She stood in front of the lamp, facing me, and the ray of light shone right through her thin summer clothes, outlining her sweet girl parts in a way I would think of over and over again afterward, until it drove me insane.

She was bonier back then, and didn’t need to wear a bra. Poppy slipped her long, white limbs into her pale yellow dress, like milk sliding into melted butter. No, it was more of a Is that all it is? And you’re crying over it? kind of laugh. It wasn’t a We both lost IT together, how wicked of us, how fantastic, I will always love you because we did this One Big Thing for the first time together kind of laugh. Poppy shoved me off, stood up, and laughed. Just a little bit, just because my heart was so full, just a couple of small little tears. All because someone said Holly’s hair was prettier than her own.Īfter we slept together, I started crying. She was the high school queen who reached forward one day during math class, grabbed Holly Trueblood’s thick, white-blond hair in her fist, and cut it off at the skull while Holly screamed and screamed. She was the neighborhood hero who organized games of Burn the Witch and got everyone to play. She was the girl next door who fell off her bike and laughed at her bloody knees. People say you can’t feel real love that young, but I did. We were both sixteen, and I’d been in love with her since I was kid, since I was still reading monster comics and spending too much time practicing sleight-of-hand tricks because I wanted to be a magician.

The first time I slept with Poppy, I cried.

Wink poppy midnight audiobook