“That is entirely beside the point.”
“What exactly is the point?”
Mom threw her hands up. “I want to know what you were thinking!”
“To be fair, it all happened really fast, so I wasn’t really thinking as much as I was—”
“Clearly. That much was obvious.” Mom sighed and shook her head, the textbook picture of disappointment. Poppy just couldn’t win. “And to think, this happened on Cash’s big night.” Mom pursed her lips. “I hope he forgave you.”
Poppy closed her eyes and counted to ten. There wasn’t anything to forgive because she hadn’t done anything wrong. That’s what everyone—Cash, Lyric, Rosaline—told her. They had been there. They would know. Mom wasn’t going to get under her skin and make her start doubting herself, but maybe Poppy could still make her understand that it hadn’t been rash—okay, it had been rash, but it hadn’t beenwrong.“Cash isn’t mad, he’s—”
“That boy is a saint, is what he is. I hope you realize how very lucky you are that he even gave you this job. God knows what you’d be doing right now if he hadn’t.”
Cash was no saint, but yes, Poppy was very lucky, and she didn’t need anyone to tell her. “I’m well aware of how lucky I am. Trust me.”
Mom looked like she highly doubted that. “You could try acting like it.”
Jesus Christ. Poppy pinched the bridge of her nose. “If you want to know what I was honestly thinking, it was that Lyric might have been in danger. Okay? That’s why I did what I did.”
“In danger?” Mom scoffed like it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “Really, Penelope, it’s not like the woman had agun.”
“No, Mom,” she drawled, eyes rolling. “She wouldn’t have had anywhere to put it.”
Mom looked deeply unamused. “Don’t be crass.” The timer on the oven dinged, and she snatched the oven mitts off the counter. “Danger.”Her laugh was mirthless.“My God. You always were such a dramatic child. Always making mountains out of molehills.” She reached inside the oven and pulled out a green bean casserole that looked wet, the French-fried onions soggy. She set the casserole dish down on the counter beside the turkey that was resting, not tented with foil, ensuring the bird was going to be bone dry. She ripped off her oven mitts. “I suppose some things never change.”
Poppy flinched, hand falling to her side.
It wasn’t dramatic for a child to want her parents to pay attention to her. No more than it was her fault that it was only when she accidentally set the kitchen on fire or fell out of a tree and broke her arm that they remembered they had another daughter. That Poppy existed.
She inhaled slowly and then blew out her breath, stealing a few seconds to gather her composure. Someone ought to keep a level head and god knew it wasn’t going to be her mother. She had some nerve calling Poppy dramatic. “What exactly do you want me to say, Mom? That I’m sorry? Is that what you want to hear?”
She wasn’t, but she just might say it, if it meant she could escape the kitchen.
Mom rounded on her, and Poppy’s stomach sank, all too familiar with the pinched look on Mom’s face and the brittle look in her blue eyes. “Your actions have consequences, Penelope.” Her voice quivered and her chin wobbled the way it tended to before the waterworks started. Her hand flew to her throat. “I would’ve thought that after what happened last year, you would’ve learned that. I suppose that was simply too much to hope for.”
Poppy’s breath left her like she’d been sucker punched in the solar plexus.Fuck.Mom could’ve backhanded her, and it wouldn’t have hurt as badly as being told that she was once a fuckup, always a fuckup. That the last year she’d spent working her ass off to get better,bebetter had, in her mother’s eyes, been entirely for naught.
Poppy made mistakes. God knew she did. Sometimes it felt like all she did was make mistake after mistake after mistake, but she was trying, and—it’s not like shewantedto fuck up. She hadn’t a year ago and she didn’t want to now, and if Mom knew her even in the slightest, she’d know Poppy’s biggest fear was letting down the people she loved, being a disappointment. That sometimes she couldn’t sleep, the fear of messing up keeping her awake at night. That she’d do anything in her power to avoid that fate. That she was always, always, always going to be harder on herself than anyone else because of it.
She pinched her lips tight to keep them from trembling. It did nothing to stanch the tears welling up in her eyes, threatening to spill over if she so much as blinked.
Mom set her hands on her hips and sighed. “Now is not the time for your histrionics.”
“Myhistrionics?” She laughed and a renegade tear slipped down her cheeks. She scrubbed angrily at her face. “That’s rich.”
Her lips pursed. “Penelope—”
“Poppy.” She sniffed hard and dragged the side of her hand under her nose. “No one calls me Penelope.”
And if Mom paid even a little attention to her, she would know that. Would know that she’d been exclusively going by Poppy since the fifth grade. That the only people who called her Penelope didn’t really know her at all.
Mom massaged the space between her brows. “Go tell everyone it’s time to eat.”
Arms hanging limply at her sides, Poppy stared across the kitchen. What exactly was the point of any of this? What had Mom been hoping to achieve in bringing up what happened at the WMAs? There was no understanding achieved, no resolution, no catharsis. It’s like she just wanted to knock Poppy down a peg, make her feel bad.
Suddenly she wasn’t hungry.
Mom turned her back on Poppy and reached inside the drawer nearest the stove, pulling out the carving knife. “Go,Penelope.”
