Chapter Twenty-Two

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All of the boys stood up, stretching their legs and preparing for the walk back to our tents, except for Liam, whose head rested in my lap as he slept soundly. His breathing caused the rhythmic rise and fall of his body that made it harder for me to keep my mind on the present events.

Instead, my mind was a full-on battleground, deciding between leaving with James and possibly returning back to wherever we came from or staying in Neverland with Peter. Peter's actions thoroughly confused me as to what he felt for me.

Perhaps, if he really did feel strongly of me, we could be pleasant and have a life here of never growing old and living every day like the next, but was that truly living? To live and possibly die, or to survive on middle ground between life and death, which is how I would best describe Neverland.

"Meadow, you'll have to wake him up. You can't be out here alone." Caspar whispered to me as the others started down the path.

"Why are you whispering if I have to wake him up anyways?" I said, chuckling.

He sighed. "I can carry him, if you'd like." Caspar offered.

"May I?" I asked him. He cocked his eyebrow upward as if to doubt my abilities, but shrugged and stood up.

Carefully, I stroked Liam's cheek and shook his shoulder gently. "Come on, Liam. The day's over."

He stood, half asleep and rubbed his eyes. "I'll give you a ride back, okay?" I said and he lazily hoisted himself onto my back with the assistance of Caspar and rested his head on my shoulder, falling asleep again.

I mouthed a thank you to Caspar and followed behind the others. I kept my eyes on my feet as I walked along the path and out of the corner of eye, James fell behind the others to walk with me. "Have you thought anymore about leaving?" he whispered to me.

I put a finger to my lips to hush him and then walked a bit slower so Caspar would go ahead with the others. "Yes, I have."

He waited expectantly. "And?"

"I want to. Honestly, the worse thing that could happen is that we caught or we drown and if we get caught, we're in the same place we started so truly, our biggest risk is drowning." I state.

"How bad is it here? Worth risking your life to leave it?" James questioned with concern.

"Truthfully, it's a bewitching prison that no one feels the need to leave; lukewarm. Not cold enough to make you get out, but warm enough to make you stay." I explain, zoning out and remembering Peter's kiss as we trudged along. "I don't know what to do." I shook my head.

"How would we leave? Do you have boats?" he asked. I nodded.

"The boats are on the beach, hidden in the trees, to the left of where we sat tonight. We'd only need to take one." I explained.

"Well, I'm leaving tonight. I'll give you half an hour to make up your mind." James stated before catching up with the others.

I would have to talk to Peter before making my decision..

•••

After returning Liam to his tent, I looked for Peter, who had gone into the woods to get firewood for the center clearing pit.

"Peter." I called, keeping my voice in a whisper. "Peter!"

Silently emerging from darkness, he stood beside me with his arms holding a few logs. "Shouldn't you be in bed."

My heart racing from his sudden appearance, I caught my breath and stood before him with a faux confidence. "I have to ask you something, Peter, and I need a straight answer."

He raised an eyebrows, amused and surprised at my forceful words. "Go on."

"Why did you kiss me?"

His face sobered, revealing so trace of emotion. "To prove just how wrong you were to think I was a coward, Meadow Drew." he leant forward, his words dripping with disgust. "What? You think I feel something for you?" Peter scoffed.

I didn't respond, but a pain much like a delicate paper cut, tore through my expectations, though I hadn't known really what to expect.

"Meadow, I don't love you and the sooner you get that bloody bit straight, the better off we'll be." Peter faked a smile and winked before stepping around me and leaving me in the darkness of the forest.

Right then, I didn't care if a terrifying beast attacked me or a if a giant bird swooped down from the sky and ate me, because in that moment, a numbing pain struck through the deepest parts of me and left me speechless.

Right then, I hated myself more than ever for making a fool of myself. I should've known better, but a certain seed of hope kept me wondering if Liam's belief in Peter's feelings, or the breath taking moments of closeness that I believed to be mutual, was actually something worth believing in.

I walked back to my tent, but suddenly remembered James and turned around briskly, pacing over to the tent that he and Owen shared and I knocked on the wooden door. "I'd like to speak with James." I whispered. A few words were spoken between Owen and James, but I couldn't understand them.

James crept out, closing the door behind him. "Yeah?"

"I've made my decision. I want to leave Neverland."

•••

A/N

I know it's short but there's a whole other part that I wanted to get to but would take forever to write and would be too long so here's a short one and the next chapter will be coming soon! Hopefully by later today (since I wrote this at like midnight) or tomorrow!

SO HI long time no see! I recently got motivated to write again and thank you so much for the CRAZY amount of reads on a Robbie fic and all the sweet comments! The comments I receive make me want to write more for you guys!

What do you guys think is going to happen? (I know exactly what's going to happen but ya know, I can't give away any secrets.)

So let me know what you think and thanks for reading!

Love love love

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