So fun fact...

It's been well over a year since I last wrote any fan fiction. In efforts to reawaken my creative spirit, or something like that, I've decided to delete many of my old fics and start fresh. This is the beginning and I can only hope you'll enjoy it. Modern day Peter Pan fanfic, borrowed some names and a little bit of a concept, but everything else is mine.

With hearing everything is selective. Most people don't think so, some think they have inhuman ability to hear everything around them at once. Well the secret is, we don't. Our hearing comes in and out, like the focus and blurs in our vision. Like every other sense it has its weaknesses, our hearing does. Only maybe it isn't always a weakness.

But touch induces focus, hearing usually.

"Wendy?" her hand, nails perfectly manicured and pearl bracelet spinning, sits on my wrist. "Wendy did you hear what I asked?"

I pushed a forkful of spinach salad into my mouth and nodded at her, "Hm."

"I asked if you've written anything lately?" she asks, annoyed. When she pulls her wrist back, I can feel the tickle of her nails. Beside me, Dad is stirring his soup, the metal of his spoon clanging on the sides of his bowl. At the table behind us a woman is laughing, wheezing at the edge of it. The spinach crunches in my mouth. Selective hearing is so much easier when interaction isn't necessary.

I swallow. "Well a paper I wrote for my 429 class was published in an online magazine."

"Oh that's nice, what was it about?" she asked, propping her elbows on the table and placing her chin in her folded hands. I raised my eyebrow at her, because since was she interested in my writing. She never questioned me about it and the few times I ventured enough to talk to her about it her eyes glazed over and wondered off the same way they did when she watched anything that wasn't Fox news.

"It was a feminist article about why it's common for guys not to take a hint at social outings and how saying you have a boyfriend is the easiest way to get rid of them. Basically the overall point is that they respect other men more than they do women, which I why I have a boyfriend is a better deterrent than no," I told her. With Mary there was treading lightly and there was diving right in, and today I was in no mood to take my time.

Her smile stayed on her face, but instead it changed from the kind with upturned corners to down turned corners, a grimace, the face she used when she hosted philanthropy events and had to deal with any of the people she was actually trying to help rather than the people who were donating.

"So all the feministy stuff, you're still into it," she said, her voice measured, hand unfolding and pushing around the food she had only taken a few bites of. I wolfed down a few more bites of my spinach salad, not responding. "You know I don't see the problem with them respecting other men, people should just respect people no matter what and thinking you're better than some young man who is just trying to be nice to you at an outing isn't a decent thing to write about."

I felt my face get it hot, good job diving in Wendy.

"But that's exactly the point they aren't treating the women with respect-"

"Well enough of that nonsense," she said, cutting me off and glancing towards my dad. "Your father and I have something we would like to talk to you about."

I looked over at my Dad, still stirring his soup. I hardly doubted he had anything to stay. He had always been quite, but even since Mary had entered our lives he had basically become mute. She was two hundred plus pounds of blond hair and champagne lipstick, recently widowed one percenter with two pothead sons being towed along for the ride. And somehow she had wheedled her way into my Dad's life where she decided to improve everything in our lower middle class life. Mary Ansell Darling, it just rolls off the tongue, like we were meant to be, she would say, to anyone and everyone, since the wedding at the beginning of summer.

"Oh, I'm thrilled to hear it," I said. She grinned, sarcasm, apparently, not her forte.

"Well, Wendy, you're going into your junior year of college, which means you've gotten most of your general education classes out the way, and so it's the perfect time to change your major, you won't have to wait through so many classes to jump right into your study," she explained, gripping my father's hand, as though he provided for half of what she was saying. She had this talk with me before, and every time I tuned her out.

"Mary, there's nothing wrong with my major. I like English, reading and writing, those are the only things I've very really loved doing. I've told you before, I'm not changing my major," I said, leaning back. Maybe the the more physical space I put between me and Mary the less of the urge I would have to scream at her.

"But there's no career in it Wendy, there's no guarantee, and besides nothing is harder to marry than a novelist," she told me, her grimace still plastered on. It would all be so much easier on me if she could just look frazzled, if I could just wipe that look off her face and yell at her right now. My anger would feel so much more justified if she looked angry too. I knew she was, but really, it was all about appearances to her.

"Mary I'm only twenty, believe me when I say getting married is not something I'm thinking about anytime soon," I said and pulled my hands into my lap to grip my seat. Even tempered voice required some hidden away white knuckles.

"Oh sweetie, that's because you haven't met the right guy yet. You'll find him soon," her voice was suddenly sympathetic, endearing. How many times had she told me, Wendy, you just need to find yourself a man.

"I really don't see what a guy has to do with my career," I said between tight lips. Another squeeze into the seat, my nails were digging into the leather. Mary just had this unique gift of making me angrier than anyone else.

"That's what we're saying Wendy, you need to get serious about a career. And we've discussed it, and we've talked about it, and we refuse to pay for your education unless you choose a major with a large job market. We just can't put faith in an English major," she told me, as she did her sneaky little hands clasped unto Dad's harder. I looked at him frantically, the pit of the news rolling in my stomach. His eyes were blank, and he shrugged and turned away, looking out the window and casting his face in sunshine.

As selfish and terrible as it was to say the one advantage of Mary joining our family was her money, and in her money came a debt free education. I had a scholarship that covered half my tuition; there had been too much time in high spent in after school jobs rather than studying towards a more credible SAT score. I had to take out loans the first two years to cover the difference, but when Mary entered the picture I knew I wouldn't have to. It was thrilling, watching them take their vows, to think about graduating with less then ten thousand dollars in debt. Some fantasy, eh?

"Dad," I said, turning to him, because looking at Mary's face wasn't really an option in my emotional range at the moment. "Dad, tell me you won't do this. You told me it was my life, I could do whatever I wanted. Not that I'd have to give into someone's demands of what I should do with my life."

"We just think it would be best Wendy, I mean Mary had a prominent degree in school, and look where she is now, look at what she has done for us," he told me, and this time his eyes weren't blank. They tried to tell me they were trying the best they were can, that he was giving me the life he had always wanted to give me, and in that involved some compromise. I didn't buy into that bullshit. Because Mary was sitting here with a bachelors in communication she never used because right after her undergrad she got knocked up and became some up and coming senator's trophy wife.

"I'm not going to change my major," I said between clenched teeth. I looked at Mary, her eyes crinkled in the corners, her skin too tan and cheeks and chin to flabby. She looked like a potato with a shattered white smile and demonically lined eyes.

"Then what are you going to do then Wendy?" she asked, she measured her words. I could sense what she didn't want, what others were already pausing at their tables to look at. A watched pot never boils, or sometimes it boils too hard.

"I guess I'll just have to fucking figure out," I said evenly, but loud, loud enough so that I knew the surrounding tables could hear me. I pulled my bag over my shoulder and walked out too quickly to see the blush on Mary's face, because everyone was so interested in what her hellish step daughter was doing now.

Outside I felt better. The air had always helped me, albeit a little humid and half glowing in between night and day, everything cast in murky orange. And then it settled in on me, the heaviness in my stomach, rolling itself around and making my arms shake. The semester started in two weeks, too late to take out a loan, and any check the Mary had sent or would have plan on sending would be void. I could pull into my savings, as measly as it was, and get part of the tuition paid. But even with that and the scholarship I'd still owe a little over two thousand.

"Hey, Wendy!"

The call made me jump and drop my bag, half the contents spilling out. They laughed as I dropped to my knees and stuffed them back in. When I stood I saw them standing in the middle of the alley, on the side of the restaurant. They passed a joint between their fingers. I had nearly forgotten about Micheal and John, they had left the meal about ten minutes before and I wondered if Mary had asked them to on purpose.

"Weed in stark daylight, good job boys, I'm proud," I said as I walked over to them. They didn't effect me anywhere as close as their mother and I had a half hour to kill before the next bus.

"It's sunset," John said before taking a deep drag. Despite being older than both of them, they towered over me, John with thick shoulders and a blonde crew cut. His face always varied shades of pink and his lips turned up in such a way that he always looked like he was on the edge of parting his lips an saying something. For the dinner occasion he had pulled on a black polo and khaki pants, which didn't at all like being shoved over the variable football muscles he had. Micheal was lanky, like a tree and a mop of hair hanging lopsided on his head.

"Whatever," I said, grabbing the joint from his fingers and took my own drag. My throat burned and my nose filled up with an acrid itch. I sputtered out puffs of smoke and shoved the join at Micheal. "Holy shit, what kind of weed is that?"

"Only the dankest shit around," Micheal said and took a long, slow drag. I raised my eyebrows at him, not accustomed to his sudden use of slang, then again the majority of my interactions with my step brothers usually happened around a dinner table with Mary looming over us.

I leaned against the brick of the alley listened to noise echo from clattering dishes in the kitchen, a man calling out to lower something carefully, the scream of a seagull, the slap of the waves against the pier. Static, all of it.

"Does it ever just bother you, how she thinks she owns everything?" I said and shook my head as John tried to pass the joint to me. "I mean, John, what does she want you to do?"

"Play pro ball, just like I wanna, she's not forcing me into anything," he said, his lips turning up in a grin that said he was proud of himself. He had just finished his freshman year at the state school about two hours away, Despite being on the team his play time totaled to about seven minutes during the hi first season. I'm sure his ass and the bench knew each other very well.

"What about you Micheal, I mean you're about to enter your senior year, what do you wanna do, you're thinking about it right?" I asked. I was trying to find some budge, some grip that these boys who had grown up with that woman and knew just how hard she could be to deal with.

"I don't know Mom wants me to be an accountant, so I'll probably do that," he said. Unbelievable. John I expected to be a lost cause, Micheal I held more hope for.

"And you're just gonna do what she wants, not figure out what you want to do on your own, or what you're really passionate about?" I asked. They scoffed at me, almost in unison, the sharp hits of their breaths falling just past one another.

"Look Wendy, it's just easier to listen to her. She's crazy and can make your life hell and she will," Micheal informed me. He seemed sad to me in that moment, he was so close to the newest part of his life and already she was ruining it for him.

"Whatever," I said, shaking my head. Even from one hit I could fell the numbing in my ears, drowning out all the background noise, killing the static. "I just wanna forget this dinner ever happened and maybe the next few hours too."

"Oh I could occupy a few of your hours," John said, grabbing at my waist and pulling me back against his bulk. I snatched myself away, the static suddenly back.

"Oh, fuck you," I said, walking away. Half an hour at the bus stop was better than this.

"That's the point Wendy. I mean, we're not even real siblings," he said as I walked away. I didn't hear the rest, I turned the weakness into an advantage again.

When unlocked the the door to my apartment and pushed it open I heard someone go "oh shit" and walked into Lily pulling her shirt back over her head and a lump under the blanket thrown over the couch that was obviously her boyfriend.

"Hey," she said turning around to me. I glanced at the floor where her bra was still laying and smirked.

"You can come out now Rufio, I won't bite," I said glancing over at the wiggling lump. Lily blushed just in time for his head to peak out from under the covers. He was six feet of smiling cheeks and messy bed head. Lily had picked him up her freshman year at community college and brought him along with she matriculated after two years. Her reasoning for them working out so well was that she would probably never find someone else who was Japanese Jewish. As far as I knew Rufio wasn't his real name but it was the only thing she had called him since I met him.

"Heya Wendy, rough day?" he asked, pulling out his full body and settling into a sitting position. His pants, I noticed, were unbuttoned and unzipped.

"Actually, pretty bad." I said, sitting down my bags. I was sweating because somehow the humidity seemed to double while I sat at the bus stop, still feeling John's hand burn at my hip.

"Well why don't you sit down and tell Doctor Rufio while my lady friend, uh freshens up," he said, taking a quick and timid glance down at Lily' bra. She blushed again and snatched it away while I sat down beside him. Among the missing bra other things seemed amiss with Lily, like her messy hair and smudged lipstick. The color didn't suit Rufio as well it suited her. Like his unzipped pants, I didn't feel it was needed to note it to him.

"Hey could you turn the the AC as you go?" I asked as she disappeared down the hall towards her room. Lily had been my best friend since sixth grade and we had navigated the awkwardness of puberty together through petty fights and sleepovers. By senior year of high school I imagined us as kind of an inseparable two that people would point to when asked what the definition of best friends were. But I had went to university and she to community college, two years of separation strung together through letters and facebook posts, telephone calls and skype dates. And finally like we had planned our senior year, we found an apartment of our own after she transferred to big girl school. But despite all the connections we kept up it was different, she brought with her a a boyfriend who helped us with rent, a new attitude, and an innocence completely washed away. When we left high school her most scandalous story was a sloppy make out with some junior who pawed at her breasts in the band closet, and she came back to me having tried out sex in more positions and places with her one partner than I had with my four. So, sometimes that entailed me walking in on her and Rufio on said sexual adventures.

"So...listening," Rufio said, I drew my attention back to him, taking my eyes away from the door where Lily had disappeared. There was a click and the AC buzzed to life, sending cold air on my sweating skin.

"It's Mary...she's terrible," I told him, letting the anger pour back into me. It wasn't a rush now, just slow drops making thier way through my veins. It was all overshadowed by the worry that was my burgeoning tuition fees. Lily came back out, everything disheveled now neat.

"What did she do this time?" she asked, settling herself at Rufio's side, half in his lap and half out. It was still weird to see her so intimate and comfortable with a person who was neither me nor family.

"Well she wants me to change my major, like usual, but this time it came with problems. She said if I don't change my major she's not paying for the second half of my tuition. And so I said no," I spilled out. It felt easier telling than relaying it in my head, far leas dramatic, I suppose.

"What the hell, that's basically the most bitch move to pull on you," Lily said and in her anger I found happiness, though not enough to erase the worry.

"Yeah I know, and with two weeks it's too late to get any loans."

"Bu can't you try a payment plan?" Rufio asked, he knew this because he had one set up on his own.

"Yeah but it's a couple hundred a week, right?" I asked and he nodded. "But I don't make as much as you, that couple hundred I make a week needs to go towards rent."

"That fucking sucks."

"I know, just I hate her so much, and it's not just this. She makes me so angry all the time with the most insignificant of things. Like I told her about that paper I got published today and she basically called it stupid. It's like the rebellious teenager phase I never had," I said. It felt good to be talking to Lily, well mostly to her. I didn't mind Rufio at all, he was sweet but she had been back in life three months now and we had yet to really connected. It wasn't that we didn't talk and it wasn't that we didn't get along just like we used too, but it also wasn't crying over stupid movies together and staying up late and putting each other to sleep with our stories about our lives.

"Wendy, a rebel, no," she said a laugh edging in her voice. It was true because generally I wasn't an angry person but I never really had good reason to be.

"I even stormed out of the restaurant, you should of seen me, you would've been proud," I said, smiling at them. It felt better, lighter, like I could pretend I didn't suddenly have intense money problems to deal with.

"Oh man, I don't believe you, that's not my best friend, she doesn't storm out of restaurants."

"Oh, she does. She's even stole some library books before too," I said. Rufio panned back and forth between us, his head flashing this way and that.

"Oh well, that definitely sounds like her," she laughed. At least one third of my book collection was contraband I had taken from libraries, books I just couldn't get enough of. I would turn them and then later sneak them into my bag. Nothing could be traced back to me once I turned them in. I happened in third grade once and the became a lifelong habit.

"So..." she said. "Rufio and I are gonna go meet up with Zach and Alison and then later on we're all gonna go to the bar. If you want you should join us and forget about your wicked stepmother for a few hours. We can figure out later tonight what we're gonna do. I won't have you dropping out of school," Lily said and for a moment my stomach dropped. We had been just on edge, joking again, playing around and finding our way back through the cracks that had developed over the past few years. But there was always some distraction.

"Sure, sure, I need to shower anyway," I said and pulled myself up from the couch. "Have fun at Zach and Alison's and go get em tiger!"

Later on when I walked in the bar I thought about how stupid it was, how we said phrases like that in middle school to each other and how she wouldn't remember. She hadn't said anything back. When I had searched around the entire bar and couldn't find her I felt even stupider. And then I felt my phone buzz.

L : still at zack and alison's we're playing cards against humanity that also involves shots and i'm winning, be there when game is over

I sank in my chair pushed my hands through my hair, a night alone at the bar was not what I needed and I probably should have just gone home and buried myself in some contraband.

"You look like you have problems," one of the bartenders said to me. I sat up and looked at him, he was tall and round, like a beach ball stuck on some legs. He had cherubic look to his face, like his six year old face decided to stop catching up with the rest of his round body.

"Um, kind of," I said. I wasn't used to strangers talking to me in bars, much less the bartenders.

"Well you wanna lay em out?" he said. He looked a little older than me but I couldn't tell because of the face. And I couldn't help but think why they would someone who still looked like a child making their drinks.

"You know this isn't a movie, I don't have some deep personal talk with the bartender and learn the solution to my life problems," I said. I was learning quick enough that a day ruined by Mary was a day where I turned into a bitch.

"Wasn't thinking so, but just if you wanted to I'm okay for talking," he said, and turned back to some other customers. It had always been too dark in here for me, and too loud. Couples were flirting and couples were fighting, and all around me there was the sound, the clanking of drinks, the laughter, the terrible cover band hovering on a two foot stage at the other side of bar. It didn't collide well. It didn't make static.

"Here you go," chubby said and plopped a shot glass in front of me. It was already filled, to the brim, sloshing over just a little bit. It was a glowing green, eerie in a way. It reminded me vaguely of the slime on Nickelodeon shows when I was a kid.

"What's this?" I asked looking up at him, his face held a wide toothed grin that managed to make him even younger looking.

"One of our patrons was nice enough to buy you a shot."

I let out a sigh. "You know, I'm probably going to come off as bitchy for this but I really don't care. I had this really weird day and I really just don't wanna think about anything for the next two weeks, I just wanna drown in the noise of the bar or go home of something but what I definitely don't want to do is take a shot from a stranger in a bar. You see, I'm really not a fan of being kidnapped and raped."

"I can promise you if you take that shot, you won't get raped or anything," he said and for a second in those rosy, glowing cheeks I believed.

"You know I'm not twenty one, right?" I said and held up my hand with that lacked the wristband that anyone over twenty one was blessed with. He shrugged his shoulders and turned to another customer. I looked at the shot again, because it really seemed to be glowing, like emitting it own source of life from inside.

"It's not absinthe, is it? That's supposed to be green?" I asked and regretted how small my voice sounded for a moment. Because I shouldn't care what was in it, because someone had bought me a shot at the bar, the guy providing the alcohol didn't care that I was underage, and I was grumpy.

I lifted it up with shaky hands, titled back my head and felt it burn down my throat and as it spit fire into my stomach I heard him say "It's called a Nevershot because once you take it you never wanna come back again."

And...done.

So, apologies first for all the info dumping in this chapter. I just needed to establish quite a few characters, and I know it's a bit to take in but needed to be done and I didn't wanna break into two chapters because I really just like cliff hanger endings.

Anyways, leave me a review, let me know what you think. Newest chapter will be out Wednesday.