I nearly shake my head at him, in a tiny bit of awe.
“You’re not half as bad as he says you are,” I tell him.
Jamison’s head tilts, and his brow furrows. “And yer twice as brave and beautiful than he lets ye think y’are.”
The tension in my face melts away like rain does in a puddle, and I feel like I’m staring up at a big tree I’d really like to climb or breathe in or lie under. He’s strangely grounding to be near. The feeling you get when you’re near a giant calm lake or when you’re sitting by a fire outside on a cold night or when you’re watching a big storm roll in from the safety of under a blanket and behind a window. That’s what it’s like to be next to him, and that’s what I’m thinking about as I’m looking up at him and he’s staring back at me, jaw tight, kind of frowning.* Then he glances down at our hands, his holding mine, me now terribly conscious of the fact that I’m gripping his impossibly tight. He stares at them for a couple of seconds and then back up at me, neither saying anything nor moving his hand away, so I move mine. I don’t know why.
Not because I want to but because I suppose I should, right? I’m not here for him. And yes, Peter’s hands were up and down the body of a girl who’s not me, and that made me feel sick and invisible all at once, but there’s a part of my brain that tells me that it doesn’t matter because they’re not fated, so then neither are Jamison and I.
He clears his throat and puts his hand in his pocket as Orson and Rye walk over to us gingerly.
“Nicely done.” Orson nods at Hook and then at me. “And you—braver than I pegged for a wee English lass.”
I give him a little glare, and Jamison juts his chin in my defence.
“Fuck off and houl yer wheest.”？
I look between them all. “Was that in English?”
“Aye,” Orson says as Jem nods.
“Barely.” Rye looks between then and then he gives me a look. “We should probably head back to the valley.”
“For yer help today, thank you.” Hook holds my eyes for a second. I flash him a quick smile because my cheeks feel hot, and I don’t know why they would, but either way, I don’t want anyone to notice.
Jamison nods once as he backs away. “Bow.”
I give him a smile I don’t mean to give him as I nod back. “Jem.”
And then he turns and leaves.
“Nicknames?” Rye asks, blinking.
I roll my eyes and walk ahead of him.
He jogs after me and lets out a laugh. “Do you know what ‘briefly’ means?”
I asked Peter about his day once I was home. His brow looked heavy, and his face looked complicated. Neither are things that suit him, and he said he couldn’t remember and that he’d be back in a minute, and then he flew away.
Once he was gone, immediately Rune zipped in, all light and sparkles, and she jingled into my ear so much more information than I wanted.
“Did they kiss?” I asked.
She tinkers no.
That was the only real relief her story offered me. He took Calla on an adventure: climbing trees, saving a baby tiger, make-believing she was drowning in a cave and the rest of the Lost Boys were the pirates trying to kill her. Rune said when Peter saved her in the end, Calla tried to kiss him, but his cheeks went red and he started laughing.
I couldn’t tell—truly—before he zipped off whether he actually couldn’t remember his day or whether his not remembering was a convenient way to avoid telling the truth.
And that much is true: it’s hard to remember some things here but not all things.
For instance, I can’t entirely remember what I had for dinner last night or the way Wendy smells, but I seem to be able to remember the feeling of my hand in Hook’s, and I can’t quite shake the glistening of the cleaver and the scared look in that boy’s eye.
When Peter comes back, his face is different, all light now with his dreamy sort of forgetfulness, and he floats me up to his room.
“What did you do today?” he asks me as he settles into his bed.
I pause for a fraction longer than natural. “Rye took me into the village.”
“Oh.” Peter nods. “What did you do?”
“Nothing really,” I say, too fast. I’d already felt like I was lying to him a bit, not telling him about Hook when I met him on that first day, and now I’m lying again.
othing really?
I suppose that’s technically true. We didn’t do anything specifically.
“We just wandered the town a little bit.” I force a smile.