my childhood carrying Poppy around.My feet hurt. My legs are tired…She was annoying, but damn, I could never tell her no, and I was always twice the size of Connor…and he was fat. Maybe I should have made him carry her; he'd have lost a few pounds. But then she wouldn’t be my possum.
"Come on,” she says. “We haven’t done this stuff since we were kids in school."
We stop at a crosswalk, and I exhale a defeated breath. "Fine. But not the wax shit. No one needs to see a still life of Britney Spears."
The light changes, and I go one way while she tries to tug me another.
Her brows wrinkle, and she points to the opposite side of the street than I’m headed. "The Tower of London is that way."
"I'm not going to the Tower of London and doing the scenic bullshit. I'll do the Natural History Museum."
