into you | t.h [discontinued]

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poppyravensong: it's been three years since you left us and every time i think of you, i still start crying. that's why i try not to think of you that much (i'm sorry about that. i know you'd yell about not being the center of attention and i'd have to smack you over the head). still, i miss you every day, brad.
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username1: i'm so sorry honey

username2: every year i still cry

username3: wasn't he the one who cheated on his girlfriend?

username4: username3 really? you bring that up now?

username5: username4 they may not be aware. not everyone is. username3 brad was a child actor gone wrong. he cheated on his girlfriend of six years in a club when he was 18. when he and some girl left the club, they got into an accident because he was drunk and driving. she was okay but he died. later on, his girlfriend killed herself. her name was heather collins.

username6: he fucking deserved it, he was a prick. blew money on strippers and mistreated heather

poppyravensong: username6 my brother never mistreated heather. she was a part of our family and we loved her. he made a terrible mistake that i will never be able to explain or excuse. one terrible mistake that lead to his death. still, he was my BROTHER. i am allowed to miss him, to miss who he was. because the bradley who did all those things that night was not the bradley i grew up with. i loved him, i still do. stop telling me my dead brother was a terrible person. i tried to be there for heather. we paid for a therapist, we tried to help her. i'd known her for years, she was my friend. that day i lost not just my brother but i also lost my two best friends. i loved them. let me be, let them be.

_

Tom thought he was prepared.

When Lizzie warned him a week ago, he already knew. He already had the right food and clothes. He was wearing her favorite blue hoodie- She once said she loved to cuddle him in it since the shirt was so soft. Before he went over to her room he got two pepperoni pizzas and a twenty chicken nugget share box from McDonalds. He was gonna distract her- They'd watch Disney movies the whole day, and turn a gloomy time into something better.

But then he walks into Poppy's room to find her silently crying as she lays on her side scrolling through her phone. Her hair is down, blonde strands messily framing her face, matted down her cheeks with tears. Her eyes shine red as she swipes to the side of the screen, eyelashes sticking together, and her bottom lip trembles. She's so focused on her phone that she doesn't see him walk in.

"Baby?" Tom asks tentatively after setting down the food.

Poppy's eyes shoot up with a tiny gasp before she relaxes. As she sits up, Tom gets under the covers and wraps his arms around her. He watches silently as her face contorts as sobs rack over her body, her phone now discarded by their side as her tears stain his hoodie. He doesn't mind, only running his fingers through her silky hair as she cries.

His eyes wander to the phone that is still lit up, and he sees a picture. He supposes it's from a folder- and he would be right. The picture shows Poppy, clearly younger. Her hair was shorter, her face a bit rounder, more freckles dotted her nose, but she was still the Poppy he knew. She was on a tall boy's back, the two of them laughing as she threw up a peace sign. Her legs were wrapped around his waist, his arms looped under her thighs. They were at some beach at night, probably during some family holiday. His eyes were blue instead of green, but they shared the same hair color and high cheekbones. This was Bradley.

If he'd gone through the rest of it, he'd find that there were a multitude of pictures, some dating farther back than others. Some with more family, some just of him. Pictures Poppy had kept to remind herself of what she'd lost. So, Tom sat there, holding her tighter as he understood that she had been torturing herself for God knows how long, staring at happy memories of her and her brother. The same brother she'd lost three years ago today.

"I don't know why he did it. Why he cheated on her." Poppy eventually mutters. Her sobs had somehow ceased and they'd stayed silent for so long that hearing her voice, especially as steady as it was, startled Tom. "He wasn't that kind of guy. She was the only girl he'd ever dated, they were middle-school sweethearts... Did you know that was a thing? Middle-school sweethearts? It was ridiculous... He told me he wanted to propose to her when they turned twenty. They had this whole life planned out. And for some reason, he threw that all away. Cheated on her in a random nightclub and tried to drive to some cheap motel drunk. They ended up crashing, and that's why I don't have a brother anymore."

She pauses for a moment and waits for him to say something, but he has no idea what to say. All he can think is; I was not prepared.

She continues, her tone still somber. "I barely ate or slept for weeks after I found out. My parents kept fighting. They're okay now, but we all hit a rough patch. I fell into a clinical depression... Heather was the only person I got out of bed for. She was the only one feeling worse than me. And even though my parents and I tried to help, she shut herself off. She still lived in her and Brad's apartment. Not even a month after he died, she hung herself in their bedroom. I was gonna go check up on her like I did every day, and I just found her there. The ME said she'd been there for about an hour."

She stops again for just a second, but she doesn't make herself look Tom in the eye. She won't until she's finished telling him. He has to know. "I think I expected it. We were both falling down without him. I tried to get the two of us to stick together, help each other, but it was a matter of time. We only had to find out if it was gonna be her or me to do it first. Turns out, she beat me to it. My depression got a lot worse. I thought about doing the same thing a lot, but I knew my mom and dad couldn't take that. Not after Brad. So, I focused on other things. I got into acting because it made me be other people and forget about everything. My parents, Bradley, Heather, myself."

Only after she's done talking does Tom finally speak up. He's not quite sure what the hell he's about to say. He doesn't know what she wants him to say. He doesn't know if there's anything he can say. He barely hears himself speak. "I love you."

The words hang heavy in the already tense air. They seem to float away from him, and he almost wants to grab them back. He shouldn't have said it now, why did he think this was a good idea?

Poppy seems to stiffen up. She didn't know what he was gonna say, but she didn't expect that. Tom only realizes he was holding his breath when he hears her voice. It's tiny, soft, and raw. You'd think she'd been screaming bloody murder and not crying if you didn't know. Maybe, she was. "I love you, too."

JAKE ABEL - BRADLEY RAVENSONG
NAOMI SCOTT - HEATHER COLLINS