Poppy Dawson

Poppy has always believed that being fun and helpful keeps people close, so she turned it into a life. She hosts Austin's pop-up markets, festivals and fundraisers, filling every weekend with color and noise, remembering birthdays and carrying snacks for strangers. She built a career out of making ordinary days feel like celebrations. But the man she loved at twenty-two left when she cried too much one week, and the lesson stuck: sadness makes her unlovable. Now she performs joy so well that nobody thinks to ask if she's okay, and she's too scared to admit she's exhausted from being everyone's favorite person and nobody's first call when things get hard.