vivid }} poppy x ellie

Heartbreak tastes like liquor. Settled upon his lips, sticking to his tongue. It’s familiar, excruciatingly painful and sweet as sin with every lingering second. Guilt tears me in two as the hands I meant to push  away meet his chest with soft hesitance. Shuddering, dancing across the fabric shirt and I disgust myself. Years of friendship make Justice Fray no less unpredictable- every moment I think I have him figured out I am suddenly plunged into murky uncertainty. And within those depths I know I will find only misery. 

How am I so certain? I have traversed them so many times before.

 I like predictability. I like to wake every morning with the sun upon my skin and arms draped around my waist. I like lips pressed to the back of my neck and to feel warmth creep down my spine in a way that lacks such painful fire. The kind currently tearing down my throat and into my broken chest. Salt ground into gaping wounds and I am gasping for air with a head tilted backwards to let lips find my neck. This was all supposed to prove something.

But Justice fucking Fray is nothing but a goddamn wildcard. I remember the taste of rejection well, like bile in my throat after a night of reckless drinking and a for a man who should have known me better than the skin stretched over the back of his hand he was so desperate to keep things the same that he turned a blind eye to my silent shattering. Not for one second do I believe he was truly stupid enough not to realize how badly I had been wounded- he simply chose not to.  

None of this makes sense. It shouldn’t be me pushing him away. It shouldn’t be me running shaking fingers through my hair and hugging myself so that he hasn’t the chance to get close to me again. He didn’t want me. He had said as much in so few words. I came tonight, belly warm with spirits for the first time since my son had been born, to prove that this was over. That night was nothing more than my greatest mistake. Lingering naivety, hopeful stupidity; fatal flaws of mine that have since been eradicated. 

But he kissed me back and I cannot tell if it is because I mean too much or too little. I’m shaking, I’m shaking and the tang of salt upon my tongue has replaced him and I know that it is better that way. I can only hope that if I say the same a thousand times over that I will come to believe it someday. ”Why?” It’s all I can manage with the way my heart is pounding, shaking even a simple syllable for I manage to squeeze it from a swollen throat. It’s all I want to know. Simple, yet loaded with a hundred bullets already missing from a gun’s rusted chamber. 

The damage has been done, all that’s left is an explanation if fucking deserve.

”You’re drunk.” Dazed, confused. Hair sticking up at all kinds of angles and there is venom in the affection that I feel for him. I haven’t the time for idiocy, for playful ignorance. My life has been shackled to his wrists for far too long and it was so much easier when all of this felt like puppy love. Like I was another fangirl clinging to his coat-tails. All of this would have been easier, had he just done what I had planned.

”Like you aren’t.” I’m angry because he’s started again. Or maybe I’m angry because he stopped in the first place. I’d never gotten to know a Justice like that one. With ice cream and laughter, spoons crowding the same container and smiles that I could have sworn reached his eyes. He took that away too. Like he’s taken most things. ”Since we’re on even footing, give me an answer.” I smile but it feels like a grimace. ”Why? Why did you kiss me back?”

This was supposed to be it. A final rejection. We are but puzzle pieces from a different jigsaw, clashing over and over again. All I wanted was for it to stop. 

”You kissed me first!” Excuses. Deflection. Justice is filled with them.

”You should have pushed me away!”

I am met with long silence. Reluctance. 

But his tongue is greased with whiskey.

”Because I’m in love with you.” There’s something so completely heart wrenching about hearing words that have only ever danced upon the corners of your subconscious. Too shameful to even realize within waking hours and yet all that’s left to do is stare at him in absolute disbelief. I’m deaf and blind and bleeding upon the ground in front of my best friend. 

A man who will only ever be as much. My decision was made before I came. Before I downed the first drink and certainly before the next four. I didn’t need closure, I wanted it. I didn’t need to kiss him. I wanted to. I didn’t need this confession, and yet it has hurt the both of us. I can see the fire and brimstone dripping down my cheeks, hot and angry and yet somehow I find myself at absolute peace.

I need Ellie. I want Justice. 

I wrap my arms around his waist, ear rested against his chest so that I can hear the pounding of a heart that I know was never mine. And one that can never be. ”That doesn’t matter, does it?” It’s hard to speak with tears choking me, it’s hard to think with him so close to me. Always is. ”This, us, woulda happened a long time ago if it was meant to be.”

”Yeah.” 

He agreed.

And it was over. 

--

The headache isn’t bad. Especially with soft lips pressed to my temple and a glass of water sat beside the couch. Tucker is curled up upon my ankles, ears drooping against the soft suede and for such a small animal, the thing can sure snore. It’s lucky he hasn’t woken Cedric, whose only just started to sleep through the night consistently. Perhaps he’s used to it- this life is all he’s ever known, after all. I like to think that a dopey dog’s snoring will somehow end up akin to a lullaby.      

It's hard to tell who they’ll end up being in ten years’ time. That’s why he scares me, I think. With his first birthday imminent, growing out of clothes as fast as we can afford to buy them, there’s no telling how much damage I’ve already done. There’s no way I’m the perfect mother, no matter how hard I’ve tried to be. And that can really fuck up a kid, even if they can’t yet scream it.

Then again, I’ve never met a baby so sweet, smiles soft and cries that always sounded more like whimpers. Nothing close to ear shattering screeches that haunt me whenever I take him for a walk around the park- so that the sun can kiss his cheeks and bring forth the freckles so prominently sprinkled across them. Even when upset, his eyes are soft. Melting like butter when tears leak from swollen corners.  Our son might just be God’s gift to Panem. Then again, I think I’m a little biased.

Because this love – the love I have for my family – doesn’t burn at all.

A cheap baby monitor remains silent, but the kitchen is awake with soft sizzling and gentle popping. There’s steam billowing out of a window thrown open. Ellie’s cooking me breakfast, that much is obvious. Whether I deserve it or not is another question entirely. It’s hard not to feel guilty, not to feel torn. My heart is split in two and it has been that way since we met. But in the end, it is all of me he holds within his palms. Whether all of me is whole or not.

Quiet as I can manage I sneak up behind Ellie, arms wrapped around his waist the instant I can get myself close enough to him. ”Surprise!” I mumble into his hair, and had I been strong enough to pick him up I would. He smells like home, like us, like cedar wood from a fireplace we never use and lavender hand lotion that’s always rubbing off on his skin when I stick my hands up his shirt just to make him squirm. 

Sometimes, if they’re cold enough he’ll squeak and it’s so high pitched I chide that if he breaks the windows, he’s fixing them himself. I’m not so good at saying I love you, so I settle for this. I press my lips to the base of his neck and sway to music that neither of us can hear. ”I’m awful and irresponsible and owe you something sweet tonight~” He knows only that I drank, and I decide in that moment it’s all he needs to know.

It's fun to watch his ears get pink. It’s even better to nibble at them so that they stain bright red. ”Very sweet.” I’ve not broken a promise yet. He deserves the best, or at least a hell of a lot better than me. I can only beg a faceless God for her mercy, to keep blissful ignorance sewn to his gentle smiles so that I can keep kissing them away.

”I’m bringing Cedric to the park, okay? And I’ve got some errands to run, big day tomorrow.”

Growing up in a career family, birthdays meant next to nothing. Mother was too busy popping out the next runt of the litter to give a shit that the boring, old thing was turning another year more useless. That’s not how it’s going to be with him. With my family. I may not do it right, but I’ll do it better. ”Isn’t that right, baby boy?” His face is trapped between my palms in an instant, swollen with youth as his lips pucker from the gentle force I apply. ”The first birthday has got to be the best.” 

I’ve made my decision, after all.

--

In hindsight, it’s a really bad idea to bake a ring into your son’s birthday cake. As romantic as it seemed at the time, hiding five-hundred dollars worth of gold between the layers of a pastry frosted bright blue is a decision I find myself regretting almost immediately.  Not only have I lost track of its placement in the time Cedric’s cake has shifted from the counter to the dining room table I now realize that Ellie eating his own engagement ring would outright ruin Cedric's big day.

The romantic shit, the candle-lit dinners and rose petals pressed into soft skin – that’s really his area of expertise. I'm good at buying cheap bottles of wine and a bouquet of roses already half dead. I'm good at settling in his lap, at sharing intimate moments but even the thought of public affection makes my hands clammy and my face drain of color. 

I was so sure of it at the time. Tears drying to swollen cheeks, fingers stumbling over borrowed money. 

(Hey Justice, can you lend me five hundred?)

I was going to do this now.

Maybe I should have waited, maybe I should have done this in a way not so easily ruined by my own incompetence.

I didn't want to, though.

There's no way in hell I'll regret this. Regret him. I'm in love, absolutely and completely and I never had the chance to fall- he caught me before I could. Even in the face of my constant indecision, I've always been sure of this.

In hindsight, sticking your hand into your son's birthday cake in front of him is really fucking stupid. Not like he'd have been able to eat it but it really is the principle.

We decided to keep it small. Just the three of us at a party thrown within the confines of our apartment. It's not like Cedric was old enough to have friends, and it felt more intimate this way. Coming together as the family we never expected to be.

I couldn't be more glad as I'm left fishing through crumbled bread, staining the underneaths of my nails the color of the sky. It's not my proudest moment but at least Ellie isn't here to-

"What are you doing?"

Fuck. 

Just then I find it. Cold and hard a hidden in the exact opposite place it was supposed to be settled. "Uh." I pull my hand out of the cake, ring sitting idly in an unfolded palm.

This isn't what I had in mind, but it's as good a time as any I suppose.

"Marry me?"