His Quest for Raine

Confronting Peter

========Kristin

========

That sure shut him up, and good thing too. The more he spoke like that to her, the more it ate away at any newly blooming attraction, thank goodness. It ruined her for seeing him as more than some man now which was maddening, given how good he was to her. 

The past had to stay in the past, and now it had a grimly colored box and dimmed lighting to keep it. Kristin vowed not to look back and only forward now. 

“Your sister showed up. Believe me. Don’t. That’s up to you,” Kristin ignored the way he responded with a huff to pull out the page the mysterious ink had been drawn with. “I’m not artistic. I don’t have an imagination past what I know. I just know better not to write anything down out there in the open,” she said holding out the paper for him to take. 

He however looked at it from his distance as if she was handing him a tissue, and then back up at her, not amused in the least. 

“I can’t explain what happened at Just Beans. I can’t. I just know how she was dressed, that she fell, a bird hit the window, this thing showed up and something made me drop my coffee. I just figured if it was her, maybe she was trying to contact you.”

She sounded insane to herself. 

There was no way out of being extracted now. She would be leaving like every single crazy person had thus far. 

Peter looked through her like an animal about to pounce, ready to take its prey. The glossiness in his eyes made her nervous, wanting to back up, wanting to retreat. In an instant she’s transported back to the same vision as she ran from him then. Kristin swallowed down the lump in her throat, closed her eyes to support her own actions, but didn’t apologize, not again. She wouldn’t do it again. If he heard her the first time, it should have been enough. 

Kristin then moved to cross the distance between her and him, turning the page so that he could see. 

She shook her head, declaring what they do to people who make up stories out there. 

“I didn’t make this. I’m not hallucinating,” she swallowed looking around for the sound of tremors, thunder, something above them as it moved over the two of them. 

Faintly she registered that Peter said the guards were still looking for the base. 

“They use energy cannons to see just how deep we are. They’ll know depending on the frequency they get back,” he said calmly. 

Kristin can’t help but feel as though she was just told to leave. That she was disrupting his usual frequency, and so she nodded. 

“Maybe we should go then,” she said stupidly. 

She meant that she should go, but couldn’t help what came out of her. 

It was there now, threatening to ruin her further. 

“We?” Peter asked incredulously.  

Kristin nodded carefully, “She’s your sister.”

“Kristin!” Peter growled back.

“No, Peter,” she snarled, pushing it back in his chest. “This means something to her. I can feel it. You don’t have to give an actual s**t about me. I came here knowing I’d never have another chance. I came here knowing you were too good for me then but now… now I don’t know who you are, but this isn’t about me. It’s about a girl you lost and you can’t forgive yourself for. It’s about your sister looking for you and if you can’t see that, I guess I’ll just bring this to the authorities and end this once and for all.”

Kristin wasn’t sure what happened next, or how it did, but he snatched up the image, pulling it from her fingers and then he was close, too close. His arm snaked around her hips, holding her to him, his hand that held the map, still held her wrist too, high above their heads. His nose tapped the shell of her ear as he whispered to her to tell him again why she didn’t choose him all those years ago. 

“I was shy,” she replied. 

Honesty was what would drive this, she thought. Maybe he simply thought he was being rejected, she didn’t know, but that wasn’t the case. 

Kristin swallowed, uttering the next of her admissions, “I didn’t know what you could possibly see in me. I was nothing special.”

His nose traced downward, his breath hot on her shoulder waiting expectantly. It told her to continue, that he knew there was more. 

“And you were my sun and moon,” she whispered. “The one that hung the stars in the sky,” Kristin continued, blinking back her tears. Each unshed drop laid fragmented on her lashes, making it a little too hard to see. 

“Then why did you leave me?” he pushed.

“You weren’t mine.”

“Bullshit,” he spat, releasing her. 

He took a step back looking over her, she desperately wanted to know what he saw, if he could accept what she was telling him. 

“It’s not,” she swallowed again. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” he turned from her and headed back to the counter to finally pour his drink. 

“You were sweet on everyone. Anyone that batted their eyes at you gained a kiss on the cheek, maybe a hand on their hip, shoulder, whatever. You sang to them, so many of them, Peter. It was hard to feel special, like I was the one you really picked.”

Kristin went back to the couch she woke up on to curl herself into a ball. A migraine began setting in, she could tell by the way her entire head throbbed, but it was good to finally get it out. Maybe she needed this more than he did. 

“I couldn’t be your toy,” she whispered into the fabric of her sweatshirt that caught a mucus bubble as she went.

It was a sign that she was entirely spent by this interaction, ready to break down over it, which was the furthest thing from what she wanted. 

The sound of him scoffing into his drink was poisonous and yet she continued. 

“I didn’t want to fall in love with you because of that Peter, but I did, and even then, all it’s ever given me is pain.”

Kristin gritted her teeth and frowned through a yawn threatening to screw her over with her delivery, but it escaped her nonetheless. It was quiet but desperate, her body craving nothing more than to be curled up with the younger version of himself regardless of how this aged one was ruining her now. 

Instead of focusing on him and how he’s changed, Kristin wondered how things would have been different if she had the nerve to try. If she had the confidence in herself that she was important to him the way he’s pretending to want. 

After a long silence and what sounded like one glass of liquid memory loss downed, she heard the way he cleared his throat, looking for her attention again. 

“I’m sorry,” she nodded at the paper, looking for him to hand it back to her. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have come here.” 

Kristin agreed. “I’ll just take it,” she reached her hand out to wait for him to place it back in hers. 

When he didn’t move, the map snatched itself from his hold and glided across the room into her hand. Kristin jumped away from it, shaken from the event. She wasn’t even the one drinking and that happened to her. One freaky situation after another it seemed.

“I’m seeing one aren’t I?” Kristin began to hyperventilate, calling Peter’s undivided attention to her now.  “Call them. Call them, get them,” she shrieked. 

Peter made his way back to the couch to cover her mouth with his hand. It felt oddly familiar, making her wonder if it was him who had found her in his garage. It made her want to fight back but Peter shook his head vehemently, then moved his palm to make sure she could breathe out of her nose. 

“If they hear you, you’ll leave and never come back,” he warned. 

Her eyes welled up with tears all over again then fell unabashedly down her cheeks quickly. They rolled over his fingers, smearing only slightly when she shook her head.

“Tell me you don’t want to leave,” he urged her. “Tell me, Kristin.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” she replied, her answer muffled under his hand still came out loud and clear to her, because deep down, she didn’t.

Her eyes widened, waiting for his response, only to be sure that he didn’t hear her or chose to ignore her, which reset her doubts completely. 

He didn’t want her. She was just a toy.