He stands up, proud and annoyed. “Why don’t you want to show me?”
And his name flashes through my mind like a burn.
Jem.
It shouldn’t though. So I grab a cold compress and smother it away.
I stand so we’re toe-to-toe. He has two freckles on his chest, on his right pectoral muscle, and when I put my head on his chest, they align perfectly with my chin and my nose, and sometimes I think it’s a sign. If I was looking for a sign, that might be one.
But my head isn’t on his chest, and I stare up at him with big eyes that feel small.
“Because I’ve never done it before,” I tell him, and then he laughs, and for some reason, it sounds mean.
“So you don’t know then.”
“Well, I suppose I don’t.” I give a small shrug.
Peter tilts his head, not letting go of my eyes. “Then how do you know you don’t want to?”
I stand up straighter and say to him rather clearly, “Because I know I don’t want to.”
He reaches for me, slips his hand around my waist how I always want him to, but in this very moment, I don’t want him to, and I don’t like it.
He tilts his head the other way. “But how would you know?”
“Because I know!” I say quickly and hotter than I mean to. “I’ve never been punched in the face before, and I know I don’t want to be.”
He rolls his eyes, a smirk on his mouth now. “We aren’t talking about punches, girl.”
He’s right. We aren’t. We’re talking about you shoving cake down my throat, forcing me to swallow it.
I stare up at him, breathing in and out to counts of four so I don’t look as upset as I feel. He doesn’t like it when people are upset.
Peter watches my face, looking for a crack in the door of my resolve, but it’s all sealed shut with nerves and a faraway memory of some snow dancing on my cheek or something.
“You really don’t want to find out about the more?” Peter presses.
I shake my head. “No.”
“One day?”
“Maybe.” I shrug.
“With me?” he says.
I say nothing, and till I die, I will swear that no other name sailed through my mind.
Peter eyes me. “I wouldn’t like you to find out with anyone else…”
I nod. “Okay.”
“I would kill them,” he says with a perfectly straight face.
I breathe in and out to the count of four before I give him an easy smile. “You’re being hyperbolic, of course.”
He shrugs as he looks away. “Of course.”
I stare at my hands for a couple of seconds, out of things to say.
Peter ducks down so our eyes have to catch. “Are you sure you’re not the smallest bit curious about this now, here with me?”
“Peter,” I sigh.
He shakes his head, tired. “If I bought Calla here, she would wonder with me.”
“I’m sure she would.” I cross my arms and turn my head away from him to let him know I’m a tiny bit piqued, and then I glare at him from the corner of my eye. “But you’re not seeing her anymore, you said.”
“Hm.” Peter frowns. “Did I say that?”
“Yes.”
“I remember saying it, obviously.” He flicks his eyes, and I breathe out my nose loud enough for him to hear, and it’s too much emotion for him. “Let’s go then,” he says, wiping his hands on his pants.
“We could stay?” I offer, stepping towards him. “Walk under the giant flowers again?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “They don’t have what I was looking for here.”
Those words hit me like a smack in the face,
It’s by the wrist, not my hand, when he takes me, pulling me into the air, and then he flies ahead. Hard to keep up with. He only looks back a few times on the way back. He talks to the stars, not to me. About halfway home, I think he forgets why exactly it was he’s angry at me and instead becomes vaguely indignant.
En route, he stops at baggage again, drops something off, and then I go in again after him and drop off the parts of the day I shouldn’t like to remember.
* * *
* I knew that would put him off.
* I didn’t know till this moment that my grandfather had visited Neverland.
* Much to my own point, I honestly can’t remember.
? Or be reminded with something horribly abrupt. Rye tells me that can happen too. For better and for worse. He told me a story about a missing man from his village, and his wife was so distressed for so many years that she eventually put the memory of him away so it wouldn’t haunt her all the time, and after many years, he finally returned, and it all came hurtling back. He said she went crazy, that she left the village （and him） soon after.