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It was miserable to know that Sam was so close. They all were. I’d heard Cyrus’s truck one afternoon and nearly broken my leg rushing to the window to see him walking into Sam’s. I’d watched the video of Jude talking about his business on his website at least twenty times. I missed them. I missed them more than I knew it was possible to miss someone.
The things that had driven me crazy about them for so long were some of the things I missed the most. No one lectured me about locking my door. No one challenged me just to challenge me. No one came over and talked about business for hours in an attempt to get me to start my own. It had only been a couple of weeks since I’d made a mess of things, but in Fearsome Foursome time, that was like years.
I didn’t know what they’d been doing and the idea that they’d created a new group chat without me in it made me want to cry. I sat up most nights and just stared at their contacts, trying to find the courage to call them. I paced back and forth in front of my door when I knew they were at Sam’s, trying to get up the strength to walk across and talk to them. I just hadn’t been able to.
The things I wanted to say to them wouldn’t come out right, I knew. I struggled so much to talk about my big feelings that I was scared if I tried to, I’d just shut down and make a fool of myself. Like the night at the bar. After Cyrus had said he loved me, I had a moment of clarity. When I’d heard him admit that they weren’t okay, I just wanted to tell them that I wanted more. That’s all I would have to say, I knew. I just had to say the bare minimum because I knew the guys. I knew that they would accept that from me, even if they deserved so much more. I hadn’t even been able to say that, though. I’d frozen in place and cried like a baby.
It was during an especially hard talk with Charlie that I’d started to understand why it was so hard for me to talk to the guys. Charlie, in between working his cases as a detective, doing a will-they won’t-they dance with Sara, and doing what he called brother workouts, had come over to talk every day. He was proving that he was the best brother and deserved the coffee mug I’d gotten him for Christmas a few years earlier.
Charlie had stopped me in the middle of a story and questioned something I hadn’t even noticed. “Every story you’ve ever told me about Andrew has the same thing in it. Do you realize that?”
I snorted. “That he’s a prick?”
“Yes, that. Also, though, you always quote yourself with a silly voice. Never Andrew. You make yourself sound ridiculous.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why would you do the silly voice over what you said instead of what he said?”
I was shaking my head before he was finished talking. “I don’t do that.”
“I’m telling you right now, Poppy, you just did it. You said that Andrew told you that you had to keep your stuff in a small corner of his closet, in case he entertained, because he didn’t want people to know that you were living with him. What did you say back to him?”
I frowned. “I told him that I didn’t understand why he’d insisted I move in if—”
“See!”
My jaw dropped as I heard the way I’d mimicked what I’d said all those years ago like I was some nagging, annoying kid. “Holy fucking shit!”
“Yeah. Just call me Dr. Charlie because I think I just cracked the code.” He popped his neck and then patted himself on the back before growing serious again. “Poppy, was there a single time when you were with that man that he ever just listened to you?”
I thought there’d been times, but as I sat there with Charlie, I had this overwhelming sense of shame wash over me because there hadn’t been a single time in my entire relationship with Andrew when he’d heard me. Everything I brought up was somehow wrong because I was too young, too inexperienced, too dumb. He’d used that same dumb voice to mimic me all the time, making me sound even younger and dumber than I’d ever thought possible.
I could verbally spar with the guys all day long, but it was when things got serious, especially after we’d blurred all the lines, that I’d felt unable to talk to them. I hadn’t consciously thought that they would ridicule me for whatever I said, but it seemed that Andrew had trained me well over the decade we’d been together.
My shutting down had worked with Andrew in the end because he wanted things his way and he didn’t want my opinion. With the guys, though, they wanted me to tell them how I felt and what I wanted. They needed me to communicate with them.
Charlie’s visits made me leave the days of junk food and rewatchingThe Notebookbehind. He’d forced me to clean the first day he came over and then he’d pushed me into the shower, fully dressed. After a week of Drill Sergeant Charlie, my house was clean, my body was clean, I’d gotten my money back from the therapy app, and I was almost able to say the words I needed to say to the guys while facing myself in the mirror. That felt like real progress until I saw Sam outside, talking to Merna, and did a fullFree Willybelly flop to avoid being seen.
Every time I thought I was maybe ready to talk to them, I panicked. I told myself I’d waited too long or hurt them too badly. I’d embarrassed them in front of my family and probably the bar the night I’d shown up in my socks in a sugar-induced rage. I’d been hard to deal with and stubborn, all the things Andrew had accused me of being at various points of our relationship. I’d actually been those things to my best friends, though. I worried that they’d wake up and realize that I didn’t deserveoneof them, much less all three of them.
I knew I had to do something. I just didn’t know what, or how. If I didn’t do something fast, though, I was going to lose them.
55
***Poppy***
IwokeuptheSaturday three weeks after I’d ruined my relationship with the guys to a dozen missed calls from my mom. She’d finally started speaking to me again, but a dozen calls was too much, even for her. I looked at the time on my phone while I called her back and saw that I’d slept in. It was almost noon. I was mid-stretch when the call connected and nearly snapped my spine in half when the commotion on Mom’s end of the phone erupted into my ear.
“Jesus, Mom! What is that?”
Mom must’ve covered the phone and moved somewhere quieter, because when she came back on the line, the noise was just a dull roar. “Don’t use the lord’s name in vain while I’m standing in a church, Poppy!”
“Why are you standing in a church?” I rubbed my back and forced myself to sit up. I was a teacher in my off-season, AKA the summer, but I had projects I could be working on. Sleeping my life away wasn’t an option.
“Did you just ask me that? Poppy, please tell me that you didn’t just ask me that.”
“What am I missing here?”
“How about your cousin’s wedding?!” Mom said a prayer that was too fast for me to understand and then spoke slightly slower while admonishing me. “Why are you like this, Poppy Jo? I shouldn’t have named you after your father. Jo Senior can’t remember to button his pants if my hand isn’t—”
“Mom!” I didn’t know where she was going, but I didn’t want to know.
