Page 171 of Broken Ties (Rixon High 4)

Poppy

“Hey, Lil,”I said as her face filled the phone screen.

“Hey, Pops.” She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I want to hibernate until graduation.”

Her soft laughter did little to ease the knot in my stomach. “That bad, huh?”

“It was awful. Like a bad dream or something.”

“Did you talk to him yet?”

“No,” I sighed, rolling onto my side and propping my cell against an expertly positioned cushion. “I don’t even know what I would say. It’s such a mess.”

“We’ve known Aaron our whole lives, Pops. It must have been bad if he lost it like that.”

“I think that was just the final straw in a long night of disappointments.”

“Yeah, Mom said it was, and I quote, ‘A clusterfuck.’”

“She said that?”

“She did.” I heard the smile in her voice. “She also said she hoped that you and Aaron would, and again, I quote, ‘Sort your crap out.’”

“She knows, doesn’t she? How I feel about him?”

“I think she’s suspected for a while, yeah.”

“Why do you think she’s never asked me about it?”

“Maybe for the same reason you’ve never talked to her about it.”

Lily made a good point. But Mom was the adult. Wasn’t I supposed to take her lead?

“You’ve always been so sure of everything, Poppy…”

“I don’t feel very sure now.”

“No, I imagine you don’t. But what you and Aaron share is bigger than Zara Willis.” I clucked my tongue at the mention of her name and Lily laughed, adding, “Why do you think she did what she did? Because she’s a jealous slutty bitch who knows she won’t ever have Aaron the way you do.”

“Lily May Ford,” I gasped. “You kiss your momma with that mouth.”

“Girls like Zara thrive on attention, on putting others down to make themselves feel better. But if you ignore them, you cut off their air supply and in the end they wither and die.”

“Did you just hint that we murder her? Because I’m in… I’m so freaking in.”

Lily’s laughter was infectious and I found myself laughing right along with her. But it wasn’t enough to stitch the jagged pieces of my heart back together.

“He hurt me, Lil. He really hurt me.”

“I know, Poppy. I know. And only you can decide if you can forgive him or not. But you should at least hear him out.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“I sense a ‘but’ there…” She waited, giving me the time and space to process my thoughts.

“What if after all this, he still doesn’t want me?”

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