Chapter Text
Belvoire Graduation Ball
After talking to her parents Poppy makes her way through the crowd, taking one step after another mechanically, her mind elsewhere. She has to find Morgan. She finds her in the middle of her friends, laughing without care. Poppy wished she had a camera to capture this moment, instead she settles with memorizing every detail as she strides closer. This is precisely the moment she feared, the thing she hoped wouldn’t come. Morgan turns, as if sensing her presence.
“Morgan, I need to talk to you.” Poppy approaches with a heavy heart, the beaming smile Morgan shoots her makes her feel like throwing up, it makes her hate herself.
“Sure. What’s up?” Morgan excuses herself from her friends, immediately making her way to her girlfriend’s side. She notes Poppy’s serious expression and straightens up, immediately concerned.
“Not here.” Poppy looks around for somewhere with more privacy. Morgan snakes her arms around Poppy and leads her out to the balcony, it’s deserted.
“Are you okay?”
“I-” Poppy was too focused on finding Morgan that she doesn’t know how to break the news to her now that she’s here. The words wouldn’t come out, she felt like she was choking on them. Morgan waited patiently, the night was cold and she saw Poppy shaking. She takes off her coat and wraps it around her girlfriend but Poppy didn’t feel comfort, only dread.
Poppy curses her for being so sweet, for being so selfless, she hated it as much as she hated herself and what she’s about to do. She swallows the lump in her throat, her eyes filled with tears but she keeps it down. Poppy steadies herself, knowing she has to break Morgan’s heart.
“I want to break up.” The words make it out of her mouth like thorns being pulled out of her throat.
“W-What?” Morgan’s smile wavers, she laughs nervously, thinking that this has to be some sort of joke.
“I’m serious, Morgan. I-I’m sorry.” That could have come out better.
“What did I do? Tell me, I could make it better.” Tears spring from her eyes, when she came out here she hadn’t expected something terrible, she was unprepared, her knees felt weak.
“Just stop. It’s- just give up, okay. We both know this was coming, we might have prolonged it but this is unavoidable. I told you, we won’t work but you were too stubborn to listen!” She despised the words coming out of her mouth but she couldn’t stop it.
“Why are you doing this?” Morgan steps back until her back hits the wall. “Don’t give up on us, Poppy. I’ll do anything. We could still-”
“No. I’ve made my decision. I’m sorry.”
“Poppy, please. Don’t leave me. Tell me why.”
“It was fun for a while but now it’s boring.” Poppy sneers. It’s better you hate me so it will be easier for you to move on. “It’s time for us to move on, now that uni is over don’t you think it’s better for us to part ways. This won’t work in the real world anyway. I have duties to my family, to our company and I think you’ll just get in the way. You wouldn’t get it anyway.”
“Ha!” Morgan chuckles humorlessly, wiping at her tears furiously. “I do get it, you’re a coward, Poppy.”
“Excuse me?” Poppy turns and glares at her. Her heartbeat tripled in speed. I was doing it for you.
“You heard me. You’re a coward and you’re selfish, you won’t even fight, you just gave up. I know what you’re doing and if you’re so intent on your decision, go run to your parents. If you so badly want me to hate you then fine. I hate you, I wish I never met you.” Morgan straightens up, now she was angry. It felt better than feeling her heart breaking to a million pieces. She protects herself and lies through her teeth.
“Good, because I hate you too. I never want to see you again.” Poppy walks back to the party, trying to keep her tears at bay. Not now, not yet. It’s not safe to cry yet, people are looking. She plasters on a fake smile, making her way to her parents and making excuses that she’s not feeling well. She wanted to make it out of there as soon as she could, while she’s here she wouldn’t break, she could take it, Morgan hating her.
A few months later, Morgan is still a mess. Her anger and pain has passed and now she just feels numb. She loved Poppy, she loves her still.
Her phone buzzes with a tweet, she should have ignored it, she usually does. What possessed her to open the notification was beyond her, she almost threw her phone at the wall when she saw the words on the screen. Poppy’s engaged and it suddenly felt like the whole world was falling apart with her in the centre of it. The sound that came out of her was pure anguish. It’s been a while since she’s cried and now it wouldn’t stop, her chest burned and kept burning, it felt like it could almost consume her. Her phone continued buzzing this time from her concerned friends, she wanted it to stop, just stop.
In three months, she’s going to be married and there’s nothing she could do about it. She might have looked happy in the photo, but the reality is that she’s dying inside. She should have fought harder, she wondered how Morgan was doing. She felt like a caged bird, slowly killing her soul.
Time is fleeting, the months turned into days. Poppy’s slowly counting down the hours until her life is officially over, signed over to someone she barely knows.
She glances longingly at the photo of her and Morgan in her nightstand, it was back when she was happy. They were smiling as Morgan kissed her cheeks. She turns it down and hides it in one of the drawers. She couldn’t bear to see it, not now when she’s going to be married to someone else.
A knock at the door and she’s ushered to prepare for her wedding. She sighs and yields to her faith, Morgan was right she’s always been a coward.
She’s rushed inside another room they set up for preparing her. It is full of gifts and empty well wishes. One of the gifts catches her attention, she’s immediately drawn to a vase with a flower arrangement. She couldn’t help but run her fingers along the fluffy blooms of the peonies, the surrounding purple of the forget me nots looked beautiful.
“Who’s this from?” Poppy asks, still enraptured by the arrangement. She’ll be sure to send a thank you letter to whoever sent this, it cheered her up a little.
“I’m sorry Miss Min-Sinclair, it’s not on the list.” Her assistant flips through the list a couple of times to be sure. “Do you want me to take it away?”
“No. I-” Poppy notices a small letter tucked within the arrangement.
I wish you a lifetime of happiness. Congratulations. A single line that serves to make her frown. That’s all it said, no name nor initials.
Before she could dwell on it more, she’s getting pulled by the crew. And just like that she’s back to reality, to being miserable. The end of her freedom.
She catches a blur of blonde hair passing in the corner of her eye, as she’s walking down the aisle, she turns and there’s a crowd of people, she tries not to think about Morgan.
“I shouldn’t have come.” Morgan exits the church and sits heavily on the steps. She thought that if she could just catch a glimpse of her one last time she could have been okay with her decision. It had already been a risk sneaking in the flowers but she couldn’t risk meeting Poppy’s eyes, she wouldn’t have known what she would have done then.
She sincerely hoped she would be happy, she prayed she would be, for her sake.