Page 70 of Losing Wendy

But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was hoarding some of the tears for myself. For the stinging bits of flesh flaking off my heart as Peter’s words pierce my soul like tattoo needles into the flesh.

I don’t want you at all.

I don’t want you at all.

I don’t want you at all.

They’re the same words whispered on sneering lips as eligible men take in my Mating Mark for the first time. The same javelin to my chest as when Captain Astor scoffed at the idea that he might wish to dance with me, when I’d hoped perhaps my Mating Mark had finally found its match.

They’re tears not only for the lack of being wanted, but for the guilt of letting such a petty thought scrape the emptiness from my soul. It’s not as if I grew up loveless, the unwanted daughter that so many of the old faerie tales paint alongside disappointed fathers who wished for a son as an heir. Never did my family act as though I was any less worthy of their love than John or Michael. In fact, they protected me more fiercely.

In their own misguided way.

So why do Peter’s callous words sting like adders’ fangs at my sternum?

Shouldn’t I be rejoicing that the villain whose attention, whose wanting I dreaded for years, isn’t interested in inflicting evil upon me?

It hits me that all this time, Peter was the one person I never counted on losing interest in me.

It’s sick and repulsive and I hate myself for letting a man who’s never cared about me delve his claws so deeply into my identity.

The girl who men never wanted, but the shadows always did.

What does it say about me if even the shadows turn away?

Despite myself, I find my fingers trailing my cheek. The spacesbetween the freckles of my Mating Mark are marred by the scars from where Tink dug her fingernails into my flesh, her jealousy lining my skin. I’d laugh at the irony if it wouldn’t wake my brothers.

Tink clearly has nothing to be jealous of.

Still, as my hands trace the raised golden mark, I allow my thoughts to wander. I let them off their leash and toward a past rewritten by a foolish heart. Let them daydream of a future that was never to be mine.

I wonder where he is, the male who owns my heart. Not Peter, who owns my body and freedom, but the man whose soul is knit with mine.

It’s not as if I ever expected to meet him. Sure, with every suitor my parents picked out for me, I allowed that little sliver of hope lodged in my chest to jut out, like a buried splinter being expunged by the body as it slowly reknits itself.

I’d never as much as laid eyes on another Mating Mark until I met the captain. And that man had dashed my hopes in more than one way.

As I think of the captain’s face, of his coarse voice masking the pain, but not nearly as well as Peter, I think of his hand on my waist, the flicker of warmth and connection that had fired there.

I think of the captain, and that beautiful, perfect moment, and I hate him for it. I hate him for stealing my attention away from my misery, just for a moment. For making me feel safe, even in the wake of his brusque words and blunt temperament. I hate that we shared a moment of agony together, both victims of our own lost loves.

I hate him for making me like him, then shattering me.

And I hate myself right now for allowing my mind to wander to the man who killed my parents.

My fingertips become wet where they linger on the Mark as tears slip down my cheeks and the quiet sobs start. I muffle them with my blanket, my body shaking and trembling.

It’s not long before tiny footsteps pad over to me in the dark, adrowsy Michael wiping his eyes of sleep before slipping onto my cot with me, curling up with his head on my chest.

“Don’t cry, Michael,” he whispers. “Mama’s got you.”

I shake harder, clutching onto my brother as if to life itself.

When sleep finally overtakes me, it’s with the nightmare of Captain Astor’s voice in my ears, quietly seducing me to slit my parents’ throats.

“You looklike you got stung in the face by a wasp,” says Smalls, looking across the breakfast table at me as he scoops a spoonful of berry-speckled oats into his mouth.

Next to him, Benjamin elbows him in the side. Hard. “That’s from crying, stupid.”

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