The Monster Inside Peter Pan (ouat)//(Robbie Kay)

Chapter Forty Nine

62nd day in Neverland

What did I feel for Pan? I had long since abandoned the pretense of hating him, or even simple tolerance. My feelings were far more than that. But now I was afraid that it went even deeper than simple caring.

For example I thought about him in ways that I never thought about anyone else. Not just his angelic face or gorgeous oak green eyes or soft, slightly wavy chestnut hair or his perfectly muscled but lithe body.

I would wonder what he would be doing sometimes, wonder what he was thinking about. I wondered if he ever anticipated my arrival for our lessons, if it was something carefully planned or if he didn't care at all. I wondered what was his first thought in the morning and the last at night before falling asleep. Yes, I definitely thought about him a lot.

Once, I even caught myself being jealous. Yeah, I know, it's stupid. I'm the only girl in Neverland. But still. I was jealous of Katherine, she was able to be with Pan, see the real boy without all the walls. I always had to struggle a great deal just to get a glimpse at him.

Another time, I caught myself daydreaming about the two of us together, a happy couple. He had let his walls down, he had become the boy I'd seen in my dreams. When I realized what I'd been thinking about, I dismissed it as fanciful wishing for a boy who no longer existed.

But that wasn't even the worst part. It was the way I would look forwards to lessons with him, no matter how torturous they were. When I entered a clearing, I'd catch myself searching for him just to be disappointed when he wasn't there. When I was practicing magic and he was standing right behind me, so close that I could feel his body heat, and that he was whispering instructions in my ear, it was all I could do not to lean into him. When he touched me, even if it was an unintentional gesture, I tried to hide the goosebumps that rose on my skin. When we glared at each other, or when our gazes met by accident and held for longer than a second, I'd be sucked into his mesmerizing emerald eyes and then blush when I caught myself staring.

But all those things, I had ignored. I'd pushed them down, told myself stupid excuses, anything to avoid the truth. The thing was, it had worked. I'd managed to lie to myself. I'd repeated in my head so many times that I didn't have feelings for him, that he was a monster, that he didn't care about me, that I'd believed it. I'd brainwashed myself.

Even though I was lying to myself, there was still a part of me that had known the truth. That had known my true feelings for Pan. But I'd never accepted them. I'd locked them up, trying to keep them quiet, hoping that they would go away with time.

I hadn't accepted the knowledge that I was in love with Peter Pan.

But now I was ready. I'd accepted it, undeniable as it was. Now all I had to do was find Pan.

***

I burst into the training room, but after a quick sweep of the room I soon realized that he wasn't there. I heard a noise from across the hall. In Pan's room. I'd never entered it before, but I was desperate to see him. Without knocking I barged into his room, slightly short of breath, my heart pounding in my chest.

"What the hell?" Pan asked as he shot up from his bed, casting aside the book he'd been reading.

"I'll do it."

He looked genuinely puzzled. "Do what?"

"I'll give you my heart."

His forest green eyes widened. "Why? What's the reason?"