Little Talks ☇ C. Evans

65 ) grief

Poppy could barely drag herself out of bed; she just didn't have the spirit to actually get up and face yet another day of sitting inside her childhood home—now different than it used to be since her dad was gone.

She pulled a t-shirt over her head and tied her blonde waves into a ponytail, too distracted to actually do anything else with it. As she stood in the mirror staring at her reflection, she came to one realization: Chris had officially seen her at her worst. Her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks still stained with tears, and she refused to wear anything other than sweatpants the last few days.

Leaving her room, Poppy descended the wooden staircase and slipped her converses on at the bottom of the stairs. She slowly made her way outside and across the yard towards the garage where she could hear Chris throwing around boxes and such. Leaning in the doorframe, she let out a sigh, causing his blue eyes to meet her's.

"Good morning," he said quietly, that puppy dog smile of his forming.

"It's one in the afternoon," Poppy corrected him, though she'd slept the whole morning away so this was technically morning for her.

Chris chuckled lowly and began pulling some plaid shirts out of a plastic bin and moving them into a cardboard box, causing Poppy to furrow her brows.

"Wait, wh-what are you doing?" She asked worriedly, rushing over to where he was standing.

"Your mom wanted to give some of your dad's stuff aw—"

"No." Poppy grabbed the edges of the box from Chris's hands and jerked it away from him.

The muscle in his jaw twitched as he watched her, standing up to his normal height now that he wasn't bending over to place things in the box.

"Poppy—"

"Chris," she warned, swallowing harshly as she grabbed one of the plaid shirts from the plastic bin.

Chris watched her with sad eyes as she fumbled over the boxes to pull out everything that Chris had worked so hard on organizing. Within seconds, she'd taken every item that belonged to her dad out of the boxes, tears already brimming in her eyes.

"I know you probably don't want me to say this, but—"

"You don't know what I want! Or what my mom wants!" She interjected, tears threatening to spill. "Mom didn't mean for you to give away my dad's stuff. She wouldn't have said that."

Chris raised an eyebrow, his lips pursed. He'd heard her mom correctly; she specifically told him to get rid of all of Mr. Fitzgerald's belongings because it was too difficult for her to look at them. He thought it was a little strange, but he knew it was a normal response for some people to feel the need to do that.

"She told me to, Poppy. She wants all of it gone by tonight." Chris explained, however he regretted it as soon as he watched Poppy begin to fall apart.

She looked down at the shirts in her arms and at the other things at her feet, her eyes glassy. She felt as if her heart was racing so fast that she was going to have a heart attack herself.

"Mom wants his stuff gone? Gone?" She asked, completely disheveled by what Chris told her. "But this is his stuff! This is my dad's stuff! This is all we have left, and she wants it gone?" Her voice was rushed and it continued to raise with each word.

Chris could physically see her deteriorating as she gathered up all of her dad's things that she possibly could into her arms. She tried walking out of the garage, but she just had too much in her hands and things started falling. A few of his shirts fell on the garage floor, but she bent down to retrieve them quickly. It wasn't until a picture of her, her mother, and her father fell out of her arms and onto the ground that she really let go.

The tears streamed down her cheeks like a river, the glass shards surrounding her converses. It was as if it had set off a bomb, and she dropped everything from her arms as sobs raked her body.

Chris was quick to rush over to her, his boots crunching the bits of glass on the ground as he pulled her into his chest quietly. Poppy fidgeted for a moment before leaning into his body, his arms wrapped around her's trying to stop her from shaking. She started sliding down to sit in the floor, and he went with her.

Soon enough, they were sitting on the floor, glass surrounding them. Poppy's face was burning into Chris's chest as one of his hands rubbed her back and the other stroked the side of her face near her ear. She was low; her grief was beyond control. He couldn't blame her, though, because he knew he'd be doing the same as her if he was in her situation.

"I got you," Chris mumbled in her hair, then pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

His heart ached for her; it had been too long since he'd seen that pretty smile of hers and it killed him. He just wanted her to be happy again, and he wasn't sure how long it would take for her to even begin to recover from this.

Poppy took in a deep breath as she pulled her face away from his shirt to look at him, the tears showing no sign of stopping. She hated crying in front of people, especially Chris, but for some reason she knew that he really did mean what he said.

"Come here," Chris whispered, as if talking in a loud voice would cause her to be more upset.

He cupped both sides of her face and pressed his lips to her's softly. He could taste the saltiness of her tears, but it didn't other him. He just wanted her to know how much he cared for her—how much he liked her. He hated seeing her so broken, and it made him feel worse that he couldn't take her pain away.

Chris pulled away and looked down at her where she sat criss-crossed in front of him, "I'm gonna take care of you, Pop-tart. I promise."