40. Summer
Summer. You, Beverly.
Peter released her hand and her fingers fluttered away from his. She blushed.
Her skin was soft, cool and sand-like. And his, coarse, like salt, like rocks. Was he also leaving trails of frost? Was he also weaving spirals of ice into her flesh? Was she going through the same emotions he went through? On that river of ice. On that void that was neither sky nor earth. That absolute blankness.
You can run wherever you want.
He remembered the last time he held the little golden banner. The last time he ran his thumb over the letters. City… of… Justice.
He had run. God, had he run. He had let this lack of direction, this fog of questions, define his haphazard dive into adulthood. His dangerous choices. His mistakes. They all sprouted out of this baffling question. Why was he left adrift? Why was he left alone? This city had been given to him by accident. He was not supposed to be here. And criminals weren't supposed to be here, either.
His life had become a search. For coins. For food. For summer. For answers. One answer. What was he? What was he destined to accomplish? Was he fated to drown? Had he defied fate by staying afloat? In the same way that thieves defied law, that Pearly defied justice? Was he born to thieves? Was he born to fools? Was he born to monsters? Was he thus a monster, a fool, a thief?
But none of those things mattered. Not anymore. The answer didn't matter. It didn't change what had happened. That he had been left alone. That he had been confused. That he had been forced to fend off on his own. That he had landed in the wrong hands.
That, now, he was with her. With Beverly. That he had exchanged Florida for her.
But he hadn't exchanged summer.
Because... The waters around New York were the color of Penn's eyes: icy, the remnants of the New World, blue turned to white and grey. No longer new, but spent. Tired. What was. What would be for the centuries to come.
Not her eyes, though. Her eyes were composed of swabs of paint. The type of paint that had yet to dry. One that still glimmered in the sunlight, as it dried and set into place. And her colors fused into the picture of an ocean that didn't exist.
She was impossible. All of her was impossible.
She was summer. Not because she was warm or sunny. She was the idea of summer. She was peace. She was happiness. She was what he had wanted summer to be. What Florida may have been.
And now she appeared to be tempted by something. Her irises stopped spinning in their rings of water and came to a halting point, like the hands of a clock. She looked at his face. Let her eyes linger sweetly upon his features.
And Peter felt a shiver, a fluttering in his chest. After some hesitation, she made her choice. She lowered her face. She brushed her lips against the ridge of her knuckles. The hand he had held. The knuckles he had kissed.
"If you keep talking to me like this," she whispered, "I'll melt all the snow I'm standing on."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be… There's a thrill in almost burning. I rarely get to feel so alive."
She looked at him through her lowered eyelashes. Beverly then got on her feet, passing her hands over the frost on her skirts. She said: "Peter."
"Yes?"
"Do you know what he told me? Your former boss?"
He felt a prick of terror. He shuddered.
"Don't be scared," she told him. "He didn't hurt me. He mostly spoke. He wouldn't stop talking, heh. And he said something that I found strange. But… now… I don't think it's that strange anymore."
"What did he say?"
Beverly murmured: "He said… you were my miracle. That you were going to save me." She studied his gaze for a second. Then she smiled. "And he was telling me the truth, I think. Because you showed up. You did save me."
He stayed as he was, silent, watching her. He could do little more than this.
And Beverly offered her arm. The way he had. Not so long ago. A day ago. The way his shoulder had ached afterward. The way he had taken her with only one pull. The fire in his throat as he called out her name.
My hero. He had saved her. And now, she saved him. She took his arm and helped him to his feet.
Author's Note: To whoever is here today, thank you for reading. It means so much to me that you're here.
For me it's now Dec 26, 12:48 AM, but for some of you it'll still be Christmas Day, so Merry Christmas (again) and I hope you have a lovely day. See you next time.