“No.”

“And what did I say?”

“That you should be sorry, because you were going to take something from me that I couldn’t get back.”

“But I kissed you anyway.”

“You did.”

“That was selfish of me. That kiss belonged to someone special.”

“It felt special at the time.”

“I’m glad. And I’m still not sorry the way I should’ve been.”

“What?”

“For taking something that didn’t belong to me. I wasn’t sorry then. I’m still not sorry now.”

He remembers.

CHAPTER 14

SLAPPED IN THE

Face WITH MEMORIES

LANCE

When a person chooses to bury memories, there’s usually a reason. The span of time between my brother dying and my aunt realizing my mom was beating the shit out of me—verbally and physically—was the worst of my life. When we moved to Chicago, her beatings got worse instead of better, so I shut down. I locked everything away—all the good and the bad and everything else in between—and kept it stored in the dark place in my head.

It was almost like the mental place I go to when I get into a fight on the ice. Keeping the memories on lockdown is a lot easier than contending with them. Or at least I thought it was. But everything just changed.

I’ve been slapped in the face—not literally, I don’t think Poppy has a violent bone in her body—with a deluge of memories.

Now I understand why Poppy’s always felt so familiar. She is. Flickers of things long buried start to surface: my first week of school in Chicago, the still-healing bruises on my back and legs and knees, wearing pants when it was hot, all the attention from the teachers and other students.

A lot of the memories aren’t very pleasant, but the good ones that contain Poppy come hurtling to the surface now, obliterating everything else. She’s the strawberry blond girl with the long ponytail who looked like home.

Not home in the sense of parents and family, but familiar and comfortable, warm and welcoming.

For a while I’d tried to ignore her, but she was always in the same hall as me during third period, so eventually I caved. I pulled her ponytail because I wanted to touch her hair and see what kind of reaction I’d get. Her smile, so curious and innocent, was something I’d forgotten existed.

I’d never bothered to find out her name. Comfortable things were alluring but untenable for me back then. Hell, mostly they still are. Stability was frightening. After we moved to Chicago, everything—my mum’s happiness, my well-being and safety—was contingent on my success. And failure, perceived or real, required punishment. I accepted this because I knew I had failed my mum in the worst way possible.

Even after my aunt realized what was going on and my mum moved to Connecticut, I still didn’t trust the peace. I would push my aunt’s buttons, waiting for her to lash out, to the fill the void my mother’s absence had created. It wasn’t an absence in the sense that I missed her, but without the constant verbal and physical violence that had become normal, expected, anticipated even, I didn’t know what to do. I waited for the slaps—the physical attacks, the breaking me down emotionally. But they never came. And I didn’t understand it.

So I picked fights on the ice, needled players until they cracked. And I let them get in solid hits before I shut them down. If that didn’t satisfy the need for violence that had been conditioned into me, I would destroy my own property and myself.

I wasn’t prepared to interact with anyone appropriately, so it was better for me not to know her name. Yet here she is, more than a decade later, and she still feels more like home than anyone I’ve ever known. I get it now. All my reactions to her make sense. Finally.

She skims my knuckles with her fingertips. “Before they opened the door, you told me to remember who you were in that closet, because that was the real you.”

That was probably the last time I was real with anyone. I remember what the rest of that night looked like. I remember the aftermath of it, too, and I know why I buried this memory. Because it was pure, and I didn’t think I deserved to have something so good. So I forced myself to forget it.

“You were so sweet.” The alarm on her phone goes off. She silences it.

“It’s time, pretty Poppy,” I whisper, and I’m right back in that closet with her, all those years ago.

I bring her hands up, and she clasps them around my neck. Her palm curves against the back of my head. She’s still so small compared to me. Her body is flush with mine.

My lips touch the corner of her mouth before I press them gently against hers. She doesn’t open for me, so I just appreciate the softness for a few seconds before I pull away.

“Was it like that?” I ask.

“Exactly like that. I wanted you to kiss me again, and I was angry at myself for wasting those six minutes.”

“I did kiss you again.” I’d tried not to be pushy, but she’d tasted so sweet, like she does now. Once I started kissing her, I hadn’t wanted to stop.

“But it could have lasted a lot longer.”

“I’m glad I talked to you instead. This time will you open your mouth a little?”

“Yes.”

When I press my lips to hers, I feel the velvet stroke of her tongue across my bottom lip. I don’t grab her ass, even though I wanted to then, and I want to now. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her in close. I skim her hip and explore her mouth with my tongue, and like that first time, she lets me lead.