Someday In Neverland

“Maybe love stays. Maybe love can’t. Maybe love shouldn’t.”
– When Love Arrives, Sarah Kay & Phil Kaye

If someone can give me a manual on how to escape your own mind, I’ll marry that person. Except that no one will ever will. Even ia Woolf and Sylvia Plath can’t help me about this. Not even ing Shakespeare.

Sometimes I feel like I’m Alice except that I’m not in the Wonderland. I’m in a small room and I’m trapped by inflated things. And the gas used to inflate all those things is the air inside my lungs. There’s nothing left for me and I find it hard to breathe. There’s a blowing wind outside but the windows are closed, secured with an electric shock, and the door is nowhere to be found.

But when I say sometimes, it means all the time.

“How’s your day, Wendy?” Dr. Attaway asked.

“I’m not even sure why people in movies always try to lie with their psychologists. Don’t they realize that psychologists can tell when someone’s lying?”

She gave me a tight-lipped smile before asking me again on how my day went.

“Still the same.”

I hate the way she looks at me. I hate that she’s the lion and I’m the poor, little lamb and this ing room is her den. “Tell me about it.”

“The society is still blind, people are still stupid and you are still curious about my day.” For the tiniest sliver of moment, I think I saw sadness in her eyes. But before I can confirm it, everything about her is like a blank sheet of paper again. I don’t know why. Psychologists are really good at hiding what they truly feel. Maybe I can ask Dr. Attaway to teach me how to do that. I heard there’s like an on and off button inside them. Something they use to control their emotions. “Why are you so curious about my day, anyway?”

“Then do you want to tell me anything about the past?”

“Sure. Adolf Hitler shot himself in his right temple and Eva Braun, his less than 40 hours wife, ingested cyanide.”

“Tell me more.” I’m not sure where she’s getting at and if I’m being played by her, well, I don’t care.

“Hemingway shot himself with a shotgun, Woolf is a little creative… she filled her pockets with pebbles before allowing the waves to take her—maybe she figured out that it’s going to be faster that way, and then Plath, the most creative one, poisoned herself with carbon monoxide with her head in the oven.”

“So these people’s death… they fascinate you?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“What do you think happened to Amelia Earheart?”

“She probably got tired of this stupid world, lived in peace in the Pacific and then later on killed herself.”

“So you think she committed suicide?”

“Yeah.”

“But you also said that she lived in peace.”

“Maybe she also got lonely.”

***

“May I sit here?” I looked at the person in front of me, he looks familiar. I gave him a nod and focused on my coffee.

I don’t remember where I first saw him but he looks really familiar. “Have we met before?” he looked at me and his brows furrowed. He looks confused for a while and I think he had eureka moment because he’s suddenly smiling like his face is going to split in half.

“I think we did.”

“Where?”

“At Dr. Attaway’s office.”

“You’re her patient?”

“Nah,” he took a sip in his iced-coffee, “Dr. Attaway’s my mentor.”

“Mentor?”

“I figured out that the best way to learn is to learn from the best.”

“What?”

“I’m majoring at Psychology.” My lips turned ‘O’ before looking away from him. So he’s Dr. Attaway’s cub since he’s learning from a lioness. “How are you doing?”

I don’t know how to answer his question so I shrugged. “I’m Wendy.” I offered my hand and he shook it.

“Mark.” He’s reading a thick book and I bet it’s a book related to Psychology. I should go. This person might be analyzing me and I had enough analyzing for the day.

“I’ll go now.” He didn’t even look at me when he said take care. Huh.

When I got home, I ignored my roommates, plugged earplugs on my ears and increased the volume of my iPod.

I remember falling asleep in darkness but I also remember seeing a familiar smiling face. Maybe depression will not just trap you in room with inflated things… it will also make you crazy as you try to look for the exit door.

I woke up with my alarm. But I’m breathing heavily and somehow I can still remember my dream. It’s not that vivid but I know that this is the first time for the very long time that I didn’t dream of inflated things. I’m not in a room, I’m in an open field and I can breathe properly but there’s something that’s chasing me. I have no idea who it is because my eyes are closed as I run. And that’s all I can remember.

I ditched my first class so I can get my morning coffee on the same coffee shop. And I’m wondering why I’m not a bit surprised when I saw him there.

“May I sit here?” I mimicked his question. His head perked up and I have no idea why he looks so shocked. “I can’t?”

“Uh, no, I mean, sure.” He’s not reading a book this time but he’s fiddling with his phone. “You don’t have class?”

“I ditched my class.” He chuckled. It’s funny because I hate it when people chuckle at me but I think I can listen to his voice for a long time and never get tired of it. “How about you?”

“My prof’s absent.”

“Good for you.”

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you curious why was I at Dr. Attaway’s office?” Does he think I’m crazy?

“Are you going to tell me why?”

“What if I don’t want to tell you?”

“Then you don’t have to.”

***

“I met your mentee.” That’s the first thing I told Dr. Attaway when I met her a while ago.

“Mark?”

“Yeah.”

For a while she looks thoughtful. “Are you friends with him now?”

“Not exactly but we had a little chat.”

“Making friends is one big step, you know?” I don’t know. “I think the two of you will click.”

“I like talking to him.”

“More than me?”

“No offense but yes.”

***

Oddly enough, I would always wake up early so I can catch up with Mark every morning. My first class is 10:00AM and so does he. I’m not stupid, of course. And if this little curse that starts with letter L is really crawling up to my skin, then I have to be honest that I’m scared.

Nothing changed. Okay maybe few things changed. But I still think that the society is one, big, fat bull and the people are still stupid. Dr. Attaway’s still interested with my everyday life and Mark… I never told him why I’m seeing his mentor. He isn’t stupid so he must have figured out by now.

I grunted. Two months. We’ve became kind of friends. He’s really nice to me and he would always listen to my… whines. Like how ed up the society is or how stupid the people are.

I’m going to tell him.

“Hey,” I probably looked jumpy because he’s eyeing me weirdly, “is there something wrong? Do you want me to call Dr. Attaway?”

“No. I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Well you can tell me about, you know?”

I’ve always believed that I am invincible until depression came knocking in my front door. At first I refused to believe that I can be vulnerable too—but life has its own way of teaching you things that you will never learn inside the classroom—it might be a little too late for me to learn about it but I just realized that even Superman has his weakness, too.

Depression… broke me. It crashed the world I’ve created and it showed me what the real world looks like.

And then someone came crashing in to my life, without notice, and help me point out some of the beautiful things in the real world. I had no right to be so dependent on him but I guess, in life, when you find the only thing that supports you, you find it hard to let go of it.

“I like you,”

“Wha—”

“Listen to me first,” I can’t look at him, “I know this isn’t right. But… don’t you want to give it a try?”

He felt silent. And so did I. It’s ten minutes before ten and I don’t want to be late, I should go. But then he stood up and offered his hand. I grabbed it.

We went outside of the coffee shop before he breaking the ice. “I know your case, okay? I know it’s supposed to be confidential but Dr. Attaway told me about… you. And the possibilities. I can be your friend, Wendy. And believe it or not, I want to give it a try, too. But maybe… not now.”

He let go of my hand and I’m scared I might fall apart. “I don’t want you be so dependent of me. You have to be happy on your own. You have to heal yourself. I’ll be here to support you but you have to make the big steps.” I can’t cry. Damn it. “You have to learn how to be happy on your own before you commit yourself to other people—”

“But—”

“So when they leave, you’ll still be able to smile again. Without them in your life.”

“Mark…”

“Love can wait,” he’s smiling like he’s trying to give me courage. “You know what they say?”

“What is it?”

“First things first.”

He kissed my forehead before whispering “Someday in Neverland, Wendy, I'll be your Peter Pan.”

xxx

Okay. Happy birth anniversary to our dear Wendy~ ♥
 The last part is really hard to write but I guess that's how it's supposed to be.

PLEASE do read the foreword because I won't be answering any of the questions regarding the next chapter for this (Someday in Neverland) story.
There'll be no 'next' chapter for Someday in Neverland, okay? :) The next cut is going to be a different story.