Mission: Get Rid of Peyton's Crush on Archer
Plan E: Project Negative Feelings onto a Pillow
- () -
we accept the love we think we deserve
What's that supposed to mean?
I accept all kinds of love. I accept Buster's love, Brutus's love, and Lucky's love too, even though her attitude towards me is one of amused tolerance than love.
James. Melody. My dad. I accept their love, obviously. We're family. They have to love me.
- () -
we accept the love we think we deserve.
Grandmother loathes me.
Most of my family does. I'm the weird vegetarian who wears fake-leather jackets, the black stain on the entire Monroe family, the slut who sent nudes when I was thirteen years old. So how am I supposed to accept their love when they don't give me any?
Mom doesn't love me.
At least, I don't think she does. She tolerates me, I suppose, because I'm her daughter. But I know how embarrassed she gets when I humiliate her over and over again during the family reunions.
I still love my mom.
- () -
My mind is dissolving into a mess that I didn't expect it to. The quote wasn't supposed to impact me this much, but it continues to taunt me even during the day. I can't think straight in school or at home.
Do I deserve love?
The question is harder to to answer than I thought. I mull it over my head during breakfast, classes and lunch. By the end of the day, I'm exhausted from thinking too much.
Archer tries to make conservation during the ride from school to work, but I can't keep up.
Do I deserve Archer's friendship?
I'm not sure.
"You're awfully quiet today," Archer remarks.
"There's a lot on my mind."
"That's alright," He asks. "How's work going?"
"Fine."
"Did you get any news on Harper or Susan Smith?"
"Not yet."
We're silent for the rest of the ride.
I rub my temples. I haven't had a headache in weeks now, but a dull throb is starting to form in the back of my skull. Archer parks near the front of the Pet Shop. I have my door handle when he speaks again.
"Peyton, is therapy going okay?"
"Yeah," I duck out of the car. "It's fine. Don't worry about me."
"Peyton -"
I wave goodbye and close the door, not looking back as I walk into the Pet Shop. Even the familiar sounds of animals greeting me don't make me feel better.
- () -
we accept the love we think we deserve.
Archer deserves a girl better than me. He deserves somebody who doesn't annoy him or make him look bad. He deserves somebody just as kind and compassionate as him.
I roll over on my bed so that I'm facing the ceiling.
Why do I have to like somebody as amazing as him?
It's not fair to keep having a crush on him, for both him and me. I have to get rid of my crush - it's the only way our friendship can survive. The words ring false in my head as I say them, but I don't what else I'm supposed to do.
I roll over again and try to go sleep.
- () -
During the next session of therapy, Dr. Robinson gives me a new homework assignment.
It's called projection. She tells me to grab an object like a pillow, a teddy bear or even a mop, and talk to it as if I were talking to me. I'm supposed to have a conversation with myself in the third person.
That gets me thinking.
What if I pretended the pillow was Archer instead?
I'll pretend to hate the pillow and then, my emotions will get confused and I'll hate Archer too.
Ugh.
This is such a stupid plan.
But my only other idea is to avoid him and hope the feelings go away. Archer and I haven't talked in the last few days. He's given up trying to make conversation. It makes me feel guilty, but I don't know how to respond to his questions without revealing how I feel anymore.
So Plan E it is.
I grab a ratty old pillow case, draw some large eyes, heavy eyebrows and brown hair. I add a grin on it for good measure and set in front of me, pretending to envision it as Archer.
I clear my throat. "Hi Archer."
Archer-pillow stares blankly at me.
"You know, I've decided that you've been acting really this last couple of days - oh, whatever," I roll my eyes. "Let's get this over with it."
I punch the Archer-pillow with my right fist, right where its cheek should be. I slam him again with my left fist. I hit him in his cotton eyes and silk lips. I bash his pillow head against my bed. I stomp on it with my boots.
"Screw you, Archer," I yell and throw the pillow across the room.
Archer-pillow hits Melody, who was apparently standing in the doorway this whole time, in the face.
She stumbles back, then catches the pillow before it falls to the floor. Melody and Archer-pillow maintain eye contact for a second before she says, "Is this a therapy thing?"
"Kind of."
"Who's the pillow supposed to be?"
I shrug.
"Is it Archer?"
"...kind of."
James told Melody about my crush just before he left. After Melody jumped around screaming "I knew it, I knew it" for half an hour, I made her vow to never speak of it again. Clearly, neither of my siblings take their vows seriously.
"Are you trying to get rid of your crush on him again?" Melody asks, holding the pillow at a distance so she can look at properly. "How many of these plans are you going to do?"
"Until it works."
Melody walks over to my head and shades in part of Archer's eyebrows. "Why is having a crush on Archer such a bad thing? Both of you are already act like a couple already."
"Archer flirts with everybody."
"But you're the only one he calls 'bear cub'."
"He's just teasing me."
"He teases you twice as much as he teases everybody," Melody tells me. "You should be lucky to have a crush on him. Mom would be so happy to see you two together."
"Mom would be happy to see us together with any boy," I point out.
Melody doesn't reply, focusing on Pillow-Archer's eyebrows instead.
"Hey," I ask, going on my knees. "Can you help me out?
Melody raises an eyebrow.
"Please? If this doesn't work, I promise I won't try to get rid of my crush on again."
"Fine," Melody sets the sharpie aside and climbs on my bed with a sigh. The mattress sinks under both of our weights. "Hopefully, this'll make you realize how stupid your plans are."
I know how dumb my plan is right now, but I still want to try. Not trying anymore means that I'm giving up on my mission and that has consequences that I don't want to think about. So I shove the thought away and focus on the task at hand.
"Okay, you'll be Archer and I'll be Peyton."
"Obviously," Melody rolls her eyes. She sits across from me, then pulls the pillow in front of her face. In a deep voice, she says. "Hi, bear cub! Do you have any more useless animal facts you want to share with me today?"
"Stop that," I kick her lightly. "Pretend to be mean."
"Why?"
"So I can get angry at Archer."
"But Archer's never mean to you."
"Melody."
"Okay, okay," She tilts both the pillow and her face a little to the right. "Peyton, you're such an ugly slut..."
I imagine that I'm not starting into a pillow, but into Archer's face instead. I imagine that it's his lips moving when Melody insults me. But the harder I attempt to focus the image of him criticizing me, the faster it slips away.
Archer never insults me.
"...and I never want to see you again." Melody finishes, waiting for my response.
"Well, I don't want to see you either, Archer. I never even liked you in the first place. In fact, all this time, I thought..." Imagining Archer's face is bringing me down, guilt-tripping me so I stumble over my words. "...you were annoying and pushy and -"
Melody angles the pillow down so it looks sad.
Something snaps inside of me.
I can't hurt Archer like this, even if it is just the pillow version.
I launch forward and wrap my arms around the Archer-pillow. "I'm so sorry, Archer. I didn't mean that at all."
I nuzzle my nose into the pillow, where it's soft and cozy. The plush fabric wraps around my face comfortingly. It feels just like one of Archer's hugs, warm and safe. Melody strokes my hair with the corner of the pillow.
"You know," She muses. "I think these therapy sessions are having a bigger effect on you than I thought they would."
- () -
we accept the love we think we deserve.
It's not that I think I'm impossible to love.
It's just that I don't have anything special about me to love. Sure, I don't have extremely bad qualities, but there aren't extremely good ones either. There's nothing to hate, just as there's nothing to love. Loving me is an obligation and a burden more than it is a joy.
So who would want to love somebody like me?
Especially when there are so many better people out there?
- () -
we accept the love we think we deserve.
But isn't that a matter of opinion?
Irene told me that at one point in her life that she didn't think she deserved to live, nevermind deserve love. But now she's healthy, sane and happily dating Jake. Irene told me that opinions about yourself are subjective.
So isn't deserving love more a matter of opinion than it is a fact?
- () -
The next day, I work on the actual projection homework that Dr. Robinson told me to do, about talking to myself in the third person. I put on another pillowcase, with pink hair and lips, on top of the pillow and set it across from me again.
Pillow-Peyton scowls at me.
"So Peyton, you have a crush on Archer," I tell myself. "What are you going to do about it?"
I'm going to get rid of it, she communicates telepathically.
"Okay, but that isn't working well for you, is it now?"
What else am I supposed to do?
"You could, you could," I was going to say suffer in silence but that thought sounds ridiculous out loud. So instead, I blurt out,"You could just tell him about it."
What?
"Confess."
No way, Pillow-Peyton says automatically.
"Why not?" At first, I impersonate Dr. Robinson saying the exact same thing to me, but as I hear it again, there's a ring of truth. "Why not?"
He'll reject me. He doesn't like me in that way.
"Why not? What's wrong with you?"
Archer needs someone who would stay by his side no matter what, Pillow-Peyton thinks.
"Why can't you do that?" I point out.
And just like that, an epiphany comes over me.
Maybe I don't deserve love right at this moment. But I could. If I changed enough, become good enough, I could deserve my mom's love, Archer's friendship and maybe even more. I'd be willing to change for them.
I could deserve love.
- () -
We accept the love we think we deserve.
Dr. Robinson was right. I do want to have a crush on Archer.
The times we spend together make me feel warm inside, like I'm becoming a better person just by talking with him. Maybe, one day, he'll feel that way. Maybe I could help him become a better person too.
I want to be with Archer.
And maybe, just maybe, Archer might want to be with me too.
- () -
"Mom," I blurt out one day, as I'm entering the house after work. "Do you still love me?"
Mom looks up, her face so shocked that I instinctively take a step back. "Of course I do. What made you doubt that?"
"Uh, nothing. I just wanted to make sure."
"Peyton, if there's ever been anything that's made you doubt that, I'm sorry -"
She glances at me suspiciously, then motions to four red tickets on the table. "Before I forget to tell you, a couple of tickets for the Winter Wonderland Carnival next weekend came in the mail. Your father and I can't go and Melody and Raquel already claimed two of them, so you're free to take the other half."
I'm about to reject the offer when I realize something. "Sounds great. I'll take them."
She glances at me with surprise as I grab two of the tickets and shove them into the pocket of my jeans. "What's gotten into you today?"
"The therapy must be working, I guess," I say, already running upstairs. "Bye!"
"Love you!" She yells.
"Love you too," I shout back, then slam the door shut.
A huge weight that I didn't even realize was there has been lifted off my shoulders. Now that I think about it, it's ridiculous. Of course mom loves me. Why wouldn't she?
- () -
We accept the love we think we deserve.
Maybe I don't need to work on deserving Archer's, or anybody else's, love.
Maybe I deserve it already.
Maybe I have it already.
- () -
We accept the love we think we deserve.
"I think I get it," I tell Dr. Robinson. "If you don't think you deserve love, you don't think anybody is willing to love you. Right?"
"That's up to you to decide, Peyton," Dr. Robinson smiles, folding her hands over her lap. "But I'm glad you got some meaning out of it."
"Yeah, and it got me thinking - should I tell Archer about how I feel about him?"
"Again, that's up for you to decide."
"Oh."
"I will say this," Dr. Robinson folds her hands over her lap. "What are you more afraid of: getting rejected or never telling him how you feel, even if he might have reciprocated your feelings all along?"
I open my mouth, then close it again.
"It's just something to think about," Dr. Robinson says. She unfolds her hands. "Our time is up for today. For homework, I want you to try and experience something you've never considered doing before."
I nod, then shrug on my jacket, and leave the room. Outside, Archer's waiting for me again. Of course, these days are when mom has her Neighborhood Watch meetings, so he has to pick up. I walk as slow as I can, formulating the conversation in my head before I need to talk to him.
"Hey, Archer," My words come out as a rush.
He looks up once I enter the car, obviously surprised by the fact Guilt curdles inside my stomach when I think about how I've acted for the past week.
"You're in a better mood today," He remarks, his tired eyes skimming over my face.
"Yeah, I finally realized something."
"That's great," He starts the engine.
"Yeah, wait," I place my hand on top of his. We both jump at my action. I withdraw my hand quickly. "To make up for being so rude to you this week, I got us tickets to that carnival next week?"
He watches me carefully. "And you want to use the tickets with me?"
"Well, Buster was my number-one option, but there aren't any pets allowed," I wave the tickets in front of his face. "So I'm asking you instead - if you don't have any other plans, of course."
"Oh, then sure," Archer pauses for another second, turning back to the front, then says. "We can win a teddy bear at one of the games."
"We don't need another teddy bear."
"It can be Charlotte's friend."
I roll my eyes. "Charlotte already has friends."
"We can get her a boyfriend."
"Isn't that Charles?"
A second passes as we both realize what I said. I want to slap my own hand over my face.
"Oh, so that's why you got me teddy bear for Christmas," Archer says, grinning as he turns back to the front. "You had a hidden agenda all this time, didn't you?"
"I always have a hidden agenda," I say, pocketing the tickets again.
He snorts. I shake my head, but smile to myself anyways. With that, Archer drives the car onto the main road, the last amount of sunshine making its way over the black and white gravel. I lean back on the seat and let the warmth wash over me.
Plan E: Fail
- () -
Accept doesn't look like a real word to me anymore. Smh.
Next Chapter: the one you've all been waiting for. You guys have no idea how excited I am to write the next chapter!
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Dedications go to KaylaMay2901, xx-JellyBelley-xx, lucyid03, and alexaja.
Thanks for reading!
QotC: I asked this before, but that was a while ago. What's your favorite chapter so far? And why?