Poppy.

I was at the library, catching up on some studying since I had a couple of midterms coming up in the week. It was Sunday so the library was decently packed. You could hear the shuffling of papers and turning of pages, along with the clacking of keyboards. A dry cough now and then.

I sat in the corner, behind a bookshelf, highlighting bits in my textbook. Truth be told, I wasn’t entirely focused. My mind was wondering, thinking about Jamie Hudson and how terrible it would be if I ran into him at the library. Or anywhere else on campus. I held my head between both of my hands, squeezing, hoping that I could make my mind squeeze shut.

“Poppy.”

I looked up to see a girl from my Communications class. Mary Carrington When she said my name, it sounded so loud because of the silence I was so used to in the library that everyone else around me had also looked up. She blushed and sat down across from me at my table.

“Hey Mary,” I said, setting my highlighter down. “What’re you here for?”

She smiled, showing me a large, worn down book in her arms. “Checking out a book for a research paper I have in my Women Studies and Genders class. What about you?”

“Studying,” I replied, showing off my highlighted passages in my book.

She nodded, understandingly.

We carried on our conversation for the next couple minutes when I happened to spot Jamie-fucking-Hudson across the room. He was sitting at a table with a couple of friends, textbooks open, laughing quietly about something. I found it harder to pay attention to whatever Mary was saying, only because the one person I dreaded seeing on campus was only a couple feet away from me at that very moment.

Had he spotted me? Did he know I was at the library as well? Or maybe he hadn’t seen me yet. I contemplated whether or not I could slink away without him noticing, but then our eyes locked and he smiled at me from across the room and waved.

I awkwardly smiled back and Mary caught that. She followed my gaze and spotted Jamie as well. “Jamie? Jamie Hudson? You know him?” I looked up at her, confused that she knew his name.

“Uh yeah,” I stammered, “we went to high school together. How do you know him?”

She laughed. “He’s dating my friend from high school. Sarah Luthor. Small world, man.”

I cringed at hearing her full name.

Mary grabbed my arm, suddenly, and said, “Let’s go over and say hi. I see he’s with his Lacrosse friends. Total hotties.”

Dreadfully, I got up with her, not knowing how to back out of this situation. If I said no, she would tell Jamie that I didn’t want to come over and that would make things awkward. If I made an excuse and suddenly left, it would just look suspicious, making things even more awkward. And if I went over there, willingly, it would be the most awkward option of them all.
Mary had a bright smile on the moment we were standing right in front of Jamie and his Lacrosse buddies’ table, as she said, “Hey Jamie! How are you?”

Jamie looked surprised, his gaze flitting between Mary and I, and our entwined hands. “Good…you two know each other?”

Mary laughed, a twinkling laugh that seemed a little too fake. “Yeah, small world! Poppy and I are in a Communications class together. Who would have thought that both our high school friends would be dating each other!”

I shot her a look. Really? That was going to be our connection?

She looked at the other two guys at the table and said, “Hi, I’m Mary Carrington.”

Jamie looked startled as he said, “Oh, my bad! Mary, these are my friends Tom and Roscoe. Guys, this is Mary,” his eyes shot to me, their blue color giving me a disturbing glow, “and this is Poppy Monroe.”

“Roscoe?” It slipped before I could think properly. I ignored the ginger named Tom that had his arm out as if to shake it and looked at the dark-haired, green-eyed devil that was sitting right across from Jamie. The roguish grin that played across his features made the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. That name wasn’t common. How many Roscoe’s have I come across? Only one. Flashbacks of a drunken phone call resurfaced and I remembered the asshole that had called himself Roscoe and how he had so rudely hung up on me.

He must’ve noticed the recognition on my face as the memories flooded through my brain because his grin deepened, and it broke out into a full-fledged toothy smile.

“Poppy-fucking-Monroe. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”



Jamie hated my boyfriend, Sam.

Well, my ex-boyfriend, Sam. Not that I could blame him. He wasn’t necessarily a people pleaser. Most of my friends found him repugnant. But it was mainly because he had an infamous reputation. When I first started ‘talking’ to him, random girls came out of nowhere, telling me all these bad stories and how he was no good. I made the mistake of telling Jamie all of this and he automatically decided that Sam was not the right guy. He even went so far as to have a dinner with him so that he could get to know him better and figure him out. That night he told me that it was no good, Sam and I, and that I should just let it go and move on.

But I still ended up with Sam.

And this pissed Jamie off to no avail.

I remember one night, right after I had broken up with Sam because I found out he had been cheating on me with his fat ex, Jamie had showed up at my front door and I broke down and told him all that had happened. He let me crawl into his arms and cry my little heart out. At the very end of all my sobbing and devastation, he simply said, “He was never good enough for you.”

Back then, and every day since then, I’ve always wanted to ask Jamie what he thought was good enough for me.

I was curious. I wanted to know what Jamie thought I deserved.

And sometimes I wondered if he thought he was good enough for me.



“Do I talk about Poppy a lot, Ros?” asked a very confused Jamie.

I looked from Jamie to Roscoe and realized that his gaze had never left me. He still wore that stupid, impish grin and it seemed like his teeth were too sharp for his mouth.

“Not really, man. But I’ve heard quite a lot elsewhere.” He chuckled to himself, the corners of his eyes wrinkling, and I noticed how boyish he looked when he laughed.

I wanted to stab this guy!

“Weird,” I said, trying to sound calm, “I didn’t think I had much of a reputation on campus.”

“Oh yeah,” said Roscoe. He seemed like he was trying to cover up another laugh, but he was struggling. “I hear you’re the illest.”

I was going to fucking murder him.

Everyone else seemed uncomfortable with the sudden tension in the air and because they had no clue what was going on. Tom coughed, having retreated his outstretched hand a long time ago, and was no trying to look through his notebook, all nonchalantly. Mary had stepped a little bit away from me, frightened by the glare I was sending in Roscoe’s direction.

But Jamie was the only one who was dumb enough to say something.

“What’s going on? Do you two know each other or something? I feel like I missed something…” He trailed off as Roscoe stood up, backing his seat out.

“I have to pee,” he announced. He smiled at Mary and then shot me another one of his playful grins and said, “It was nice meeting the both of you. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around campus.”

Everyone watched him go. Jamie was about to say something but then I quickly shouted out a, “I have to go pee, too!” and ran after Roscoe myself.

It was like he already knew I was going to do that. I turned the corner and there he was, standing up against the wall, waiting for me. I wanted to smack him straight across the face.

Instead, I just smacked his arm.

“Ow!” he shouted, “What the hell was that for?”

“For being a fucking asshole, that’s why,” I replied, smacking him again in the other arm.

“What the fuck is your problem, Monroe? All I did was recognize the psycho bitch that called my phone and went on a 10 minute fucking rant about Jamie Hudson. Let me ask a question, have you told Jamie all the things you’ve told me?” he rubbed his arm with a stupid grin on his fucking face.

I hit him in the head this time and said, “Fuck no! Of course I haven’t, I was drunk that night! I didn’t think I’d ever say any of that to him and I’m glad that I haven’t.”

“So what’re you going to do?” he asked, genuine curiosity pouring into his voice.

“Nothing,” I told him.

He gave me a frown. I pulled back away from him, restraining the many other slaps I wanted to give him. “Well that’s completely boring.”

I scoffed. “Like it’s any of your business.”

He leaned up against the wall, folding his arms. He smirked at me.

“It might be. If I tell him everything.”

I gaped at him. “Why…why would you do that?” I whispered in a shrill voice.

He shrugged, keeping his arms crossed.

“Depends if you can keep my mouth shut,” he said as he shot me a wink.

I punched him in the face.