Wendy Darlin'

Chapter Five - Heart in two

THE EVENING BEFORE

Where do I go now?

I'm not ready to go back to Neverland, and breaking through the Window was such a shock I wasn't prepared to see Wendy in my arms.

And looking so beautiful and perfect.

No! She's not coming back for you, Peter, I'm not going to let her do that!

I fly past her shut window. That's what it's going to be from now on, me always watching her carrying on with her life, me always wishing things could be different.

It opens.

My heart lifts.

Don't be stupid, she's still at the ball.

"Boy! Over here!" A woman hiss' from the open window.

I fly over and perch on the ledge. It doesn't matter if she's a nursery nurse or a murderer, I have nothing to live for now.

"Are you who I think you are, boyo?" She whispers.

"Who do you think I am?" I ask, trying to make sure I don't shed any tears.

"Peter Pan."

"Pan?" I perk up. "Pan?" The word knocks around my brain, trying to loosen a locked up memory.

"Do you know Matilda? Who lives here?"

"Wendy? Yes, I know her, why?"

"Oh, Peter." She whispers into the night. "She really does worry about you."

"Doesn't matter..." I murmur, picking at a scab on my elbow. "She's got Adam to look out for her."

"Doesn't mean she has stopped loving you, Peter." The woman says.

"You don't know anything. You don't even have any connections with me."

"I think I do, Peter." She leans in closer to me. "I was the one next to your mother on her death bed, boyo."

I'm on my feet, balancing on the ledge. "You shut up about my mother!"

"Peter I'd like to tell you what I do know!" She yells over me. "Come in and I will!"

What have I got to lose?

Nothing. Wendy isn't mine.

I climb through the window.

"Okay." She says, seating herself on Wendy's bed. I stand by the window incase I can't trust her. She tells me about her being native from Neverland, how my mother left me in the gardens.

"She told me when she was dying. I was a maid in her mothers house in Scotland. I came down to London almost straight as I found out."

"Why?" Is all I can say. It seems all too odd, almost unbelievable.

"Because I felt I needed to be in London, closer to the gardens, because your mother couldn't be, and your father-"

"What about my father?!" I demand. I've never really thought about having a father before.

"He was busy with his-"

"Tell me!"

"His pregnant wife, Peter!"

It's like a bomb has exploded in my chest.

My throat suddenly turns dry. "He-he replace me and my mother?" I say, rubbing the back of my neck. I never even knew I had a father. Everyone has a mother, but I didn't really think about fathers. "He replace my mother and I for a random whore and a whinny little kid!"

"Now, Peter I'm sure it wasn't like that!" But I ignore her and take off into the air, back to Neverland where I belong because this world here is messed up and crappy and I hate it.

I see Wendy one last time.

Dancing under the sky in the arms of another man.

She's not mine anymore.

And my heart rips in two.