A little love and pixie dust.

Her shadow is what I remember most. The way she always posed as Peter Pan any time she snuck up behind me.

We were both five and it was our first day of school. I was sitting in a sandbox when she first did the pose and when we met."I'm youth, I'm joy, I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg!" That was the first thing she ever said to me.

She had just seen Hook and begged her parents to tell her more about the man that was once a boy. Only days after seeing the movie, her parents stumbled upon a yard sale that had copy of Peter Pan that was published sometime in the 1920's. They thought it would keep her happy for a little while. They definitely underestimated the power of Pan. They also had no idea that she would teach herself how to read from it, after having memorized every word.

It quickly became a tradition for her to read Peter Pan the week before her birthday. I guess it was a way for her to remind herself that she was still young. Anytime she complained that she was growing up, I reminded her that I was two months older than her. Though that did seem to work every time, she still treated me like a younger brother.

She took me to almost every production of Peter Pan that she could find. The first one I saw was when I was eight. The two things I remember most from that night were that she didn't want her parents to sit near us and that she said every single line as they were being said on stage. That's when her shadow and greeting finally made sense to me.

As the years went on, less and less of our friends knew about her secret love for Peter Pan. Anytime someone was in a slump she would say "I'll teach you to jump on the wind's back, and away we go." I was the only that knew where she got it. She loved Pan, I loved her and was to afraid to say it out loud. I would always play the Wendy to her Peter, even though that did give me a little bit of a complex.

The day before her 18th birthday I was walking home from work and noticed a book sticking out of my mailbox. At first I didn't know what it was because she never let anyone see or touch it. When I pulled it out I read the title and instantly knew something was wrong.

The twenty minute walk by road took me two at the speed I was going and with all the shortcuts I took. I made my way through the last few trees that opened up into her back yard to see that sirens were flashing out front. I stopped dead in my tracks. I didn't want to think that she didn't want to grow up and that 18 was seen as an adult. My chest got tight, my throat was sore, tears were making their way up and I must have whispered 'no' fifty times in one breath. I dropped the book as she was walking out of her back door.

Selfishly, I was relieved to see her. I still knew that something was very, very wrong. Her face was blank and she was staring right at me but I knew she didn't even see me.

I made my way to her and she said "I can't be a kid anymore." I didn't want details, I knew I would get those later. She asked me to take her away. I told her "I'll teach you to jump on the wind's back, and away we go." Her legs collapsed beneath her and she fell into my arms.

We began to walk to my place using the short cuts and I finally caught my breath. I was sure to pick up the book as we passed it and I didn't notice that some paper fell out. Roughly half way home we had stopped and sat on a large tree stump. She explained to me what had happened as best she could threw the tears.

Her mother had dropped her off at my place before she knew if I was home or not. She wanted to give me her Peter Pan book and tell me something that she had just realized. After waiting for 10 min with no-one coming to the door, she reached into her purse and tore out a piece of paper from a notepad. She wrote something simple and to the point "You mean more to me than Peter Pan"

She then walked home taking the road and noticed the same flashing lights that I had seen moments later. She walked into the house to hear her mother crying and to see two EMT's using a defibrillator on her father. She didn't break stride and went all the way to her back door. A heart attack hit her father hard and fast, just as her mother was walking back into the house. Nothing could have been done.

She never celebrated her 18th birthday or any others after that. To me that meant that she never grew up.

A few very good years past and I finally mustered up the courage to ask her mother for her daughters hand in marriage. She said I could but only if I did it right.

On the opening night for Peter Pan I found her backstage getting ready for the show as the title character. I decided to hand her a card because I knew I wouldn't say the line right. She opened the card and was surprised to see pixie dust fall out on the table. The prop crew was more than willing to part with it after I told them what it was for. The card was simple and to the point, it read "All you need is trust and a little bit of pixie dust. Will you marry me?"