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The clock struck two in the hall. I rolled over and sighed- why did these early hours seem so everlasting? Tonight was the eve of something important and the future somehow made me dwell on the past.
Eight years had gone by since I said goodbye to Peter. Gone had the nights I listlessly paced up and down the room by the window, pausing occasionally to scan the velvet blackness of the sky for a sign- any sign. In the early days I would cry myself to sleep curled up by the window, then awake in my bed. I eventually realised Mother must have crept in noiselessly in the way only Mother's possess, and tucked me back into bed. There was never any acknowledgement of this between us, just an empathy and tenderness in her eyes. Eventually though I realised it was futile to wait by the window and as I looked hopelessly up into the stars my eyes would burn with the tears that refused to come. I realised I had to be strong. I realised I did have to grow up and accept all that this meant. I finally realised however much I loved Peter he wasn't coming back to me.
Now I was nineteen and the only time I ever thought about Peter was in my dreams, there I couldn't shut him out. However I had moved on with my life. After all, however unromantic it may appear, it is the plain truth that people rarely die of a broken heart. I had found someone else I could be happy with- James. He adored me and I did him, though it was very different from the heart-racing, thrilling feelings I had for Peter. Yet, it was very real. So real that James had arranged to speak to Father the following morning and ask for his permission to marry me. I could see myself very comfortable and content with James, but my thoughts of Peter would still fill my head. Was I ready to give up the view of love I had with Peter for the safety of James? I sighed again and turned over, gradually falling asleep.
I dreamt I heard a quiet noise at the window and the cool night air was coming in. I dreamt there was someone else present in the room. In my half-awake, half-asleep state I heard my name being murmured. I stirred in my sleep but there was no other sound. It was only when I felt a light touch on my face that I realised this was not a dream. I gasped and sat bolt upright in bed, clinging to my covers. I opened my mouth to scream at the shape of what appeared to be a young man, but was arrested with the word "Wendy!" in a voice that seemed so familiar and yet so strange.
"Wh-who are you? What are you doing in my room?" I demanded.
"Wendy, it is I! Peter!" said the shape, turning up the lamp in my room. The dim light flickered and wavered. By it I saw a tall blonde man, garbed in the leaves of Neverland.
"Peter!" I cried, leaping out of bed and into his arms. I clung to him and felt as he seemed to cling to me. I inhaled the smell that transported me back to being a child of ten, carefree and wild. I gently pushed him away to see him better. His sunkissed hair was slightly long and curling, his tanned and lean body towered above me, practically 6 feet I would judge. His chest was broad, arms and legs strong. Yet despite this he didn't have the commanding posture you would expect from such an appearance. He fidgeted as I inspected him, as if he wanted me not to stare so keenly at him. He looked as if he didn't know the body he was in, he didn't know what to do with himself.
"I've grown up Wendy" he told me, at last breaking the silence. He took my small hand in his strong one.
"How?" I asked, still conscious that there was something slightly amiss as I looked up at him.
"I wanted to! You can do anything you want in Neverland, you know" he grinned.
"But…why? Why did you want to grow up?" I waited impatiently for his answer, thinking that I so wanted him to say it was all because of me.
"You, Wendy. I knew you would be happy if I grew up, and would come back to Neverland with me and we could be just as we were," he told me, in a tone that said there could be no other reason.
My heart sank. This was not the answer I wanted to hear. My eyes were continuing their inspection all this time; I still couldn't see what was making me feel so uneasy.
"No other reason?" I asked hopefully. "Weren't…feelings anything to do with your decision?"
"Feelings?" he paused, uncertain of what to say. Then a look of realisation crossed his face. "Oh, yes. I missed you Wendy, and the fun we used to have. Nobody else was as fun to have adventures with as you, or is now."
He smiled as he paid me what he thought to be a great compliment.
"Do you still have adventures now, Peter?" I asked him, starting to feel panicked for some reason.
"Of course, who will fight the pirates if I don't?" he answered cheerfully, looking at me with glee in his eyes at the thought of his adventures.
That was it. I gave a sharp in-take of breath as I realised what it was I couldn't put my finger on. His eyes. I took a step back from him, afraid. His eyes. Still the same unusual green eyes that I had never known a likeness to since. But…they were still the same. Out of the body of a man, a boys' innocent eyes were looking at me. I covered my mouth as I realised.
"Oh Peter! You are not grown up, are you?" I whispered sadly.
The innocent eyes looked puzzled.
"Look at me! Can't you see I have?"
"What do you think is growing up, Peter?" I asked, hoping that his answer would prove me wrong.
"Why, I've got taller and my voice has got deeper and I'm much stronger…"he trailed off, his childish gaze confused. "What more is there?"
I sighed, a tear making its way down my cheek.
"Growing up is so much more than that. I can't explain it, you would know if you really had grown up in all ways there are to."
Peter let out a sob and threw himself down at my feet.
"Wendy don't speak like that. You must come away with me, come away to Neverland and we will play and have fun and you won't think that way anymore. Please, please come with me" he begged, his voice muffled in the folds of my nightgown.
I crouched down and lifted his face up, wiping his tears.
"I wish that I could, but I'm not a child anymore. Even though I will never be as happy as I was with you in Neverland, it just isn't enough anymore Peter." I looked into his green eyes swimming with tears. My heart was breaking in two that I brought such pain to him. I tried to steady my voice.
"You go back to Neverland Peter and stop wanting to grow up, for it brings no happiness that can compare with the freedom of your childhood."
I kissed his forehead with trembling lips and turned to walk out the door.
"I love you Peter," I said in a broken voice, and with that I rushed out of the room.
When I came back ten minutes later my window was open and the room was empty, as if he hadn't been there at all. The only sign that he had been were the leaves on the floor by the window. I lovingly picked them up and stowed them away in a box, one of the only relics I had of him. In a way that's what I did with my memories of Peter, stowed them away in a box in my mind, sometimes bringing them out to remember and think over, but then putting them back because that part of my life was over.
You may wonder at what I had done. "Don't you love him?" I hear you shouting. "What are you thinking?" I wish it was easy to explain…I will only try and reply to your two questions. Yes, I did love him very much, but it is a love that the girl Wendy felt for the boy Peter. The girl has put her childhood away and cannot return to it whereas the boy has changed on the outside, but is still a child on the inside. As to what I was thinking- I came to realise that Peter Pan will never grow up, he is such a child that he doesn't realise what growing up is. Even though I felt as I did when Peter left when I was a child, this time I could smile through my tears at the thought that somewhere there was a boy who would be forever happy in his childhood, though perhaps sad for a short time. And when I told stories to mine and James' children, they were always about Peter Pan and his adventures, and I would smile to myself as I imagined him in Neverland, with the pirates, mermaids and redskins, and a look of pure joy on his face as he revelled in his eternal childhood.