Days of Pretending

By Blu Wynd Faerie

Chapter 5: Kiss Me On The Way Home

It was a rainy day, and the streets were cold like ice dripping down a frozen corpse. The wind whipped down the alleys and over the fire escapes like sneaky night thieves, caped men who hid in shadows and stalked without footsteps. Mary Jane wanted to scream at the chill on her skin. You would think that heavy jeans and a thick sweater with a coat would be enough, she thought with a grumble. It's only November.

A taxi splashed in the pooling waters next to the curb. She slammed her fist down on it to claim it for her own. "It's too cold to walk," she explained to the driver as she climbed in. She gave the black man with blue dreadlocks the address, and he took flight across the gridlock streets of New York City.

She had not seen Peter for a week, thanks to conflicting schedules. It upset her that he was unable to meet her, but the redheaded maiden tried not to grudge Peter that. Mary Jane did not think he was avoiding her, as she could not think why he would want to, and she trusted the fact that Peter was a nice kid who wouldn't be that cruel. Mary Jane did not doubt that when he was not with her, he was crime-fighting. It wasn't his fault that the city was being robbed left and right. Still, she could not help feel hurt that Peter wasn't there when she needed him to be.

Mary Jane paid the cab driver as they pulled up. "Be careful out there, lady," he reminded her, speaking in a soft voice that was high in tone for that of a man. "There's danger everywhere in this city."

"I know," she told him, nodding. "But thanks anyways." He shrugged and slid his sophisticated glasses farther up his nose and for a second he ooked much too intelligent to be a cab driver, but he sped away before Mary Jane could say anything. So she entered the apartment and climbed the rickety steps as quickly as her legs could take her. She wanted to see her boyfriend so badly that her heart felt contorted, knotted, maybe even dissected.

Finally, Mary Jane knocked on the apartment door. There was no answer. She sighed and knocked again. He had said he would be home, and that they could both go out for a nice dinner that night. Why wasn't he available? Frustration boiled up underneath her skin, and she knew that the back of her neck was getting hot from her anxiousness. "Is anyone home?" she called out impatiently, thumping on the hard door again.

It swung open. Harry leaned against the doorframe. "No, nobody's here," he responded charmingly, a smile gracing his features.

Taken aback, and yet amused, her hand in mid-air, Mary Jane smiled. "Hi, Harry. Long time no see," she said gracefully. A little awkward feeling crept up into her throat. Here she was, at her boyfriend's front door, being flirted with by her ex-boyfriend. 

"Same to you," he replied, shooing her inside from the cold evening. "Come on in." The apartment he offered to her was much warmer and significantly more comfortable than the outside. She set down her purse and coat on a chair.

"Thanks so much," she said with her thankfulness spilling over in her radiant smile. "It's been really cold for this time in the year."

"I'll say!" Harry laughed. "Tell me, what's new with you?" he asked, sitting himself down on the couch. Mary Jane joined him, latching her ankles sophisticatedly.

"Oh, nothing much," she said with a smile. Her face deformed uncharacteristically as more of that strange emotion swept into her heart and wracked at her brain. She stood up suddenly, her back turned to him. "Harry, I don't know if Peter mentioned this or not, but he and I are… dating." Embarrassment at how foolish she sounded crept into her cheeks, reddening them in her shame and nervousness.

"Oh, don't worry. Peter mentioned it. In fact, he mentions it a lot, about as much as humanly possible." Harry grinned boyishly. "I think he's obsessed with you." A hint of mischievousness slid across his handsome features.

Mary Jane's face turned even pinker when she looked back to see the smirk on Harry's face. She tried to wipe the silly, girlish smile from her features as she strode onto a more serious note. "And you're okay with this?" she asked, meeting his eyes.

"Yes," Harry replied in a very persistent matter. "Of course I am. You're both my friends. Whatever makes you happy makes me happy."

"You're not just saying that, are you?" Mary Jane asked him with weariness and worry tugging at the corners of her mouth. She started to pace feverishly. "I mean-"

"Calm down, Mary Jane," he said with a shushing tone to his voice. He grabbed her wrist to stop her from pacing. "Don't wear my carpet thin." Mary Jane's eyes softened. He went on, "Look, just because I'm your 'ex-boyfriend' or whatever doesn't mean we have to be weird and awkward around each other. I'm still your friend, aren't I?"

"Yes."

"Then, as a friend, I just want to know about how things are going between you and your boyfriend."

Mary Jane bit her lip, slightly less uncomfortable but nonetheless unnerved. "Are you sure? Doesn't it hurt you, knowing that I'm dating your best friend?" she asked curiously, reseating herself next to him on the couch.

He paused for a moment, staring straight ahead. "A little. You're still the first girl I was really serious about," Harry confessed, his face losing some of its playfulness. Mary Jane looked away, unable to meet his eyes. Harry continued, "But that doesn't mean I grudge you this or anything, okay? I'm not angry that we broke up. I still… love you."

She almost couldn't take what he was saying. "I-" she began, but he intercepted her words.

"Hey, don't apologize. There's nothing to be sorry for. I know I'm not sorry for anything," he said. He rose. "Would you like some coffee or something? It's no trouble. I'm making some for myself anyway."

"Yes, please," she politely said. "You're not sorry we broke up?" she persisted, not wanting to leave her questions unanswered. She leaned forward, genuinely interested in what he was saying.

"Nope," Harry replied very calmly, talking still as he headed for the kitchen.

Mary Jane rose to follow him. "But you said you still… love me," she struggled to choke out confusedly.

"Yes. I love you. But I don't love us together," he answered her. He pulled out the milk from the refrigerator. "Sometimes two people are very attracted to each other, but when it comes down to it, it just doesn't work, no matter what."

"And what makes you say that?" Mary Jane pressed further. A weird feeling, which was very different from her previous awkwardness, snuck into her head, hiding behind her brain. She could sense it, and she did not like it. She did not like what Harry was saying about love.

"It's the truth. You and I did not work out, did we? And we loved each other, too. Some pairs are just hopeless," he said depressingly. "Can we please change the subject? It's kind of sad to think about."

"I… yes, I'm sorry," Mary Jane consented. "Tell me something else I ought to know."

And so they talked for a long hour or so over coffee, waiting for Peter to return. The moon rose over the windy night, casting its irregular shadows across the poorly-lit room, making mysterious the lights on the walls. Much laughter resounded through the apartment. But in the back of her mind Mary Jane could not shake the eerie relevance of what Harry had said to her relationship with Peter. Was it true that people who loved each other were sometimes not meant to be, despite their affinity for each other? She did not dare to question him further about it, as to not make her friend uncomfortable, but Mary Jane did not want to imagine that what Harry believed was true.

The clock on the counter struck seven o'clock; Harry rose. Mary Jane watched him stand curiously. "It's been great talking to you, but I have to go. I have a date tonight."

"A date?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

Harry face got a suspicious look. "Yes. Don't look at me like that. It's my cousin! For God's sake!" They both laughed. Harry explained further. "We're just going to discuss what to do with some of my father's possessions," he said, his voice shadowy and whispering at the mention of his deceased father. She laid a hand over his own, but he shrugged a little and nodded to assure her that he was fine. "You can stay if you want until Peter comes."

"I'd like that," she said. "Thanks so much for everything." She rose and gave him a strong hug. She wasn't sure why tears beaded up behind her eyelids as she held him like that. It was either sweet nostalgia or terrible regret that drove her to her tears; or, maybe it was something different, because their past together was bleeding into her present with Peter. She hid her water-stained cheeks from Harry with a touch of the backs of her fists. Then, with a wave and a smile, Mary Jane saw him out the door.

After Harry had left, she wandered to the couch again and laid her head on the pillows, watching the stars peeking out in the darkness of the sky. Mary Jane watched a small cloud, gray-colored against the moon and the red-black of the nighttime, drag over a patch of stars, a constellation she knew once but had forgotten. Her red hair pooled at the back of her neck as she craned her head to see the city lights flicker and ignite, drowning out the stars that were just appearing.

She did not know how long she was there, just watching some things, anything. She didn't know why she didn't turn on the television or read the newspaper; maybe it was because the media and those sorts of modern things were complicated when she didn't need complication, and the starlight was simple and easy to comprehend and it didn't hurt anything. It did not require her to think about things she did not want to think about right then, like Peter.

Nature was not easy, but it was not stringy and tough like bad meat. It was always beautiful, rare, and never hated. It was miraculous, even. It was an escape, like her wreath of flowers, something that let her drift a little farther away from who she was. It was a fantasy in a place far away from the situations she did not want to confront. And that was why she loved it.

Mary Jane's gaze flitted against her will at a small movement. A spider was crawling on the wall. Perhaps nature in itself was untainted and simple, but that spider brought more thoughts to her brain at once than she thought she could handle.

Peter, she thought, and Mary Jane knew that as soon as his name crept into her space she would not be able to turn away from the subject. I miss you so much. Where are you? Are you safe? She rose and went to the window, pressing her fingers against it, looking for maybe a tiny flash of red and blue in the huge, meandering cityscape. The lights blinded her, though, and she almost saw nothing. When she turned her pretty eyes to the sky again the stars were so dim compared to mankind's light that she only saw a few of their myriad multitudes.

I want to get inside your head. I want to know why you do the things you do, Peter. Why must you feel so compelled to be Spider-man, this person whom the both of us hate? I know you feel responsible for the death of your uncle, but don't you realize that Spider-man might be the death of you? He could even be the death of us as a whole. With you gone on nights like these, nights when I need you, we might just fall apart. Of course, Mary Jane did not dare to linger long on the thought of not being together with Peter, because it was a soft topic. But it had vaguely brushed against her mind, and she did not like its phantom touch.

"Peter," she moaned, her back to the glass. She slid down it, leaving a smear. I know you have to be Spider-man, deep inside of you. It's so important to you. But aren't I important to you, too? Call me selfish, but right now I think I need you most of all. It hurt me to be alone before, when I was a parentless child, and I still haven't gotten used to it. I only want to be loved more, really loved, like princesses get loved in fairytales. She sighed. I want something real and flawless in my life. What she could not understand that nothing could be both real and flawless at the same time.

Days of yore had passed her by. Those were the days when Mary Jane had gone home to her room, where she could remain unfortunately alone, but it was still no home at all. Mary Jane had not really found a home anywhere, except for inside herself on the best of days. She did not find it in the backseats of boyfriends' cars, or in popularity, or in her beauty. She found her home in the times when she ran around her backyard and picked beautiful blossoms that knew no pain. She found home when she felt proud of herself at auditions. She found it when she leaned over her neighbor's fence and wanted to hold his hands and fall in love with him. She found it in the shy arms of this same naïve neighbor. She found home in his kiss, too.

His kiss was fleeting on nights like these; kisses were vague remembrances, phantom sensations that she missed from heavens she had seen once before. She wanted to die to go to heavens like those. Mary Jane crossed her arms and knew she could not expect the world nipping at her feet joyously, even when she wanted to live that life. Mary Jane knew that she could not expect to be at home all the time with Peter Parker. But once a person has a taste of something magnificent like that, it's hard to let it go.

Mary Jane sighed and rose, stumbling to the couch, because she was tired and sleep was wearing down on the corners of her eyes. I'll be waiting, Peter. Just get back to me safely. She yanked on the quilt that was tossed over the back of the sofa and pulled it up to her ears, situated the pillows under her head as she squirmed to get comfortable. She soon enough slipped into a deep slumber, smudging at her face in her reveries.

She did not know how long it was when her sleep was disturbed. Mary Jane only knew that it was long enough for the tears to really dry upon her rosy cheeks. She sat up, running slender fingers through her disarrayed red hair. It was then that she realized what had woken her up. The door opened slowly, creaking conspicuously, and Peter entered the apartment.

Peter looked tired, battle-worn. A deep red cut sliced across the skin of his hand, and it made her shiver to see the wound's sickly color. His hair had lost its usual neatness and was mussed with the day's work and struggle, the strands disarranged from being flattened under his suit's headpiece. His eyelids were fluttering with his need for sleep, and his shirt was wrinkled. Mary Jane felt her heart pang for him.

"Peter?" she sighed, and he spun on his heel to look at her. Surprise was written all over his face. His eyes met hers. He had never before seen such longing in her eyes, such need, such pain and sorrow and desperation.

"Mary Jane," he said, echoing names back at her. He dropped his coat on the chair as he came towards her swiftly and in a needy manner. Mary Jane tripped up from her makeshift bed, a pile of pillows and a throw blanket, and into his open arms, smothering him with kisses on his face. She couldn't keep her hands off of him.

Peter backed up a step to look at her, his eyes searching her own. His finger trailed along her cheek, his fingertips familiar with the way that dried tears felt upon skin. Hungrily, he kissed her petal-soft lips, tasting the nectar that kept him moving through the day, relishing the feeling that he lived the days through just to feel at the end.

~~

AN: Yah! The blue-haired man is my prophet. He's going to come in later as the bringer of words and messages. (Haha! Yay!) Harry was kind of random. But I figured that this was a chapter for prophecies and advice and letting MJ and Peter have a wee bit of help in their relationship, so I shoved him in there to be the median man. Why not? He had a major effect on them both.

I know that it's short. The real adventure is the next chapter. Expect chapter 6 to be about 10 pages long. It's going to be huge, baby! I'm excited. There's not much to say about this except that it's really MJ's chapter in all its glory, as short as it is. (In reality, so much of this is her story, too. But this is really her chapter alone. Peter is in it, but he's only in it for her, only appearing to say her name, even.)

I could have written a cheesy poem and called it "Ode to MJ" instead of making this chapter. Review me and tell me if you like this chapter better than a crappy poem. *begs on her knees* Yeah, that's right, review! *growls* I still only got about 5 or 6, though it's an improvement. I am in love with my reviewers. You are the strength that keeps me writing and inspires me. You're amazing.