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Dear Reviewers:
Please consider this a trigger warning for suicidal content. This does not condone, glorify, or describe in great detail anything suicidal, but rather the repercussions and effects on those left behind after someone has died. It's about the emotions, not the act itself, nor do I describe the action of it in ANY WAY. I'm not going to pull a 13 Reason Why here. More like a 13 Thoughts on WHY NOT. I will also note it is based on personal experience and it's a personal way of dealing with it, with the hopes that others with shared experiences find that commonality in this story and the characters I am borrowing for a time.
All the love,
Pip
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MORRIS PARK
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I draw near the crowd that has gathered on the sidewalk. They appear to be neighbors; maybe some of them friends.
"Does anyone know what happened?" I ask.
No one hears me.
The paramedics shut the double doors behind the gurney.
"Can anyone please tell me what happen?" I ask, louder this time, my voice shrill.
The man in the yellow rain-slicker in front of me turns and glances over his shoulder at me. "DOA," he replies in a thick Bronx accent.
"Dee… dee oh A?" I repeat, confusedly. "What… what does that mean?"
"Dead on arrival," the man explains. He looks like an old sea salt, someone who belongs in an equally yellow hat battling squalls on the high seas in a fishing vessel. He rubs at the inconsistent white stubble on his chin. "Suicide. Tragic thing."
"Do you know who died?" I ask.
"I think maybe their daughter. Such a sad situation - lovely girl. Nice daughter. Depressed, though, had a lot of problems, maybe drugs… I don't know. There wasn't a gunshot or nothing - she must of killed herself some other way." He shakes his head. "Really a shame. Damn, she was too young for that."
"What's their daughter's name?"
"Kim," he turns and looks at me, more suspiciously. "You like a friend? Or a reporter, or something? I ain't talking to the press, so you can unquote me on all that."
"I'm - not - a reporter," I say unsteadily.
"Oh, yeah," he squints me. "You're a little young yourself."
I reach out to support myself on the mailbox beside us on the sidewalk, misjudge my distance, and nearly fall.
"Whoa, steady," says the man, his expression softening. "Friend, then," he assumes. "Sorry, kid. This ain't no place for you then - get on home. Go on," he gently turns my elbow and shoos me down the sidewalk. "Friend shouldn't have to see this. Go home to your folks now, do your homework."
He watches me steadily until he is sure that I won't fight him on this. When I'm far enough along down the sidewalk, he turns and continues watching the emergency personnel.
I point myself in the direction of Williamsbridge road, where I know I can board a train that will eventually aim me for Queens. It's not a long walk, maybe two or three blocks. It'd be faster with web - but what would I use it on? The chimneys of the one, two story homes? It would work even less than the night of Liz's party.
And besides, I want to walk. I want to think. Think - think - think…
But I can't think. I can barely walk, but I force myself, trying to concentrate on finding the train station. I can do that, just that. Maybe if I can do that, I can figure out what else to do.
I turn my face towards the darkness.
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THE STAIRWELL
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It feels weird casually walking into the building (even something as private as a maintenance stairwell) side by side with an individual that I've now met twice.
Kim's nervous, and tucking her blond hair behind her ears. She looks pretty underneath the haunted look, the bags under her eyes, the body weighed with exhaustion and something else that I can't put my finger on.
I hold the door open for her, and then let it fall shut behind us.
"Thanks," she says, with a smile.
"Yeah," I shrug, walking down the stairs with her. Our footsteps echo against the cement walls, trailing musically down the stairwell. Some old fluorescent lights flicker above, bouncing off the shadowed, water-stained walls. It's not a well-maintained area, and puts my senses on alert. I find myself walking slightly ahead of her, checking corners before she reaches them.
"May I ask how old you are?" she questions. "You seem so young."
"Uhhhh," I respond awkwardly.
"Oh, you don't have to answer," she says quickly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry."
"It's okay," I respond, feeling that I don't have to be entirely paranoid around her. "I'm fifteen."
"Well shit," she breathes. "Sweetheart. Aren't you a little young to be putting yourself in danger like this?"
"I gotta do what I do," I try to say with a casual smirk. We round the corner, and go down another level. "Which floor you on?"
"Three more," she answers, and falls silent.
"So…" I remember Karen's advisement of her distress. "It seemed like you were pretty upset about something. Is everything okay?"
Her breath hitches, and it's my turn to apologize. "Now I'm prying," I snicker a little. "Sorry."
"It's nice for you to ask," she replies, hesitantly. "I just needed a space to think… and… well, grieve, I guess."
"What happened, if you don't mind my asking?"
She brings up her shoulders to her ears briefly, less of a shrug and more like building a small, bodily shield against the emotions that flood her by my asking. "I lost my custody of my kid today. We had the trial… and…" She bites her lip, unable to continue.
"I'm so sorry," I say sorrowfully. My overwhelming sympathy for her seems muffled by the mask, and I almost wish I was just Peter Parker right now, instead of Spiderman, to better provide some comfort.
"I have to go downstairs and tell her," she went on, "I'll get her on weekends… still… sleepovers with Mommy. It's not the same… she'll be living with him in his new apartment. We couldn't prove his current drug use, but they were able to prove my use two years ago, so…"
"I don't… I don't understand that," I reply weakly.
"She can choose who she loves when she's eighteen," Kim says curtly.
"I'm sure she still loves you," I say with an awkward hitch in my voice. "Court doesn't decide that, right?"
"I don't know," Kim whispers softly. Her voice is full of despair. "Guess I won't know till she's eighteen. I might as well not exist till then."
"How old is she?"
"Just turned six."
"So… that's twelve years from now?" I ask hesitantly. "I know… I know it seems like forever - but - isn't it worth it?"
"She is," Kim says. "But maybe I'm not."
"I know it doesn't seem like that," I say, with an urgency that I don't understand. "But I'm… I'm thinking about this from her perspective. I'd give anything to see my parents again. Anything. If someone told me I only had twelve years left before I could spend time with them… I'd take it. Doesn't matter how long it takes."
She seems warmed by this admission. "You sound like you've been through a lot." We pause, and I realize we're at the door onto her floor. She opens it onto a cramped apartment hallway. "It's admirable that you're so… helpful. And friendly. After whatever crap you've been through. Most people turn that suffering inward."
I gaze at her steadily, unsure of what to say. My lenses adjust slightly, and it makes her laugh. "You don't have to say anything more," she waves a hand. "I've taken too much of your time already."
"No, not at all," I say. "This is my time. Helping… people. Doing things. I guess." Part of me wants to say that I'm no saint and I do plenty of angsty suffering on the inside, and rarely open up in a healthy way. "Listen," I add. "I'm not really the best person to give advice about this. I'm just a kid."
"Spiderkid," she says with a wink, elbowing me slightly. "Has a nice ring to it, huh?"
"Sure," I try to laugh a little with her. "It's just… I want to say… hang in there? No, no, I don't want to say that, that sucks… I'm really bad at this. I just hope everything turns out okay."
"Even if it takes twelve years to get there?"
"Especially if it takes twelve years," I nod fervently. "There shouldn't be… be... an expiration date, ya know? And - I bet if anything - I bet your daughter is going to really look forward to turning eighteen."
She smiles and nods, and the pause between our conversation falls naturally. It's time for her to go inside and tell her daughter what happened today. It's time for me to go home. "Thanks for walking me home, Spiderman," she smiles. "You get - home - safely. Home? Right? You've got to have a home. A place where you stay."
"I do," I nod wholeheartedly again. "And, you're welcome. Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
"See you," I wave, awkwardly.
"She seems much calmer," Karen's voice chimes in as I turn away and go back up the maintenance stairs. As soon as the door clicks shut onto Kim's floor, I send a spiral of webbing up the center, open area of the stairwell, till I hear it splat against the roof above the maintenance door. I pull myself up with an oomph, cutting the time to get to the top by half.
I detach myself from the web when I reach the landing, plopping down on the entry and pushing the door back open.
A cold, sharp wind whistles around me, buffeting hard against my body and nearly pushing me back. It reminds me once more just how high this building is.
I go over to the fire-escape ladder that Kim was holding on to when I approached, climbing up it myself and peering over the side. Below, New York is spread out like a black blanket twinkling with stars, or rather the headlights and streetlights of thousands of people. Thirty, maybe forty stories high? Fifty, at the most. It's not the tallest building in Manhattan by a long shot but it's high enough.
The cacophony of the city returns; a siren, a dog barking, traffic in the smaller, cramped streets between high-rises and faster white noise of the freeway. Everything that an underground room is not.
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HOME
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I get home, late. I unlock the apartment door and slip inside, shutting and relocking behind me. Aunt May is waiting on the couch. She stands, uncertain. For a moment I'm afraid she'd waiting up for me because something happened - she has a look on her face, one that I can't decipher.
"What?" I ask, sharper than I intended.
"You were gone late," she says carefully. "Honey…" She makes a winding gesture with her finger pointed at her face. "You look… not okay."
I don't answer, I shake my head, and I sniff. My eyes are bloodshot.
"Are you okay?"
I drop my backpack on the floor and walk towards her. I think she's surprised when I put my arms around her for a hug. I've been getting taller. I feel like I'm almost too tall to do it without suffocating her.
I'm crying a little, so she responds by suffocating me right back, embracing me and rubbing my back and saying comforting phrases that I forget instantly.
"Sorry if I worried you," I whisper.
"You're worrying me a little right now," she replies, "but you don't have to say sorry for it." She pulls back and pushes hair away from my face. "What's wrong?" she asks.
I shrug, walking to the couch and falling into it with a heavy breath. She sits right beside me, unwilling to give me any space.
"You can talk to me," she urges, her voice pained by my lack of being upfront. "Remember? Anything, anytime. I'm always here for you."
"Someone died tonight," I whisper. "I couldn't save her. Spider-Man couldn't save her." I scrub at my eyes with one hand, and then drop it in my lap uselessly.
She rubs at my back again. "I'm so sorry, Peter."
"She killed herself," I explain. "I feel so horrible about it. And I… don't understand why."
"It's okay to not understand," May whispers. "You can live your whole life and not understand why these sorts of things happen. I wish I did. Because then I could help you." She pauses. "How can I help you?" she asks. "Do you want me to go?"
"No," I say shortly, and then I begin crying anew.
She wraps her arms around me and doesn't let go.
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Author's Note: Like I said before, dealing with some personal stuff, which always leaks through to my writing. Please remember Kim and her circumstances are 100% fictional, but the feelings are pretty real. I was really upset when someone I knew through work committed suicide, and felt I couldn't properly grieve because of the way we were connected. We weren't friends, or even co-workers. But I had a conversation with her before she died much like Peter had with Kim, and I had felt like we were really bonding. When she died I felt so weird - and I thought, I can't be the ONLY person who has felt this way or had this happen, which that line of thinking will eventually lead my real and personal situation into my fictional realms. So if you, as a reader, have felt that way, maybe it was a classmate or a very distant relative or acquaintance that died and you felt cheated out of grief by your lack of connection with them - don't. It's okay to grieve for someone you barely know. It's okay to be sad from these things. If you've been on the other side of this and you've wanted to die, just know that every person out there might care for you in their own way. There's a whole world out there that doesn't know you personally, but STILL wishes you health and happiness.
I'm just a friendly customer service voice on the other end of a phone for my day job, but I earnestly hope for every single person I speak to that they feel loved and whole and worthy. Even if you don't feel that way now, give it time. Happiness and mental wellness has no expiration date. Sometimes it's just late, but if you give it time, you can have it too.
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Bonus Features
Feel free to skip to the end to bypass PERSONAL review replies, a 'coming soon' tag, and instagram/Youtube information, etc, and head straight on down to the end of the document. Your reviews are appreciated!
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(Crying because I have the best beta in the world)
Queen of Crystallopia is my amazing writerly twin, my comrade in arms, and lately, my inspiration! It takes TWO SECONDS of chatting with her to make me want to exit Netflix and write for HOURS! She's super cool like that.
Please check out her amazing books here on fan fiction, "Paint it Black" and the sequel called "SILENT NIGHT". Both are literally THE BEST SPIDER-MAN FANFICTIONS YOU WILL EVER READ IN YOUR LIFE. You can find it in my favorites or on her profile.
Also, as her beta and biggest fan, I made a fan trailer for her first book PAINT IT BLACK and posted it on YouTube. It's unlisted to keep YouTube from deleting it. I'd love for you to see it! Since fan fiction hates it when we try to share links, you can try using the link below. Just take out the spaces and parenthesis and replace the slash with an actual slash.
(www) . (youtube) . com (slash) (watch?v=TqWlBlVA9Q4&lc=)
OR, you can direct message myself or Queen of Crystallopia on instagram (insta handles shared on respective profile pages) and we'll send a link!
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REVIEW REPLIES
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BJAfan: Oh man, I wish the photography subplot will have more of a payoff, but I'm afraid of getting your hopes up. I hope to just drop hints and nods to the original Spider-Man canon we all know and love, particularly when it comes to an adult Peter Parker. I don't know how long Tom Holland will play Spider-Man (I hope it's forever till he's an old man and I'm going to the movie theater with a walker) but I'm HOPING they get him to the Daily Bugle someday. Thanks for the heads up about AO3! I am super stoked to start posting stories there, especially the re-edited and improved and CHRONOLOGICAL version of this story!
Shoyzz: Aw good to see you my friend! I have been FREAKING OUT over your art on insta. It's SO AMAZING. You are incredibly talented!
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COMING SOON...
Peter finds himself in Hell's Kitchen, again and again, and again... He doesn't even understand his own intentions, and he fears that choosing one will push him down a path of darkness that he'll regret.
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Instagram handles!
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For fanfiction and NERD STUFF: pippin_strange
For life, drawings, and more: myapapaya_adventures
For my epic Dungeons & Dragons group: thegildedlillyparty
For my weird obsessions: myas_haunted_things
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GUYS I SAW BLACK PANTHER THIS WEEKEND! IT WAS TOTALLY AMAZING. When you see it, let's talk about that end credits scene, OK?!