Chapter Nineteen #3
He stiffened as he looked down at his arm. “That makes no fucking sense. I haven’t seen Ashley since we broke up.” He looked
at Poppy imploringly. “Poppy, you know I haven’t seen her.”
Poppy pressed a fist against her stomach and swallowed hard. She shrugged weakly. “Cash—”
“Don’t pull Poppy into your mess, Curran,” Rosaline snapped. “And don’t ask her to lie for you.”
“I’m not asking her to lie for me.” He buried his hands in his hair and gritted his teeth. “I’m fucking not, okay. I would never ask her to do that.”
“And I wouldn’t lie,” Poppy promised, utterly and completely fucking lost. “I don’t know what’s happening any more than anyone
else here does. This is the first time I . . .”
She didn’t know how to finish that sentence. This was the first time she’d seen the video? This was the first time she’d learned
that Cash had—no. She couldn’t bring herself to think . . . that, give it credence, let alone voice it out loud.
“Lyric, baby,” Cash croaked. The skin beneath his eyes had turned pink and puffy. “Please, you have to—”
“She has to what?” Rosaline demanded. “Listen to you lie? Fat fucking chance. Lyric doesn’t have to do a damn thing.”
“Back the fuck off, Rosaline,” he snarled. “I know you love Lyric, but news flash, so do I.”
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it, sticking your tongue down your ex’s throat.”
“Cut it out, both of you,” Poppy said, stepping between them. “Your arguing isn’t helping.”
Rosaline pressed her lips together in a thin line, looking like it pained her to keep the words in.
Lyric gave a sharp jerk of her head and stumbled into the counter when Cash reached for her. “Don’t.” She sucked in a shuddering
breath. “If you care about me even a little, be honest, Cash. Please just—tell me the truth.”
“I’m not lying to you.” His eyes were wide and frantic. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I love you.”
“It’s a fucking video, Cash,” she cried. “It’s not like I’m imagining things. We all saw you kiss her.” Her dark eyes welled with tears. “So just
do us both a favor and stop lying. Just—stop.”
“No.” He shook his head, adamant. “Baby, you’ve got to believe me. I don’t know what that is, but it’s not—it’s not real.
Okay? It’s not. I don’t know how, but someone—someone must’ve done something.”
Tears spilled down Lyric’s cheeks.
“I love you so fucking much, baby,” his voice cracked and—god. Poppy jammed the heel of her hand against her breastbone, aching. “You’ve got to believe me. I—look, I can call Ashley. I’ll
do it right this fucking minute, all right? She’ll tell you the same thing I’m telling you.”
A hiccupping sob burst from Lyric’s lips, and she quickly clapped a hand over her mouth. “Why would I believe either one of you?”
“Because—”
“Save it, Cash.”
He shook his head. “Not until you say you believe me.”
“I don’t!” Lyric sounded like she was a few brief seconds away from hyperventilating. “I can’t—I can’t do this.” She turned
to Rosaline. “I can’t.”
Rosaline nodded once. “Go wait in the car.”
“What?” Cash sounded like someone had punched him in the gut. “Lyric—”
She whirled on her heel, all but running from the room.
Poppy reached for his arm. “Cash—”
He ignored her, following Lyric down the hall. The security system chimed, and front door slammed shut a moment later.
Like someone had cut her strings, Rosaline slumped over, hands braced against the countertop. “I knew this was going to happen.”
Poppy crossed her arms, suddenly freezing. “What? How could you—”
“Not this.” Rosaline shook her head. “This is . . . fuck. This is astonishingly low. Even for Curran. But I knew nothing good was going to come from this relationship. I knew it and
I should’ve listened to my gut and put my foot down from day one. As soon as I saw that tweet, I knew. I should’ve tried harder
to convince Lyric that Curran was bad fucking news.”
“That’s—that’s enough, okay?” This was still her best friend that Rosaline was talking about. “I know this looks awful—”
“Awful?” Rosaline scoffed. “Poppy, this is damning. If a picture is worth a thousand words, that video is worth a million.” Her lips twisted bitterly as if she’d tasted something spoiled. “Literally.”
Poppy was going to be sick. “Are you saying you think whoever sent this to Lyric plans on selling it?”
It was bad enough watching the video in the privacy of Cash’s kitchen, a special kind of torture watching it with Lyric and
Cash and Rosaline. But the idea that hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of people might see it gave a whole new meaning
to the word violation.
Rosaline shrugged. “Depends on why they sent it to Lyric in the first place. If it was some Good Samaritan actually looking
out for her, or if—”
“Someone could be trying to stir the pot.”
Rosaline pinched the bridge of her nose. “Christ. If this gets out, do you know what people are going to say? Do you know what this is going to do to Lyric?”
“If Cash said he didn’t do it—”
“Are you seriously defending him? Poppy.” Rosaline sounded horrified and she looked it, too, staring at Poppy as if she’d lost her mind. Maybe she had. Nothing made
sense.
She clung to the one thing she did know. “I know Cash.”
Cash was reckless and prone to impulsivity, but he was a good person, honorable and decent, always putting the people he cared
about first. He didn’t lie and he didn’t cheat, and she believed it down to her bones that he loved Lyric. He wouldn’t do
something like this. It didn’t . . . it didn’t make sense.
Rosaline grabbed Lyric’s phone off the counter. She tapped the screen twice, stared at it for a moment, and scoffed. She passed
the phone to Poppy. “Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do.”
Reluctantly, stomach churning riotously, Poppy took the phone from her.
A screenshot of a Tinder profile stared back at her.
Cash’s, the profile having been created just last month.
Poppy didn’t want to, but she swiped to the next and final file Lyric had been sent anonymously.
It was a screengrab of an in-app conversation, Cash making plans to grab drinks with the girl he was talking to.
The evidence was stacking up and none of it was good.
If this got out, if someone leaked these screenshots, this video, if they sold it as an exclusive to some tabloid, this would
ruin Cash. Ruin his name, his reputation, and depending on the fallout, it might even ruin his career.
Poppy handed Rosaline the phone. She’d seen enough; she didn’t need to keep studying the video, torturing herself by rereading
the messages Cash had sent the girl whose name had been redacted from the screengrabs. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Poppy.” Rosaline shook her head sadly. “Poppy, there’s—there is no we in this.”
“What?” she whispered. “What does that mean?”
No we in this. Of course there was a we. They were a we. They were supposed to be.
“You believe Curran,” Rosaline said simply, quietly, staring down at her hands around the edge of the granite counter, knuckles
white. “Or you want to. And I get it, okay? I do. I can’t tell you what to think and . . . he’s your best friend.” She lifted
her head and her eyes met Poppy’s, the whites of them shot through with red. “But Lyric is mine. And she needs me to—she needs
me. She needs me to have her back. She needs to know I do.” She sniffed hard and shrugged weakly, shoulders curling in, looking
as small as Poppy felt. “She can’t doubt that.”
Her eyes burned and her vision blurred. A lump had lodged itself in her throat that made it difficult to speak. “So, what? Lyric and Cash have issues so you and I—” She couldn’t say it. “That’s just . . . that’s it?”
Rosaline closed her eyes. “Yeah.” Her breath hitched. “I think that’s . . . that’s it.”
Each blink threatened to spill the tears welling in her eyes. “And I can’t say anything to—”
“Poppy.” Rosaline’s voice broke and it felt like Poppy’s heart was breaking too. “What would you even say? Think about it. How would
this work?”
Poppy tried to imagine it. Rosaline in Los Angeles and her in Portland. Cash and Lyric, the two most important people in their
lives not on speaking terms, maybe even unable to be in the same room. Off-limits, Rosaline and Poppy unable to talk about
them without it devolving into an argument, old hurts constantly being unearthed, bruises pressed. It would be untenable,
the gap between them growing into a chasm too vast to bridge. A slow, suffocating death.
“Everything was—” Poppy pinched her eyes shut and bit her lip, stifling a sob.
Everything had been, if not perfect, closer to it than Poppy had ever dreamed. Not even ten minutes ago they had been baking
brownies and joking and Rosaline had called Poppy the best thing to happen to her since Lyric. It wasn’t fair.
“I know,” Rosaline rasped, and Poppy felt her fingers brush over the skin of her wrist, a ghost of a touch. “For what it’s
worth?” She sniffled. “I really wanted this. I really wanted this with you.”
So did Poppy.
“Lyric’s waiting,” Rosaline whispered. “I should—I should go grab my things. Hers too.” She paused and Poppy cracked open her eyes.
Rosaline stood a little straighter, her chin rising, piecing herself back together before Poppy’s eyes.
“Curran fucked himself over. Losing Lyric, whatever the press says about him . . . that’s punishment enough.
I won’t make it worse. I won’t call in any favors.
For you. I don’t want to make this harder for you. ”
Poppy nodded dully. It would probably sink in tomorrow or the next day or the day after how much that meant, but right now
it didn’t make her feel any better. “Thanks.”
Rosaline crossed the kitchen and paused in the doorway, her back to Poppy. “Don’t . . . don’t go home for Christmas. Okay?”
The tears Poppy had tried to choke down spilled over, rolling down her cheeks and dripping off her jaw. She nodded even though
Rosaline couldn’t see her.
“Take care of yourself, Poppy.” Rosaline walked out of the kitchen, taking half of Poppy’s heart with her.