I'm waiting.
Anxiety rises and bubbles inside me as I stay sitting on my window seat, staring into the darkness of night. Will he even come? Everything is still, and quiet. Every so often, the moonlight catches a puddle in the cobbled streets and I see a glimmer but it proves not to be magic at all. At first, I thought it was magic; I thought it was a sign, but the moon keeps shining, the puddle keep glimmering, and nothing else follows.
It's getting late.
The excitement is still there, and I keep hoping that I was right earlier, that the argument this evening had a purpose, and the purpose was to show them up. No one believes me, but this time I am certain that he'll arrive. A drop of rain falls from the sky and hits a puddle below. Is this a sign? I look up but see only clouds. Even the stars have been covered by the thickness of it. Smoke rises up from chimneys and joins the cloud in the dull, grey sky. But there's something beyond them which shines through. A star. Two stars. One shines slightly brighter than the other. This is it. This is the sign. I knew it. It had to be tonight. But where is he?
My eyelids are getting heavy.
It feels like hours since I noticed the star and nothing has happened. Not another sign, not another star, not anything. I've waited and I've tried to prove to them that he's coming. It's always when they're my age. When they're young; when they're still children. I'm growing fast and he still hasn't arrived but I got this feeling today, before the argument, and I've never felt it before. It was like there was something inside me, sparkling, fizzing, bubbling, glowing. It felt like magic. Mother said she never felt that, and neither did Gran, but that doesn't mean it's the same for everyone. My limbs are starting to droop and become weary. It feels as though time is going so slowly, and the clock is taking ages to tick and mark each second as it passes. I don't want to fall asleep tonight. I don't want it to happen. I don't want to be her…
The girl that Peter Pan forgot.