Peter awoke from another difficult night of sleeping. He half opened his eyes and then closed them again and rolled onto his side, giving the side of his head a chance to rest on the pillow. As he did so, a picture on the wall of Gwen with a lollipop in her mouth caught his eye. It had been three months since Gwen's passing, and it still hurt as much as the day of the funeral. Every morning after Peter woke up, there were a few seconds where he would forget she was gone. In fact, not a single thought of her would even enter his head until he would see a picture of her somewhere in his room. And then, like every morning, he would come to the harsh realization that Gwen wasn't with him anymore.
Peter sat up in his bed and put his face into hands. Normally, the first day of Christmas vacation would be a good day. Except it was the first Christmas without his love. Somehow, he couldn't even look around his room without seeing something that reminded him of her. Whether it was a shirt that she had bought for him while on a date at the mall, or a pen she had left at his house while doing homework. After sitting and wallowing in the memories for a moment, he got up and walked to his dresser. As he walked, he caught sight of the flash drive with the words "GWEN'S SPEECH" written on it lying on his desk. He sighed.
"Not yet." Peter softly said to himself, as he ignored the flash drive and put on a red sweater and a pair of blue jeans he had pulled out of the dresser. He then took out a pair of long socks from the top drawer, and put them on his feet, followed by his shoes. Then he ventured on his way downstairs.
After getting into the kitchen and opening the refrigerator, Peter pulled out a Ziploc bag filled with leftover pancakes that Aunt May had made a few days before. He took one out and started to eat it without even bothering to heat it up. How it tasted didn't matter to him, as long there was something in his stomach.
"Hey." Peter heard from behind him. He recognized it as Aunt May's warm and welcoming voice.
"Hey." He replied, swallowing what was left in his mouth.
"You know, I wanted to ask you: do you want me to make my crumb cake or carrot cake this Christmas?" She asked, preparing for the upcoming holiday season. Her crumb cake hadn't had the best track record in the Parker household, with Uncle Ben privately telling Peter it gave her meatloaf a run for it's money.
"Carrot cake." He responded.
"Alrighty!" Aunt May said with a smile. "Well, it's a good thing I went to the market last week to avoid all the-oh, where are you headed?" She asked, noticing he was wearing shoes.
"To the graveyard." Aunt May should've figured.
"Okay." She said as she nodded a solemn face. "Just…please be back before dark."
"You got it." Peter said, grabbing his hat, scarf, and coat from the coatrack.
Peter opened the door, took a deep breath, and started on his way. Every single day for the first six weeks after Gwen's passing, Peter would spend hours just standing at the foot of her grave. As time passed, he cut back on the amount of time spent at her grave. However, that didn't make it hurt any less.
On the way to the graveyard, Peter passed all the regular places along the way: coffee shop, deli, florist, salon, and then he finally got to the gate of the graveyard. It, of course, was empty. No one wants to spend the first day of Christmas vacation visiting the burial site of a love one. After walking past all of the usual tombstones, he saw the one marked "GWEN M. STACY, BELOVED DAUGHTER AND SISTER." He stopped at the foot of her grave, and stood there.
After a few minutes of silence, Peter finally brought himself to say something.
"Hey Gwen…" He started. "Christmas Vacation started. Yay, right?" He said with a faint forced smile. "...Aunt May's making her carrot cake this Christmas. I don't think you ever tried it, but it's good." Peter paused for a moment, trying to find something to say that wouldn't seem so forced.
"You know, I still have a piece of that apple pie you made me." Peter said with a small chuckle, referring to an apple pie she had baked for him as a pre-graduation gift. "It was a great pie-a REALLY great pie…I was going to save what was left of it for graduation night. I ended up leaving it in the freezer and forgetting about it…I still can't bring myself to eat that last piece." Peter could feel a lump growing in his throat.
"I saw your mom in the supermarket last night while I was getting Aunt May some eggs." Peter started, on a more serious note. "She…she said that she was sorry she hadn't talked to me sooner…and that I was always welcome to come over anytime I needed anything or if I just needed to talk." The last few words sounded hollow, as he felt the lump in his throat growing bigger.
"I'm done playing the blame game and trying make it someone else's fault, Gwen." He said, trying to hold back tears. "For weeks, I was mad at Harry for dropping you into the clock tower, and Max for leading you over there…but this wasn't Harry's fault, this wasn't Max's fault, and it wasn't because of my webshooters or the clock tower. It was because of one person and one person only…me." Peter finally couldn't hold it back anymore and a tear rolled down his cheek. "Just me…if I had just kept my promise to your father and stayed away from you, you would be in England right now, studying at Oxford." Peter's voice began to crack as more tears began to fall.
"And it kills me-it just kills me whenever someone who loved you shows me the kind of kindness that your mom did, and tells me that they're so sorry for MY loss, when I'M the reason why you're in the ground right now! Because I didn't keep my promise to your father!" Peter yelled, until he finally lost it and started to cry. He got on his knees and doubled over on the grass over her grave as he started to cry harder.
"I'm sorry, Gwen." He said quietly. "I'm really sorry…"