Peter Parker, his shirt tucked in, his hair combed to the side, turned up her driveway. It was now or never. Mary Jane. The name brought the cherry smell of her hair conditioner to his mind and he looked around, thinking for a moment it was real and she was standing somewhere nearby. The memory faded as reality set in. His footsteps faltered, perfectly laced shoes coming to a sad stop. Even the everyday-blue of his pressed jeans left him with a bad taste in the back of his throat. Peter knew better.
The bouquet of flowers in his right hand slipped through his fingers, for a moment unnoticed, and fell in slow dread towards the pavement. He had forgotten. Mary Jane was dead. He had missed so many chances when they mattered and now he was left to replay this pathetic role each anniversary of her death. A parody of the love he had wanted to give her and the actions he had taken that fateful day.
She had answered the door at his knock, her red hair set afire by her satin party dress. He had looked deep into her eyes and then, then he had felt it. The cold hand clenched around his heart. It was the feeling of his Spidey-Senses telling him something was terribly out of place. Terrified tears had wet her lashes and then he had seen the gun pushed against her side by an unfamiliar hand.
The shot had rang out.
Now, in the present, on the front drive of Mary Janes last home, Peter Parker flinched in pain. The sound had been so loud in his ears. With all his superpowers, Peter had been helpless. Mary Jane had fallen against his body, her blood staining his best shirt. Forever an anniversary, never the same.
-THE END
(This was inspired by Adrian Monk on the USA show Monk...the way he keeps replaying the search for his dead wife every year. Devastating.)