This has one of my favorite references to Peter Pan in it. Do you know which?
The hallway begins to dim as the patients and orderlies disappear behind closed doors. Rosalie takes Esme back to her room, locking the both of them behind the wood while Edward let's me dab at his bleeding knuckles with the ends of my sleeves, no matter how futile the action seems to be.
Without all the prying eyes, just an empty corridor to keep us company, his green eyes glow with a sort of tenderness in the dying light. After another quick swipe over his wounds, he grabs my hand quickly with his fingers, pressing our palms together. I don't even care that his are sticky with blood, nor do I when he leads me away.
At first I think he's taking me back to his office, but soon the doors and quiet sounds become familiar to me, and then my room's threshold is before us. I quietly protest his tiny kiss in the palm of my hand with a whimper—more because I hate that it's like a goodbye but secretly loving the thrill it sends through my body. "Are you leaving me?"
"For now," he says, his eyes pleading with me to understand. "I have to take care of some things."
"But you said—"
Another quick kiss to my palm, silencing the objections that so easily fall from my lips. "I'll be back. You have my kiss, Wendy. Now keep it safe."
I close my fingers, trapping that secret, pulling his kiss close to my heart. He watches with adoring eyes. "I will."
He seems almost unhurried to leave, like the idea of departing hurts his heart so much that he continues to stare, taking all of what he can in. I can only imagine what he see of me with only the sunset to light the room. Does he notice the way my chest heaves with every deep breath I take, marking each beat my heart gives to him.
Or how my eyes flutter with both fatigue—because it's been a very long day with so many revelations uncovered—and excitement, like even the tiniest muscle in my body has to expend what little energy remains. I can only hope that the soft sighs and tender glances he gives me means his feelings are even stronger than the ones blossoming in my newly fog-less mind.
He whips his body around, forcing himself to turn away as if he could take in the sights all night long. His kiss flutters in my hand as he disappears down the hall, his footsteps a slowly dying echo in the night. I lay my lips against my fingers, hoping that maybe he can feel my kiss from so far away.
The cloud I'm floating on is so much different from the fog that brought me down for too long. It drifts along the threshold of my prison, moving at a slug's pace, hoping that my green savoir returns sooner rather than later. I wish I'd just gone in. Then maybe the confusion that follows would have been nonexistent.
That happy buoyant feeling disappears when the whimpering reaches my ears. It's so easy to lean over and peek through the cracked door into Alice's room. I should have learned my lesson the first time, but there's something about the curiosity in me that doesn't like letting the unknown fester inside.
Alice cries into her hands, perched on the edge of her bed. Hale sits next to her, his arms wrapped around her shaking shoulders as he whispers comfort into her ear. I'm not sure what surprises me the most. That they're fully clothed or that Hale almost looks like a normal human being and not the fake robot that greets me every morning.
"What are we going to do, Jasper?" She lifts teary eyes to him, and then, discouraged by the helplessness across his features, buries her face in his neck. He pulls her closer, his fingers digging into her skin in what I would imagine to be a painful gesture, but Alice doesn't even flinch.
"Don't worry," he says. "I'll figure out a way to save the both of you."