Peter breathes out a breath I didn’t realise he was holding, then gives me a pleased smile and pulls out his knife.
It catches in the moonlight, and for the splittest of seconds, there’s this stab of worry that pushes through me, and I feel the adrenaline rush to my fingers that maybe he’s just going to gut me and I’ll die tonight anyway, and in that same brief second, I decide it doesn’t matter, really. Dying is dying. Kill me figuratively, kill me literally—there are so many ways to die. Maybe that’s why it’s an adventure? At the hands of Peter Pan, that’s an okay way to go, I tell myself as I eye that knife hovering above me that he swooshes down towards me and—tear!—he slashes my dress in two. Just like he did my poster the night we met.
I sigh, relieved.
Peter stares down at my body, eyes wandering all fascinated.
His index finger grazes my stomach, and he tilts his head. “I’m the only one who’s touched you, right?”
I nod, and I suppose I’m a liar now. “Right.”
His eyes search over my face, and then they pinch a little bit. “I know you think I did more with Calla.”
I start shaking my head. “I don’t care—” I tell him.
“Some things we did,” he says, speaking loudly over me. “I didn’t do the most with her.”
“You didn’t have sex?”
He shakes his head.
I swallow. “This will be the first time?”
He nods, then pushes some hair behind my ears. “And your first time.”
I nod back mechanically.
“But don’t worry,” Peter tells me with an encouraging smile. “I’ll still know what I’m doing.”
“Yeah?” I touch his face, trying to make this moment not feel like an absolute betrayal to my favourite night of my life.
I shake my head at myself. I can’t think like that anymore.
“Yeah.” Peter nods, and then he kisses me again.
I undress him as quickly as I can, desperate to get this over with.
I run my mouth over his shoulders; he tastes like sun and sweat. And then it gurgles in my mind, like the dying breath of a wild beast— Salt and home. Smelled like snow, freshly fallen.
And I banish the thought quickly from my mind the same way Peter banished me from here, smack away as hard as I can my memories of Jamison that keep creeping in like an invasive species of vine, and I grab Peter, pulling him inside of me.
He makes a sound that should make me happy, but it doesn’t, so I bury my face in the crevice between his neck and his shoulder and hope that he doesn’t see how I know my face looks.
He swallows heavily and arches his neck back, crowing to the sky. “This is the best!” he tells no one in particular.
I just nod.
When I don’t say anything, he looks down at me, face faltering a little. “Are you hurt, girl?”
I shake my head, sniffing a little.
“It was a good hurt,” I tell him even though it wasn’t.
He nods. “Will I good-hurt you again?”
I nod quickly, and he pushes into me deeper.
I let out a small cry, and he thinks it’s because I like it, but actually I’m just tearing myself apart.
He does it again, and I close my eyes because if I don’t, I’ll start to cry.
I stretch my head back as far as it will go. Peter thinks it’s because I want him to kiss me, but actually, I just don’t want him to see my face, because I know it’ll look like I’m broken.
He starts gaining speed. He’s a lot quicker than Jamison—that’s good, I suppose? I don’t know how much longer I could do this.
I make the sounds I think I need to for him to think it’s happening together, but it’s not.
He goes. I don’t.
The sky doesn’t sparkle. There’s no starry parade, no birds singing us home in the trees. The waves don’t crash together triumphantly. The ground doesn’t tremble. In fact, it’s gone impossibly still, and all the bloomed flowers around us shrivel up and die, but he doesn’t notice, and neither do I.
Peter lies on top of me, panting for a couple of seconds, and then he laughs, rolling off me, staring at the sky.
“Where’d all the stars go?”
I shrug.
“Weird.” He stares at they sky. “Maybe they felt embarrassed to watch us do that so they hid.”
I nod. “Maybe.”
Peter elbows me. “That was the best, don’t you think?”
I nod.
“Should we do it again?”
I flash him a quick smile. “I’m kind of tired.”
“Really?” He frowns.
I shrug weakly. “Drowning, you know?”
He rolls his eyes, then he kisses me, smiling at me in a way that looks rather a lot like fondness. “I’m glad you’re back.”
I give him a quarter of a smile. “Are you?”
“Of course.” He shrugs. “I love you.”
I blink at him, and all I offer him is a weak smile.
“And you love me,” he tells me.
I swallow. “Peter.” I stare over at him. “Will you do something for me?”
He purses his lips. “Maybe?”
“Take me to the cloud,” I tell him.
He frowns, looks almost offended.
“Why?”
“The Collector,” I say quickly, then clear my throat. “I just…want to remember the good parts of Neverland, that’s all.” I flash him a quick smile.
“Okay.” He yawns. “We’ll go in the morning.”
“Please.” I shake my head, rolling back on top of him. “Please can we go now?”
“Daphne.” Peter groans. “I’m so comfortable.”
“Please?” I ask him, my eyes going teary. “I’m afraid that if I don’t drop this thought off, it might haunt me forever.”
He breathes out his nose and peers at me out of the corner of his eye. “If I take you, will you do that again with me after?”
“Yes.” I nod quickly.
He sits up, stretching. “Okay then.”
We find me something to wear that isn’t piratey, a sheet that we tie around my body, and then it’s up and away.
Neverland looks particularly monotone this evening.
I don’t hear a single bird on the way up.
Usually it’s victorious when Peter is—part of me was expecting a display akin to the northern lights—but up here looking down, it all looks kind of muted.
I can see Hook’s ship as we rise higher and higher. It’s easy to spot. The biggest ship in the harbor.
His lights aren’t on.
A good sign or a bad one, depending on his disposition.
But judging by the state I left him in, my money’s on a bad one.
The farther up we get, the more I feel the tugging back to the ground, back to that boat I won’t ever run to again.
I dig my finger into the little wounds on my wrist from where I was tied to distract myself, but it doesn’t work because fate is its own tie that binds, but the tie that binds Hook and me is a memory.
John’s sitting at his seat in the cloud when we land, rod cast and a good little fire crackling away in front of him. He looks up like usual. He smiles, pleasant enough, and then he does a double take when he sees me and jumps to his feet.
“What happened to you?”
I flash him a quick smile. “Bad day.”
He nods like he can see it. He can.
“It’s unlocked.” John gestures towards the door. “Go right in.”
I walk in through that door rather calmly, close it calmly and with restraint, but once I know they can’t see me, I all but run to the mirror.
I stare at my reflection and am completely horrified by what I see.