Never (Never, #1) (75)

I laugh at the silliness of myself because a kiss is a kiss, do you know what I mean? And quietly, I know in myself, that were the other to have tried to kiss me any moment up until now, I’d have let him. But I don’t want to let him anymore, even though I maybe do.

Which leads me to by far the prettiest bag I’m holding. It’s all sterling silver, solid. More of a clutch than a bag, I suppose. The front is covered in repoussé flowers, and the back of the case has something engraved on it that I dare not read. It all hangs on a silver chain link I’m gripping too tightly, and I know without opening it that it’s his hands on me, how he tugged his jacket tight around me. I would bask in this moment all the time, lie under it like it’s a sun I’m bathing in, but I know now that having feelings for a pirate isn’t a good idea. He isn’t who I thought he was, and I’m not what he wants, so I drop it. I hate how it feels on the way down—the letting go feels more like a ripping—but once it hits the ground, the great weight lifts from me, the one where I was worried that I was starting to love him.

What a silly thought! I can be so stupid sometimes. Peter’s right.

There’s just one bag left in my hand now. It’s the one I’m holding on to tightest. Small, leather. A pouch. The kind that looks unassuming but might have jewels in it or gold.

I peek inside it, not because I don’t know what’s inside but because I do.

The snow on our noses when we almost kissed and the breeze that felt like more than a breeze. I close my eyes, let myself remember it one last time before I pack it away forever—breathe it in, smell the crispness of the air, remember how he smells like leather and rum and tobacco and promises and fa—

o. I shake my head at myself. It doesn’t smell like that. It can’t. It couldn’t. He couldn’t. Even though a small voice inside me somewhere (who sounds older and wiser than I) tells me that I shouldn’t, I use my free hand to pry the pouch from my other one. It clatters and falls heavily, and I instantly want to pick it back up, but I fight the urge and kick it away instead.

And then, right as I’m about to leave, I spot it. Under a pile of the shoulder bags. A backpack. Ugly, cheap, scratchy material. It must have fallen off by itself. I didn’t want to remember it, but in light of it all, I feel I perhaps should—remember him how he deserves to be remembered…how he wants me to remember him. So I pick it up and put it back on. Make myself remember Hook in that bar, with those girls, his hands as eager as his mouth to tell me stay away from him, nothing about his words softened now by any of the lovelier things I’d clung to before. I stare at myself in the mirror. From the side, the leather pouch calls to me, and I ignore it, then I clip the backpack around my chest and walk away.

I squint up in the light of about eight suns when I walk out.

Peter frowns at me. “Took long enough.”

I flash him a light smile. “Just being spectacularly thorough.”

Peter bats those dangerously green eyes at me. “You are spectacular, girl. Come.” He takes my hand. “There’s a place I want to show you.”

“Where is it?”

“Somewhere.” He shrugs.

“What is it?”

He leans in close to me and says with a smile, “It’s where all the big things come from.”

Then he grabs me by the waist and tosses me into the air, grinning as he zooms after me, takes my hand, and pulls me higher, higher into the sky.

I stare over at him with a fresh kind of fondness. It’s easier now. Now that the bags I was holding are hidden away and also now that we’re up in the sky. Peter Pan is something else in the sky. He ripples his finger through the air like water, dives through clouds like a dolphin, all the while being lit up from behind like a Greek god of sorts.

He beams at me. “Never taken anyone else here before.”

“Never!” I’m delighted. “Not even Calla?”

He pauses to think.

“Maybe her,” he says, then shrugs and keeps flying. “But I made her close her eyes.” I purse my lips, fractionally less thrilled till he zips over to me, nose to nose. “But you get to keep your eyes open.”

I roll them. “How lucky.”

He smooshes his nose into mine and gives me a smile, and I get butterflies so big they could fly me into a whole different sky, but then Peter grabs my hand and starts bringing me down.

“Almost there.” He looks back at me. “You’re going to love it, Wendy.”

That stings for a second, but then I spot something from afar that I cannot possibly be seeing.

I stop dead in the tracks of the sky.

I squint. “Is that—”

Peter hovers in front of me, hands on his hips, proud and tall like he built this place himself.

“A dinosaur,” he announces, then he grabs my hand, flying us down towards it.

A brontosaurus, to be exact. Blue. On the greenest grass I’ve ever seen, that’s covered in—

I look at Peter.

“Are those mushrooms?”

He holds both my hands as our feet touch the ground.

“Giant ones.” He nods.

I look around us. Flowers as tall as trees. Trees as tall as skyscrapers. Eagles overhead the size of a light aircraft.

“Is everything giant here?” I ask him as a lady beetle the size of a cat crawls by us.