Poppy Appleton

The fourth Appleton. The black sheep. The family headache. Currently studying Philosophy and disappointing The Perfect Trio since forever. 🖤

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

The youngest Appleton sister. The family disappointment, the resident troublemaker and the one who never quite got the memo on being part of The Perfect Trio. Studying Philosophy, making questionable choices and trying to figure life out one mistake at a time. 🖤

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

@Nerina_More ... and again, thank you cutie for sharing. Very sweet of you 🖤

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

@Nerina_More Awwww... thank you sweetie 🖤

[Stacy @CupOSunshine_RP]

I am what you get when you mix sunshine with a tequila sunrise.

☀️Not new to RP
☀️Not hiding-in your sights
☀️Love me or hate me
☀️ Hope you enjoy the ride
☀️RT and ❤️ appreciated

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

loving.

But because, at thirteen, she lost the people who made love feel safe... and she had not yet learned that losing someone was never proof that she should stop letting herself be loved.

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

doesn't make the people you've lost any less important. It doesn't erase the love or make the memories smaller.

And it certainly doesn't mean that the child you were stops wishing for one more ordinary day.

One more argument.

One more laugh.

One more chance to tell them --

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

didn't need saving, when all she had ever really wanted was to feel safe again.

Because the day her parents died wasn't the day Poppy stopped being the little girl they loved.

It was the day she began to believe she couldn't afford to be her anymore.

Not because she stopped --

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

stopped.

She would remember that, before she became the girl who pushed people away, she had been a little girl who believed her parents would always be there.

And she would miss them.

God, she would miss them.

Because time might teach you how to live with loss, but it --

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

different person.

It happened in smaller ways.

In the things she stopped saying.

In the apologies she swallowed.

In the affection she covered with teasing, and the tears she refused to let anyone see.

Somewhere along the way, the cheeky little girl who had once been so --

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

then, when the house was quiet and there was nobody around to perform for, the armour would feel impossibly heavy.

And Poppy would be thirteen again.

She would remember the day everything changed. The disbelief, the silence, the way the world had carried on when hers had --

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

refusal to be told what to do.

A reputation that made people think twice before asking questions she wasn't ready to answer.

She would wear it so convincingly that, eventually, even the people who loved her most would struggle to tell when she was hurting.

But every now and --

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

was bigger than anything a thirteen-year-old girl should ever have to carry.

She didn't stop needing people.

She simply became frightened of what needing them might cost her.

So she built herself a different kind of armour.

Sharp words.

A wicked sense of humour.

A --

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

beneath the things Poppy had learned to do to protect herself.

Poppy didn't become difficult because she stopped loving her family.

She became difficult because she loved them, because she had lost so much, and because she had absolutely no idea what to do with a grief that --

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

moment she learned that the two people who had made the world feel safe were no longer in it.

Somewhere inside her, the girl who laughed too loudly, spoke too quickly, and loved her family without thinking twice would always remain.

She wasn't gone.

She was simply buried --

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

her was often the person most frightened of losing her.

All she knew was that she wanted her parents back.

And no amount of sarcasm could change that.

No slammed door.

No argument.

No carefully constructed reputation as the girl who didn't care.

Nothing could undo the --

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

thirteen-year-old Poppy couldn't see that far ahead.

She couldn't know that some of the arguments she would have with Sophie would begin with one thing and end with years of unspoken hurt sitting between them. She couldn't know that the sister she accused of trying to control --

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

That she was still loved.

That she didn't have to earn her place in the family by being easy to look after.

That even when she was angry, difficult, distant, or impossible to reach, she was still Poppy Appleton.

Still their little sister.

Still allowed to need them.

But --

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

the difficult one, the disappointment, the person everyone had to worry about.

The fear that she had somehow been left behind in the moment their family broke apart.

And beneath even that was the little girl who wanted somebody to tell her that she hadn't been forgotten.

[Poppy Appleton @NotSoAppleton]

could hide an awful lot inside them and then accuse somebody of having no sense of humour if they dared to look too closely.

But beneath the sarcasm was a much younger feeling.

The fear that her sisters were learning how to live without her.

The fear that she was becoming --