Nonconformity | Henry Creel

Nightmares

Peter was thirty minutes late to training the next morning.

The other patients had long since cleared out of the Rainbow Room, leaving me to my own volition. I sat at one of the tables, absently tapping my fingernails against a deck of cards. I alternated between staring at the door and staring at the clock, impatiently waiting for him to show up.

I hadn't slept too well the night before. Unsurprisingly. The moment Peter took his first step out of my bedroom, I knew my night was going to be spent overthinking, overanalyzing, and screaming into my pillow. So that's exactly how it went.

After he left, I stood in the same spot for a good twenty minutes trying to process what just happened. First I got a murder confession, and then I almost got kissed. Part of me was still convinced it was a dream. Another silly fantasy my mind conjured up. One that was far, far too good to be true, just like all the others. After all, it had been months of waiting for a sign. Catching myself day dreaming about Peter. In my head, he would tell me he thought of me too, dreamed of kissing me, wondered about me as much as I wondered about him. And it didn't feel like a big deal because I knew it wouldn't ever happen.

Then his lips touched mine. For one fleeting, insignificant moment.

It was everything. So 'everything' that I felt like my brain was going to swell out of my head whenever I thought about it.

Everything, but then it turned into nothing when he left me standing there, alone. I stayed up all night wondering if I did something wrong. Maybe I had something caught in my teeth or, when he got too close, he didn't like what he saw. What was Peter's standard of pretty, and how would I reach it? I didn't have any makeup-- or hair, for that matter. Would Papa buy me some if I asked?

Peter was beautiful. Strikingly so. How does one amount to that?

After the insecurity came the annoyance. Annoyance that Peter had even tried to kiss me in the first place if he wasn't going to go through with it. 'I missed you' he said 'always.' I was so dizzy when he uttered the words, so out of sorts. He wouldn't have said that if he didn't want to kiss me, right? He wouldn't just lie for the fun of it. Not to mention he quite literally killed for me. Another human being with thoughts and feelings ridden from the earth with the flick of his wrist. That had to mean something.

But he left. All that, and he still left.

Maybe he was just playing with me. Maybe he was bored, and so he decided I would make a good distraction. A better woman, a smarter woman, wouldn't settle for bits and pieces of his affection. She wouldn't answer to his beck and call like some mindless little lamb. I wish I was her. I wish I had more self respect. But I knew, deep down, I'd happily be his distraction. His secret. However he wanted, whenever he wanted, so long as it was me and not someone else.

Spineless. God, I was so spineless.

I couldn't even hate him for more than a few weeks. Fuck, and I really should hate him. He never apologized for ratting me out. He never even seemed sorry. The man fucked me so royally, and still, I pined over him. He managed to burrow beneath my skin and make a home there, one which he was oh, so comfortable in. I knew he was a parasite. I knew he was sucking up what little bits of logic and common sense I had remaining. Still, I couldn't find it in myself to be rid of him.

My heart sank into my stomach when I realized how uniquely awful that was. How much trouble that would mean for me. No matter what he did, no matter how much it hurt, I couldn't ever really hate him. He was the metal bead, the link, the chain. He was all of it.

The sound of the door opening pulled me from my thoughts.

I knew it was Peter before I even looked up. A sigh fell from my lips. Why was I thinking so much of him when I should be thinking of myself?