x

She's too clean to fit in the forest. She doesn't look right, doesn't suit it. Too clean and pretty and too much like what I'd once forgotten.

She's stupid, too. No smart person would wear a skirt in a forest. You can't climb trees with skirts. You can't run as fast as your legs can carry you with skirts. Skirts get you pinned to trees by arrows and make you yell at boys who just want to practice even though it was your fault for wearing a stupid skirt in the first place.

She's too clean and too stupid for the forest. For my forest.


x

She's just like the others. Rude. Mean. Too smart for her own good. She thinks she's better than me. She thinks that because she's civilised and I'm not that it makes her the better person.

But it doesn't. It just...



x

Why am I so curious? Is curious the right word? Intrigued. Interested. I don't remember how to write them but I can think them and that's what I am. She's so irritating and posh and prim and pretty and smart and inside she's broken. Something's rattling in her and I can hear it.

I want to know why.



x

When I'm around her I can't stop myself. She presses all my buttons and grinds all my nerves and all I want to do is yank her hair or push her in the mud. She's so clean, I want to see what she'd look like if she had dirt on her. But even when I manage it she's still clean, somehow.

She yells at me and acts like I tried to hurt her. I would never. I only wanted to make her fit. Make her fit into my forest.



x

She'll never fit.

She'll never fit.

She's never going to fit with me.



x

I've forgotten how to read. How to write. She's smart, so she says she'll teach me. Some part of me doesn't care about the reading, or the writing - it just cares that she cares. It cares that she leaves her window open for me, and though I don't fit in her world either, the window is there for both of us.



x

The suit is too tight. It's too stifling and it makes me feel unsure. I don't like being unsure. I can't climb trees in a suit, and my skin has been scrubbed so hard that it's red in places and I feel...

I feel vulnerable.

It's her fault. Even with my dirt and clothes she makes me feel vulnerable. I can't find my shield when I'm around her.



x

The pictures are my favourite. She knows they are, and that's her gift to me. Pictures.

There's only one other thing she could have given me that would best this, and I plan on getting there before she can. One day, there will be pictures drawn of the two of us.



x

For one day I take her to my world. She finds beauty in things that are clean but she needs to find beauty in everything. She teaches me words, and I teach her everything in between. This is only part of my gift to her.

The other is a kiss.

She calls it a thimble, but I tell her she's looking at it the wrong way.

It's a kiss, but it fits perfectly on her thumb.



x

A long time ago I tried to find someone.
I think, in the process, I ended up losing a part of myself.
She knows. The piece that rattles is the bit she lost of herself, too.

I found it, and she found mine.



x

I still don't understand her. I don't think she understands me, either. We're different in so many ways, but then there are times when I - and she - can feel what brings us together. It's something that can never be explained. I'm never going to fit with her, and she'll never fit with me - not the way I want.

But finally, I'm okay with that. Finally I've realised who we are.

Because I'm Peter Pan.

And she's my Wendy.