room is over here now.”
Realization shadowed Peter’s features. His eyes went to the doorknob for a moment before he nodded.
Wendy opened her door and was immediately glad that she had cleaned it up last night. The fairy lights cast a warm glow over everything. Peter walked to the center of the room and turned in a slow circle. Wendy closed the door behind him and stood there, tucking her hair behind her ears, watching as he looked around.
Other than Jordan, she had never had anyone in her room after her brothers went missing. It was the singular place in this world that was hers. The only place she could hide and feel at home. And now, there Peter stood, in the middle of all her things. Somehow, he stood out and fit in at the same time.
Peter moved to her dresser, his long fingers brushing against the spines of her books. “Is your mom okay?” he suddenly asked.
“What do you mean?” Wendy said, distracted as she tried to remember if she had put her bra in the hamper last night, or was it still hanging on the towel rack?
“She looked…” He paused. “Sad.”
“Oh.” Wendy nudged a badly written romance novel under her bed with the toe of her shoe. “She’s been working a lot,” she told him. “And, obviously, the missing kids have been weighing on her. My dad, too. I don’t think she’s been sleeping very much…” Wendy thought back to when she had listened outside her mother’s door and heard her talking in her sleep. “I think she’s been having bad dreams.” Wendy crossed her arms. Her thumb rubbed against her elbow. “Sometimes I can hear her talking to John and Michael in her sleep.”
Peter stared down at his hands. His expression was … mournful.
Wendy wondered if he still pictured her mother as the little girl he’d gone on adventures with. She found herself wishing she’d known her back then.
“I don’t like seeing people in pain,” Peter finally said. There was a strange edge to his voice, almost an urgency, like he was trying to make her understand something very important.
But of course he didn’t like seeing people in pain. She knew that. When children were lost and alone, Peter was the one to find them and take care of them. He was the one who took their fear away. The nature of him was to stop people’s pain and suffering. So of course he couldn’t stand seeing her mother like this. Maybe as much as Wendy.
Wendy didn’t know what to say, and Peter didn’t elaborate further. He just stood in the middle of the room, hands clasped behind his back again, shifting his weight between his feet. The time between leaving the clearing and now was the quietest she had ever seen him. It wasn’t normal for him, but then again, nothing about any of this was particularly “normal.”
“Do you want to take a shower or something?” Wendy suggested. “I have my own bathroom, and you’re kind of a mess.” Peter looked down at himself. His clothes were covered in dirt, as were his legs and arms. There was a dark smear on his cheek, debris from the woods stuck in his hair, and spots on his shirt from where her tears had landed. At least the swelling of his lip had gone down, but there was still that small cut. “I can throw your clothes in the laundry and give you an old shirt. I, uh, probably have a pair of gym shorts that would fit you?” she offered.
Peter narrowed his eyes at her. A grin twitched at the corners of his lips. “Are you trying to tell me I stink?” he asked, his humor starting to come back.
Wendy nodded, unable to keep herself from smiling. “A bit, yes.” Wendy cleared her throat and moved to her dresser. She dug out an oversized shirt along with a pair of gym shorts her mom had bought her that were too big to be practical. Wendy handed them to Peter and showed him into the bathroom. “Give me your dirty clothes when you’ve got them off,” Wendy said through the door once he was inside.
She pressed her palm to her temple and huffed out a breath.
This was weird. This was very weird. She jumped when the door cracked open and Peter’s arm reached through, dropping the ratty clothes into her arms.
Peter looked through the crack of the door. She could see his bare arm and chest. “Be careful