Iloveyou. Iloveyou. I love you. I l o v e y o u. There are a million ways to write it out, let alone to say it, or express it in some other way.

They say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Even though I’m a pixie, this was no different for me.

I drank the poison for Peter Pan, despite the fact that it was me who had betrayed him to Hook. I was the cause of the poison in his cup in the first place. So I figured it was me who deserved to die, not him. His love for Wendy filled me with hate, but the hate was only toward Wendy. Not him. I only realized in those few moments when Peter’s death was imminent, that I still loved Peter. Pixies are so small that we only have enough room in our tiny bodies for one emotion at a time, but I swear that just then I was feeling two.

First, an all-consuming love for Peter.

Second, a heart-breaking terror that I would never see him again.

For those seconds as Captain Hook’s venom choked the life out of me, I didn’t see my whole life. I only saw the parts that I cared about most. I didn’t see my parents, or my sisters, or any of the Lost Boys I spent so much of my time with.

Every memory was Peter. It was Peter. It did not simply involve him, or he wasn’t just there. They were the moments that centered around Peter, and everything wonderful about what we had ever shared.

Finding Peter in Kensington Gardens, and teaching him to fly.

Peter declaring myself to be his fairy, and no one else’s.

Peter sleeping, a slight smile on his face as he dreamed of tomorrow’s adventures.

Peter calling my name as I hid, teasing him.

The last memory was the most powerful, and the most painful at the same time. It was Peter’s face, looking the happiest I had ever seen him, in all the time we had ever spent together. I knew what had caused that happiness, and it was not me.

Wendy.

In the moment of my death, a realization shook me. I wanted nothing more than Peter to always be that happy, even if, in the end, it meant that I could not have him.

When Peter brought me back from death, I helped Peter save Wendy and her brothers from Hook, all to make him that happy again. We did save Wendy, but it was not enough to make Wendy stay. I wanted to kill her all over again.

In Neverland, Wendy had Peter, and she loved him almost as much as I did. She had the chance that I did not: to make Peter truly happy, and be happy with him in return.

Wendy left, and things returned to normal, except for the unspoken knowledge that Peter and I shared. We both knew that Neverland and I were not enough for him, and never could be.

We were both also unsure if we wished that Wendy had never followed us to Neverland, or if it was better the way things had turned out. Was life better before we knew what we lacked, or was it better for Peter to have felt for Wendy the ecstasy that he had? Neither of us could say.

For my part, I urged Peter to leave Neverland for Wendy, but he wouldn’t, and I could never figure out why.

In Neverland, children live forever, but Peter did not. In his mind, he was no longer in Neverland, and as his mind grew up, so did the rest of him.

Peter died one day, and as he did so, I told him bitterly that he may as well have gone with Wendy, for all the good that staying here had done him. He didn’t reply to my statement, only whispering Wendy’s name in my ear with his dying breath.

I feel I am soon to follow him. With my dying breath, I will whisper Peter’s name, and wonder how things could have ended less tragically for all of us.