It just felt wrong to ask for help.
Help was only for the for the weak, helpless, and frail. She didn’t ever want to be frail. She wanted to be in charge of her life, and not have to rely on anyone. And now, she’d relied on Oakley and he’d abandoned her and there was no way she could clear her name.
Help.
Four letters. Four measly letters. The hardest thing for her to do.
But she had no choice. That was the worst part; she had no choice. She had to call for help. What other option did she have? She scoured her brain, thinking that surely, surely there was a way out without having to demean herself, to grovel and hope that someone would be there to catch her if she needed them. Her sisters would, of course. In a second flat. Magnolia would leave Montana in less than four seconds if she knew that Poppy was even minorly inconvenienced. She’d fly all the way back to help Poppy change a flat tire because of how guilty she felt bailing on the apothecary to have a family. And her other two sisters, and probably a friend or two, would come in a heartbeat to help her. But what would they actually do here? Moving out of a house was one thing. Trying to clear her name against the Immortal Council? That was a whole different layer of specialty.
But maybe she was out of time and out of options. Maybe she needed to come clean and explain the whole situation, even as awful and painful and gut-wrenching as it would be.
She stared at the phone in her hand. Her finger hovered over Magnolia’s smiling face. All she needed to do was tap the call symbol, and everything would change. Magnolia’s anxieties about leaving Poppy alone with the shop would be proven right, though hardly fair. Magnolia would beat herself up about being a bad sister for rightly choosing the love of her life and a kid over working with her sister.
Her finger shuddered. Do it. She had no other choice. She needed her sister to know. Maybe she could help somehow. Maybe she had some high-ranking friend or some bit of knowledge that could help, or maybe Aspen knew someone who could help, or…
Poppy’s chest expanded with a deep, slow inhale. Or maybe just to have someone to talk to so she wouldn’t feel so alone, so forgotten, so abandoned, and hopeless. It was selfish of her to call. Selfish to drag her sister into this, knowing how it would affect her and stress her sister out to no end. Selfish of her to not just suck it up and deal with it.
She lowered the phone slowly, watching it get further away from her face as she locked it and set it on the couch beside her. Her hands rose to her face, covering her nose and mouth as she took a deep, shuddering breath. Emotions tore through her, ravaging her and constricting her throat until it felt like she couldn’t even suck in a breath. Her nostrils flared as her eyes opened wide and then closed tight, tight, tight. Her body trembled and every muscle in her body clenched. Keep it inside. Don’t bring Magnolia into it. She didn’t deserve it. She deserved to be able to have time with her family, and it wasn’t like she could even help here. She’d just stress and it would ruin her week, losing sleep and getting more and more freaked out by what was happening for no reason.
It was selfish of Poppy to involve her. Magnolia couldn’t help, and bringing her into it would only put the stress of the situation squarely on her shoulders. She was closest to her out of all the sisters, and she knew exactly what would happen if she did this. And for what? What would actually come out of it that would be a benefit? Being able to cry on someone’s shoulder? For just a second? Just to take that pressure off herself? No. No, she couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that.
A single drop of liquid formed in the corner of her eye, splitting away and rolling down her cheek. It collected on her jawline, quivered for a few moments, and fell.
The sound of her phone’s ring tone split the air. She stiffened for a second, recognizing the tune. She didn’t even need to look at it to know who it was. Sweet, kindhearted Magnolia. Stumbling into it at the worst possible time.
Poppy sucked in a quick few breaths, closing her eyes as tightly as possible and focusing on breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Breathe. Calm. She waited for a few seconds before forcibly unclenching her body and scooping up the phone. Before she could think better of it, she answered.
“Hey!” Her jaws were locked open in a smile, but her eyes were covered in a clear liquid. “Magnolia!” A slight strain pulled through the happy tone, but she hid it well.
Magnolia’s cheery voice jarred her to her very core. Hearing it then, she realized how much she missed her little sister. Missed her. Loved her. Needed her, but could never pull her into this mess too. “Hey-hey! Good time to talk?” The sound of traffic penetrated from the other side. She was probably out walking somewhere.
Poppy’s mouth opened and closed. She gulped, feeling it push through the knot in her throat. “Yeah! What’s up? Having a good time?”
“You won’t believe where I’m at! There’s a magic convention in Montana! I didn’t even know things like this existed. You wouldn’t believe the stuff they have up here! There’s every kind of potion and spell you could imagine! It’s taking all my willpower to avoid coming home with all of it. It just reminded me of the shop, and I got to wondering about how things were going. I think you could fit it into the shop, right? An entire convention worth of cool stuff?”
Poppy’s laugh stumbled out like a standard car with an inexperienced driver. “Yeah, I think it could fit.” The end of her sentence caught in her throat and came out weird.
A pause. “Poppy, are you okay?”
A pang of dread shuddered through Poppy’s spine. “Uh, yeah! Never better. Tell me more about the convention!” The smile stayed on her face, but it was slipping. Her finger wiped away a quick tear and she cleared her throat. “Lots of cool stuff, huh? Anything you think I could use?”
“What’s wrong?”
Poppy had sworn she wouldn’t bring Magnolia into it, wouldn’t drag her into the mosh pit of problems and strangeness and stress that had become her life in the past few days. Promised herself over and over that no matter what, she wouldn’t let anything out. She’d keep up the act and not be selfish, and by the time Magnolia figured out something was wrong, Poppy could have figured out a solution and Magnolia would have no reason to worry. She’d have solved it. Fixed it. Kept the problem from happening.
But hearing Magnolia ask like that, with the genuine concern in her voice, with the genuine desire and need to comfort her sister who desperately needed comforting…it was all too much.
And so Poppy explained everything.
Once she started, the words kept spilling out, gushing from her mouth like a waterfall of emotion and pain and fear. She talked about Raz, about him being found dead and her being blamed for it. She talked about the witnesses who all thought she’d been sleeping with him, and about the fact that the Immortal Council had taken her powers and put her under house arrest until her time for the trial. She talked about the security footage and not knowing who or how, but that the woman looked almost identical to her and how even the footage that was supposed to clear her name had ended up just casting more evidence towards her being the culprit.
She talked about Oakley.
She talked about meeting him, and about how he made her feel. She talked about the light igniting in her palm and how confusing that was and how scary even imagining that was. She talked about how she felt she could grow to love him, and about how close they’d gotten in the two weeks that they had been working together. She talked about how she felt when he walked in the room and how she felt when she kissed him.