“I don’t want…” I struggle against his grip again and curse when he grabs me tighter, shaking me still.

“This isn’t about what you want, Wendy,” he snaps. I look up feeling hurt, confused, but oddly alert and ready to listen. “This is about what we both need.”

Usually, I would think he was talking about a sexual kind of desire but there is no lustful tension between us at the moment, so I relax into the hold he has on me, his voice clearing my mind and somehow making me eager to listen.

“Tonight,” he repeats, before dropping my arm and storming past me. “Maybe then you’ll finally see I already proved it to you a long time ago, everything you’ve spent your entire life trying to deny.”

Chapter 13

Peter

“Wendy, I ran away the day I was born… it was because I heard father and mother talking about what I was to be when I became a man. I don’t want ever to be a man.”

Peter & Wendy

- J. M. Barrie

SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO

“Do you miss home, Peter?”

Her words pierce my ears as I look out across the thick forest on top of Misty Mountain. It’s twilight now, and the pixies have come out to play. They dance about with the fireflies, causing a twinkling of magic to be spread out upon the mist. Fog hangs around us as we sit, shielded under the low hanging vines of the weeping willow tree. The thick clouds cling to our clothes relentlessly, yet until now I hadn’t felt cold. I hadn’t felt the chill that Wendy was complaining about a while ago, when I wrapped my coat across her shoulders.

“This is home,” I murmur, confusion causing my brows to pinch tight as I watch the darkness begin to swallow up what’s left of the sun.

“But…” she begins, and I instantly feel myself involuntarily flinch. “Don’t you miss your family?”

My attention snaps to her in anger. I search to see her eyes, the meaning behind her words hidden somewhere in her soul, but I can only make out the curves of her face as the darkness grows. Her gaze is hidden. I don’t know why, but an anxious feeling starts to rise, spreading across my skin as I struggle to hold onto what I’ve never questioned before. What I’ve always known.

“No.”

My quick response spits out in a harsh whisper as the moon gently starts to bathe her in its light. Her eyelashes flutter before my gaze locks on hers and I watch her beautiful face frown. It was never my intention to make my Wendy sad. Quickly that anxious feeling turns to worry as I scoot a little closer to her, feeling the need to try and explain.

“Family always wants too much,” I start.