'Til Morning

From then on I looked at Peter Barry with new eyes. I still tended to stray away from him, but when I saw or heard other kids taunting him I was usually first to step up and drive them away. Some people thought it was because I had a crush on him, but I tried to explain without fully giving away his back-story. I just told them it was wrong to pick on someone who was disabled. I mean, how difficult of a concept could that possibly be?

But the people teasing him continued anyway. They said there was no way he was disabled because there was nothing physically wrong with him: no wheelchair, no limp, no stutter, etc. I said it didn’t have to be a physical issue. They tried to pry further on numerous occasions, but I always left them hanging. I didn’t feel the need to fuel their idiocy and ignorance.

Everything changed the following week. Everything.

Peter wasn’t in school at all that week. At first I didn’t even notice because of my new avoidance technique, but eventually I did observe the fact that he was no longer the center of attention in the hallways where he was usually picked on. He didn’t appear in the lunchroom anymore, and the loss of his usual smile and happy-go-lucky antics in the lunch line suddenly made me feel empty.

I wasn’t worried much until I finally gathered the guts to ask Melanie where he was.

“He’s missing,” Melanie answered one day in class, her voice having lost its spark.

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. “Missing? As in like... ‘face on the back of the milk carton’ missing?”

“Yeah. Our foster mom went into his bedroom a week ago to say goodnight and he was gone. His window was open and everything.” Melanie frowned sadly. “We think he ran away. But he don’t know where he would’ve gone.”

“Has he ever expressed interest in finding his birth father?” I asked.

Melanie shook her head. “Never. He doesn’t talk about his father. I don’t know if he’s safe...I’m always the one who’s looked out for him all these years...”

I opened my mouth to respond but our teacher shushed us from the front of the room. I turned back around in my seat and tried to suppress the feeling of panic that was budding in my chest. I knew that I was supposed to stay positive, but it wasn’t possible. Peter was mentally unstable. Imagining him out in the real world alone didn’t yield good, happy endings.

The week after that didn’t go any better. Peter didn’t return, Melanie was still a wreck, and I was still worried. The local police were on the lookout for him, searching all the parks and abandoned buildings and all the other little nooks and crannies of the town. They didn’t find him that week, or the week after. Soon a full month went by and still there was no sign of Peter Barry. Melanie grew quieter and quieter until she reached the point where she stopped talking to me (or anyone else, really) altogether.

It’s been about a month and a half after Peter’s disappearance. I was coming home from a friend’s sweet sixteen late on a Saturday night. I quietly opened the door and, having hung up my coat on the stair railing, tiptoed upstairs to my room. I knew my parents usually went to bed early and so I didn’t want to disturb them.

Once I reached my room at the top of the stairs, I stumbled into my bedroom, exhausted. It was nearly one in the morning, the latest I’d stayed awake in quite a while. I was ready for bed. I stepped out of my simple light blue dress and picked out a tank top and shorts to sleep in. It was unbearably hot in my room, but the light clothing wasn’t enough. Seeing as my parents didn’t believe in air conditioning unless we were roasting alive, I could only open my window to let the cool outdoor air in.

Satisfied with that, I went to my bathroom and brushed my teeth and tried combing out the tangles in my dark hair but eventually gave up and decided I would just take a shower the next morning to get them out. After reaffirming the fact that I was tired, I walked back to my bedroom across the hall and shut the door.

There was someone on my bed.

I opened my mouth to scream when the person flew off my bed and covered my mouth with a warm hand to keep any sound from escaping.

He simply hovered there.

Both feet were off the ground and he was in front of me within a split second. Terrified but also intrigued, I looked into the boy’s face.

It was Peter Barry. He was floating inches off the ground – not a lot, but just enough for me to take notice of it. His skinny blue jeans were wrinkled and brown with dirt, his white sneakers caked with mud, and his dark green shirt slightly damp with his sweat. A sheen of perspiration lightly dusted his forehead and his hair was matted and grimy. He looked terrible, if not for one glaring, familiar oddity: a wide smile was stretched across his tanned face. He looked as though he were having the time of his life. Perhaps he was.

I still couldn’t rip my eyes away from his ungrounded feet. Peter Barry was really flying.

He looked into my eyes and, trusting that I wasn’t about to scream and rat him out, took his hand off my mouth. He smelled like wood and lavender and soft ocean spray.

I stood there, stock still for a moment in complete and utter shock. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. To be honest, finding Peter in my bedroom would’ve been shocking enough, but to see him flying...

Peter’s grin grew wider, if possible, when he sensed my surprise. After a brief moment’s silence, he took my hand in his and squeezed it tightly.

“Hi Lindy. I came back for you. I found Never Land.”