Just Another Night

by Morbius10

"You moved in next-door one night, your red hair tied in a pony-tail and a guitar in one hand. There was something picturesque about it all," I said looking at the stars. For years, I struggled through life, to protect my city, to help people. But you were always there, perhaps not all the time, but enough that I stopped questioning my sanity. (1st person narration - Peter)

1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER-1

I remember the day you moved in. It was early in my Junior year, and the Miller's had just left the blue gentrified house with the backyard that I always envied. It was just so much more spacious than ours, but everything's more spacious than our tiny home with the tunnel-like corridors where you can't walk straight before hitting something on the path.

They had been our next-door neighbors for as long as I could remember. But in the middle of July 2012, I remember the packers hauling away their abnormally large wardrobe along with the dinner table and the crystal pieces that Mrs. Miller was so fond of in the back of a truck that filled both our driveways. The Miller's themselves drove away a fortnight later after having bid adieu to me and Aunt May.

For the next two weeks, the door of the blue house remained locked and a 'For Sale' sign stared at me every day as I walked back from school. Days passed and no one moved in, until one fine evening, as I went out the front door to drop off the week's garbage, I saw you for the very first time.

I won't lie, the red hair caught my attention first. And maybe perhaps the tank top too, though that was mostly because it accentuated your figure quite well. You didn't notice me, at least not right away. I stood on the driveway staring unabashedly at you, the garbage bag in my hand forgotten. For years to come, that's how I will remember you – standing alone on the porch of the blue house. You pulled out a guitar from the back of the red Volvo parked on your new lawn and I could imagine you sitting under a tree somewhere and playing it while our heads swayed to the tune.

With it slung across your shoulder you took a step towards the front door only to realize that you weren't alone and I had been staring at you for a very long time. You pinched your eyebrows into a worrisome look that told me that you had probably thought of me as a dangerous stalker, at which point I made a show of clearing my throat and dropped the garbage in the bin.

But my eyes were on you all the way back as you entered the house and slammed the door shut and I stood there, with only the moon for company.

In the month of February, when spring was setting in, Midtown High was cueing up for its Annual Farewell Ceremony for the graduating batch of 2013. This was the first time we would have a proper farewell party of any kind and though officially the school advertised it as a Graduation Ceremony and we'd had plenty of those before, us Juniors weren't having it that way and we were the ones handling the event.

Well us and the sophomores. This was supposed to be a really big deal and more than half our class was involved in the proceedings, right from the get-go. There were cards delivered to parents and long-form invitations were printed separately and handed to special guests. I know because Aunt May got one as well. I remember that I had just slipped in through the bedroom window on a lazy Saturday afternoon with my full costume on when she walked in with a pale-green envelope with her name printed on the top. Don't people ever understand the expression "Knock before you enter"? Good thing she didn't check the ceiling before she left, might have gotten the scare of her life. I examined it later, the envelope smelt vaguely of bubble-gum and inside wasn't much different. To be truthful, that's all I remember about it. But whatever it was, it seemed like a lot of trouble for a public high school program. Everyone knew what to expect and what not to, maybe it was the rumors that passed around the school halls faster than it took a bullet to hit its victim. Such as the piece of gossip I overheard from Sally Monroe, a girl from photography class, who passed by me in the locker room one day, whispering to Liz Allan, "I hear Flash and his buddies are gonna smuggle booze in. This thing is gonna be just like the proms!".

The idea for the ceremony itself had been proposed by our Advanced English teacher, Mr. Kramer, who himself would be leaving the school faculty come June. Rumors suggested that he wanted this event to be a shared experience both for the students, and him personally. He was really old though and sometimes not very right in the head. There were days he would show up in his ancient blue-striped boxers that might have survived World War Two itself, the giggles and looks of surprise didn't seem to faze him. I personally thought that he just couldn't see very well. And the guy had health issues as well, minor ones mind you. He was always blowing his nose and sniveling in class, and I mean like every-freakin'-day of every-freakin'-month. Must have had chronic pneumonia for all I cared, and honestly, I didn't. I was much too tired those days, so I slept through most of his periods anyway, even though he was great with his lessons. "Shame he has to leave though," Harry said to me after one of his classes, "The guy's a head-case and all, but his classes are kinda fun. Don't ya think?". Most of us would miss him, but not terribly so; in a few days, everyone would have moved on.

But you already know all this, you were there with me. After all, it was your first year at Midtown. However, the thing you didn't know and I never told anyone except Harry was that I wasn't very interested in this little upcoming farewell party and I had absolutely no intention of attending it. The reason being there were quite a few things going on at the time, I mean besides school. There was, of course, the occasional homework, which I failed to complete on most good days and let's not talk about the bad ones, coupled with my weekend shifts at the Downtown Café. May was already doing the best she could with her nightly shift as a nurse, but sometimes it just wasn't enough and well, I didn't want to stress her out or anything, so I decided that maybe it was time I tried to earn whatever few bucks I could, at least to hold my end of the allowance. Plus it helped out with the expenses on the Spider-man stuff. Keeping up with that side really cost a lot. So the job was important to keep the wallet from emptying. Plus there was also this piece of news being circulated at the time, mostly on the TV channels, about a recently escaped convict whose name escapes my memory at the moment. A serial arsonist, that's what his resume said, and he'd burnt down at least a dozen buildings or so, prior to his arrest. A real piece of work.

So as you can see, I was quite tied up elsewhere and with this party coming up and spirits rising higher and higher, it seemed like I would be stretched out even more. It seemed best to just avoid it. Harry, however, knew that I was planning on bailing and pressured me constantly, "It'll be fun, c'mon dude. When's the last time you did anything fun? I know you don't enjoy socializing, but just this once do me a favor alright? I don't wanna go to this thing alone, can you imagine how awkward I'd look? And the girls? Think about the girls man! It's gonna be amazing. So c'mon Pete, say yes. Just promise me you'll show up at this party. Besides, have you looked at yourself recently? You-"

I didn't agree to it, at least not right away. He badgered me for days and days, mostly the occasional "So, the party? You coming?" at the back of the class along with a few noteworthy monologues in recess, until finally on one fine Monday morning, I grunted my assent and by the end of the day I had promised Harry that I'd make myself present for the farewell party of 2013. The school spirit was really climbing and gossips reached our ears that a lot of the Seniors had been asking their old flames out and they planned to show up as couples to the ceremony. I guess the saying went something like "Live a little before we die"? But among the teachers, Old Kramer was the jolliest of the lot, by far, and even though it was still over a month away, the guy bustled around the school corridors like the ceremony was tomorrow. He even got cranky if we mentioned that it wasn't until the end of March. "Just get on with your work eh!" he told a nosy Charlie Maguire with thick-rimmed glasses for saying that we had end-term exams to prepare for as well. I'd almost forgotten about exams, they were like the last thing on my mind those days.

In the next few days, banners were put up, slogans were prepared, stands were erected, speeches were written and photographs were taken. At recess on Wednesday, Harry and I sat at the back of the canteen with half-eaten sandwiches lying on our trays while a blonde girl with glasses was busy putting up green balloons and a new stretch of banners across the opposite wall. "Who is she?" Harry asked. I underwent the pretense of taking a glance before answering, "Gwendolyn Stacy, shortened to Gwen". There was movement at the table a few feet away from us. "How'd you know? You have classes together?" Harry asked with genuine interest. I smirked, "Yeah, we have the same cores. She's really good too, knows the stuff in the books inside out. A bit on the quiet side though."

There was a moment, where it felt like a group of mountain-sized trolls surrounded our tiny table until I realized that a group of trolls had indeed surrounded us. "You sitting with this dweeb again Harry? You know we have an open table for the likes of you man." Flash said towering over me. Really, I sometimes thought Flash's default expression resembled the scowling face of an ogre better than any artistic depiction I'd ever seen. I had even told him that once, also adding that maybe he would have a career one day as a life-sized model for artists who had an interest in drawing beastly green men. He didn't take it so well, which surprised me. I sincerely thought it was good practical advice. Well anyways, his little gang chased me for an entire week after that. Must have been frustrating as hell when they realized that the guy they were trying to catch had more than a few get-away tricks up his sleeve. And down it too. But right then inside the canteen, I kept my head down and eyes fixed on the table, no need for a scene here with the teachers patrolling the corridors. Harry gave me a side-wink before standing up, "Yeah, you're right man. Parker's a bitch anyways. I'll take you up on that offer, let's go". But he hadn't moved an inch before being pushed against the wall by Flash who grabbed the collar of his shirt. "Now, don't try to play smart with me. I know where your loyalties lie you, two-faced rich snob".

Our predicament didn't look so good and though I could easily have swatted Flash away, it certainly wouldn't have solved anything. There were at least a hundred students occupying the mess and Mrs. Thompkins, the Chem lab assistant, was standing by the entrance but she was too much of a sweet-heart for Flash to give a damn. So, just as I thought of pulling off an outrageous stunt, Harry gave me a stare that looked like he might have been trying to convey something meaningful, but all I got from it was alarm. With a fragile smile, he prised away Flash's hands from his collar and said, "Imagine for a moment how this looks Flash. You have me in a corner here, quite literally. But Peter here… Well, he's not deaf. Can you imagine what would happen, if he decided that maybe, you know, my dad needed to know how his son was being threatened, by some hot-shot who thought he could be a big ol' bully in the middle of recess? I doubt dear old dad would like that at all". I knew how much Harry hated using the Dad card, he absolutely loathed it. "Using his name, makes me feel like I just put a sock in my mouth" he would tell me on occasions when people would ask if his father was really the famous industrialist they saw on TV adverts and on the business section of newspapers, "People get this look on their face, almost like a tiger's pinned them down with its canines out". Well, that was exactly how Flash looked at that moment. Like every other bully, he was scared of the bigger bully in the park and Harry's dad was the biggest of them all.

A few seconds, that's all it took for Flash to retrace his steps. However, he had merely backed an inch when a familiar buzz rang inside my ear, but it was a bit too late before I noticed him turn around and plant a punch on Harry's left jaw which left him sprawling on the floor. "You prick!", he muttered at Harry's fallen figure. At that point, my vision blurred and I saw red. The next thing I remembered was Flash's figure flying so far that he landed right next to Gwendolyn, who was painting letters on a piece of chart-paper with thick green paint. What was up with all the green? Was it some kind of theme? From the corner of my eye, I noticed Mrs. Thompkins staring at this scene with a round mouth which eventually barked an order at me that I couldn't hear with all the ringing in my ears.

"Detention! Two weeks!" the principal said to me in her office that afternoon while Flash howled in pain beside me. "With due respect Ma'am" I began, "Flash was the one who started it all-….".

"And I already know that courtesy of Mr. Osborn. Mr. Thompson here shall be joining you in detention as well."

"For how long?"

"That doesn't concern you."

"For how long?", I asked. The principal's face tightened and turned red with an ugly nerve that ran straight up her forehead into her hairline. She gave me this look that said it all - "I can't believe your gall!" but I really didn't care.

"A week," she said.

"A week?! He should be doing the same as me!"

"You threw him across the room! Now I don't know how… or even why! But goodness gracious man! You should be grateful, yeah grateful, that Flash here didn't break anything. And he's the team quarterback too! Mr. Morris would have nailed your head on a football post if his star player was injured for the rest of the season."

"He deserved it! He sucker punched Harry! Everyone saw it!"

"That's it, a month, detention for a month!"

"What!? What on earth for?"

"For not seeing the harm you've caused! There are repercussions to rash actions! Now I expect compliance or you're gonna sit out in the lobby while your Aunt and I have a nice long conversation."

My heart was hammering against my rib-cage so hard that I half expected it to burst out in a mess of blood and bones. I wasn't the least bit afraid, but I was definitely angry. I bit my lip, as I tried to look at the situation rationally. One wrong move and Aunt May would steamroll her way to school in Uncle Ben's run-down tinfoil Jeep, and there would be an extraordinarily high chance of her strangling me to death with the strap of her fake leather handbag while the Principal watched in gleeful horror. The rage disappeared down a tiny hole as that particular scene played out vividly in the space between my ears. "You haven't told her yet?" I asked, with a bit more hope than I meant to.

"No. This kind of ugly business jeopardizes the school image. And right during the farewell preparations too. Really Peter? I expected better from you" she said with a ferocious glare.

"Hmph" I scowled at Flash who was still groaning in pain. It was obvious to me he was faking it.

"So, you're going to do your detention. Daily, for a month. I expect no excuses or you'll be banned from attending the party, understand!" she said. "Now get out of here!"

There was a place I often visited those days – the graveyard on Cooper Avenue. It was a somber and gloomy place to be and people occasionally had the misfortune to visit it. But not me; I often came of my own volition. That February of 2013, it had been two years since Uncle Ben's casket had been lowered into the depths of the earth right beside the other two gravestones that marked where mom and dad had been laid. I remembered the funeral, the strange unfamiliar faces that came and visited us every few hours, all of whom seemed to be filled with grief for our loss. For a week, May laid by the foot of her bed, tears streaming down her face and every time she went down to the kitchen to heat up our dinner, she would burst into tears and her hands would shake over the counter and nothing would steady them. I watched all this happen, and more, and yet I didn't grieve, not the same way she did anyway. No, I was out there in the rain, flying through the air trying to breathe in the rotten air of the city and fill my lungs with it. After it happened, I would visit his grave once a week, I'd even bring flowers. When I was younger, Uncle Ben would drive me up there himself, with a bouquet of tulips and celandine and handfuls of violets that smelled so nice inside the car that it seemed a shame to leave them at the resting spot of people who had no way of appreciating anything at all. I was ten when I asked him why he would take me there so often. Even then, a cemetery seemed like a horrible place to take a ten-year-old every weekend, but he simply said: "So that you never forget who they are".

Anyway, the reason I'm telling you all this is because a week after I got handed the detention, I was standing in the graveyard on a cloudy night staring at the stones and wondering why I'd even decided to come. The last time I'd visited was at least two months ago, and there wasn't really anything to say that hadn't already been said the thousand times I'd already been there. And anyway, those days, I just came to listen, but that day, in particular, there was just silence. My phone told me it was half-past eleven. In ten minutes May would be back from her shift to find that I wasn't home. She'd call me immediately and when I wouldn't pick up the first three calls, she'd dial 911 and report that the last living member of her house was missing.

I thought it all out while gazing at the broken marble that covered the spot my mother was buried under. Even in the darkness, I knew my way out, stumbling only over a few semi-large rocks that were on the path. The moon lit the ground for a while as the clouds overhead parted and in that brief moment, I caught sight of another figure a few feet ahead and judging from the shape, I guessed it was a girl, petite and her hair might have been blonde or silver, it was hard to glean in the darkness. I followed the path out which brought me closer to her, but she hadn't caught a glance of me yet. I eventually saw her face.

"Gwen?" I asked in surprise. She jumped and turned around and the moon decided that it was time for it to go back under its cover. "Gwen?" I called in the dark again, but the footsteps told me she was running away. I stood in silence for a few minutes and then curiously, I walked over to the grave she was looking at, switching my phone on for visibility. The stone slab read:

Here lies Helen Stacy

Mother and Wife

I looked for an epigraph but for some reason there was none. Sure that I had made some mistake, I ran my phone all around the slab but ultimately had no luck whatsoever. What I did find, however, and I almost stepped on it while doing so too, was a pair of glasses. Gwen must have dropped it. I picked it up and blew the soil away from the rims. I kept it on my bedside table as I went to sleep that night, the bedroom window visible through the lenses and the faraway buildings of Manhattan were slightly askew through its vision. In the distance, I saw smoke rising in a column from a place hidden from my view and in that half-asleep state, I had this strange feeling that the police scanner hidden under the clumps of paper on my study-desk was issuing something worthy of my attention but for once, I had already slipped off into the land of dreams.

The arsonist had been busy. Three buildings burnt to a crisp in a span of two weeks, two of which had been apartment complexes on the East-side of Manhattan, a pattern which the cops picked up on and so did I, which eventually resulted in me swinging over there in between an important Bio test on a sunny Wednesday afternoon. I was already behind on my grades and this new streak of urban fire breakouts wasn't doing me any favors. Once I got there, I realized I was pretty late to the party and the yellow tapes had already been set up in a radius of about fifty meters. It looked like the main fire had spread out and the surrounding trees and pavement had been scorched by the heat. The injured were hauled into ambulances and driven off while the officers questioned witnesses. It certainly looked like there was nothing left for me to do. Nothing except for this young boy with a cap over his forehead, who just happened to look up and spot me while his dog barked viciously at me. The rest of the crowd followed his gaze and started whispering amongst themselves, at which point I leaped off the wall and disappeared, all the while thinking how I'd missed a test for this.

The third and latest arson was another grave situation but to be truthful it was more, dare I say amusing than the ones before. A fire-station down by Gramercy Park had been set alight at midnight just two days before March began. Thankfully, no personnel had been injured which was expected considering the equipment they shouldered, but their pride certainly had been. Interviews broke out on social media of hapless fire-men who turned red at the mention of how their own base of operation had befallen to the same disaster they had been trained to protect. And the disdain was shared by May as well, who scoffed into her coffee cup while watching the evening news and said, "With that Spider-man character running around, no wonder all of the other institutions are becoming a joke too. You be careful on the streets Peter, I heard some of my co-workers talking about how they'd all spotted Spider-man swinging by our neighborhood. I don't want you within a mile of that freak". I never asked May what she had against Spider-man but something told me I was better off not knowing.

Those two weeks were absolutely horrible. Not only was I failing to stop the continuous streak of arson attacks, which led to me being more irritated than usual but there were also detentions to attend, which took away another two hours off of my already messy schedule. I was getting to work even later than usual and I'd been no role model to begin with. But might I also mention, that two hours of detention with Flash of all people, was no merry ride. He kept chucking paper-balls at my direction the moment the supervising teacher dozed off in his chair. I glared at him with my hands grasping the edges of the wooden table with such intensity that I felt it cracking under my palms. "oOo, scary!" he intoned with raised hands. He'd been such a moronic shit-head for so many years by then, that it was plain annoying that he'd not changed even a bit. I'd seen better character development in the neighborhood cat, and I kid you not when I tell you she used to vomit over my sneakers every morning for three years straight, and now, she does it on my bathroom floor. I wasn't easily surprised but Flash Thompson certainly kept pushing the bars on the lower extremes. Thankfully he stopped coming after a week, at which point he gleefully said, "Puny Parker!" which told me everything I needed to know about my situation.

And if Flash wasn't enough of a problem, there was also work to be handled. Right after detention ended every day I would rush out the revolving doors of the school and make a beeline for the Downtown Café, which happened to be located on the North-East section of Queens close to the Queensboro Bridge. Usually, I took the aerial route - webs flying out of my wrist as I zipped at breakneck speeds over the water tanks and past the billboards that cluttered my vision, eventually landing in the secluded alleyway where I changed into my work clothes and went in through the back door of the shop. But those days, I would arrive in a fit of sweat and exhaustion, having hurried from school to work in a span of mere minutes. My manager would poke his head out of the back-room and shout my name, at which point I'd explain in breathless gasps, "Suh-Sorry, I ha-had…. extra work at sch-….-ool". But the effort was in vain as he would walk up to me with a menacing scowl and say, "Where have you been! You know what, I don't really care. These late arrivals will not be tolerated if you keep pushing boundaries every-day, Peter. I expected you an hour ago!"

"I'm suh-sorry" I'd say with my hands on my knees, "I'll work an extra hour if that's okay? I was busy elsewhere."

"Well, you were needed here!"

"I know. I'm sorry, I really am."

"I've been working my ass off for an hour straight on what should be your job!"

"I'll uh… I'll make it up to you I promise. I'll work harder" I huffed.

"Parker, you… you're a good kid. I see that in your-.." he motioned with his hand at my body trying to imply something, "everything. You're a decent boy, but if you think I won't replace you because of your lackadaisical nature, you're wrong!"

"You'll fire me? But-…"

"Understood?" he interrupted. "Now, counter-duty! Get on it!"

I worked three shifts a week, those being on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. The shifts lasted four hours normally and by the time I would be done, bone-crushing tiredness would overcome me. Who knew handling expresso's and cappuccino's for three hours straight could be so draining? I mean, there had been occasions on which I got them mixed up, but fortunately, the customers didn't make a big deal out of it, well, most of the time.

There was just so much on my mind during March that I was beginning to feel a bit like a scrambled egg being slowly cooked on low steam. All I wanted more than anything by the time the sun disappeared, was to lie my head down on something solid and just doze off for days. I saw a documentary on squirrels once and guess what? They sleep for months! Hibernation they call it. Well, I was more than willing to turn into a squirrel right then. But even that didn't seem like a luxury I could afford.

Meanwhile, something else was bothering me as well, Gwen's glasses. I had tried, on many an occasion to talk to her or just hand it over to her in an empty classroom, but she seemed to be avoiding me. Had she recognized me in the cemetery the other night? Well maybe so, but she was definitely skirting her way around me. I did see her in class however and though I had half-expected her to start wearing a new pair of spectacles, it turned out she hadn't. She looked strange without them, I almost didn't recognize her at first glance. To be honest, I thought she looked nice really, at least now I could tell that her eyes were sparkling blue, but it was a shame she hid so well. In many ways, she reminded me of myself. How she'd shirk her way around people and at the same time be nowhere at all. Almost like she's always there but no one looks at her more than once. Like a ghost hiding in plain sight.

On 4th March, Harry came by our house in his black limousine. I saw it parked against the curb while returning from the local grocery store one evening. I don't know what it was with him but for some strange reason, he always preferred our tiny little suburban house compared to the massive penthouse he and his dad shared up in Manhattan. To be honest, I had always been jealous about it. I often nabbed at opportunities for him to take me up to his place where I would marvel at his massive TV screen with the liquid display and an equally impressive gaming console to go with it. I loved the retro-style theme his place rocked, made it feel like something out of Blade Runner along with the huge glass windows that reached up to the ceiling from which you could look down at the city and feel all-powerful. But he had an equivalent love for my claustrophobic and tiny bedroom with the faded posters of Einstein and Turing stuck permanently over my bed and the racks of old DVD which were shelved along the opposite wall. There was even a rotating star projector beside my bed which when you switched on, engulfed the ceiling with the low-hanging image of the Milky-Way galaxy rotating spread along the walls.

Okay yeah, I'll admit it, my room wasn't half bad. But sometimes it just felt like it would be nice for May and me to live in a bigger house.

Just it would be nice was all.

Anyway, the night Harry visited was also when the arsonist struck again. I had to make a million and one excuses to weasel my way out of dinner and rush to the bedroom to gather my suit. Harry followed behind, asking what was wrong. I merely said "There's something I need to do" before slamming the door on his face. I don't think he appreciated it much but such was the circumstance. The police scanner on my desk issued tons of new messages all of which I heard before sliding the bedroom window open and jumping out with the suit in my backpack. I landed on the tree that ran against my window. However, as I readied myself for a leap, somewhere below I heard a squeal and a buzz in my ears that made me swerve sideways as a rock flew past where my face had been a moment before. But in doing so, it left me vulnerable to the cracking of the branch at the joint. Both the branch and I tumbled down while I hit the ground face-first which resulted in a whole bunch of grass and dirt entering my mouth.

I sat up and started spitting it out feeling like a goat with a bad case of indigestion, when a voice of the girlish baritone said a few feet away, "Don't move!".

As I gazed at the direction of the voice, the streetlights doing their job, I saw you standing against the fence that separated our houses, dressed in your pajamas, your red hair tied in a ponytail and the guitar held over your head like you were about to throw it at my direction. You were positively menacing under the shadow of the tree.

"Are you going to hit me with that?" I asked.

Now that I faced you, you finally saw who it was, "Fuckin' hell! Peter?"

"You didn't answer my question. Where you really going to throw that thing at me?"

"I didn't know it was you." You lowered the guitar and slung it across your shoulder. "I thought maybe a burglar or something."

"So, you were going to hit a supposed burglar, with a guitar?" I asked. "Where exactly uh… were you going to hit me?"

You stood by the fence with a look of mottled embarrassment, "Well it was the only thing I had on me. And you scared me half to death creeping about like that!"

"Shouldn't you be… running the opposite direction if you spot a burglar of some kind?" I asked, as I brushed my shirt and stood up.

"I don't run!" you said simply, with your eyebrows etched into a firm line and I believed you.

I looked around the entire neighborhood which was bathed in semi-moonlight. It was a dark night. "What're you doing out here anyway?" I asked, "At this time?". We were the only ones out on the streets at that ungodly hour.

"You can't hear it?"

"Hear what? The wind?". It was a windy night and the leaves of the trees were rustling above our head and I saw a few dead ones fall by our feet. I traced the motion of one as it made its way down and fell gently on your shoulder. "Or is it the leaves?"

You brushed it off your shoulder and it tumbled haphazardly to the ground. "Neither."

"You really can't hear them?" you asked after a while, to which I shook my head. "Then listen harder," you said and I did. At first it was just the wind howling, it was really loud but eventually, a cacophony of equally loud noises reached my ears, the sound of two adults bickering in a dirty quarrel. "They've been fighting for hours now. My dad did something, I think."

"Oh"

"Yeah." You leaned against the wall of your house and slowly slid down into a sitting position. "It's nothing new though. They're always fighting."

I gulped and looked at your eyes, which I realized were greener than I remembered them to be. It was difficult to hold your gaze, so I momentarily shifted my glance to the side and said thoughtfully, "This is probably private, but uh… I hear them sometimes…. From my room, you know."

"They act like children when they get like this. Usually, it's something minor. Like the food just wasn't good enough and he goes angry, or sometimes, mom throws away the beer bottles he keeps stacked inside the fridge and he goes proper ballistic."

"Jeez…" I said rubbing the back of my neck, "Does he… uh, get violent?"

You shrugged and looked at the chords on your guitar while saying, "I don't usually stick around for the drama, so I just… walk out and sit down right here, with this thing" you motioned towards your guitar. "And if they're especially loud, I play a few strings to calm myself down."

"Yet, you were more than ready to chuck it at some unknown burglar earlier this evening. Really says how much you care about it." I said with a ghost of a smile.

A small dimple appeared on your left cheek that left me somewhat curled up inside my head. "Well," you said, "You're the one who dropped out of the tree Peter. You tell me what was I supposed to do if not throw it at you?"

That moment or whatever it was that I was having with you, had my mind wrapped up in a blanket of the present and nothing else existed out of it. We talked a brief while longer, mostly about mundane things and things that could be really considered meaningless noise to anyone older or alien to who we were and where we were from. It surprised me how much we knew each other, albeit momentarily but it lasted so long in my mind that really, it could have been hours, when in fact it was only a few minutes. Worries that had been plaguing my mind for weeks by then, came unraveled while we talked, you laughed when I told you about my detention, "You deserve it!" you said with no hint of a smile, "Sneaking around at night like this! Jumping out of your bedroom window! What if I told your Aunt huh?"

"You won't tell her though right," I asked when I wasn't sure if you were being sarcastic enough to warrant trust. "I won't," you said, "and you won't either?".

"No," I said with infinite conviction.

What I'm really trying to convey here in case it's not already clear, was that you heard me. And when I say you heard me, I mean you listened to what I said. That's all you really did. And maybe I did the same for you but that's the catch with people like us. We're so ready to be under the world and hold it up at the same time that no one looks down and says "Hey! How you doing? Need some help?". No, no one did that for me. All I hear when I sleep, are the cries of help and the structures collapsing around me and a sickening guilt that I'll never be there to save the guy who was going to be found the next day lying in a ditch somewhere or the unlucky teenager who'll be lying in an alley-way having overdosed himself on the latest street drug. I'll never be everywhere at once but maybe being somewhere was good enough.

It took me a long time, but I did eventually check the incessant vibration that had been playing against my thigh. "Fire at Columbia" the notification read on my phone screen. I suddenly remembered where I was and where I had to go. It pained me horribly that night to abruptly make my getaway when you were so alone in that lawn while your parents fought on. Maybe you sang that night, I don't remember because I never made it home until the sun had risen, at which point you were nowhere to be seen from my window. But whatever it was, I knew that I abandoned you when you were somewhat glad to have someone to talk to. And I realized that eventually, but that wasn't until much later. But the thought of you spending your night outside with nowhere to go and no one to talk to except for that acoustic guitar you carried around with you, always made me feel unbearably sad for many years to come.

The day of the Farewell Ceremony arrived faster than any of us imagined. With so much preparation being piled onto it, most of the others lost track of how fluidly time slips away when stress was the only thing you knew. I was no stranger to it, but even by my standards, the date of the party arrived sooner than expected. The ceremony itself turned out to be a crazy affair, the parents showed up by four in the evening, just as the card said, but they were mostly confined to the auditorium where the main function would unveil and Aunt May had come too, dressed appropriately and in bright colors for the situation. An hour ago, she'd been ruffling through Uncle Ben's old clothes and had brought out a brown suit with a bowtie and said, "You're gonna wear this. It goes with your eyes" and I couldn't protest.

Meanwhile, all the students had been restricted to the gymnasium, which led me and many others to believe that this party was really a recreation of our proms, which was something I hadn't really enjoyed owing to the fact that I'd been all alone seated in one of the seats above sipping away at an awful orange juice while everyone else twirled on the floor below.

The seniors had been grouped with us and only when the function would unveil an hour and a half later would they be taken to the auditorium along with the rest. They were the primary audience of the show after all. So for the first hour, Harry and I mingled with people we really couldn't care less about but we had to keep the pretense up, so no excuses were made. There were soft punches being handed out at the event and I shrugged at Harry as I took the glass from a nearby serving waiter and immediately regretted it as I eyed the sloshy pink liquid which was making me nauseous with the smell it emitted. "Is this strawberry?" I asked Harry, who simply said "Cheers!" as he clinked his glass to mine before drowning the entire thing down and letting a burp out which made the nearby girls eye him with disgust. "Not half bad," he said winking at me at which point I thought to hell with it and drowned mine as well. It was pungent and really something fiery as it went down my throat. I realized that Sally Monroe hadn't been kidding when she'd said that Flash was gonna smuggle booze in. The punches must have been spiked with alcohol. I had learned early on after the spider-bite that my metabolism keeps me resistant to different forms of alcohol but I had never consumed anything like what was in those drinks that night, I felt like a hole was being bored into my stomach.

So for a while, I walked around the gym floor a bit unsure-footed while the girls giggled and the guys flirted around, and somewhere at the back end of the room, next to the double-door entrance, I noticed you. You were standing against a wall, smiling at the people who passed by you and strangely enough, I saw Gwen Stacy beside you. It seemed to me from the other side in the room, that the quiet and timid Gwen Stacy, with her blonde bangs covering the sides of her face and whose glasses were still with me by the way, had found someone to talk to and who better than you. You were like a refuge for outcasts, first me and now Gwen, and perhaps you yourself were one too but I seriously doubted that considering the slew of girlfriends that surrounded you. And the even larger contingent of boys who had you against the wall and yet you had the courtesy of giving them all a smile which probably warmed their heart till they fell asleep that night. Also, you were wearing this unfairly low-cut black dress which was stunning from whatever angle I saw.

I wish I had said something to you there, but I never did. Maybe I was a coward and yes, I was really much too afraid. I'd never done this before and I'd never given it much thought, and I never had time to, but the truth was… I was just afraid. And besides, the kind of people who hung around with you, always left me wondering if they really were your friends or merely surrounding you as a means of capturing a prize? I mean, you were never seen with anyone outside of the obnoxious and highly-entitled group of sassy teenagers who push people around for their own little agenda; Flash was one of them. I knew what people said about you back then, the whispers and rumors that revolved around the pretty girl in class who everyone had a thing for, but really, I didn't give a damn. I couldn't be bothered to.

To me, you were the next-door girl with a crush on acoustic guitars and a penchant for slow songs. There was something picturesque about that in my head and even in class when I'd steal glances at you, I kept imagining how of all the people in Midtown, I was the one who knew you best. Except, I never did anything about it. And I never did talk to you in that entire party.

An hour later, we sat in the auditorium with the parents as the function began. There were names and awards and certificates and talks and even longer talks to bear, and bear we did. I spent most of the time chatting away with Harry in the darkness while May sat somewhere at the back with the rest of the parents. I had no idea where you were, but my mind did occasionally flit in your direction and I wondered if I could find out where you were and sit close to you. Proximity was what I wanted but fear overwhelmed my need for overriding the muddled feelings I kept having in my head. I was confused and the alcohol from before hadn't died out yet.

Now imagine my surprise, when the next thing I remember was seeing you walk onto the stage, the spotlight centered on your figure. I was stupefied with the entrance and I wondered what you might be doing up there until I saw the guitar in your hand and realized with a sense of awe that you were going to perform. You sat down on a chair and with the strings firmly practiced in your fingers, you began a slow acoustic jumble and started singing….

The night was pallid and clear of disturbances when I walked back home. Aunt May had left right after the show ended, but I stayed back for the final moments of the dying party. Harry stuck around too and he passed around the trashy whiskey flask he carried with him on certain occasions like that night. He offered me a swig and I declined; immune or not I didn't want to go home reeking of alcohol. There were numerous pats being showered in every direction, Mr. Kramer even proceeded to make a toast to all of us. I left an hour into the proceedings. With my brown suit under my arm and slightly wobbly in the knees out of tiredness, I slowly made my way home. I enjoyed walking. With most days being a hurried mess, I sometimes liked to slow everything to a crawl. The alcohol still burnt in my stomach though with a lesser intensity now that the breeze tugged at my skin. There were strange thoughts that occurred to me in that walk, thoughts that revolve in forgetful dreams but leave an imprint nonetheless. But mostly, I thought of you, and the really heartfelt tune you had just sung. I began humming it as I walked on.

When I reached home, there was someone seated on the steps of the neighboring house with a pose so familiar that I could have guessed from a mile that it was you. The guitar rested against your leg as you looked towards your house with a painful expression. The quarrel inside, was louder that night and the bickering, much harsher. As I walked closer you focused your gaze on me and I realized, there were tears brimming in them. You quickly brushed them off with your hand and said, "Hey" in a voice so shaky that I was sure you had been crying before I'd walked in on you.

"Your parents fighting again?" I asked.

"Yeah"

"We have to stop meeting like this," I said with an attempt at a smile. "We keep running into each other at the worst possible times, don't you think?"

"Yeah," you said with a minor smile while quickly wiping another tear as the harsh voices carried with the wind.

We were alone again and suddenly the fear that kept me away from you in the middle of the party brought me up the steps and closer to you. I sat down beside you while placing my suit on my lap. "You know," I said, "I think I got proper drunk for the first time tonight"

"Really?" you asked and sniffed my breath, "Yeah I think you did. Was it the punch that you mentioned before?"

"Yeah, I still have no idea what Flash mixed in it though. Thing burned like hell."

"Flash doped the drinks?" you asked surprised.

"Yeah but good thing I can't-…. Uh never mind" I finished hastily.

"Good thing you can't what?"

"It's nothing." I replied, "What was that song you sang back there? Inside the auditorium?"

"You really don't know?"

"I don't think anyone knew. I don't think anyone hears country anymore. That was… country you sang right?"

"Of course. But what on earth are people gonna hear if not country?" you demanded, your red hair flapping against your shoulders.

"I dunno… Pop's pretty wild these days… Mostly vibe music's doing well right now. Plus there's a bunch of new electronic artists trying weird experimental stuff. People are really into that stuff" I said.

"So no one's listening to country you're saying?"

"Well tonight they did and they went home mesmerized, I'm sure" I grinned.

"Yeah right, I seriously doubt that. I lost my nerve midway through the chorus and then for the next section I missed a few words in the lyrics and used the wrong chords on the last section, and it should have been a higher pitch on-…"

"I'm sure no one noticed" I interrupted seeing your head beginning to go red. "Heck I didn't and I was listening pretty damn hard"

"You didn't listen well enough." You said with a tremble of your head so slight that it almost escaped my notice. Inside your mom and dad shouted some more and the words entered my ears and stayed there for a long while in the dark. There were sounds of doors being banged and pans being thrown to the floor, it was a pretty bad fight in my opinion. I looked at you and recognized the expression of hurt and pain that clutched your features. Your eyes were screwed shut so tightly that I wondered if maybe you wanted to be done with it all and if you wanted to run away as far away as you could.

"MJ," I said gently. "What're they fighting about? It sounds really bad."

You took a deep and shaky breath before answering, "My dad… He's been having an affair."

"Jesus," I swore, unable to think of anything to say after that.

It was a full moon and as we sat on the steps of your house, the front porch bathed in its light, I began looking up at the night sky, to try and spot any of the familiar stars I usually see from my roof. Stargazing was an amazing past-time and usually on days where I wouldn't be able to sleep owing to the nightmares or the police sirens that moved around the city, I would generally slide open my bedroom window and tiptoe my way onto our tiled rooftop and sleep there under them and forget for a brief moment all the worries of the world that naturally kept me wide awake.

"They're gone tonight" I mumbled to myself when I couldn't spot any of the twinkling ones that I recognized from memory and just months of observation.

"What?"

"The stars," I said, "Can you see them?"

"Not really"

"Yeah," I chuckled. "Me neither. The city is too bright for the stars to hang about."

You smiled, "You're such a space-freak."

"Trust me, there's enough space out there to swallow us whole," I said severely. "And besides you're the freak with the guitar."

"Oh, so I'm the freak? Not Peter-freakin'-Parker who drops out of trees?"

"Alright," I conceded. "We're both freaks then. Of a different kind."

"So which one's worse?"

"Why does there have to be a worse?"

"Just tell me," you said. The voices grew louder behind us but we didn't mind. Not in the slightest bit, not for the moment.

"I'd say it's you. A freak with a guitar is the worst kind."

"Ohhh", you intoned, the dimple on your cheek resurfacing. "So that's how we're playing it are we?"

"That is indeed, how we're gonna play it" I answered.

You bumped me with your shoulder, and I laughed, albeit as quietly as I could for it was still quite late in the night. But then we sat there, on the porch, as still as mannequins and occasionally we'd say something to break the silence. The wind picked up as the minutes passed by and then I remembered something, something I had to say.

"You know MJ, the thing I was talking about before? About the stars?" I asked.

"Yeah?"

"About how we can't see them tonight?"

"Because of the city lights?" you asked. "Because it's too bright in New York so they've all run away?"

"Yeah"

"They'll be back," I said finally, as the streetlights flickered in the streets outside our homes and we sat there like statues till the moon disappeared.