Poppy
I feel guilty, you know?”
The girl that was speaking couldn’t be any older than sixteen. She was fairly new to the group meetings, but every time she spoke we all went quiet and listened intently. She seemed so strong, so much tougher than I was. Her father had hurt her in unimaginable ways, and when she tried to tell her mother, the woman had accused her of lying and trying to break up the family. As a result the girl had run away from home and had spent the last several years living on the streets. The things she did to survive, the way people took advantage of such an innocent soul, made me so angry. Someone should have been there to keep her safe, just like someone should have been there to keep me and Salem safe from my father’s tyrannical rule. Just like someone should have kept me safe from Oliver and his ruin. That was the entire purpose of these group meetings: to help us all realize that we weren’t alone, that our stories were shared by women across all walks of life. We were there to keep each other safe. The thing that tied us all together was that we were still here, we survived, and that made us bigger and better than the people that had done their very best to destroy us.
I was watching her so closely and she must have felt my stare because her eyes landed on mine and held as she kept talking. “I feel like I don’t deserve a nice house and nice clothes for school. I feel like having all these friends and being popular is all just a scam that I’m pulling on everyone. I feel like I’m in the wrong life.” She gave a bitter laugh and lifted a hand to wipe away a lone tear that trailed down her cheek. “Why should I still be here planning on going to prom with a really nice guy that treats me like I’m something special when so many of the girls I met while I was on the run don’t get a shot at the same thing? What makes me special? Why did I get a chance and not one of them?”
It was a common theme that she described. Guilt about moving on and finding peace after living a nightmare for so long. Apparently her aunt had gotten suspicious when her mother wasn’t able to offer up an explanation as to where her daughter had gone. The girl’s extended family had launched an all-out manhunt to find her, and when they did they were appalled by what they found. They knew all along her father was abusive and dangerous. They’d been trying to get her out of the house for years until her mother and father had gone on the run to protect their dirty little secret. She’d had people in her corner that loved her, but wasn’t allowed access to them, kind of like the way my parents did their best to keep me and Salem apart after Salem left home. Under my dad’s thumb and surrounded by my mother’s passive agreement, I never had a chance to let the idea of rebellion take root. I only wished I could have been as brave as this young woman.
“Eventually that guilt will lessen and you’ll appreciate the fact that you get to have a chance at all the things you deserved from the beginning. It’s part of the conditioning you were subjected to for so long for you to think you aren’t worthy of the good things that are going to come your way, but you are, all of you are.” The woman that ran the group was a survivor herself. She always spoke to us in a calm, even tone and it was apparent to all of us that she took our healing and progress very personally. This wasn’t a job for her: helping women that had been abused live beyond the damage done by their abusers was her life’s calling, her passion. I admired her so much for turning her pain and experience into something that was beneficial for others to learn from. “Good things will find you if you are open to them.”
Without thinking I blurted out, “How do you know that something or someone is actually good? I think it’s safe to say we’ve all been fooled by something that seemed to be good but turned out to be really, really bad.”
When Oliver first started courting me after I moved home after my disastrous first year at college, he seemed nice enough. He was really into me and treated me like a total gentleman. He courted me like the preacher’s daughter that I was and never pushed for anything I wasn’t ready to give. He handled me like I was something delicate and he never, not one time, brought up the supposedly shameful reason I’d had to run back to my less than understanding family with my tail tucked between my legs. That had been reason enough for me to give him a shot after I told myself I was swearing off men forever. I felt broken but he assured me over and over again that what had happened wasn’t my fault.
I should have known … like always … that it was a front. Any man my father practically handpicked for me, a man that was active in my father’s church, and believed the fire and brimstone my dad spouted nonstop, couldn’t be okay with what had happened to me and the choices I’d made.
On our wedding night Oliver called me a whore and yelled at me for an hour about not being a virgin and saving myself for him … even though he knew the nightmare behind why I wasn’t untouched and inexperienced. From there the abuse spiraled and worsened until I was having to hide bruises and marks all over my body. Sometimes the words hurt worse than his fists did and all I could do was question how I let myself end up in a situation that was a thousand times more horrible than the one I’d run from.
Both the teen and the counselor turned their attention to me and I realized that everyone in the small group was watching me. Typically I didn’t say much, I listened and learned. It helped me feel not so alone and less like a fool to know I wasn’t the only one that should have known better. This was probably the first time I’d ever actually spoken up when it wasn’t my turn to add something to the conversation.
The group didn’t use names, to protect anonymity, so the counselor motioned to me with a soft smile. “Well, you can’t ever be absolutely certain something or someone is good because things can change on a dime. Even the happiest and healthiest of relationships can collapse over time and even the best of circumstances are prone to experiencing a rainy day. All you can do is listen to your gut, pay attention to any warning signs and any red flags that are presented. It’s up to you to determine if the good outweighs the bad in whatever you face from here on out. You have the tools. You have earned them by surviving everything life has thrown at you.”
I bit my lip and cocked my head to look at her questioningly. “But my judgment has led to the worst experiences in my life. What if I can’t tell if the good outweighs the bad?” Unwittingly my thoughts turned to Wheeler. He was the first person I had let slip past the iron guards I had put in place since enduring Oliver’s torture. I refused to let anyone close, emotionally or physically, because if I had enough room to run, then there was no possible way I could be hurt again. I kept a wall up between me and the rest of the world, and so far, it had served its purpose, but now I was wondering if it was keeping all the good out as well as the bad.
There was a lot of good in Wheeler. A person would have to be blind not to see it. He seemed like a nice guy, he respected my personal-space issue, he was ridiculously good-looking, and my libido that I thought was long gone lit up like Christmas lights around him. I genuinely didn’t mind being alone with him or being close to him, which felt like a mini-miracle at this point. I liked the way he looked at me and I liked the way I felt compelled to look at him. I didn’t want to hide around him.
The flip side of all of that was that I was smart enough now to not ignore the negative that was also circling around the attractive mechanic. He had a baby on the way that he clearly wasn’t ready for. Soon fatherhood was going to have to be his first priority, not calming a skittish girl that had an obvious crush on him. He had a tumultuous relationship with his ex and I wasn’t sure he was anywhere close to being over her, which had the potential to lead to a whole lot of heartache if I let him get any closer than he already was. Plus, there was the big unknown, the big what-ifs that kept me awake at night and made me wonder if I could ever actually let anyone get as close as they would need to be if I ever wanted to have a real relationship.
Oliver had hurt me in the worst ways a man could hurt a woman and it wasn’t the first time. Sex with him had never been particularly pleasant, it always felt like some kind of punishment for him not being my first. Before Oliver, my only sexual experience had been with the man that I convinced myself was my true love. Sex with him had been exciting, something new and forbidden, since I grew up in such a conservative household. I honestly couldn’t get enough of it. It made me feel free and far more in charge of my life than I had ever been … at least it had until I got pregnant at barely eighteen. At first, I thought it was meant to be. I was foolishly in love and had no problem spinning unrealistic fairy tales around the college football-star that told me whatever I needed to hear in order to get into my pants. I was picturing a life together, a happy little family, but all of that was painfully unrealistic and woefully naive. I told my knight who came clad in cleats and a jersey about the baby, expecting him to be as excited as I was, and was heartbroken and destroyed when he told me to get rid of it.
It was like a slap in the face. I thought college and this perfect boy were my way out, the escape I’d longed for from my father and his long-reaching influence, but in a heartbeat all those dreams were shattered. He told me I was nothing, just another stupid freshman girl that was willing to spread her legs for the campus golden boy. He laughed at me when I cried and scoffed at me when I told him I thought we were going to be together forever. He walked away still laughing but came back months later when I refused to terminate my pregnancy.
Even without him I was planning on keeping the baby. I was going to face my father’s wrath, stand up to his scorn, and suffer through his disownment if it meant I could be the best mom ever. I was convinced this baby was meant to be, that it was a sign that I had a bigger purpose in life than being the perfect daughter and proper little wife he’d trained me to be.
The baby’s dad convinced me to come over to his place with promises of reconciliation. He told me he was done sleeping around, that he only wanted me. He promised that he loved me. I was stupid. I was so desperate for it to be real that I forgot about his ugly, twisted reaction when I told him we were going to be parents. As soon as I knocked on the door, I knew I’d made the world’s biggest mistake.
He yanked me into his apartment and proceeded to beat me within an inch of my life. My dad was a dictator and a tyrant, but he used his words and withheld his love to secure obedience and submission. I’d never had anyone lay their hands on me before. It was terrible. To this day, I could still taste my own blood, blood I choked on as he hit me over and over again, making sure that his blows were focused on and around my still-flat stomach. He wanted to punish me for defying his wishes, but more than that he wanted to make sure there was no way I left that apartment still pregnant.
He got his wish. After fifteen minutes I passed out, and when I woke up I was back in my own dorm room and I knew something was seriously wrong. There was blood everywhere and I felt like my entire body was being turned inside out. I crawled to the tiny bathroom and it was there that my body did what it had no choice to after the football player was done with me. I lost the baby as I sat on the bathroom floor, bleeding, alone, and torn apart in too many ways to name.
Luckily, my childhood friend and the boy that had lived next door to me my entire life was at the same college. At the time I had no clue he’d followed me there, but when he found me hovering on the brink of death in my dorm room, I was so grateful that he did. That boy was Rowdy, who was now desperately in love with my sister and building the kind of family I’d always wanted. He took care of me and then he went and took care of his teammate who was responsible for my condition. The school had a mess on their hands with the three of us, but I was so heartbroken and mortified that I packed myself up and headed back to the only thing I knew without a backward glance. I didn’t stick around to press charges like I should have and I didn’t stick around to vouch for Rowdy like I should have. Because of me he lost his scholarship, got kicked out of school, and disappeared. It was a lucky twist of fate that his path had crossed with Salem’s after so many years.
So sex, even good sex, wasn’t something that I’d had a lot of success with and there were a lot of unanswered questions that were constantly floating around in my head now that I realized I might actually want to have it again. Every time I caught sight of that ink that scrawled across Wheeler’s stomach and across the back of his neck, I wondered where it all went. I wanted to know if it dropped below the tops of his jeans and I was curious if those freckles of his stopped at the bridge of his nose. I’d never been so physically aware of the way I reacted to a man before him but I wasn’t sure I could do anything with the way he made me feel.
The counselor’s light voice jerked me away from the mental scale, where I was weighing all the things that were swirling around in my head. “You have to stop blaming yourself for what happened to you. Those choices were not yours. Your judgment is not in question. All you could do was react to the situation the best you could have, given the circumstances. You were a victim, not an accomplice.” That was a common refrain, both here and during my private sessions with my therapist. I didn’t make the choice to go with Oliver willingly when he abducted me. He’d pulled a gun on my sister and threatened to shoot her if I didn’t go with him. I did what I had to do in order to keep her safe. At the time it seemed like the only option, but now I always wondered if there was another way. If I should have been smarter, stronger … better.
I felt like I couldn’t trust myself to know if what I was doing was right, when it seemed like everything I’d done prior had been wrong. Maybe I didn’t feel like I deserved the kind of normalcy and goodness that was in my life now. Maybe, just like the teenager who was watching me closely, I was also stuck in place where I would wonder what I’d done right to deserve this new life. I didn’t feel like I’d done a single thing to earn it.
The group broke up shortly after that and my feet couldn’t move fast enough as I made my way to the little coffee shop that was on the corner down the street from the building where we met. Happy yipped at the end of his leash and danced up on his tiny hind legs as he saw me coming. My heart felt heavy and my mind was foggy with too many things to wade through, but the sight of the excited puppy and the welcoming smile from the stunning blonde who was puppy sitting did wonders towards lightening my heavy mood.
Sayer Cole was Rowdy’s older sister. I considered her something of a guardian angel and she was most definitely my mentor. The woman had been raised by a man that gave my father a run for his money when it came to emotional manipulation and cruelty, but she was now happily settled with a great man and helping him raise his son. She just happened to be Wheeler’s best friend from childhood’s woman, so I hadn’t mentioned to her that I was going by to see Wheeler after the meeting. She would tell Zeb and then everyone in our tight little circle of friends and family would know something was up and I didn’t have it in me to explain to them that they shouldn’t get their hopes up or give Wheeler shit. I had no clue what I was doing and there was a good chance I was about to crash and burn, taking Wheeler down with me.
I slid into the seat across from her, noticing her nose was a little pink from the cold. Like a lot of coffee shops in Denver this one was dog-friendly, so there was no reason for Sayer to be sitting outside.
“Why aren’t you inside? Was the puppy acting up?” As soon as I was sitting, the dog scrambled his little body against my legs demanding to be picked up. I lifted the warm, wiggling bundle into my lap and laughed when his tongue immediately attacked my chin. “Thanks for agreeing to watch him for me for the hour.”
She waved a hand and smiled at me. “I had to make a couple calls. I have a client in the middle of an ugly custody case and she needed to be talked off the ledge. I came out here to take the call. The puppy was fine. I think I should talk to Zeb about getting a dog for Hyde. Little boys should have a dog to play with.” She shivered a little and I knew it wasn’t from the cold when she muttered, “My father refused to let me have a pet. I wanted one so bad after my mom died. I was so alone in that house with him. I think a pet would have saved my sanity.”
I made a noise in my throat and buried my face in the puppy’s scruff. “Same. My dad said they were dirty and that we didn’t do a good enough job cleaning the house as it was. It was bullshit. My mom scrubbed that place on her hands and knees every single day. He just didn’t want us to have something that we wanted.” I sighed. “It’s probably a good thing we didn’t have a pet. He would have used it against us to get his way.”
Sayer nodded solemnly. “Same.” She smiled at me and changed the subject. “I’m picking up dinner for my boys on the way home, do you want to join us? Hyde would love a chance to get his hands on that little guy.” She pointed at the dog I was cuddling.
I shifted my gaze away from her and let out a little groan. So much for keeping the fact that I was planning on seeing Wheeler secret. If I told her I had plans she would think I was regressing and avoiding spending time with other people, and I didn’t want that. She’d offered me shelter when I needed it and her gentle giant of a man was one of the main reasons I’d convinced myself to go back to work and forced myself back into society. I saw the way he was with Sayer, watched him break down her walls and build her back up. I realized I couldn’t hide myself away forever, because when someone that came along that really wanted in, nothing would keep them out.
“I have plans tonight. Maybe another night this week I can come over with the puppy.” I couldn’t meet her gaze as she froze and blinked at me like an owl.
“You have plans?” She sounded stunned and I couldn’t blame her. I’d hidden myself away for so long that I understood her surprise.
“Yeah. I uh … actually got the puppy for Wheeler to help him through his breakup. He was house-sitting for Dixie when all of that started to go down, so I inadvertently ended up with a front-row seat to all the carnage. I told him I would help him train Happy until he was ready to be left on his own. I’m taking the puppy over to his place and having dinner with him.” The words sounded weird as I said them. It’d been such a long time since I’d planned a normal evening like that. I didn’t really know what to do with it, and clearly neither did Sayer. She kept staring at me like I had sprouted horns.
“You’re having dinner with … Wheeler? Just the two of you?” She blinked slowly and tilted her head to the side. “Well … that’s surprising. I didn’t even know you knew him.”
I cleared my throat and shifted on my chair uneasily. I hated being put on the spot. “He sold me the Camry a while ago and then he was next door a lot when Dixie was in Mississippi. Our paths kept crossing.” I shrugged a shoulder. “I guess I got used to him somewhere along the way.”
Her lips twitched slightly and her blue eyes sparkled with humor. “You got used to him?”
I nodded a little and lifted my eyebrows at her. “Yeah. Why?”
She laughed and shook her head. “Nothing, you just might not want to mention that to Rowdy. You know the guy you grew up with. The one who would die for you, the one who will move heaven and earth for you. The guy who you also still flinch around, the guy who you still struggle to hug back, the guy who you can’t look in the eye half the time, the guy you cancel on at least once a month when the two of you made plans. I think it might hurt his feelings if he knows you’re making plans with another man when you still have a difficult time being alone with him.” Rowdy was her little brother; of course she would immediately think about how hard it was for me to be around him and how deeply that hurt him.
I peeked at her over the top of Happy’s head. “Wheeler hasn’t seen me at the lowest points in my life. Rowdy has.” He was there to pick me up after the college jock destroyed me and when Oliver nearly killed me. “I love him, but that can be hard.” Especially when I was trying to be anyone but that girl.
Her smile faltered and all her teasing stopped. A serious look took over the mirth in her eyes and sympathetic understanding colored her tone when she told me, “I get that. I’m glad you found someone you’re comfortable spending time with outside of family. Zeb has known Wheeler since they were kids. He went out of his way to give Zeb something to focus on when he got out of prison and he looked after his mom and his sister while he was locked up. By all accounts Hudson is a good guy and you couldn’t have picked anyone better to get involved with.”
“Whoa …” I held up a hand and leaned back in the chair. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Say. We aren’t involved. He just broke off his engagement and that’s not even the start of how complicated it is. He’s nice to me and doesn’t treat me like I’m going to shatter, even though it’s obvious I might. I wanted to do something nice for him, and he needs my help. That’s all.”
She hummed a little and pushed a strand of platinum-blond hair off of her forehead. “I would agree that it was something simple if I didn’t know you, Poppy. You got him a dog and you agreed to have dinner alone with him. Those aren’t baby steps, love, those are leaps and bounds.”
I groaned again and squeezed my eyes shut. “Did you know his ex is pregnant?”
Sayer was one of the few people in Denver that knew about my baby, and the only reason she did was because she had been there when Salem and Rowdy shared their happy news about my impending niece or nephew with us. She held me together when I felt like I was going to fall apart. I was happy for my sister but I couldn’t deny the burn in my heart when I thought of everything I had lost. I should have a six-year-old at home, a child that was the love of my life. Instead, all I had was a dead husband, a cargo hold full of baggage, and the kind of nightmares that followed me into my waking hours.
She gave a sharp nod. “He told Zeb one night over drinks. Zeb said that Wheeler was pretty shocked by the news but he’s sure that he’ll settle into it. He didn’t have it easy growing up, so I’m sure he’ll do everything in his power to make sure his child has everything he didn’t.”
He seemed more than shocked when he revealed the news about the baby to me. He seemed upset, almost angry, and that made me incredibly uneasy. I liked Wheeler but I knew I couldn’t spend time with someone that resented and regreted a life that they were half responsible for creating. It wasn’t fair to the baby, and it wasn’t fair to those of us that would do anything, give anything, to have a chance to love what we’d lost.
“It’s a lot. My past is so complicated and ugly and his future is so uncertain. Right now all I’m trying to do is be his friend.” The kind of friend that was constantly picturing him naked and wondering what it would be like to have those tattooed hands all over me. So, like his best friend ever, really.
“Honestly, I’m thrilled you want to be his anything, so I’ll take it.” She reached out a hand and put her chilly fingers over mine. “One day at a time, Poppy. That’s what you focus on. Not what was or what will be, but what is. You get through this dinner with him and then you get through whatever the next day brings with or without him because you will be all right no matter what happens. Okay?”
I nodded in agreement and forced a shaky smile. “Okay.”
I could do one day at a time because I was finally in a place where I realized how very lucky I was to still be here making my way through the days, be they good or bad. I might not implicitly trust myself to do the right thing, but I did know if I stepped wrong and stumbled, there were plenty of people around me waiting to pick me up. For the first time in my life, I had a safe place to fail, which made me strong enough to want to try and live again.