Peter Pan.
It puzzles me.
I know a lot about her, but one thing that confuses me is why she loves this movie so much. I've thought about it, considered it, and I know she's young, but it feels so juvenile for someone so mature.
"You know," I say, "some people think Peter Pan is actually a horror story."
From the corner of my eye, I see her forehead wrinkle with confusion. She casts a disbelieving look my way.
"I'm serious," I say, meeting her eyes. "There are theories that Peter Pan is the grim reaper and Neverland is purgatory. That's why they don't age there." She stares at me in silence, not yet turning away, so I take it as an opening to keep going. "But of course there are other theories, too, that the Lost Boys don't age because Peter kills them before they can. There's a line in the book, I don't know if you've read it, but it says: When they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out. Pretty self-explanatory, don't you think?"
I run two fingers across my neck, simulating slitting my throat.
Karissa stares at me.
And stares at me.
And stares at me some more.
Her expression is blank, but her eyes shoot fire. If she could burn me with them, she would. After a moment she turns away, snatching up the remote and pressing the power button. The television cuts off as she stands, tossing the remote onto the cushion beside me.
"You have to ruin everything, don't you?" she grumbles, not giving me a chance to respond before she disappears from the den.
Once she's gone, I tilt my head back, resting it against the couch as I close my eyes.
It's a lost cause.
It's obvious, I think, but unacceptable. I can't seem to do anything right when it comes to her. I'm sure she thinks I have all the power, that she's at my mercy, but that's only because I fight day in and day out to maintain some semblance of control around here.
Because without that? I know I'll lose her completely.
And if I lose her?
We both might as well be dead.
Standing up again, I head out of the den, leaving my things lying where they are, too drained to maintain order today. Tomorrow I'll deal with it, deal with everything around me that seems to be falling to pieces, but tonight I only have enough energy to deal with her.
And I can't deal with her the way I deal with everyone else. They get a knife to the throat or a bullet to the back of the head. All I have for her are words, and they seem inadequate at best.
She wants nothing to do with my kindness.
Doesn't believe a word of my promises.
Machiavelli believed it was better to be feared than loved, because attachment is easily severed, but the terror of pain is ever present. I have her fear. I know I have her fear. I see it sometimes when she looks at me. But what I don't know is how to keep her love when it feels close to dissolving every time I talk to her, like she picks apart every syllable looking for something else to hold against me, something to prove to herself that I'm the monster she believes me to be.
And maybe there is a monster inside of me.
Scratch that, I know there is.
I feel it rear its ugly head sometimes. I feel it eating away at my body, poisoning my thoughts when the darkness takes over. My insides are black but my heart still beats.
It still beats.
And it fucking beats for her.
So there is a monster inside of me, yes, but it doesn't make up all of me.
Besides, isn't there a monster in everybody?
The lights are off upstairs, the bedroom obscured now that the sun has finally set outside. My eyes adjust to the darkness easily, used to adapting to the blackness after years of training them, and the first thing I notice is the poster.
It's not there.
I stare at the empty wall, seeing the tacks still forced into the plaster, corners of the paper stuck to them.
She ripped it down.
My eyes scan the room quickly, spotting it on the floor beside the bed, torn straight down the middle, both halves crumpled.
I stand in the doorway and stare at the destroyed poster for a moment before a quiet sound registers with my ears, the softest whimper that I almost hadn't caught.
I know that sound, know it intimately, a sound that haunts my existence.
Fuck.
It's a catch of breath, the faint gasp of air from a chest that desperately needs it.
I live every day tortured by the memory of that.
My gaze shifts right to the bed, to where Karissa lies, wrapped up in the blanket like she's trying to shield herself from the world outside of it. I can't see her face, can't make out much more than the shape of her body, but as the sound resonates through the room again, I know.
I know she's crying.
She's crying because of me.
It feels like my chest is caving in, the weight of her grief a heavy burden to carry. I don't place all the blame on myself, but I know, as much as I don't want to admit it, I had a hand in hurting her.