Neverland [ ✓ ]

Day 5

ENTRY:
1:04 AM

My mother and Derek would often quarrel during most hours the night. Loud, angry shouting would fill the cabin to it's rim. Their voices terrified me just as much as the thumps and bumps of violence did whenever bad became worse. My only method of coping was tuning it out altogether. Peter showed me how- or, more distracted my mind- by playing with me and distracting my thousand track mentality. Hide and seek was our official go-to game.

Peter had begun speaking once I turned seven. It was hard to believe that it took him all those years to finally find a voice. From the time he initially began speaking to the consecutive nights I will proceed to recall, his voice morphed like he was trying to find just the right tune. Scratchy, weak and untrained would've been the words to describe Peter's voice at first. He'd sounded dehydrated and had impeded speech. Then, it grew sweet, soft and shy. 

His voice was like a record I could listen to all night, much preferred to the ruckus beyond my room. I grew to love his voice over the night's when we played hide and seek together. He sounded lovely whether he was talking, humming or singing. 

He could sing well.

ENTRY:
1:37 AM

Peter insisted that I didn't tell Derek or my mother about his living here.

"Why not?" I'd argued, even though it'd never crossed my mind to tell them; the idea was now planted in my head.

He wouldn't give me any reasons. He only insisted again and again that not telling them was the wisest option for me to choose. It was frustrating to be deprived of the logic behind this. But as long as he did not leave me, I could put up with it- Peter was all I had, after all. 

ENTRY:
6:44 PM

One night, Peter didn't show up. 

Peter's periodic disappearances were routine, I'll say that, but it was unusual for him to vanish on the nights my mother and Derek's fights became brutal. It was nights like that I felt and needed his presence most, but this night I couldn't feel or see him- I was alone. In desperate need for focus, I searched for Peter in vain, said his name again and again. Of course, he still wouldn't come and I know he didn't hear me- couldn't- wherever he was or wherever he went during his times away. 

Without him at my side, I had nothing else to do but curl up under the sheets on my bed and cover my ears tight, squeeze my eyes shut so fiercely that colors bloomed behind my eyelids. Hiding didn't save me from myself, however; I was soon consumed by my hummingbird heart, seared by my own hot tears and tormented by the screams beyond those thin walls, soaring louder than the clatter of pots and pans. 

I waited out the dispute.

Minutes ticked away like hours and hours ticked away like years, but eventually- sometime in the early hours of the morning- the fighting died down. Throughout my waiting, I'd been falling in and out of sleep, torn between exhaustion and fear. When I awoke that last time I was on my side facing the wall with the tip of my nose against the boards. What stirred me was the newfound silence. Warily I listened for something else, careful to make sure it was all over and that I wouldn't be disturbed again if I were to truly let myself fall asleep.

I had- maybe- three minutes of peace before it was broken. 

As if by cue, a drawn out and high pitched whine sprung like a wire through my ears, indicating the opening of my room door. Given my mother never bothered to check on me, nor did Derek, I could only come to one conclusion whilst I could not see the intruder at me back. I figured it should- logically- be Peter.