Never (Never, #1)(10)

Care-filled, you might even say.

I tilt my head left, just to double-check that it’s not a trick and the reflection is mine, and it follows me. It does.

I take a step closer. So does it.

There’s a plum-round shoulder bag draped right around the neck of my reflection, so slowly, watching myself in the mirror, I reach for it, then peel it off of me. And though I can’t see it in my hands, I can feel it in my hands and I can feel the difference in me when I drop it to the floor, and when I do, I become quietly quite sure that that bag in particular has something to do with my mother.

Whatever it was, to no longer be carrying it feels incredible.

So I do it again with another.

And then another.

And then it’s like the penny drops and I shed it all. All of it. All my baggage.

They fall off me like scales, and I feel like I could float, and maybe for the smallest second, I do.

I walk back out, but it feels more like gliding now, a bit like ice-skating, and I glide—smack!—right into John, to whom I give an apologetic look.

“I didn’t know where to put them. I’m sorry.”

He swats his hand. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.” I reach for his arm, smiling at him.

“I’ll be seeing ya.” He gives me a look, and I don’t know what he means by that, but do you ever sometimes get a feeling that someone knows the future? And you maybe?

“You look lighter.” Peter Pan smiles at me as I float over.

“Did I look heavy before?” I frown, glancing down at myself.

“Very.” He nods and gives me a look, and I feel annoyed at the rudeness of him.

Peter kicks up some cloud and stands at the edge, looking down, and it’s all horrifically unfair because there are so many suns here that he’s illuminated from all angles, and it makes him look like he’s encased in a halo.

His shoulders are dusted with freckles, and I wonder under what circumstance he might be still enough for me to count them one day. Asleep, probably. If I were to give him a cup of chamomile, perhaps.*

“What are you looking at?” Peter frowns, glancing at his shoulder, then up at me.

“What?” I blink, clearing my throat. “Nothing.”

Peter gives me a distrusting look and then gasps happily. He pulls out a monocular from his back pocket, flashing it at me.

“Stole this from Captain Hook.” He grins as he stretches it open and peers through. “The mermaids are lying out on Skull Rock! I need to show them that I’m big now.” He looks over at me, smug. “And a dish.”

I falter, and before I can even say anything in response, he winds up for a running start.

“Follow me!” he tells me, and then he bounds forwards.

“Wait!” I call after him, running to the edge. “Where are you—”

And then he nosedives off the clouds. “Jump, Wendy! Just make sure you don’t—”

And that’s it.

He’s gone.

I can’t hear him after that.

Now, listen. I don’t know why I do it. It’s a crazy thing to do, and in retrospect, I too would find this plan to be as shabby and ill-formed as I’m sure you will, hearing it the first time, but with very little thought towards my chances of survival and with minimal consideration for my own personal well-being, I fling myself from the cloud just as Peter had done.

And so it begins. My rapid descent, my tumbling after him.

Clouds are whipping past my head, I’m gaining speed, and the planet below me that I know for certain* is not Earth is getting closer and closer, and it is then, right then, that I am met with a horrible revelation. I realise that I’m not flying—I’m falling.

Funny, don’t you think, how similar those two things can feel at the start?

Now so far from my mind are those fucking happy thoughts, and all that remains at present are my extremely bitter ones. I’m acutely aware that I am, in fact, hurtling towards imminent death, and I could have sworn to you that out of the corner of my eye, I saw Peter Pan use my newfound (but regrettably and inarguably present) affections for him as a parachute to land.

Maybe someday, much later in life, I’ll be able to eventually draw the comparison of how this feels right now—plummeting to my death and all—to how it will feel when I fall in love. Alas, I am not yet equipped to make such a comparison. Not really.

It somehow feels as though I’m falling faster and faster the closer I get to that magnificent blue that I’m plunging towards, and I brace myself as best I can to die.

There is no clarity. No peace. Just a pounding fear and a screaming that I think is coming from me, but it still somehow sounds strangely far away.

I will say this: it is a terrible crash when I hit the water. It feels like glass breaking beneath me, over on top of me, around me, and through me.

The pain of it all takes my breath away in such a manner that I don’t immediately realise that as fate would have it, now that I’ve landed on Neverland, I am—rather regrettably—drowning on Neverland.

The irony of this is and will remain lost on me for quite some time.

The water swallows all of me. I can’t tell you which way is up anymore; there seems to be light coming in from all directions.

It’s so beautiful, the water. All the bluest blues kissing the aquas, and there’s a lot to be said about drowning, I suppose.