"What're you gonna do? No one will ever treat you like I do. Don't throw it away, Vi." I was a queen and a slave for him. No one will ever treat me like that again because I won't allow it.
"My name is Wendy, Peter. I'm not your creature anymore." I stand up and grab the front of his shirt and put the blade of my knife to his throat. His bright green eyes watch me. He doesn't think I can do it.
But this time I can.
I'm standing in a convenience store, about to pay for gas, feeling indulgent enough to let my brothers choose a candy bar to eat on the way home. This is where it starts. Right there as my hand reaches for a roll of Lifesavers.
If there's ever a beginning that can be definitively pointed at, where I can say, "That second, that's the moment where my life went from low-key normal to crazy-psycho abnormal," that was it. What happened before doesn't matter. My parents, my friends, my tendency towards passive-aggressive behavior, none of it matters because it's what came before. Nothing matters except that moment, timeless, forgotten, and what came after it.
The door opened and a beautiful dark-haired angel walked in with a charismatic fire-child. That single glance, and my entire future opened up in my head like a movie fast-forwarded to the end. I flatter myself to say that I saw any of the drugs or the blood or the cops or the knives. All I knew was that my life as it had been was over.
Peter Pan wanted me to come to Neverland.