Poppy's PoV

I was furious. Anger seeped from my pores as I stared at these two people, practically strangers to me. They'd obviously kept up with my life somehow, probably hearing it second hand from old friends and thinking that was enough. To find out they knew about Amelia and how hard her death hit me was heartbreaking - they knew I was in pain and still didn't come to see me, to help, to do anything parents should. Now they're trying to lecture me? To tell me my life with Calum is all to keep up with my brother?! How dare they. After everything we have been through together, Calum is the only one I trust with my life. Forget my 'family'.

"We're just trying to look out for you. Look what happened when his crazy ex came back." Once again their knowledge of the news stories was apparent, yet their lack of anything to actually help at the time was even more obvious. Calum and I glared over to them. How could they even bring this stuff up when they hadn't bothered for so long?

"Excuse me?" I hissed.

"Well, lets not pretend we don't know what happened. He cheated on you, she tried to kill you... twice." My dad reeled off everything bad that had happened in my life, seemingly the only things they really paid attention to. Calum shifted awkwardly under the hard gaze of my dad. He shouldn't judge though, he hasn't even been in my life for the best part of nearly a decade.

"We can also not pretend that you actually care. Where were you when all this was going on? Sitting at home on your butts, talking about how good your favourite child was doing?" I barked, attracting the attention away from Calum. He shot me a thankful smile as he stood beside me, his arm around me for protection. Who knows what was running through his mind again, probably wishing that he wasn't married to me and having to deal with all my issues.

"Well your brother wasn't embarrassing himself in front of newspapers and being labelled as God knows what." My mother so eloquently spoke, sending my anger bubbling to the brim. Any second now I was going to lash out and it wasn't going to be pretty. I balled my hands into fists beside me. They'd better take note of my body language.

"Even if my brother was a deadbeat drunk who laid on the sofa all day eating burgers you'd say he was better than me. Every single thing I did or made, you guys could only mention the bad part about it. It didn't matter if I'd married the most successful billionaire and become CEO of a company, I'd still be in your bad books." I rambled, knowing this argument was the same as all the others we had over the years. This one wouldn't end any better.

"You did that yourself when you decided everything needed to be in the limelight. I mean who tells everyone about their cancer diagnosis? The world knew before we did. That's not fair. Neither is the fact you never mentioned your pregnancy to us. That'll probably be in the news this week." I stood speechless, stunned at their attitude when they were the ones who hadn't bothered for years. Since I'd moved out with Amelia, after years of torment about never being good enough, they'd literally carried on like I didn't exist. My mother would speak to me sometimes but I felt like that was just to tick a box so that I never said she failed to speak to me. We talked about nothing exciting, always just hearing updates about my brother. They never asked how I was doing or what was going on so I left them with as little information as possible. Of course that had changed as soon as I was with Calum.

"I'm sorry to interrupt." Calum began, his voice strained as he desperately tried to control his fury after hearing how they spoke. He looked over at me as if to say he hoped he was doing the right thing. "But Poppy has tried her best to keep everything about her private. It had been other people who were leaking the information to the press. Poppy has never done anything wrong." My dad seemed to scoff, to Calum's surprise as his eyes widened.

"Then you and your people didn't try hard enough to silence it. Between that and how quick you were to cheat with your ex, I'm starting to think you aren't a good match for my daughter." I laughed flatly, shaking my head in disbelief, I moved over to the front door and flung it open.

"You have no right to say anything about Calum. He's been the only person who has helped me and stuck by me through so much. You barely have the right to call me your daughter when you haven't even bothered to speak to me in years. Don't try to act like you care now." My voice was low now, as I gestured furiously for them to leave. I'd had enough, one more thing would have either caused me to break down in tears or trash the place. I wasn't sure which seemed more plausible right now. "So you can go. Thanks for popping by but please don't ever pop by again." My parents rose straight away, knowing they'd outstayed their welcome as well as probably wanting to feed it all back to my precious brother. He'd lap it up, knowing he was on an even higher pedestal with them. I sighed inwardly and rolled my eyes. This wasn't how I'd expected my day to pan out.

"Remember, Poppy, you putting yourself in a bad light will also affect your brother. After all, people do know he's related to you. So try to behave yourself." My mum said outside the door, tipping me over the edge. I let out a primal scream as I slammed the door hard, a photo hanging on the wall jumping away and landing on the floor. Falling to my knees, I threw my hands to my face as I wailed, letting the feelings flow for the first time since my parents had shown up. Everything had felt like it had been flipped upside down since they'd arrived, yet everything was scarily the same. My brother was perfect, I was letting the family down, I was giving him a bad name. It didn't matter what I did, I'd be ruining him or I'd be jealous enough that I'd try to 'beat' his fame and be better than him. It was exhausting.
Within a second Cal was beside me, hugging me into his chest as he stroked my hair.

"I'm so sorry Poppy." He soothed. "I can't think of any words right now but please don't let them get to you. You're amazing, don't ever forget that."