ME: Misspent youth. I read a lot.
POPPY: At 3am?
ME: I don’t sleep much, but it’s not 3am here.
POPPY: What time is it?
ME: 11:58 AM, but rest assured, you will not wake me if you ever want to text me at 3am.
POPPY: Insomnia?
ME: Something like that.
The three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
POPPY: Me neither. Tonight anyway. My brain won’t shut off.
POPPY: Violet sent the seating chart. I’m at the main table. With Preston. And Serenity. And my mother.
POPPY: For THREE HOURS.
I set down the acquisition documents. They can wait. They’ve been waiting for decades in various forms. A few more hours won’t matter.
ME: Tell me about the seating chart.
POPPY: You don’t want to hear about the seating chart.
ME: I’m asking.
POPPY: It’s just... Violet put Preston across from me. ACROSS. So I’ll have to look at his face while I eat. While Serenity touches his arm and laughs at his horrible jokes and does that thing where she looks at him like he invented oxygen.
POPPY: And my mom will be watching. Cataloging every reaction. Ready to swoop in with “helpful” comments about how I’m handling it.
POPPY: And I’ll have to smile. The whole time. Because if I don’t smile, I’m the bitter ex who can’t move on. And if I smile too much, I’m overcompensating. There’s this exact right amount of smile that proves I’m fine and happy and totally not dying inside.
POPPY: Sorry. That was a lot. You didn’t sign up for my therapy session.
I stare at the phone. At the raw honesty she’s offering without seeming to realize how rare it is.
Most people perform constantly. Even alone, even in private, they’re rehearsing for an audience that doesn’t exist. Poppy’s entire career is performance—she knows the angles, the lighting, the exact calibration of authenticity that sells. But right now, at 3 AM when she can’t sleep, she’s not performing.
She’s just telling me the truth.
ME: I signed up for whatever you need.
The words escape before I can weigh whether they’re appropriate. Whether they reveal too much.
POPPY: That’s very fake-boyfriend of you.
ME: It’s not fake.
A long pause. I watch the dots appear and disappear three times.
POPPY: Julian?
ME: Yes?
POPPY: Why did you really take this job? And don’t say curiosity again. I’ve been thinking about it and it doesn’t add up. You’re clearly wealthy. You don’t need the money. You don’t seem like someone who does things for fun. So why?
