She walked to the bedside again. Her eyes roved over the contours of his jaw, his ears, his hair. She searched for some sign to prove that he wasn’t Peter Pan. He was definitely older than the boy from her stories and drawings. The Peter Pan she knew was a child who never aged. The boy in the hospital bed was definitely a teenager. It was a silly thing to grasp at, the idea that this couldn’t be Peter Pan because Peter Pan could never grow up, but it was something.

The boy had defined cheekbones and, even in the pale fluorescent light, his skin was sun-warmed and tan. His freckles stood out like flecks of cracked autumn leaves among the smudges of dirt.

There was a small crease between his eyebrows. Wendy leaned in closer. He was frowning in his sleep, like he was having a bad dream.

Wendy gently brushed her thumb across the crease, over and over, until his brow relaxed and his face was nothing but smooth slopes and planes.

She looked down at his banded wrist again, her eyes following along the back of his palm to his long, lean fingers. His fingernails were bitten down, almost to nubs, and the nail beds were caked in dirt.

The image of her own fingernails when she had been found came flooding back. Dirty, broken, with bits of red stuck underneath.

Wendy lurched back, a tremor rolling up her spine. She squeezed sanitizer into her palm from the pump attached to the wall and rubbed it vigorously into her hands. The sharp, acidic smell stung her nose.

“Wendy.”

She jumped and spun to see her mother down the hall, waving for her to come back.

“We’re leaving now,” her mom said, her hands tightly gripping her purse. Wendy thought her mother suddenly looked much older. As though something were pressing down on her shoulders, bowing her head and curving her back.

Wendy wiped the back of her hand across her sweaty brow. “What about my truck?”

“You can pick it up in the morning,” her mother said, digging into her purse for her keys.

Wendy nodded. “Okay.”

Mrs. Darling walked away at a brisk pace, and Wendy followed. As they passed through the sliding glass doors, two people in suits walked in.

As the doors slid shut, Wendy thought about Peter lying in bed and that smile playing across his lips.

CHAPTER 3

Closed Doors

On the drive home, Wendy sat in the back seat behind her mother. She curled up and pressed her forehead to the cool glass of the window, keeping her back to the woods. In an effort to keep her mind from wandering, she closed her eyes and repeated the lyrics to her favorite song over and over again in her head.