Dear Red,
I am so sorry. You are right; I have been a jerk. I should have called. I messed up. Please forgive me. I promise not to disrespect you again. Your time is just as valuable as mine. Please say we can start over. I will be home early. Meet me for dinner, and let me spend the night making it up to you for treating you like you did not matter. You do matter. I am sorry. So, so, so sorry!
Love,
Your Jerk of a Boyfriend,
Bennett
That night, Bennett and Poppy made up. Turns out Bennent was right. Make-up sex was the best. Even though they worked it out, Bennett could feel a distance from Poppy he had not felt before. The rest of the summer, Bennett called when he would be late. His guy friends gave him nine kinds of hell over it, but Bennett sloughed it off. They would demand to know who he was hog tied to, but he refused to tell them. He never really let himself question why he worked so hard to keep her secret. Some things are just better not too closely examined.
On the Fourth of July, the country club did a massive fireworks display. Poppy went to see it the year before. She expected that she and Bennettt would go to see it this year. Nearly everyone in town did, whether they were a club member or not. When Poppy asked Bennett about it, he looked like he had seen a ghost.
"You want to go to the club's fireworks?" asked Bennett as if that was a normal question.
Poppy gave him a funny look and said, "Well, yes, of course. Everybody in town is talking about it. You don't?"
Bennett looked lost in a maze and could not find his way out. "I don't know. I thought we could do the Fourth here."
Poppy gave him a funny look and said, "Here, with no fireworks and no people?"
"No, here, just us," replied Bennett. "I thought you did not like crowds. I thought you would prefer to stay here and celebrate with you and me."
Poppy gave him another look and said, "Okay Carrington. What’s up? We both went to the club last year. It is the best fireworks show in the city. Is it me? Are you embarrassed to be seen with me? We don't ever go out. I get it. I am young. That gives you pause. But, if you avoid going in public with me because you are embarrassed by me, that is something we need to talk about.”
Bennett said nothing for a few minutes, then sat down, ran his hands through his hair, and said, "Look, I am not embarrassed by you. Hell, I am in love with you. You are the best thing about every day. I just…I know that when my dad and Tatum find out about us, they will do everything in their power to break us up. They already did it last year. I have kept it a secret to protect us from that."
Poppy realized he was telling the truth. That was when he told her about the conversations with his dad and friend the night before he disappeared.
Nodding understandingly, Poppy asked, "So what? We are never going to be seen in public? Is that how this is going to work? I get it. I am leaving in three more weeks. I guess I can see that you thought you could keep it hidden until I left. But then what? In a year or two? When were you going to come clean with them?"
Putting his head in his hands, Bennett sat on this bed and said, "I don't know. I have not thought this through." Reaching out to pull her to him, Bennett said, "But if you want to go public, I am all in. That means Gran will know because I promise you Dad will tell her. I had to all but promise to name my first son after him to get him to back off from telling her at Christmas."
"Aren't you like the fourth or something?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't you rich folks reuse names four or five times anyway?"
It took Bennett a moment to realize she was making a joke. "Ha! Ha! You are so funny. We will see how funny you think this is when your grandmother calls you and wants to know who has been warming your bed all summer."
"First of all, my grandmother would never ask that. Second of all, we need a plan. What exactly am I to you? Just a bit of fun until the summer is over?" Poppy tried not to let the hurt show in her face. She had worried that might be the case from day one. But, every night, Bennett told her he loved her. He repeatedly told herthat on calls and in random conversations throughout the day. In Poppy's world, those words meant something. She wanted to think they did in his as well.
Going to her and wrapping her in a hug and then raining kisses down her face and neck, he said, "You are my everything. You're my girlfriend. I love you. But you are so young. You have so many experiences ahead of you, and I don't want to steal those. At the same time, I want all of you. I have to figure out where you fit in my world."
Pulling back from him, Poppy repeated his words, "Where I fit in your world? I seemed to fit pretty well last night.”
Pulling her back to him, Bennett said, "My other world. My work and social world. Everyone is much older than you. They are going to see you as the innocent kid you are and me as some predator who has taken advantage of you."
"That is not the case."
"I know that, and you know that, but we don't make sense to the world. I am trying to keep what we have safe so the world does not destroy us before we even have a chance."
"What does that even mean? Maybe I am too young because your words make no sense."
"You know my future career has been planned for me for years. I can assure you that my falling in love with a kid right out of high school was not part of that plan. I am trying to figure out how to navigate us and merge you into that life plan my dad has stomped into me since I can remember. I want you. I want a life with you. I realize you are too young to hear that. We have only been together for a summer. We have years to grow into each other. You have to trust me as we do it. In the meantime, you will go to New York. Study art and become the amazing artist I know you will be. Then, you will return to Searcy. We will get married and have two-point-five kids. I will run for Senator and then President, with a few otherappointments sprinkled in. It will all work out. Doesn't that sound like a perfect life? We just have to get over the hump of you being so young.”
Poppy leaned back and looked at him. She thought about everything he said and replied, "You seem to have this all figured out. Huh?"
