“They won’t bother us now that Tinker Bell is gone.”

I listen for them in the distance as Peter starts to walk towards the plank and I follow, helping him the best I can as we struggle across the short distance of the deck. The mermaid’s screams have quieted, but the water below rages with the storm and I shake my head with worry.

“I don’t think we could make it.”

Tiger Lily screams Peter’s name and we both turn as she starts to charge toward us. Peter grips my arms and forces me to face him.

“Wendy,” he pleads, “Darling, do you trust me?”

There was a time I thought I didn’t. But truth be told, there is no one and nothing I could believe in more than Peter Pan. More than Hook. More than Neverland. Even as I stand in the middle of this make-believe world, and it all comes crashing down around us, I know there is no way I could ever deny it’s magic. His charm. The undeniable pull all of it will always have on me.

“The beginning and the end,” I smile. “That’s why I never stopped waiting, Peter. Why I never stopped believing. I’ve always trusted in you.”

He smiles and gently steals a kiss. But there is no time to savor it, and we quickly pull apart, glancing up just in time to see Tiger Lily taking her last couple steps towards us. Frantically, I look back Peter’s way and see his eyes have never wavered from me.

“If this is our end,” he says with a sad smile, “then we’ll meet it together, Darling.”

Suddenly, he forces us over the edge of the boat, off the plank and into the crashing waves. The water is light crystal blue. Sparkling in a way I have never witnessed before. I hold on to him tightly, the current desperate to break us apart and determined to tear us away from one another.

His lips find mine under water and I breathe into him. He exhales into me. Both of us giving each other the air we need to survive as we’re sucked under by a rip tide and forced out to sea.

My fingers start to slip, the tide pulls me away stronger than before. Peter’s wounds force him to flinch as he struggles to hold on to me while the waves crash and tear into us relentlessly. He tries to keep me by his side. Struggles with all his strength. I watch his eyes as he labors constantly, attempting the best he can to keep a tight grip on me.

Desperately I cling to him as he’s pulled from my grasp. Our fingers claw out to one another in one last attempt to hold on. To come back for each other. To stay together like we had finally promised.