43. Chapter 43
Iwoke up with a dry throat. I rubbed my temples. The light through the windows had muted. Sunset. Sitting up, I grabbed the aspirin and water off the nightstand and chugged. Sighing, I steeled myself against my still-throbbing head. As my attention expanded to my surroundings, I jumped.
Startled, my eyes widened. Sitting in a chair across from the foot of the bed was Summoner. Still in his stage outfit, he leaned back in an armchair with his legs crossed at the knee. His chin rested in his hand. His eyes captured me. At the core of everything, he was still devastatingly handsome.
How long has he been here?
My surprise melted in the shadow of my anger. My hand tightened around the glass.
“Poppy…” he breathed.
His voice danced mockingly between us.
“Why are you here!?”
“To see you, apparently.”
Was this a game to him?
Without thinking, my arm sprung back and hurled the glass in his direction. It whizzed past his shoulder and hit the wall with a glorious thud before shattering into a million pieces. An emotional response. He barely flinched. His non-reaction stirred my anger even more. My nostrils flared.
His hand dropped to his lap. Uncrossing his legs, he leaned forward. “I wanted to see you.”
My jaw tightened, and I shook my head, feeling anger rising within me. The very notion seemed moot.
“No. I don’t know what fucking game this is, but no. You already decided what you wanted months ago when you sent me a Dear John letter! Months later, you don’t get any say in my life! Wooly doesn’t get to play fucking cupid! And you don’t get the burden of Poppy off your fucking conscience!”
“What are you talkin’ about? You broke up with me,” he replied, confusion evident in his voice.
What?
“No, I didn’t.”
“Aye, you did.”
I closed my eyes briefly, trying to calm the storm of emotions inside me. “No! You broke up with me through a damn letter.”
Summoner shifted back in his chair. “A’ve got the feelin’ that tellin’ ye Ah haven’t got a clue what yer on aboot winnet change yer mind.”
“No, because it was from you. I’d recognize your grammar school-educated handwriting anywhere!”
His lips jutted out as he digested my words. Calming himself. “We both got letters. You’d recognize my handwriting anywhere, huh?”
I nodded.
“Going to tell you a secret. During my darkest days, I couldn’t get out of bed or do much of anything.
Things only got done because I had a wife who was so eager to help…
A wife who got really fuckin’ good at imitating my handwriting.
Kay signs my name so damn well, sometimes I can’t tell the difference. ”
I felt the color and heat drain from my face. Like a fish, my mouth opened and closed several times as words failed me. He shook his head in disbelief.
“…If that was the case, why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you reach out in any way?” I asked.
“A would have! Yer letter said it was best if we had a clean break, nee contact. Who was A not to honour yer wishes?! A’d always treat ye with respect, even if ye didn’t want us. Ye wanted the money. It was always aboot the money!” He snapped, original accent back in place.
“I never sent a letter! It was never about money. I wanted a break, not to break up!” I insisted.
He lifted his chin. “Never about money? Kay told me about the check. The whole time you were planning your escape.”
I froze. Images of Kay beside him tittering in his ear, steering his decisions, made me sick to my stomach.
“…Thing is, if you had told me, Poppy, you needed help, I would have given it to you without hesitation.”
“No one wants be labeled a gold digger.”
“Who gives a shit what everyone else thinks?”
“Clearly, both of us do, because look where we are now!”
He ran a hand over his face. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I tried! You blocked my number! Blocked my email!” My words trembled with a mix of hurt and confusion.
“I didn’t block your number!” He countered defensively. “I had to get a new phone. Mine fell in the pool!”
New phone?
“…And who set up the phone for you?” I demanded, my heart sinking.
“Evan…” Summoner’s voice trailed off and my stomach dropped like a stone.
His family played us like puppets. Manipulated into fighting each other.
Manipulated into running from our love. My mind raced, trying to make sense of everything.
Confusion quickly replaced the white-hot intensity of anger and hurt.
What were we supposed to feel now? The hairs at the back of my neck stood at attention, very aware of the limbo I found myself in.
Summoner cleared his throat. “I came to see you to get closure.”
“Closure,” I parroted.
“I thought you didn’t want me. I thought maybe you never wanted me…” His voice cracked, breaking my heart in two.
No! How could he think that?
“Never. Never in a million years,” I pleaded softly, my voice barely above a whisper.
My fists balled up in my lap. Kay took everything she knew about him, about me, and used it as a weapon in the name of protection.
His family took his happiness and destroyed it to keep him safe.
Their protection left us broken. He was the other part of me that wasn’t meant to fit. But our pieces slid together perfectly.
“Poppy…” Hurt was carved into every line on his face.
“I wouldn’t let you see my notebook because every song I’ve written since I walked into that coffee shop is about you.
My entire album is about you. I could write a million songs from now until the end of time and they would all be about you, Poppy.
Enough songs to fill thirty albums. B-sides and deep cuts included. ”
His words hit like a fucking tidal wave. All-consuming and sweeping me out to sea.
An awkwardly painful laugh bubbled out of me. “I waited. I waited for you, and you never came back.”
His eyes widened. “I’m here now, sweetheart. I’m here.”
The distance across the room never felt more like an ocean between us than in that moment.
“Summoner…You made me feel seen. You saw the real me, the depression, and the chaos, and you accepted me without hesitation. I never thought I was worthy of that until you came and loved me. You forced me to understand that despite who I was and what I went through, I was worthy of love. I loved being loved by you,” I admitted, my words hanging in the air as a weight lifted off my shoulders.
“Loved…That’s a past tense word.”
“It is…” I swallowed.
In the time since our relationship, I had put in the work to restructure my life. All the therapy, exercise, and medication to make Poppy once again a functional human being. All the feelings I thought were put to rest were suddenly alive once again.
A tiny laugh popped out of Summoner’s mouth. “I watched you with Daisy and Lynn drinking, singing karaoke, talking about babies and life. The letter helped me understand that the paths of our lives were different. That we weren’t compatible.”
“I didn’t write that letter,” I pressed.
He nodded his head. “I know that now. I thought things were figured out…”
Me too.
I laughed. I laughed so hard that the circumstances pushed tears out of my eyes. The pain of manipulation.
“You say our lives are on different paths, but I don’t think that. Occasionally, parties are fun, but I’d much rather be home. Kids are cool and everything, but I grew up without a mom. She died in childbirth with me. It’s a long-standing trauma of mine. It’s something I’m working on in therapy.”
He ran a hand down his face. “I had no idea…”
“I don’t really talk about it. We’re not the best at communicating.”
“I’d say we’re communicating now.” He shrugged. “Glad to hear you’re back in therapy, Poppy.”
“Thanks. A good therapist is everything. I’m glad you’re releasing music again.”
“Thank you.”
His cheeks were shaded pink. With a deep breath, he stood up and traversed the ocean between us.
He crossed the room and kneeled on the carpet in front of me.
My nails dug into the palms of my still-balled fists as the urge to touch him overcame me.
I restrained myself. The onstage veneer of Summoner was gone. Up close, he looked tired and nervous.
“You’re gold, Poppy. You could have anything you wanted in this world.”
“I only wanted you…”
My stomach coiled into a knot. Summoner lifted his head, his stare penetrating my heart.
Everything I ever wanted was you.
He wrapped his hand around mine. I swallowed. His familiar warm roughness on my skin. I looked down at our hands together, but I was unable to see through the tears in my eyes.
“You came into my world like an explosion and turned everything upside down. But most importantly, you didn’t want anything from me.
You wanted to talk to me.” He shook his head in disbelief.
“I existed before, but I was a ghost of a person. I needed you. You weren’t my reasoning, but you made me want to try.
You made me want to experience life again. ”
His words enraptured me. Held me tight and confessed everything I needed to hear.
“At the end of it all, friends, family, and musicians surrounded me, but I was empty. I poured myself into my music, into returning to performing. I poured my love for you in every note and lyric on my album and prayed that someday you’d hear it and know you always had a place in my heart.”
I wiped my face with my free hand. “…You, you still love me?”
Unexpectedly, his eyes were wet with unshed tears and my hurt was new again.
“My love for you was never past tense. The only thing this idiotic, old, battered man is good for is making music and loving you. No matter what anyone else says or thinks. No matter my age or yours. I love you. I love you today. I loved you yesterday, and I will love you tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?”
I pictured his family and an entire world of faceless people against us.
“I am. I love Poppy Meghan Thomas with my whole heart.”
My body was aflame. I took a deep breath before cupping his cheek. He tensed unexpectedly at my touch. A tear streaked down his face to rest on my thumb.
“You’ve sprung a leak.”
“Happens to us all…” He blinked back his sadness. “I want to spend the rest of my life loving you. I want to hold you when you’re sad. Wipe your tears. Feed you sweets. Read your writing. Watch all the cartoons. Let me love you.”
His eyes searched mine. He was a man of such unexplored depths. From the moment he sat across from me at the coffee shop, I wanted to get lost in them.
“How? How do we make this work? How do we deal with your family?” I whispered.
They would never be on my side.
“I don’t give a fuck what my family thinks. All that matters to me is you.”
Here was my defender. Armed and ready to charge into battle for me. Any and all obstacles be damned.
“We’ll deal with them together. We deal with the world together. From now on, we tackle everything head-on. You and me.” The determined look in his eyes sent a tremble down my spine.
I never imagined that I would see Summoner again. I had written off our time together as a fever dream. But here he was in the flesh, and I never wanted to let him go.
I closed the gap between us. His lips on mine were perfect, the aching desire between us electric.
His arms wrapped around my shoulders as our kiss deepened.
I could forgive him because I never stopped loving him.
I phrased my words in the past tense, and I’d convinced myself that I was free from those feelings.
But I could never stop loving a man like Summoner. Thinking otherwise was foolish.
He pulled back and pressed our foreheads together.
“Tell me what you want, Poppy. I need to know.”
“You. I love you. I’ve always loved you, even when you didn’t know it. Even when I didn’t know you. And now that I do, I love everything about you, even your anxiety, because it’s a part of you. I love you, Summoner…” The quiet conviction in my voice surprised me.
“Time will always be against us, sweetheart, and I’m tired of wasting it…” His eyes crinkled around the edges. “How do you feel about getting married? Making an honest man out of me?”
My heart skipped a beat. Taken aback by his sudden proposal, I blurted out, “Are you serious? Like for real?”
He chuckled at my surprise. “Yes.”
Hope and excitement filled my chest. Waves of warmth crashed into me with every pounding beat of my heart.
“Poppy?” he pressed. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes.” My acceptance was a breathless rasp that clawed at my throat.
Summoner pressed a series of breathless kisses to my face. Giggling like a pair of lovesick idiots, we collapsed in a heap on the bed. His eyes twinkled mischievously as his mouth spread into a face-splitting grin.
“This is Vegas. We could do it now…”
I shook my head in protest. “I don’t mind getting married in Vegas. But I want a proper dress and I need my dad. Non-negotiables, sorry.”
“Fair enough. I think we could get all that squared away in 48 hours or so.”
We were really doing this together.
Two broken, lonely halves.
Clinging together.
Forever.