“He mightn’t know to come in otherwise,” Wendy would say.
“Then he’s not very bright,” I’d tell her, and she’d roll her eyes.
“Well…” Mary would interrupt. “He can hardly go around opening the windows of everyone around town, can he? He’d be charged with a home invasion.”
“And perhaps he should be!” I’d tell them in insolence.
“Daphne!” Wendy would sigh before opening it again.
I mentioned before that it was brisk and oddly so for the time of year. Every night since I’d returned home from the library, I’d close my windows, fearful I’d catch my death if I didn’t, but without fail, every night, one of my grandmothers would creep in and open them back up again, almost as though it were a nervous tic they had. We’d argue about it in the mornings, but secretly, I’d grown accustomed to the breeze on my face, and on the occasional nights they themselves fell asleep before they had a chance to open it, I found myself having a considerably worse sleep because I liked how the cold gave me an excuse to sleep with something heavy on me.
It’s rather late on this brisk, starry, quite regular evening, around midnight or perhaps just a smidge before. I’m asleep when I hear my window open.
I’m a light sleeper. I always have been.
I smile at the sound of the window pulling up as it always does. I wonder which grandmother it is, those sweet pests. I’d know in a minute because I know their sounds too. Wendy always steps on the same floorboard that creaks, and Mary, no matter how many times we’ve played this game, her walking cane hits the door on the way out.
I wait, brows up, listening for my clue so I can complain to the right one in the morning about them minding their own business and how they’d rather me have pneumonia than risk their imaginary boyfriend seeing a closed window.
But I hear none.
No floorboard creaks.
No cane hits.
I wait.
They’ve opened my window all my life. I know the sound of my window opening, so I know for certain that it is open…that and I can feel the breeze I wait for.
I bolt upright, and it takes only a second for my eyes to adjust, but even before they do, I can make out a figure standing there.
Tall. Broad. A man.
In a split second, I think “Shit! It’s finally happened! The youths and the drug money!” However, I decide I won’t take my imminent death lying down, so I smack on the lamp that’s next to me and sit up as quickly and tall as I can.
“Who are you?” I ask him quickly, sharply. I hope he doesn’t catch my nervous breathing.
His face screws up. “You don’t know who I am?”
And that is when I notice his face.
Golden hair. Interesting eyes that stick out on his face, but I can’t tell the colour from here. He’s just in a pair of faded, ragged olive linen trousers that tie at the front. Shirtless.
Distractingly so, if I’m honest.
You don’t see a lot of shirtless men around London, I suppose is the thing. And it’s barely summer anymore, and there aren’t beaches here anyway, and who’s swimming in the Thames, and I’m just staring at his chest, dazed, mouth a little ajar. His skin is so tan that he looks dirty. I tilt my head because maybe that is literally just dirt? His feet are definitely dirty.
Though, admittedly, quite large.
I look up again at his face.
Heavy brow, head tilted as he watches me, eyes dancing over me, and possibly, if I were to dissect the moment, he might look as confused as I do.
I jump out of bed and glare over at him, and I’m not scared anymore, though perhaps maybe I should have been? Maybe, in retrospect, one day I will be.
Instead, I raise my eyebrows to his question.
“Am I supposed to?”
“Yes.” He scowls. “Bit embarrassing for you that you don’t.”
I fold my arms delicately over my chest.
“Is it not perhaps more embarrassing for you that you’ve broken into my bedroom expecting to be known and yet you are not?”
He gets a look in his eye. “You must know who I am a bit, or else why aren’t you afraid?”
“I could be incredibly brave,” I tell him, nose in the air.
He rolls his eyes. “Or stupid.”
I huff a bit, cross my arms over my chest, and peer over at him through the light that the moon’s throwing on him. “Are you”—I blink twice—“Peter Pan?”
“I knew you knew who I was!” He points at me, victorious.
I squint over at him, shaking my head. “You can’t be.” I frown as I take a careful step closer to him. He’s about six foot one. Maybe bigger. Tall, for certain. “You’re…” I blink a few times, face nearly scrunched. “Big?”