I Dream of Disney (Volume II)

Rattle the Stars [ Jim Hawkins x Reader] Part III

Part III - Jim Hawkins

"There we go," I sighed, "All packed. Er - unpacked." 

It wasn't a conventional bedroom: not like a hotel with its crisp white sheets and minimalistic design that was completely blank of any personality; it wasn't like a motel either, which boasted too much personality. It was, summed up, quaint and homely. 

Suddenly exhausted from unpacking and repacking, I tumbled onto the double bed and stared up at the ceiling. Irritable bedsprings growled in my ears and sent tiny movements recoiling through the mattress, which made me grin like a masochist. It's not a super comfortable bed. The mattress itself feels new and unworn, still firm against my spine, and the duvet feels like a collection of clouds that have been walloped together and hog-tied into submission; lumpier in some places but pleasantly warm with the suggestion of being stuffed with bird feathers. 

The room has one of those old-fashioned canopy beds, which has short lace curtains embroidered with dainty patterns that I can tie up or let down whenever I feel like it. It's not really my style but I'm not going to complain about it. The bedspread is very girly: a blue-and-white chequered pattern that also looks new and a white quilt that tangles somewhere around my ankles like faintly-whimsical diamond tripwires. All in all, it doesn't reflect my taste but it's better that way; if it reminded me too much of my old room at home, collecting dust, I'm sure I would be miserable. 

With an exaggerated sigh, I wriggle across the bed and stretch for the book on the bedside table. 

The pen hovers over the blank page for a moment, closes in a few decisive inches and then hesitates again. I roll my eyes at my own silliness. It's just a journal. Pretending to crack my knuckles, I start to write. 

Dear Diary

Then I immediately cross it out. Do I really want to be one of those people? My mom gets irritated with me if I speak aloud to myself or laugh at my own jokes, but she's perfectly fine with me talking to an inanimate object? Shrugging, I start again. 

Dear Diary,

It's hour four at the Benbow Inn as nighttime approaches and, surprisingly, I'm still alive. Shocker! It's a few hours after lunchtime and the restaurant itself has quietened down before the dinnertime crowd rolls in, which makes me feel better that I'm sitting up here in my room and not guilt-tripped into venturing downstairs to wait tables. 

That came out wrong.

I like Mrs Hawkins or, as she insists, Aunty Sarah. I know that I would help her in an instant if she needed it and I would do it gladly, without complaint. Then again, it feels like I do lots of things without complaining about them lately. Like this whole ridiculous experience, being forced to venture halfway across the gal - 

The pen snapped. I blinked. A blob of ink was spreading across the paper and had splattered messily across my fingers. Jerking upwards so as not to let the ink soak into the sheets, I ran to the adjoining bathroom and washed up what I could. 

"Brilliant," I snorted.

Pencils broke. Pencils broke all the time but not pens. Not durable, plastic, hard-to-break pens. Either I was stronger than I thought or much angrier than I had expected. Luckily, there were a few extra pens that I had shoved into the sock drawer, so I just fished a new one out of it and crawled back onto the bed. There were hideous streaks of ink smeared across the page like grubby fingerprints so I tore it out, crinkling it into a ball, and tossed it somewhere across the room. Taking a deep breath, I started again. 

I know why I'm here. There's a method to this madness, though it might just drive me insane before I can properly realise what it is. I'm the glue that's going to hold my Mom and Da - Delbert together.