I should be studying for my economics final, but instead, I’m getting ready to meet Peter. Then again, it’s not like any of my classmates are studying right now either. It’s a Saturday night, and most of them are dancing the night away at our Junior Prom. I could’ve gone, too—I was asked by three different boys in my class—but I can’t go with Peter, so I never even considered it.

Running a brush through my long hair, I check my appearance one last time. He told me to wear something nice tonight, but not too nice. When I asked him what that meant, he furrowed his brow and twisted his lips as he thought about it, then finally answered, “A dress. No, a skirt and casual top. But something you won’t mind if it gets dirty. Not that it’ll get dirty, dirty. Just maybe messy. But not—”

I’d laughed and held up my hands in surrender. “Never mind, I’ll come up with something.”

In trying to decode that less-than-specific explanation, I settled on a flouncy, pale pink netted skirt that hits at mid-thigh with my favorite Paramore white baby-tee with the band’s name splashed across the front in hot pink. Dressy-casual, achieved.

Glancing at the clock, I realize I’m going to be late if I don’t leave right now. I pick up the small, gold acorn nut that sits in a special dish on my vanity. It’s my ritual to give the “kiss” a kiss every time I sneak out to see my secret boyfriend. And like Pavlov’s dogs, that simple, silly ritual elicits a visceral reaction in my body. The butterflies take flight in my belly, and I get all tingly from head to toes, knowing I’m about to be in Peter’s arms.

It sucks being seventeen and not getting to talk about my boyfriend like other girls do, but I can’t take the chance of anyone piecing together who I’m seeing and it getting back to my parents. I’d come home from school to find my balcony sealed off with freshly painted drywall.

But it only feels like I’m missing out on the typical girlfriend stuff when I’m not with him. As soon as I see him, hear him, touch him, the rest of the world fades away, and nothing else matters. So, I do my best to hold on to those memories between our visits, and when I really miss him—which is often—it helps to hold his “kiss” and feel its metal begin to warm against my palm.

“Do you really think kissing that thing brings you good luck?”

I put it away and cross my room as I address my brother who’s leaning against the frame of our shared bathroom. “It’s been five years, John, and I haven’t gotten caught yet. Neither have you, for that matter, so you’re welcome.”

A couple of years ago, John caught me climbing back onto my balcony after one of my nights with the Lost Boys. Once I explained who I was meeting and why, he decided the price of his silence was tagging along for the occasional adventure. He’d been thirteen, which was right around when I started sneaking out on my own, so I couldn’t exactly argue that he was too young. Michael, on the other hand, was only ten at the time. We only took him with us every once in a great while, and we never stayed out long.

“I’m not one for superstitions,” John says. “I like cold, hard facts. If there’s any luck involved it’s that we’re lucky to have very trusting, possibly even oblivious, parents who never check on us after we come upstairs.”

“I don’t care, as long as it stays that way.” Sitting on my bed, I start to pull on my low-top, white Chucks.

“Heard any news about Hook?”

I stop tying my shoe to look up at him. He’s studying the calluses on one of his palms like they’re the most fascinating things he’s ever seen. Like he doesn’t care about what my answer is, when I know he does. Much like Starkey and Smee, John had been drawn to Hook since the first time he saw him. Not that James paid much attention to the star-struck thirteen-year-old boy hanging off every word he said, but John never seemed to notice.

“No, no one has,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s been a year, John. He’s always been a loner. I’m sure he found a nice place to settle down and make a good life for himself.”

He shrugs noncommittally. “Yeah, okay, just wondering. Tell Peter I said ‘hey’.”

“I will.” I finish tying my shoes and head out.

My conversation with John set me behind schedule, so as soon as my Chucks touch the ground, I take off. On nights we spend outside of the school, we have a meeting spot at the city limits. It’s a good thing we’ve been running the mile in gym all semester, or I’d be doubled over, gasping for air before I even made it a few blocks.

Finally, I see him. My knight in shining armor atop his trusty steed. Or, more accurately, my boy in a white T-shirt atop his mildly rusty motorcycle. Instantly, I feel lighter, the stresses of every day teenage life melting away more and more the closer I get.

“I was beginning to worry you couldn’t come,” he says.

“Wouldn’t miss this for the world,” I say with a huge smile, even though I don’t know exactly what this is. The details don’t matter, as long as we’re together.

He turns his body enough to pull me in for a searing hello kiss, one arm wrapping around my waist and his other hand sinking into the hair at my nape. I love the way he kisses me. A kiss from Peter—a real one, not an acorn nut or pretend thimble—is no mere thing. He doesn’t kiss me with only his mouth but his whole body. His arms hold, hands clench, chest presses, and legs interlock. It’s not a kiss, it’s a claiming, as though proving to the world, or maybe just himself, that I am truly and happily his.

He kissed me for the first time when we were thirteen, and about a year after that, our kisses morphed into those of the French variety. Over the last three years, we’ve transitioned to really hot make-out sessions, heavy petting, and some intense dry humping on the rare occasion we’re alone for long enough to get that intense.

Lately, though, it feels like we’re teetering on the line of the next important step. I’m talking the step. We’ve been together for five years already, and I know we’ll be together for at least fifty-five more. I’m excited to share something so special with him and also crazy nervous for about one million valid reasons. But even with all that, it also feels like the time is right. As long as he makes the first move, because I’m too chicken.

Reluctantly, we pull apart, and he starts the motorcycle’s engine. “Ready for our prom date?”

A big smile splits my face. “Is that what this is, Peter? An evening at the prom?”

“It will be if you ever climb onto the back of my bike.”

Laughing with giddy excitement for whatever he has planned, I hop onto the seat, tuck my skirt under my legs to hold it down, and band my arms around his waist as we take off. The May night is still warm on my skin, even with the wind rushing around us and tunneling through my hair. I love being on the back of Peter’s bike with him. It’s euphoric. Like we’re flying among the stars, up where the realities of our world can’t touch us, and we can be anything we want. We’re free.

Ten minutes later, I can smell the ocean and taste the salt in the air, and a few minutes after that, we’re pulling onto the sands of an abandoned beach. Or maybe not so abandoned.

“Peter, go further down, so we don’t interrupt them,” I say as we approach what looks to be a midnight picnic for someone.

“We can hardly interrupt ourselves, Wen.”

He stops the bike next to the blanket and helps me off as I look at the simple spread. A box of doughnuts, a six-pack of Coke, and my old boombox are set up in one corner next to the old backpack I gave him to use for when he’s on his bike. But there are two things he definitely didn’t bring in the backpack.

“Tiki torches? Where on earth did you find those?”

He rubs a hand at the base of his neck and gives me a sheepish smile. The kind he gives me when he knows he’s about to be in trouble. “I got ’em from a house down the beach a ways.”

“You stole them?”

“No! I borrowed them. They don’t even know they’re gone, and I’ll put them back as soon as we leave, I promise. I didn’t have any candles, so that was the best I could come up with.”

And now my heart is a melted puddle of awwwwww. Seriously, this boy says the sweetest stuff to me without even trying. “Thank you, Peter, this is the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me. I absolutely love it.”

He grins and puffs out his chest a bit. “Of course you do. Now, take off your shoes and socks,” he says, leaning down to turn on the easy listening radio station, “and show me how we dance at prom.”

I giggle as we race to unearth our feet and drop everything on the blanket. He leads me to where our bare toes can sink into the sand, then turns and awaits my instruction. Smiling, I place his hands on my waist and wrap my arms around his neck. “Now we just sway back and forth, like this.”

“That’s it?”

“Mm-hmm. There are lots of ways to dance fancy, but this is what we call high-school-slow-dancing.”

“I can definitely handle this,” he says, as he slips his arms all the way around me, pulling me in close.

Sighing with contentment, I catalog every detail of this moment. The soft music mingling with the sounds of water lapping at the shore, the moonlight bathing us on one side with the firelight on the other, and the ocean breeze swirling around us like protective magic, keeping the rest of the world at bay.

Peter’s taller than me now, and although his frame is still small, he’s all toned muscles. A few years ago, he and Hook decided that all the boys and even Tink needed to start working out when they could. They didn’t have traditional equipment, but they used their own body weight for resistance or grabbed whatever they found to use as weights. The kids are still small, but they’re stronger than they were, and more importantly, Peter says it’s instilling that habit in them so that even after he’s gone, they’ll continue to work at getting stronger.

I didn’t understand why they were so adamant about it until the night Nick told me the story of how Peter and Hook stood in front of the boys when Croc intended on belting them for some minor infraction. Then it all made sense. In their world, strength equals safety. Things haven’t been perfect—Croc still manages to get in some “discipline” when Peter’s not around to stop him—but the situation has improved now that they’re getting better at defending themselves.

“What are you learning with Ms. Mills right now?” I ask playing with the ends of his shaggy hair.

Ms. Mills is a teacher who Croc had to hire a couple years ago to get the kids up to state education requirements for their ages. If they didn’t bring her on, the state would’ve shut down the school and put all the kids into regular foster care homes. I’d like to say that Croc and Delia complied out of a desire to keep the children together and because they loved them. But the reality was that they didn’t want to lose their monthly checks from the state or their free labor at the shop. Regardless of the reasons, it resulted in the Lost Boys all staying together while finally getting an education, which is great.

“She’s teaching me about Romeo and Juliet. You ever hear that story?”

I doubt there’s a high school kid on the planet who hasn’t studied Shakespeare’s most popular story, but I don’t say that. Instead, I smile up at him and nod. “We read it last year in Drama Lit.”

He nods, too, a serious look on his face. “I hated the end. Two people who love each other that much should end up happy together forever. Like in all the stories you told us as kids.”

“Those were fairytales, Peter. The whole point of those is to have a happily-ever-after at the end because ultimately, they’re all love stories. But Romeo and Juliet isn’t a love story, it’s a beautiful tragedy with a powerful message.”

“You sound like Ms. Mills,” he grumbles. “I think that Shakespeare guy should’ve let her wake up before he drank the dumb poison. Or the grown-ups should’ve just let them be together from the beginning.”

Chuckling, I say, “then it wouldn’t be much of a story worth telling.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I still say all stories need a happy ending, though. Like ours.”

I stare up at him, searching his face for signs of his two default settings, humor or arrogance. But all I see are sincerity and assurance. “How do you know our story will end happily?”

“Because we love each other.” No hesitation, not even a flicker of doubt.

Sometimes I forget how naive Peter is about life, how cut off he and the others are from the rest of the world. Pop culture references escape them completely, and all they know of the adult world is what they see working at the shop. I’ve never even brought up my plans for college to Peter because I don’t want to ruin our present by talking about the future. Eventually I’ll have to, but not yet.

For now, living in the bubble we’ve created for ourselves is all I want. But it’s hard not to worry about possible scenarios where we end up as a metaphorical version of Romeo and Juliet’s tragedy.

“But what if…” I pause, unsure if I should say it. “What if, in the end, our love isn’t enough?”

He lifts a hand to caress my cheek with his fingertips and tuck some errant strands of hair behind my ear. I can see the flames from the torches dancing in the reflection of his eyes, and I imagine that it’s his fire burning for me that’s shining through.

“It will be,” he says with steel in his tone. “I know it the same way I know the stars are shining above us. Our happy ending is written in those stars, Wendy Darling. No matter what happens to us here on earth, that will never change.”

I might not have his unshakable faith that everything will work out, but I have enough hope to match it. Maybe with enough of both, two kids who never should have met, much less fallen in love, will get their happily ever after, after all.

“I love you so much, Peter.”

“Love you more, Wen.”

He dips his head and seals our confessions with a sweet kiss. But like an ember falling onto dry tinder, what started as a spark turns into a raging inferno. Peter lifts me up without ever breaking our kiss, and my legs wrap naturally around his hips like they’ve done it a thousand times.

In a few quick strides, we’re back at the blanket, and he lowers me slowly until I’m lying down with nothing but the boy I love and the moon above me. And as I stare up into those beautiful eyes I know so well, I see the first hint of uncertainty I’ve ever seen on Peter Pan. Holding himself up with one arm, he cups my face with a trembling hand.

“Wendy…”

My whispered name on his lips is a plea and a question all in one. With a soft smile, I reach up and smooth the crease in his brow. Then I meet his gaze and pray he can now see the fire inside of me that burns for only him, shining through my eyes as I answer.

“Yes, Peter,” I say, pulling him down until he finally settles his weight over me, pressing me and the blanket into the sand. “Please. I don’t want to wait any more.”

It’s true what they say. Prom night is magical. Peter proved that with his thoughtfulness and love. Then he proved it with his body and soul, and we were children no more.