Big Girl

The first time you met, she was four and you were five. The awkward silence that tends to accompany the primary meeting was vanquished by quiet giggles and innocent, understanding smiles. Your smile was wide and bright and immediate, while hers was shy and slow to show itself. It took little to no effort on your part to coax the curve of her lips to broaden into something beautiful, something that, in your opinion, could rival the sun in brilliance. She never told you, and she never will, but she's always been grateful to you for teaching her how to make her smiles mean something.

The two of you might as well have been conjoined at the heart. Separation was out of the question. Wherever she went, you were there to follow, constantly at her side and more reliable than her shadow. She told you her secrets because she could trust you with them. You told her your craziest dreams and she promised to help make them, one day, come true. When you asked in turn if you could make her dreams come true, too, she told you that you already had.

She hadn't expected you to play Dream-Boy at every given opportunity. She insisted, held up her hands and said you didn't have to, but you told her otherwise; she needed a hero. A knight-in-shining-armor. Someone to fight off the tears and keep any and all sadness away. She never could resist your charm, and after you promised not to get too carried away, to just be you holding the plastic swords in the end, she agreed to be your damsel in distress.

However, not even you could save her from getting older. Saturday mornings and their cartoons, once held sacred, started losing importance. It could have been the re-runs, or maybe it was because she had started school and preferred to sleep in just an hour later to rejuvenate properly, but something was tearing at the seams. Not that it made up for the blatant neglect of months of tradition, but your knees were just about to give out the day she took out her tricycle and offered you a ride around the living room. She hummed the song that had been stuck in her head all week, and while the living room was certainly not a whole new world, the tricycle was as close as you'd come to a magic carpet ride in days.

It wasn't long after that you decided to trade in the white steed and armor for the second star on the right and some pixie dust. Years bled into one another until the four-year-old was a seven-year-old. The tin of buttons was just that now, no longer a mystic box filled with otherworldly treasures, and grinding cheap, colored chalk to mix it with water to see what kind of magic paint could be made was definitely out of the question. A lot of good the pseudo-pixie dust did – she wouldn't be flying anytime soon. She had outgrown Neverland. She was outgrowing you, but you refused to believe it. She couldn't do that. Could she?

It didn't seem so, especially when her family vacationed for two weeks out of Province and you were able to tag along. The trip to the fairytale-theme park was like a trip down the rabbit hole and into Wonderland itself, or so you said and so she agreed while staring at the life-size replica of the Old Lady's shoe-house. What you wouldn't have given to stay in that park, stay with her in a world where fantasy and reality collided and the two of you could just be.

But they weren't kidding when they said nothing lasts forever. School started taking up most of her time; higher grades meant more homework, more studying. Nine-going-on-ten meant she was too old to be with you anymore. There was no warning before the apparent end came, before she left you in the dark to hide inside yourself, tucked away safely inside memories.

You always did have a knack at finding the light in the dark, though. So, you waited until she wasn't really paying attention to creep back into her life, to try and pick up where you left off. You met up with her at the local Indian Reserve, only stepping into view once she was wandered away from her grandparents, leaving them with the tour-guide at the long house. She found you walking the edge of the well in the center of the small, antique village, and you were surprised when she smiled and greeted you quietly. After you said you were glad to see her, she said nothing and walked silent circles around the well with you, her hand trailing behind your feet, fingertips mocking your stride.

She stopped walking halfway through the third circle, resting her weight on her palms as she leaned over to peer into the small stone reservoir, almost dried out. Once you reached her, you sat beside her, staring at the dirt and grass and pebbles surrounding the two of you. She told you she didn't expect to see you again, and you just smiled at her, saying in jest that you weren't that easy to get rid of. Her smile was forced and sad, but it was better than nothing you supposed.

Her grandparents called for her minutes later, but before she walked away from you, she asked in a voice so quiet the wind almost stole her words away if she'd ever see you again. You didn't have to give it a second thought. You told her you'd see each other again – you just weren't sure when.

She was nineteen the next time the two of you met. It was after she'd come home from a small restaurant, after she'd stared long and hard at the faux-marble tabletop, playing a song over and over again in her head. Your song. She wound up wondering if you were somewhere out there, missing her the way she had been missing you for so long. She tried to banish the thought from her mind; she didn't want to think about you. The last time she'd let her guard down, you'd shown up out of the blue and it had been harder than ever to forget about you after you'd gone your separate ways once more.

Thankfully you were often in Lady Luck's good graces, and the Fates decided it was time for another unannounced visit. You walked up behind her and when she turned around to see what had made the floor creak and came face-to-face with you, you were pleasantly surprised to see her eyes go wide and the color drain from her face. Your too-casual hello and your too-smug grin made tears well up in her eyes and her mouth curve into something that resembled the smile you taught her long, long ago. You both knew it then, in that moment, that things had changed – not necessarily for better or for worse – but this time there would be no goodbyes.

Since your return, you've hardly left her side. You don't want her to disappear again, so you spend every chance you get with her, to keep an eye on her, to hold onto her hand when you feel the need to pull her closer (just in case). You learned the hard way that the older she gets, the less she needs the make-believe world you two built together in your youth. But she just wraps her hand up in yours and smiles like the sun again and promises she'll let you take her through the looking-glass again – if you'll come into her world for a little while. A world where you're not a hero and nothing like Peter Pan. You're just you; her best friend and so much more. And she wants to tell you. So she holds your hands and sits with you, her thumbs rubbing against your knuckles. I have something to tell you.

You smile and bounce impatiently in place. What is it?

She smiles back, but it's not the smile you're familiar with, or that gimmick she wears more often than not. You've never been introduced to this smile before. It makes your heart beat just a little faster and you're not sure why, but you welcome the adrenaline rush.

I love you.

I love you, too.

That strange smile softens. No... Not like that. I mean I really love you.

The sudden fire in your veins rushes to your cheeks and stains them pink, and it doesn't make a lick of sense, not really, but you get the notion that this is what growing up feels like. Maybe.

Her smile's contagious, spreading to your lips. I... I think I really love you, too.

And after the words leave your lips and she places a shy kiss on your cheek, she rests her head on your shoulder, hiding away in you the way she used to when you were kids. But this time it's different. She isn't hiding from the monsters lurking in the dark, she's hiding from a world that can never understand, residing in a place where only you exist. Her arms wrap around you, your shirt held tight in her hands. She isn't holding on this tight to keep you grounded, her knuckles are turning white because she's ready to finally take a leap of faith with you as the wind beneath her broken wings.

You push your cheek gently against hers and close your eyes. Running a hand through her hair – which is still too short in your opinion – you wonder, smiling, just how long your little girl can keep on making believe she's all grown up.

-End