Peter Pan

A Young Boy No More

By Raekitty13

Disclaimer: I got nothing. Except lotsa stuff to do && no time, whatsoever.

Author's Notes: thank yous are awarded to - Ks21178 && HollyRebeccaBarnard

I couldn't just walk away from your guys' reviews! The last chapter wasn't the end && this chapter is a testament to that. However, I can't promise when the next one will be posted. A new semester is about to start && I have other commitments as far as writing goes as well. Thanks again for being ever faithful && patient. You're all absolutely freaking AHMAZING if you're currently reading this, and I mean it with all of my heart.

THANK YOU!

Chapter Eighteen- A Reason to Live

Everything went black. That's all I remembered.

Eternal darkness.

It never lifted. Never went away. But in the background I could hear the sounds of my life playing out before me. It was like I was refusing to open my eyes and see. Maybe I was blind. Whatever the reason, I didn't care.

I was praying I was dying.

This is what happened right before death, right? You see all of your memories, starting from your first remembered childhood memory followed by another and another until finally you remember your last moment.

The one where you die.

I heard my mum and my dad first. Together. Just the two of them, and annoying Christmas music playing faintly in the background. They were saying my name, calling my attention away from the presents under the tree I couldn't see, toward the camcorder my dad was wielding. It must've been the first Christmas I remembered. The one where I got my first Barbie doll. The one I flushed down the toilet not even three weeks later when I learned that she couldn't bend her arms or legs.

Then I heard my mother whispering her goodbye to me. I could feel her counting my fingers with me. I felt the dread of never seeing her again, the twinge of foreshadowing, and the nausea of her death swelling into the memory. I can't tell where one starts and the other ends.

It just hurts.

All I can feel is pain. All I can hear is silence. There are a couple of attempts at conversation in the dark, the voice of my father, a psychiatrist, teachers, friends… all silence in comparison to the roaring void where my mother's voice should have been.

And then a light enters my life, and uplifting sound. It's Tonya's voice and memories of our childhood fill my vision and my ears, but the world isn't Technicolor. It's black and white. But I can see.

And I can feel.

I can feel her warmth. I can feel her affection. I finally have a best friend who is all mine. She wouldn't leave me for the world.

We're playing in the mud one moment, Ken dolls covered from head to toe, making mud pies the next at an older age, hiding the goop beneath actual frosting, feeding it to my father's first potential second wife. There were moments on the school playground. The stories her mother would tell us about Peter Pan, the Boy Who Never Grew Up.

There were even the most recent memories of Little Miss Daisy. How I worked by myself and with Tonya to get rid of her. There was the vomit scene, spaghetti-o's on her dress and frilly shoes, salmon flavor fresh on my tongue. The minty fresh scent of her toilet seat reached my noise last, leaving a refreshing taste in my mouth instead of the vile vomit. But my sight was receding. She had grounded me from seeing Tonya. She'd told Tonya that I hated her.

She'd taken away my only source of light.

And then my vision came back to me in the dark of night. When a small frame alighted on my window, snuggled beneath my bed sheets with me that brisk fall night. It flickered in and out. Like a flame on the breeze.

And then, with his brilliant green eyes, he rescued me. In the heat of the moment, right when I had breached my breaking point. Right after I had smashed my father's arm. Right after I had almost killed Daisy. He had saved me.

He had brought the color to my life.

I'd never noticed it before that moment. But in retrospect, the metamorphosis is clear, if not highlighted in florescent yellow.

He was the light of my life.

He was the color.

He was my everything.

Try as I might, I couldn't open my eyes. The darkness wouldn't fade.

He was my everything. And now he was gone. Just like my mother, but worse.

Now I understood. Now it really was my fault. I could have saved him. I should have saved him.

I didn't want to open my eyes.

I wanted to die.

I wanted to be with him again.

I should have stayed. I should have put my foot down. I should have reached out to him. I could have brought him with me. With us.

But where was I?

Who was left with me?

I didn't know. Didn't want to know.

And then I had to. What if he was here? What if I wasn't about to die? What if he wasn't about to die? What if we were together some place safe?

What if it had all been a simple dream—a trick of my imagination?

What if I really was crazy?

The first real sensation I felt outside of my flashbacks was wetness leaking down my face. I was crying. Alive, but crying. The pain wasn't so much physical as it was emotional. I had an aching throb going on behind my left eye and I still wasn't ready to open either. There was a dull pain in my already injured wrist and my ankle felt twisted out of place. But none of these physical woes was why I was crying.

There was a gaping hole in my heart. One that started off as a snag when my mother left, was torn open when she died, stitched back together with Tonya's friendship, pulled apart by Daisy, flash-frozen by the potential of being with Peter forever and brutally crushed by my own stupidity. My heart was shattered because I couldn't stay faithful to the boy I had a crush on. The man I had one day hoped to love, to marry, have kids with.

I killed him. Killed that man he was to become.

If by some freak accident he had managed to live, there was no way in hell he'd come to my world now. He was lost to me forever.

I was crazy. And I had managed to rub off on him too. Crazy is as crazy does.

Apparently that saying is similar to monkey see, monkey do.

Had I affected Tonya too?

The next real sensation I felt was something warm and soft pressing against my hands. No, make that two somethings warm and soft.

Their purrs reached my ears in chime-like vibrations. They almost seemed to be uttering soothing words. Words that weren't spoken in English, but a language of music. Words I recognized, but couldn't translate.

Like words spoken by fairies.

Fairies?

My eyes fluttered open then, a slight amount of light trickled in through my open window. My phone was where I left it on the floor, bloodied and mangled, kinda like I remembered my father's arm, kinda like the way I had wished Daisy's face to look, kinda like the way my heart felt, utterly broken and useless.

It looked like I had never left. Like I had never been rescued. Like Peter had never been betrayed.

Perhaps I was dreaming. Maybe I really was crazy.

Then, suddenly, there, at either elbow was a small kitten, barely bigger than the palm of my hands. The one on the left was a black kitten whose fur was so dark it appeared to have a purple tint to it.

Prince Okami he seemed to radiate, or perhaps purr.

The one on my right was such a delicate white that she seemed to sparkle.

Tinkerbell.

I hadn't been dreaming. I had found the solution to all of my problems.

And then destroyed it.

I must really be a glutton for punishment, I told myself silently and the sound of a roaring engine reached my ears.

My dad was back, his feet pounding up the stairs. "Jessica! Jessica!"

I couldn't respond. My vocal cords wouldn't obey, even if I had something worth saying.

"Jessica, sweetie, I'm sorry. Daddy's back. Daddy's home and he's not angry with you sweet heart," I didn't remember slamming my door, but maybe he had done that when he left. He didn't enter my room, he just stood outside my door repeating that he loved me and that he was home now, that he never should have left. "Jessica…"

Despite my lack of answer, he never entered the room. He stood outside my door, repeatedly calling my name, waiting for an answer.

Maybe he wasn't angry, but he was afraid. But afraid of what? That I was still in my blood lust, Out to Kill The World phase? Or that I was dead, had taken my life in a last passionate attempt to win his attention, his affections? Maybe he was hoping that I would just be gone, like I should have been.

"Jessica, there's someone out here to talk to you. Jessica," he seemed to be steeling himself for something. It took him forever to get to this point and I wasn't about to ruin it.

It was then that I vowed myself into silence.

"Jessica, I'm opening the door now."

It was also then that I decided that if Daisy entered the room I would find a way to commit suicide. I figure I'm already going to Hell AND I've already killed the other man in my life, why not bring EVERYBODY down with me?

But she didn't enter the room.

It was my old psychiatrist. I could recall his voice before he even opened his mouth. It sounded just like it had in my flashback.

"Hello, Jessica. Your father tells me you've been a bad girl lately. Would you like to talk about it?" He smiled at me, not in a frightening manner, but in a friendly way.

Unfortunately for him I wasn't in a friendly mood. "According to my father's latest whore, it's because I don't have a mother figure," okay, so we all knew I wouldn't be able to keep silent, despite my pain. I couldn't hold it all to myself. I had to share it. And it wasn't going to be physical pain I shared. I saw where that got me… and I didn't particularly like it.

I lowered my voice and continued, "But between you and me, its just because she's a bitch. It was either kill or be killed, if you know what I mean. She tried to smother me with a pillow one night. Guess I was snoring too loud."

I was shooting for a sharp, resounding, "JESSICA LITEMAN! YOU MUSTN'T TELL LIES!"

Or maybe even a hideous squeal of annoyance and denial from a currently hidden Miss Daisy.

But instead all I got was a very surprised, "Did she really? When did this happen? Jessica, I need all of the details here," from my psychiatrist.

I knew by the tone of his interest that he wasn't buying what I said, but he was going to hear me out. He was going to give me the attention he thought I was deprived of.

Maybe that was my problem.

"I'm lying," I say, deciding to skip the role playing. "I just want her dead. I can't stand the sound of her voice. She's a controlling neat freak. Every time she tells me what I need I just want to jab a pencil in my eye. I'm a bad child. Can you put me on pills for my psychotic behavior or do I need to do something myself to ease the tension in the household?"

I mimed slitting my throat with my forefinger, stopping midway through. "Oh wait! I already did that by bashing my dad's arms to bits."

The psychiatrist watched me patiently. "Why do you think her voice annoys you so, Jessica? Why are you acting out so?"

"Because," I answer simply, looking him dead in the eyes lies long gone. "My life sucks. I want to die."

He didn't back down from my stare. "You're still acting out."

"Look, can't you just lock me away in my little white jump suit in the room with the white padded walls. I'm done here," I gestured toward my room, meaning my life. I really was done. I wanted out.

"I think this is the best place for you," he told me. "Your father has invited me to move in with the three of you. It'll be like old times, Jessica."

"The three of us?" I demanded. "First of all, you've never lived in my house and second of all, there haven't been three of us living under one roof since my mother died, or have you forgotten that?"

"Miss Daisy is going to move in to talk care of your father. I'm moving in to take care of you," he explained softly.

"Oh hell no!"

"If I don't move in," he started, misinterpreting my rejection. "You'll have to move out."

"In that case, let's pack my bags 'cuz I'm sure as hell not staying in the same damned house as that wench."

"Jessica, that's not proper language."

"I'll give you proper fucking language," I snarled. "I'm not living in the same god damned house as that fucking bitch. WRITE that in your god damned little white shitty-assed notebook, Freedmen."

"That's more like the girl I know," He said with a sad smile. "So much anger, but such vivid life. I see you've got yourself some new friends here. What are their names?"

He was motioning toward my cats, and I pulled them into my lap protectively. "If I kill them will you get me out of this fucking house?"

"Not a chance," He said darkly. "I'll make you spend every waking moment of your life with Miss Daisy."

"Thank you god for giving me the ability to love cats," I sing eagerly. "Will you now grant me a noose and a foot stool?"

"Jessica," Freedmen's dark brown eyes look hurt and worried, but his voice conveys nothing, just like I remember it, smooth as silk. I never really noticed how young he looks. "Enough with the suicide jokes. You're beginning to worry your father. The last thing he needs is a heart attack."

"Please tell me that if he dies I'll go into foster care."

"Miss Daisy is your legal guardian."

"Mother fucking asshole!" I scream, jumping to my feet. "You'd better be lying!"

"I am not. Now sit down, Jessica," he commanded calmly. "The hospital has judged your father unfit, and has named Miss Daisy your guardian should we fail in this house arrangement. I suggest you at least pretend to like this scenario if you don't wish to make your life a living hell."

"Don't you listen? Jesus Christ, it's your fucking job, moron! MY LIFE IS HELL. They're one in the SAME. Unclog your ears, open your EYES. I've got nothing left to live for."

"Don't you though?"

I couldn't tell if Dr. Freedmen had said it, or one of the purring cats rubbing urgently at my ankles.

Again, I noted that there were two of them. Not one. Not just MY fairy cat.

But two.

Two.

One was mine.

The other, the other was TINKERBELL.

Peter's fairy.

Peter's fairy was still alive.