Remember Me *Book 3 Of The Remember the Rules Series*

Rule #1: Stay Away From People

I sat down on the bed with a small, familiar notebook in my lap and a red quill pen in my hand, wondering exactly where I should start. Then I figured I may as well just go with whatever felt right and started to write.

How exactly do I explain Neverland? It's my kingdom, my home, my everything. It's the place where I never have to grow up, a place where I can do what I want and have fun. A place where I can be crazy and be happy because sadness doesn't exist here. 

We got it right, this time. Our boys don't call out in their sleep for mothers that never loved them. They don't betray us, and they never will. I play for them sometimes, when they're good, though I never play love songs for anyone but Peter anymore. I teach the little ones games and yeah, they're right. I definitely favor Noah over the others, because he's only six and he needs me. I don't want any of my boys to die this time, but when it happens-- and it does happen, of course; there are some boys who just aren't cut out for life on my island --it's more of an event than it used to be. We mourn them, even as we accept that they just weren't meant to be one of us. 

I tapped the pen on my lip thoughtfully before continuing. 

Every now and then I think about the lives I've left behind. My life as Uriel, the slave. My life as Rosalie, the fighter. My life as Lily, the undercover queen of Camelot. Sometimes I even look back on my life as a Lost Girl. 

There's this strange duality that exists when you live your life in a perpetual present; the past happened. It exists, in a sense. Without it, I wouldn't be who I am today, or who I will be forever. But even as my past defines me and makes up who I am, it doesn't matter any more to me than, well, anything else. Tomorrow and yesterday don't exist on Neverland, but they still affect me just as much as today. I still miss Rose and Uriel sometimes, but those days are few and far between. It's hard to miss anything when you live in a world of fun. 

And what could be more fun than spending eternity with the people you love? 

I smiled slightly and kept writing.

Felix never changed, and I don't think he ever will; he's the perfect Lost Boy in every way, the best lieutenant we could have asked for and the best brother I could ever hope for. Even if he does get a little overprotective sometimes because of what happened in Camelot, he believed in me when no one else did, not even Peter. It was nice to know that when he and Tommy finally got their act together, someone else was looking after my little brother. 

Not that he needs anyone but me and Peter, of course, but I always felt a little, tiny bit guilty when he felt like he was third-wheeling. 

The new boys are great, more like a real family than a bunch of kids trying to kill each other all the time. I loved the others, of course, but they betrayed us. Betrayed me. These boys wouldn't even dream of it, especially little Noah. I'm the big sister none of them ever really had, and Felix is the older brother. Peter is still something of an untouchable force never to be reckoned with in the boys' minds, but we're working on that. We play for the boys all the time, and occasionally, when there's a boy who really, truly needs us, we go out and play for him and bring him home with us. They never turn us down anymore. 

We still have bad days, all of us. There are days when I can't stand staying in the bedroom or the treehouse, days when I have to stay on the ground and not at the top of a cliff or in a tree. There are days when Peter can't make himself get out of bed and weeks when I demand that the sun be out until I finally fall asleep days later. There are days when Felix wakes up in the middle of the night screaming loudly enough to wake the dead, and days when Peter demands that both of us stick by his side so he can make sure we don't leave him. We all deal with the bad days together, the three of us, just as we always have and always will.