you said we're not so tied together, what did you mean? meet me in the stairwell in a second for a glass of gin. poppy lavand. 25. florist. see also: miles kor.
if there was one thing that got under his skin, it was people that made it obvious that they didn’t like him. poppy clearly hated him and that was fine, but did she have to remind him every time she saw him? honestly the girl was exhausting. and in his mind, there was no way he could be the exhausting one. people loved him. she should, too.
he rolled his eyes, looking away for a moment before looking back at poppy. “i said i was sorry, okay. little preoccupied, you know, with important shit,” he snapped right back. “obviously i wasn’t the only one not paying attention. you ran into me, too.” a huff of air left him in a heavy sigh and he looked over her over. “you’re obviously okay or you wouldn’t be such a bitch about it,” he said, matter-of-factly.
there was a bitterness on her tongue. and for a moment she remembered all of the times men had called her a bitch in her life. they said that when they had nothing else to insult her on. she wasn’t particularly ugly, and she knew that that was the only thing a guy would deem awful enough to bring up. so bitch was the next option. she knew, always knew, how easy it was to break down mack’s mask. underneath it all, he was like every other man in the world. a piece of shit. “right. important shit. fuck off, dude. the town doesn’t fucking cater to you.” she turned away from him, looking down at the jeans that were now torn from the concrete and felt a well of emotion fill up her chest. she sighed heavily to get it out of her system. could she afford a pair of new jeans right now? would she be allowed at work if she patched it up and it looked bad? maybe dottie could teach her how to sew them back together.
tristan was nervous to say the least. things were happening that normally he would’ve laughed at. but ever since september fourth… well… things had been crazy here. more and more crazy things started happening and honestly, he was feeling stressed. he hadn’t been sleeping well because of the nightmares he’d been having, the victim’s faces, contorted and the whole ambiance of the town. there was a cloud hanging over them now and it refused to budge, only changing to bring more and more darkness. it was far too much for him to deal with and he was so lost in his thoughts, he didn’t even see the person walking towards him as he ran right into them.
“i’m so sorry! you okay?” he asked, snapping back to reality as he made sure he wasn’t stepping on their feet or anything.
work was work. if poppy could sit at home chain smoking cigarettes for the rest of her life, she would do it happily. but there was something about the routine of working. of leaving the house everyday to do something with her life that made her feel like she hadn’t fucked it all up. she knew she should invest in a car, that it would make the commute when she closed that much safer, but she couldn’t discipline herself enough not to spend money. so, she walked, in fear, back home from work. cigarette dangling from her lip. she got distracted by a sound she heard across the street, her head snapping to look, when suddenly she collided with what she thought was a brick. but no. it was only tristan. fuckin’ golden boy tristan mack. if it had been anyone else, she wouldn’t have reacted the way she did. she didn’t know why he got on her nerves as much as he did, but after watching him coast through life on his cocky attitude and superficial acclaim, she couldn’t help but feel some bitterness at the tip of her tongue at the mere mention of him.
“do your muscles not come with a brain? or eyes?” she snapped, standing back up and brushing herself off. “fuck- running into you is like getting run over by a goddamn truck.”
one hundred and twenty four days. that’s how long hailey had been missing. she couldn’t wrap her mind around the things she had missed and how desperately she wanted to return to normalcy, but there was not a moment in her day that was not plagued by the thought of what the killer had done to her. ( or maybe her guilt stemmed from the fact that while others had bruises and broken bones, she only had those invisible kind of scars they talk about with soldiers. maybe her guilt stemmed from the fact she couldn’t stop comparing her traumas to theirs. ) talking to the officers was better than sitting with her nightmares playing on repeat, though, so she might as well put them to use. unfortunately the longer that she sat in the police station, the more that she wanted to go home.
pacing was too obvious for her anxiety and maybe she shouldn’t have denied the private room they’d offered her, but as she started to make her third cup of coffee, she realized she wasn’t alone. gesturing to the pot, hailey smiled weakly and said, ❛ i always thought cop coffee was supposed to be bad and that’s why they liked doughnut shops but i can’t get enough. ❜
poppy fucking hated cops. and police stations. the smell of stale coffee mixed with the bleach used to clean the floor, mixed with the walls that were now a stained, pale yellow due to years of neglect and cigarettes brought back nothing but bad memories. they wouldn’t do shit to help her or anyone in this town. what had cops ever done but fuck things up for people who weren’t rich? but, since the death of her friend, she kept finding herself going back there. pretending she was meeting someone for lunch, someone who would never show up, who had too much work to do, wanting nothing more than to hear if there was any information she could go on. anything she could watch out for. to keep herself and her loved ones safe. she sat in the waiting area, picking at her nails and biting the inside of her cheek. listening.
someone walked in. poppy looked up. she knew her. it wasn’t hard to know everyone in veritas, but no. she knew her. she saw her on tv. one of the survivors. what was her name? ha...something? a mix of jealousy and relief stained her tongue. if the killer was sloppy enough to let all of these people slip away, maybe they would be safe. but why wasn’t her friend? why couldn’t she have survived? and then, a voice. and poppy sits up a bit straighter. she was staring. fuck. she musters up a smile. “just about everything in here is shit. your palette must be fucked up.” it was a tease, a way to show her that she wouldn’t ask about what happened. to keep things lighthearted in a place that felt so heavy and old.
are you ready for One Hot Mess ? tw for drug, alcohol, and mental illness mention. like for a plotting mssg !! if this isn’t coherent pls forgive me it’s 4:20am (blaze it ha ha)
{ FLORENCE PUGH, FEMALE, SHE/HER } Way out here in The Ozarks, I’d never expect to find POPPY LAVANT , the 25 year old FLORIST at the AN’ GARDEN CAFE. On the afternoon of September 4th, SHE was ORGANIZING THE BACK ROOM but I’m not sure I believe a word they say.
her mother has always been her favorite person in the world. growing up, she would periodically take her out of school to spend the day with her. poppy’s best memories are of her sitting in the back of her mother’s car, cigarette smoke blowing in the wind with the windows rolled down as they drove wherever her mother’s whims took them that day. the sun warmed their faces, and everything felt like it was exactly where it needed to be.
her father was never in the picture, not that she cared much. according to her mom he was a piece of shit anyway. her mom was her date to every father daughter dance, and any time poppy felt like a piece of her was lacking from not having a paternal figure, her mom stepped in and took his place.
those were the good days. when her mother’s moods were predictable. when the ups outweighed the downs. she wasn’t sure what changed. if it was the death of her uncle, or the inability to keep food in the fridge, but poppy slowly found herself having to do more and more things around the house.
by thirteen she was working to help pay the bills, coming to a dirty house and a mother who was locked away in her room. she cleaned for her, and when she finished, she made sure she ate. they were a team, she always told her, and teams always do things together.
her grades slipped, though never enough to keep her from moving forward in school. and, as she slowly started to lose control over her mother, and every part of her life she cherished and held close, she found herself getting control in other ways.
keep your friends close when your family isn’t worth shit, right?
after work, she stopped going home. instead tagging along with some of her older friends to bars and clubs. no one gave a fuck about whether or not she had an ID. they knew her, and they knew her mother, and most of the time, they just took pity on her and gave her whatever she wanted.
if you had asked her what she had wanted to be when she was a kid, she would have replied with free. it was what her mother wanted, and so it was what she wanted too. to be free of her reputation, of her shit hole town, of her shit hole life.
she got in to community college. a semester in, her mother got worse. she dropped out of community college. there wasn’t much left she could do then. they couldn’t afford any type of psychological care, they didn’t have insurance. all poppy could do was wait. wait for it to either get better or to get even worse. and when the day came that she feared the most, she found herself unfazed. it took a few years for her to realize that she had been mourning her mother her entire life. the bright, happy memories of what once was between them. poppy had spent her life alone, and this was no different. she had her friends. that was all she needed.
until she lost a friend too. (sarah) taken from her by a man, she was sure it was a man, who wanted to get his minutes, weeks, months of fame and glory. there’s a lot of anger that lives inside of her, and even more burns in her chest now. bubbling up and only exploding when she feels she can explode. she keeps the people she cares about close to her. this is the only family she has left.
wanted connections
friend group ; family. started forming in high school, got more defined as time went on. (0/5) m/f/nb
best friend ; if it wasn’t for them, poppy would not have survived a lot of her life. there’s always been a hint at something more, a kind of tension between them. but poppy would never admit that. she watches them hop from person to person and deep down knows they’ll always end up crawling back to her. (0/1) m/f/nb
parental figure ; someone’s gotta be her voice of reason. please. (taken) f/m/nb
pen pals ; they’ve never met. they don’t know who the other person is. it started as an exchange of notes in a notebook tucked away in the back of the library. they’ve maintained this hidden ritual for years, and have no intention of stopping. that is, until poppy starts to get paranoid. (0/1) f/m/nb
