In Peter’s version of the story where he saved me, he doesn’t mention that I ran away from him. He doesn’t mention that he didn’t care that I was gone for nearly two days. He doesn’t mention that it was a reaction to him kissing other girls. There are facets to the story Peter leaves out entirely, and the more he says it, the more believable it becomes except for the part that floats to the top of my consciousness every single time: when my face and Jem’s face were close, and the wind was against us and pushing me towards him, and the snow was dusting us lightly like we were a dessert and it was the icing sugar. It felt like tiny kisses even though they weren’t, and I remember how I felt in that moment in the freezing cold freshness. It was the first time since being here that I actually felt free.
So even as everything else around that moment starts to dim, for some reason, that particular thought remains illuminated in my mind.
I’ve started notching it under the dining room table, every morning that I wake up, to count how many days are passing. Jamison said two days ago it was thirty-one days till my birthday, which means twenty-seven days from now is November 1, which makes today October 3.
I shouldn’t like to miss my eighteenth birthday; that’s my main incentive for tracking the time here, but then also a part of me feels maybe it’s wise to do anyway.
“I turn eighteen soon,” I tell Peter, and he looks over at me, eyes wide in horror.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Oh.” I shake my head, a bit flustered by his response. “No. I—I’m happy to—”
“Eighteen is old,” Peter tells me tonelessly.
“You’re about eighteen or nineteen,” I tell him.
He looks down at himself, bothered by it. “Any older and I’d be gross.” He moves over towards me and lowers his voice. “I don’t do this for the others. Don’t tell them, okay?”
“Okay?” I frown.
“I can bring you the fountain water. You can drink it, and you’ll stay seventeen.”
I stare over at him. Stay seventeen?
Oh my god.
Something about that sounds nearly like a dream come true—to be young forever?
I stare over at him, frowning a little.
“Don’t you want to be young forever?” he asks, grinning down at me. He touches my face.
“Maybe?” I eye him nervously.
He beams at the thought, lifts me up, and spins me around in the air, and we free-fall onto the nets behind us.
We land so he catches me, breaking my fall, then he rolls on top of me, pushing some hair from my face.
“Think of the adventures, girl!” He crows to the ceiling. “Stay seventeen with me,” he tells me, eager.
“You mightn’t even be seventeen,” I remind him gently, rather positive he’s definitely not. Seventeen-year-olds don’t have shoulders like he does, no matter how much regatta or rugby they play.
Peter ignores me. “Nothing good happens once you’re eighteen.”
I give him a look. “How do you know?”
He shrugs. “What good things happen when you grow up? You’re just old. You have to work, and it’s stupid.” He shakes his head. “There are responsibilities. You have to look after things and people and—”
“Those aren’t bad things, Peter,” I tell him a bit sternly.
“I just want to look after you,” he tells me and kisses the tip of my nose.
“And I’d be seventeen forever?”
He laughs and shrugs. “Age is just a number. Take the water, and if you keep taking it, you’ll be young forever. You’ll just always look like you.”
I look down at myself.
“I take it every week,” he tells me with a shrug. “Sometimes twice.”
“Oh.” I nod.
Then he sits up. “If I bring you some, will you drink it?”
I frown a little. “Let me think about it.”
He makes a sort of pfft sound.
“Stupid.” He stands up and shrugs. I can’t tell if his dismissiveness is from a lack of care or because he’s offended. “Be back later.”
“Where are you going?” I stare after him.
“I got stuff to do,” he says without looking at me.
And then he flies away.
The truth? I wouldn’t mind staying young forever, staying how I look right now forever. That might be quite lovely, wouldn’t it? To be forever young?
But there’s one thing hanging over it in my mind that’s reason enough for me not to. He’s got eyes like a fire and a hang-up about the number seventeen, and I don’t know that something’s going to happen when I turn eighteen—maybe nothing at all will—but I don’t want to know for certain that nothing could.