Maybe just in my mind’s eye.
A couple of weeks have passed since Jamison definitively categorised our relationship as “friends,” and they’ve both dragged and slipped by.
Sort of how it feels to be pulled under a wave and tossed around.
Once you get past the feeling that you can’t breathe and maybe you’re dying, the rolling about’s not so bad. Almost like a ride.
Peter Pan is a ride and a half and the most beautiful distraction from the ache in my chest that I could have ever daydreamed.
He took me to Aqueria the other day. I met the Poseidon, who Peter told me isn’t a god but is king of the sea. Not just this one but all the seas.
He was quite firm, but I get the feeling that were you to be on his good side, he might be quite nice. I suspect I’m not on his good side though. I don’t think the mermaids care for me much, not now that most of Peter’s attention is on me.
Still, he said he wanted me to meet them. Actually, he said he wanted them to meet me.
He wasn’t unkind, the king, just stern. Bowed his head in a little nod and spoke mostly in hushed tones to Peter.
It was still impossibly beautiful though; Aqueria is beyond imagination. An underwater city and palace that’s made of coral and limestone and sandstone, with underwater plants you’ve never seen before, crystals I’ve never heard of, and streams of light pouring through windows that never close, because why would they? We’re so far down that it doesn’t make sense for the light to still reach, but it does, and I suppose it makes sense here, because magic.
Peter gave me this little thing that you hold in your mouth. It’s almost like a tiny harmonica, and it lets you breathe underwater.
Speaking’s still hard. Kissing harder still.
But breathing is easy.
We also went back to La Vie En Grande. We found buried treasure on an island off the coast of the mainland. We saved a baby whale that was beached on the shore of Buccaneers Cove.
He taught me how to paint the sky.
The days have been good, how I think I imagined they’d be in Neverland all along. I make a habit of going to the cloud every day to drop off the parts of the day that I don’t think I should like to remember. I drop off my thoughts of the medicine now—it’s just medicine after all. I drop off the thoughts about where Peter goes when he thinks I’m sleeping or when I’m with Rune or Rye. I have my own friends; why shouldn’t he?
There are a few specific things I feel it would be wiser for me to keep so I don’t fall back into bad habits with pirates, but I definitely did drop off that terrible thought Rye seeded in me that there are different kinds of fate, and I’m glad I did too. That kept me up at night before I put it away—wondering what he meant, what it might mean—and now that it’s sitting on a shelf in the clouds, when I think of it （and I hardly ever do）， I don’t even know what the fuss in my head was about. Different kinds of fate? Who cares? I don’t even know what that means. Nothing about a mountain and a breeze whistles through my mind, and there’s no snow on our noses. The only fate I’ve ever heard of is the kind about Peter and I, that he’d come for me, and he has.
He floats in front of me now, waiting for my attention.
“Yes, Peter?”
“There is a ball tonight.”
I sit up. “A ball?”
He floats over to land on one of the dock’s wooden columns. He balances on one foot. “Yeah. Do you know what balls are?”
I cross my arms. “Yes.”
“Not a throwing ball, a—”
“I know what balls are, Peter,” I interrupt.
He nods. “And dates? Do you know about them?”
I swallow, sitting up straighter. “Do you know about dates?”
“Course I do.” He rolls his eyes, annoyed. “You’re mine to this.”
I stand up. “When is it?”
“Soon.” He shrugs.
“Soon as in, in a few days?”
Peter shakes his head like I’m the silly one. “Soon like now.” He jumps off the column to the dock, hands on his hips. “Go get dressed.” He walks back towards the tree house.
“Into what?” I call after him.
He ignores me. “And be quick about it. You’re looking a bit heavy.”
My mouth falls open at his rudeness.
“I can tell you’ve got things on your mind.” He tells me with a shrug. “We’ll drop them off on the way.”
I didn’t drop them off.
It’s Jamison. That’s what’s heavy on me—what I feel for him.