Peter Pan and Poohsticks

The day I knew I loved him was the day he told me he didn’t believe in love. Ironic isn’t it?

“Why should I go looking for something that doesn’t exist?” he said. The whole time I was thinking about how wrong Lucas was, that if what I was feeling wasn’t love than what else could it have been. My stomach wouldn’t flip whenever I thought of him. I would be able to stop the constant thoughts of him that plagued my mind.

It was saddening really, knowing he would never feel the same. He took things at face value and didn’t dive beneath the surface, through all the maybes and possiblies and only-if-you-believes. I was just his friend; there was nothing more to it for him.

Many times he had told me that I had Peter Pan Syndrome. He thought I would never grow up and I would always be stuck in the Land of Make Believe. I simply replied that if that were so then he had the Wendy Dilemma. And it seemed that he really did. He was my Wendy, as strange as it may sound. He always took care of me and always treated me like I was a little kid, which I was in comparison.

He thought I was silly when I told him his eyes were filled with memories of a boy who played the fool and that his heart beat was thumping steadily to rhythm of his thoughts and that if you tapped it out his soul would be revealed.

I’d been homeschooled my whole life, except for a brief stint in the third grade that didn’t turn out to well, so I never had the social background that he did. I was always babied by my parents and called “fragile”. I almost wish they had sent me back to school. Almost. Maybe I’d understand him more.

When I was ten I asked Lucas why he didn’t get any presents from Santa for Christmas that year. He told me that Santa didn’t exist. I wouldn’t talk to him for two weeks. The whole first week I was convinced that he was lying to me, that Santa obviously had to exist. It wasn’t until I had gone to my parents for confirmation that I believed him.

The second week I spent moping around the house. I was too stubborn to take back ignoring him. The first few days he stood outside of the house for a half an hour waiting for me to answer. He eventually had gotten the hint and stopped coming by. If it wasn’t for my mother I’m not sure we would have still been friends. It was mere luck that she answered the door the Saturday he decided to show up again.

Lucas apologized and said that he thought I had already known. He sometimes forgot that I wasn’t exposed to children my age five days a week and I didn’t know most of the stuff he did. I didn’t know what jelly bracelets were or that it wasn’t cool to still like stuffed animals. Whenever I would go over to his house, which was a rare occasion, I would check to make sure that he still had the small duck that was identical to my own. I knew he was wary of keeping it but he did and it made my heart flutter a little bit.

Around the time we were twelve I took notice that Lucas was changing. His kept his hair differently and he started to care about his clothes and hygiene, unlike before. It wasn’t necessarily bad, just different. I wasn’t used to Lucas changing. His mannerism was also affected. He would hunch his shoulders a little bit more and he became quieter while talking to my parents, as if they made him nervous. This was around the time when the stories that I told him didn’t entertain him like they used to. He wasn’t interested in what my mind had thought up that day.

Without someone to talk to about my stories my brain became a jumbled mess of metaphors and words and I couldn’t keep my mind as focused. What normally would have happened was that once I had shared some fable it would fly out of my mind as quick as it came and a new one would replace it to tell it’s song. Because of this I started to keep journals. I would write in monstrous proportions.

It wasn’t long before one was filled with useless plots and half thought out story ideas before the second one was finished and then a third and so on and so forth. I wrote in them as if I was still telling my tall tales to him. He confessed to me later that during sleepovers late at night, when I was already asleep, he would read them so he wouldn’t feel lonely when I wasn’t actually awake.

When Lucas was a freshman he invited me to a football game with him and a few of his school friends. I knew he had other friends besides me but I had never met any before; he tended to keep his school life and his life with me separate. When I had told him that I wasn’t sure it would be a good idea because I didn’t know a thing about football he said it didn’t really matter.

It’s easy to say that I was quite surprised when I attended my first game.

When we got into the back of the car in Lucas’s driveway I was overwhelmed by the smell of cigarette smoke. As far as I knew none of these kids were eighteen. It worried me that Lucas was hanging out with people who knowingly damaged their health and broke the law.

Having never been exposed to normal teenage culture, because Lucas apparently censored himself around me, I didn’t know that these were the kinds of things teenagers did. I didn’t know that they smoked and drank and drove recklessly. I just didn’t know.

I kept my mouth shut the entire ride there. I was slightly terrified of dying because Frank, the driver, couldn’t seem to keep his eyes on the road for more than a few seconds. Frank was seventeen, Leyla was fifteen and Spit was fourteen like uswhat ever happened to normal names? Lucas and I were kind of smashed in the back of the car because Spit was pretty bulky for a fourteen year old.

I didn’t like these people. They just gave me this weird vibe. Leyla was overly obnoxious and her voice was extremely nasally. I’m usually not one to judge by things someone can’t control but I wanted ram my face into the back of my seat to shut her up. Never in my life had I had such an intense dislike for someone.

Spit made crude jokes that everyone else seemed to find funny except me. There were a few times where I just didn’t understand what they were talking about but everyone else did so I figured it would be best not to ask. Frank just stayed quiet the whole time. I figured he was one of those quiet, brooding types. He gave me the creeps.

The drive to the game wasn’t short enough for me and I was hopeful that we wouldn’t be meeting up with anymore people because those three were enough. While the four of them were chatting it up I stood a few steps behind trying not to get trampled by other kids. I remember when Frank thought I wasn’t listening he called me “the most uncomfortable looking kid ever.”

At that moment it was very true. I didn’t like the game, it was pointless. We weren’t even watching it; we were just walking around the outside of the field. It was cold outside and rather dull. As the night wore on Spit started to “poke fun at me.” He made fun of the way I dressed and told me I had a face only a mother could love. He would mentioned how wiry I looked and how socially awkward I was being. It kept getting worse and worse. I stayed quiet though; if you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all, right? After a few more comments Lucas started to “poke fun” back at Spit, for which I was grateful.

When he did that I felt this tingling in my chest and my face got warm. I wasn’t quite sure why. I gave him an appreciative smile and we just kept walking. I always seem to stare at Lucas whenever we’re together. There’s just something about him that always makes me want to see his face, and when I do my stomach constricts and I just want to smile. And when he says certain things the tips of my ears burn and I feel the need to cuddle up under a blanket so he can’t see my face.

Later that night while I was lying on the floor beside Lucas as we both stared at the ceiling I realized what it was. There was no other explanation for it. I had felt every cliché feeling and there was no other word to describe it. Love. I was in love and I wasn’t quite sure what to do.

“I’m not too fond of your friends,” I said out of the blue. He tilted his head in my direction and smiled a little bit.

“I don’t think they’re too fond of you either,” I couldn’t help but smile also at how true that was. They had made it exceedingly apparent. Not many people seemed to like me or understand me as Lucas and my parents did. I may not have socialized much but that doesn’t mean I was a lock up.

“Why do you think I have a problem with people?” I asked.

“I’m not really sure. I think it’s just because you think differently than most people do. You don’t just see evil or love, you see it, as if they're actually there instead of them being an abstract idea and you believe in them also. You talk differently too, have you noticed? Your word choice isn’t very modern. I noticed that when I’m around you mine changes too, like that little part of you rubs off on me and I’m speaking in a different language.”

What he said made sense. I didn’t have the same background as most making me odd, an abnormality. So many people are just replicas of their parents or their friends and I understand that because sometimes you just can’t help it, like with Lucas. He has different dialects, the one he uses when he speaks with me and the one he uses when he speaks with his friends. It was very interesting to observe the two different Lucases that night.

Half of his body is made up of the teenage Lucas and the other half is made up of my Lucas. It’s just the way it was. I didn’t think I had to halves of myself. As far as I knew I was just one boy, one Mirth. I didn’t change when I was around anyone because I didn’t understand why I would ever need to. I couldn’t think of a time when pretending to be different than what I really was would benefit me so why do it? I didn’t see the need to censor myself because most of what came out was PG anyway.

“Why is it so odd to personify feelings and concepts? Why can’t love itself just be that burning feeling inside of you that’s fuzzy and sharp all at the same time? Why does it have to be two dimensional?”

“Your question proves why you’re different. Most people probably don’t feel that sort of thing when they think they’re in love meaning they probably aren’t. I know I’ve never felt it.”

“Maybe you just haven’t found it yet,” I said knowing that he most likely would never have those sort of fuzzy feelings for me. I just couldn’t see it happening.

“Why should I go looking for something that doesn’t exist?” he said but I knew the truth. My rapid heartbeat was proof of it. What I felt was love, there was no other explanation. I suppose these feelings had always been there but that night they were paramount in my mind. I hoped that love was different for everyone and that just because he didn’t get the same reactions I have didn’t mean he would be lonely forever, or rather that he would never love.

A year or so later the topic of sexual orientation came up. “I don’t understand why anything other than personality matters when it comes to love,” I had said.

“But love and physical attraction are two different things, you don’t need one to have the other,” Lucas stated. I didn’t agree with that at all, but I guess that’s just my opinion. I had never felt any type of physical attraction towards anyone but Lucas, maybe I never thought hard enough about it? Once I had come to terms with the fact that I had such strong feelings for him all of the physical things just kind of… came along with it. Maybe I’m doing this whole love thing wrong?

“What if…” he said before trailing off. I stared at him expectantly as he sat on my bed, myself on the floor where I usually preferred to be.

“What if what?” I prompted Lucas.

“What if your body isn’t attracted to what it should be?” he asked looking away from me. I wasn’t as naive as he thought I was. I could tell what he was alluding too.

“If you feel that way then there’s nothing you can do about it,” no matter how much you just want it to go away. “It’s just something you have to deal with,” I said while shrugging. Lucas gaped at me for a few seconds before shaking his head and clearing his throat.

“So you’re okay… with it? Me not exactly liking girls I mean.”

I’m delighted. “Yes, why wouldn’t I be?” and I was truly perplexed at why it would matter to me.

“Well, I figured everyone has their limit of tolerance and you tolerate a lot of things so I thought this could’ve been your breaking point.” He tried to explain.

“As far as I know you’re the same person that told me they didn’t believe in love, cold hearted and lonely,” I joked with a small smile on my face.

“Hey, I’m not lonely, I have you don’t I?”Yeah, I wanted to say you really do.

“You know, sometimes I think we’ve got this whole thing backwards,” Lucas murmured. “You seem so many years wiser than your age while I’m still a confused teenager.”

“I think we’re both too immature for our own good.”

“Did you know I’m not a virgin anymore?” Lucas said out of nowhere. I just stared at him, eyes wide with disbelief. We were only fifteen. It was odd to think that he could’ve had sex with someone at such a young age and not have told me about it. It felt as if someone stuck a thumb tack into my stomach. He wouldn’t meet my gaze, his eyes never leaving my used-to-be-white carpet.

“I, uh… no. No I did not. I don’t think I could’ve without you telling me…” I trailed off awkwardly. I was always a little shy about those subjects. I never understood why people wanted to talk about it but with Lucas I would endure it, the awkwardness that is.

Of course he laughed a little at my flustered reply. “Well I’m not. It wasn’t as great as everyone says,” he murmured picking at his nails. “It’s not something I would do again for a while…”

“Well,” I started because I wasn’t quite sure what to say next. “Who’d you lose it to?”

He laughed a dry laugh before saying, “I can’t even remember his name.”

Soon after the realization came that I was in love I started to work on a different genre when writing. Romance. I hid those journals away in a special place where Lucas wouldn’t find them in case he decided he wanted to read one late at night again. I didn’t want him to know I was thinking that way about anyone, fictional, male or female. Some stories featured him and others feature made up people but that didn’t matter. That was the only part of me I didn’t want him to see.

I don’t know why but I didn’t want him to know I dreamed of romance, that I dreamed of someone sweeping me off of my feet and showering me with affection. I didn’t want him to know that I dreamed of love. Maybe it was because he didn’t believe in it and I didn’t want him to think me more foolish than he already thought. If that makes any sense at all.

One time I was very alarmed by the fact that the stack of journals that kept my more passionate fictions in was not in the same order in which I had left them. I hoped my mind was just forgetting something or that possibly my mother moved them. I prayed that he wasn’t the one to move them. There was something inside of me that me so deathly afraid of Lucas ever finding out my true feelings for him. Maybe it was the same thing that made my heart stutter when he said certain things but I couldn’t be sure.

I don’t know a lot of things, mainly about myself.

College followed a few years later. I was lucky enough to be attending the same college as Lucas where we would be sharing an apartment a little ways away from the campus.

Lucas and I had a slight falling out when we were sixteen and seventeen. He had started to party more and he made stupid decisions. When he came to my house high on something I told him that he could come back when he was clean enough to remember what happened all week. I sometimes wish that I hadn’t said that because I knew his parents were fighting and I knew how much it saddened him even though we had seen this coming for years. They were part of the reason why Lucas didn’t believe in love.

Part of me was bitter that I wasn’t enough to console him like I was when we were younger. But to Lucas we weren’t children anymore, we were adults. Adult problems could be solved with adult things, or so he told me. To me those were just lies coming from within his lungs, resting near his heart that was sometimes surrounded by blackness and misery and there was no longer the warmth that kept all of that away.

It took a night were he broke down in my arms crying for him to finally get off of whatever he was on. I never asked for fear of knowing the truth.

My things were all packed in boxes ready to be moved into Lucas’s car. I still had my learner’s permit because I didn’t feel the need take the test any sooner, I didn’t really have anywhere to drive to. Wherever I went I was with either my parents or Lucas.

The day we were set to leave I was terrified. I couldn’t think of a time where I had felt such strong petrifaction than that day. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to grow up and make something out of myself. I wanted to stay home and write my mind’s stories and share them with Lucas. So I did something irrational.

Ten minutes before Lucas was set to arrive, which was at around 5:30 in the morning, I walked barefoot out the back door and I followed the trail down to my own Hundred Acre Woods. I followed that dirt path until I reached the old wooden bridge where the two of us would always play Poohsticks and I sat there just staring at the water.

I laid there even as I heard my name being called over and over again. I didn’t want to go so I wasn’t. It was rare but I was known to throw childish temper tantrums and have a few fits. This was my inner child coming out more than usual.

I didn’t stir even as quiet footfalls could be heard coming from the path. I didn’t stir when a body laid itself next to mine. I didn’t stir when a hand dropped a stick into the water.

“Whatcha doing out here Mirth?” he asked even though he probably already knew the answer. I wasn’t exactly good at hiding my feelings. How he couldn’t see my infatuation for him was a mystery.

“I’m not well liked.” It was a simple statement and yet it explained all. Because I was so different, many people didn’t accept me, like Lucas’s friends or the other neighborhood children that were around when I was growing up. “You said that most people were exactly the same, had the same background or the same thoughts and opinions. I don’t want things to be like they were here. It’d be nice to have more than one friend.” In a way having just Lucas wasn’t enough for me, mainly because he didn’t share my feelings and so it hurt a little knowing I cared about him more than I should. I loved him.

I didn’t want to have to change who I was to get somewhere in life, I liked how I was. Sure I was confusing at times but imagining a different Mirth was hard to do.

“That’s not fair. You’re supposed to be the one wearing rose colored glasses while I try and show you what’s really happening. I think that system’s worked so far, let’s not mess that up okay? You always seem to be the exception to every rule.”

I tried to absorb all of what he had just spoken to me. You always seem to be the exception to every rule. That’s when something clicked. Maybe, just maybe, Lucas felt the same way about me as I did him. I admit it was kind of a stretch but it gave me a little hope.

“Don’t make me go,” I whispered. I knew I would have to eventually but I could still wish.

“We’ll make it through Mirth, just don’t get too caught up in it. It’ll be over soon enough.” That was true, only four more years and I’d be rid of people who judged me. For the most part.

“All of that applies to you as well I hope you know. No more of that nonsense you were into before. I’ll beat you if you ever try that again.” He just laughed at me as if I wasn’t serious. I was.

“See? As long as we have each other everything will be fine.”

“Yeah, everything just might.”

And I believed it because whenever I had Lucas nothing was wrong. It was just us and everything else was blocked out. Whether we would ever be more than just friends didn’t change the fact that we were perfect for each other at the moment. It was nice to know he wouldn’t abandon me for something or someone else. That was enough to get me through.