Days of Pretending

by Blu Wynd Faerie

rated PG-13

Chapter 6: Transition Between Notes on a Grand Piano

Excerpt from a letter from Peter Parker to May Parker, written approximately a week after the previous episode:

Yes, I'm dating Mary Jane. Who told you? Her mom told you, maybe. No, I wasn't hiding it from you; I just hadn't told you yet. Irregardless, let's move onto your other pressing questions.

Yes, we are happy together. I am so glad that I'm with her. She's absolutely amazing in every sense and I must admit I'm madly in love with her. We've been going out in the park on walks, seeing movies, playing board games in small cafes. It's all very nice and quiet, and somehow Mary Jane has come to think I'm some sort of a romantic! Heck, I'm only Peter Parker.

MJ is doing really well, and she had a good audition the other day. She was auditioning for a part in a play at a downtown theater. She sends her best wishes and said she wants to set up a date to come visit and have some of your legendary pie. I might as well come, too. Leftovers from the pizza place down the corner are getting very, very old. Harry's doing as well as can be expected after his dad's death. He's coping and moving on, thankfully.  He thanks you for your prayers.

And, finally, Aunt May, you really are nosy. You shouldn't ask questions like that! Have I kissed her yet, you ask? My question for you, dear Aunt, is, "What do you think?"

~~~

Excerpt from Mary Jane Watson's journal, written approximately two days after the previous entry:

I had a very good day today. Peter and I went out to lunch. He let me pay for myself so I wouldn't feel bad, and he carried that far-off gaze all throughout the meal. I know what he was doing; he was watching me, admiring me from across the table. He always gets like that when he stares at me. It's as frightening as it is amazing. I cannot decide whether to feel pressured by the enormity of his affection or flattered. I feel both.

Peter, Peter, with that boyish smile and your gentle, soothing hands! Peter, with that softness in your eyes, could you be any more near perfect? Peter, how can I be so unworthy, so ungrateful? I need you, but is it too much?

Are we obsessed with each other? Maybe that's not healthy.

"Talk to me, Peter. Come closer," I can imagine myself saying. I fall in love with him all over again, and it makes me want him even more badly, makes me need more, makes me satisfied with even less. "Peter, is there a limit to love? Can there be too much?"

"Never," he will say. "If anything, I cannot love you enough." Or something like that.

That's the scary part. It's not enough. Nothing is enough.

I want to be with him every single day, every single moment. It hurts me to hear him talk about other people on the phone, like Harry or co-workers or his boss, but certainly Spider-man, that little nit-picking bastard. Yes, my words are harsh. But my words are true, and that's what I feel. I cannot stand him.

"Mary Jane, I can't come," he said to me last night over the telephone.

"Something's come up?" I asked him, and he told me that there was a bank robbery. Goodbye, candlelit dinner.

God, it kills me every time. It's happened a few times already, and it gets progressively worse. Why do criminals chose the nights that we have dates to attack this ugly city? Or there are late nights, nights when I feel so lonely, and I call, but he's not home yet, because he's off cavorting with Spider-man, who leads him around like some tragic puppy. And then he comes back ill and sick, wasted by the second personage. It's a demon taking over his body. I dream nightmares about Peter being eaten alive by Spider-man, and in the morning there is nothing but the haunted mask.

And it's something I cannot explain, like I'm jealous of a bug. I do not feel abandoned by him, and yet I do. He tries so hard. He gives too much, it hurts him as it shakes him loose. Peter, that boy, does all he can for me. And I still ache when I miss him as I lie half-awake, dreaming reveries of holding him, interrupted by the screaming television and images of him dying like a drowning rat in the muck of this ugly city that chains him, that chains Spider-man, that chains me.

I feel like he's half-dying, and I'm the rotting half he left behind. That's what it's like.

Wouldn't that upset you? Of course not. You're a goddamned journal.

~~~

"Happy two-month anniversary," Peter remarked cheerfully. He clinked together wine glasses with her, and she smirked in that romantic way that he loved, and for a moment he thought he saw the same look in her eyes that he usually held in his; that look of absolute adoration, almost a look of humble worship. It made him tremble with a casual sort of fear, a fear he didn't really dislike, but rather was comfortable with. That feeling thrilled him.

"Same to you; happy two-months!" Mary Jane shot back at him gleefully. She leaned across the table to kiss his lips swiftly and passionately, very intentionally. "I love you."

"I love you," Peter replied, kissing her back, his lips dragging over her red, red mouth. They sipped simultaneously, watching each other excitedly over their glasses of white wine. Peter could not help to admire her absolute beauty; her hair was swept up and back in a braided bun that looked very sophisticated, and her red dress and redder shoes and reddest hair made her look splendid in her pale complexion, like she was a gorgeous and untainted porcelain doll on a shelf.

Mary Jane made him melt. She made him feel human, yet angelic, and at the same time, he felt like nothing. He was nothing but air!

"Peter, this is such a fancy restaurant.  You really shouldn't have," Mary Jane insisted, though she was very much delighted with the elegance of the tablecloths and the waiter with French accents. It certainly beat the diner any day.

"Tell me, since when do I ever go by what I should or should not do?"  Peter took her hand across the table, and she blushed in a teenaged manner, as if she was on a first date with her first love.

"Never. That's why I love you," she responded. She squeezed his hand and winked across the table, and for a moment they were absolutely perfect, absolutely happy. She almost forgot that he was Spider-man; Mary Jane almost forgot that she cried sometimes, that there had been periods in her life when she had felt sadness. She felt like she was only herself at that moment, like there was only the present Mary Jane who had ever existed. It was like pure, sheer ecstasy.

There was only Peter and Mary Jane at the table. No one else. The wine glimmered like gold, and she felt like Midas under his eyes, and she felt like a Greek goddess under his smile, and then for a long breath it frightened her deep inside of her soul. She felt dirty because of it, because she had prayed for it, and she had it, and she did not feel deserving of it anymore. She had what she wanted, only Peter at the table, and she felt like she had stolen from God himself.

"You have beautiful eyes," she said to him softly, and looked away.

~~~

Excerpt from Peter Parker's journal, written approximately a week their two-month anniversary:

Damn. I was late for a date with Mary Jane tonight. We went to go see a movie, but there was a hold-up in a small liquor store and I had to lend my hands. I hate criminals. I hate this.

We weren't late or anything. We didn't miss any of the movie. In fact, Mary Jane seemed to really enjoy it. It was some romantic comedy, something mushy and obviously chosen by her. She laughed at me to see me cry at the end when the heroine died, and she kissed me softly and held my hands and shushed me and gave me tissues. I felt there for a minute in the back of the theater like I didn't have to be Spider-man to make a difference, because I was at least something to her, and that was a difference enough. And, yet, no. It doesn't work like that.

But she cried, too.

~~~

Excerpt from Mary Jane Watson's journal, written approximately a week after their two-month anniversary:

I called Peter today, thanked him for taking me to the movies. My jacket smells like him, because he leaned in my arms and cried nearly all the way home in the taxi.

 "It's not fair for her to die!" he kept whispering back at me, and it was then that I realized that it was what he feared what might happen to me. It must have brought back a painful fear for him. I felt bad for snickering at his display of emotions, which were so unmanly but he didn't care, and instead lent him a packet of tissues and tried to calm him down.

I told him that he shouldn't worry. I told him it wouldn't happen to me; heroines die in the movies, but I know I won't, because I trust him. I will not die because I love him too much to let myself die.

"Here's a tissue," he said to me, and I wiped my eyes.

I couldn't put a finger on why I was crying. And I didn't think it was the movie, or the way he was crying either. I thought, maybe, that I was crying because I am dying because I do love him too much. We're dying, because of me, and because there are times when I love him too much so that it kills me instead of saving me.

Am I dying? What am I saying? I didn't mean it. I am not dying. I will not die because of you, Peter. That is what you do not want. It is what you feared. I have to be strength, and I have to be hope, even when I can't be. I must to make up for what you aren't to me.

~~~

Excerpt from Mary Jane Watson's journal, written approximately three days after the previous entry:

I have a picture on my wall. Peter had a camera when we were walking in the park the other day. He handed it off to a clumsy passerby who nearly dropped it, but the woman somehow managed to snap a decent picture of me and Peter. In fact, it's more than decent. Maybe the klutzy manner was only an act; her photography skills were pretty good. It's a great photo of us, with Peter and I leaning against each other, wrapped in each other's arms, the wind blowing all around, our scarves wrapping around each other. I love it. Peter framed it for me, and he gave it to me today, and I showered him with hugs and kisses for it. I look at it whenever I have a spare second, take it down, get lost in the look in his eyes in that precise moment.

Peter really looks quite possessive of me.

I don't blame him. I, too, look quite possessive of him. And it's so damn unhealthy.

~~~

Excerpt from Peter Parker's journal, approximately two weeks after the previous entry:

Sometimes Harry comes in. I know, because I see him, hear him breathing. Once I rolled over and turned around to look at him really hard, and he must have seen the tears on my face. His dim outline in the door was casual, yet shriveled, as if he had been struck by lightning.

"Go to sleep," he said to me. "I need to get up early." And I know he didn't know what to say to me right then.

When Mary Jane looks at me sometimes, I feel like I have failed her. But I can only stretch so far. Mary Jane, I cannot stretch much farther. Do you want me to snap? Because I just might, under the strain of your odd, foreign looks, the ones that make me guilty for everything I just can't be.

Mary Jane looks at me like she loves me right then, but like she hated me the night before.

~~~

"I heard it was supposed to snow," she commented with a smile, wrapping her gloved hand in Peter's. A twinkle in her eyes stressed her love of the winter weather, its blustery tendencies, the ways it encouraged snuggling and hot cocoa and love inside on cold days.

"Snow? No," he said, grinning at he realized he rhymed. "Maybe tomorrow," he added, stressing the last syllable to continue the rhythm. Mary Jane laughed at Peter and elbowed him playfully. They wove across the paved sidewalk as they nudged each other, their joyous sounds reaching the ears of residents a few blocks down on the lonely night.

"You're such a dork!" she laughed, jumping in front of him and putting her hands on his cold cheeks. They burned red with the chill and his embarrassment at being called such a name. There was a passion in his eyes, as if he knew what came next.

"I am?" he asked, aghast, his eyes gaping. "No way!" Peter wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her close abruptly, somewhat jerkily, needing her warm in the cold night, feeling indifferent to the icy rain that started to pelt them from above, like falling rock-hard stars. They came closer together, his fingertips brushing her spine softly, his lips tempted to not allow her to finish her sentence, to cut off words that could not express enough what she felt.

"You are, both you and your rhyming," the redhead whispered huskily, rubbing noses with him. "But I love you still, and even more because of it, you intelligent creature you." She met his mouth, lips touching his deeply and passionately, her hands winding into his frosty hair, leather against skin and waves, the only real flesh-to-flesh contact in their lips.

There is too much I cannot tell you. There are not enough times like these, she thought.

The young lovers broke apart. "Ow!" Peter hissed as a ball of hail pelted him on the shoulder. Sympathetically, Mary Jane reached to touch the would-be bruise, but she was immediately struck by a larger ice ball on her hand, causing her to withdraw.

She squeaked. "We have to get out of here!" she said, grabbing Peter's hand from his shoulder, where he rubbed the new sore. Mary Jane dragged him down a side street, frenetic yet blasé eyes searching for a refuge.

"Wait!" Peter said, suddenly taking control and leading her down another road. They scurried along, shrieking and laughing as they fled a maelstrom of hail, laughter ringing across the street and bouncing off the buildings. Peter pointed to a white building at the corner and they made a mad dash for its welcoming archway. Like rabid panthers, soaked in the jungle rains, they burst in through the unlocked mahogany doors.

"Sanctuary!" Mary Jane cried thankfully, and it echoed off of the walls of the chapel, shivered in the chilled stained glass windows, and was swallowed behind the altar.

"A church? You took me to a church?" Mary Jane asked, surprised. "I didn't think you were terribly religious."

"I am when the weather's bad," Peter replied, winking at her and intertwining their cold fingers. "Anyway, I meant to take you to a lounge for this, but a dark chapel will have to do instead." Peter subsequently yanked off his backpack and dropped it to the floor before pulling out a canteen and two plastic mugs. "Hot cocoa?" he asked her.

Don't do it. Don't make me fall in love with you anymore. If I fall in love with you anymore, I might explode with my passion. There might be too little of you, she thought with a vengeance, her naked brain and heart exposed and bloody in her anguish. Her internal struggle made her bleed. Once he feared loving me, because he thought he would hurt me. Now, I fear loving him, because I think it will hurt him. Damn!

"Oh, Peter, you shouldn't have," she remarked solemnly. Peter's breath caught in his throat when he saw that same ghostly look in her eyes, the look he didn't know, the look he knew had not gone away yet. She smiled and the look ran away like some maniac fleeing a crime scene; he'd seen that face, that face of guilt and fear and self-loathing.

"I'll have some, please," she requested quietly. He smiled back, brushing away insecurity, and poured them drinks. They sat on the floor in the middle of the aisle and Mary curled up against him, sipping her cocoa, her legs winding around his like alien vines, and she searched for comfort in him as she hid from him.

"There's a piano here," he whispered softly to her.

"I like the piano," she remarked childishly, and unfolded herself from Peter's body.  "Where is it?" When Peter pointed to a far corner, Mary Jane arose stiffly and wandered over to it. There was dust on its wood, on its unpolished keys. She touched its first key, and the loud, deep sound was music to her ears.

His arms slid around his lover's waist.  "Can you play?" he asked her ear.

"No," she answered quietly, her eyes forlorn, feeling like his skin was not enough, like his body was not big enough for his spirit. "Do you?"

Peter chuckled. "No. No, I don't either."

Mary Jane's fingers strummed across the keys, tapping them lightly in a melody she made up off of the top of her head. "Peter, I have a question," she began to say, her eyebrows knitting together.

"Just play something," he said.

Mary Jane ran her hands over the keys, letting the sounds flow together along the bright blue and yellow windows. Peter's hands ran up her arms, his palms on the back of her hands, following the motions. They were so close, yet never close enough. She didn't know what she was trying to play. It didn't matter.

The room was dark, and there were no candles lit, only their vague, shadowy gray bodies whispering in the midst of the blackness, brought to some light by the clouded windows. There were lips on her neck, all over, everywhere at once. He was humming a tune as he kissed her cheeks, his hands strumming on her stomach, his eyelashes brushing against her skin. Peter was against her, and she leaned back against him, eyes closing, and she felt young and new and so in love with him, and she loved being with him, and it made her cry, because it felt so wrong, like she was hurting him by being unable to accept him. The tears ran fluidly down her cheeks, and he felt them, knowing something was wrong, but Peter kissed away Mary Jane's gentle water droplets and caressed her with previously unshed words. Their hardly saintly acts in the very sacred place were sacrilege, sacrilege that was as sinful as it was healing. It was a cathedral, and there they were, loving and growing as they broke Catholic laws about boundaries of love and property and such.

Mary Jane opened her mouth to say something, but Peter swiftly reached up and turned her head back a little so that he might kiss the corner of her mouth. She twisted in his arms, not able to feel enough of him against her. She leaned back onto the piano, and it drummed loudly as she hit the keys in awkward places.

Peter could not see her, but only feel her. He felt her crying, sobbing, even, at moments. She loved him that much. Mary Jane, this is all I have to give to you right now. There's nothing more I can do than hold you until someone else wants me to hold them. Please, don't cry. Don't cry, Peter, he demanded of himself.

~~~

The priest came into the church in the morning. "Get out," he said upon discovering Mary Jane and Peter sleeping together, warm in the pews.

"Get out! What the hell do you think you kids are doing? Out! Out! This is a house of God, not a whorehouse," he scolded harshly, his face going purple and spotted. He was unkind, the veins popping out of his head in his rage. Mary Jane and Peter rolled off of the pew, stumbled for their mugs and emptied canteen, and shoved the articles into the backpack, scurrying out of the building like worried church mice.

~~~

Excerpt from Mary Jane Watson's journal, written approximately a week after the previous episode:

That was nice, in the cathedral. I could not have been happier. I was with Peter all night, longer than I had ever been with him for one period. I fell asleep in his arms, listening to him breathe, listening to him say how much he loved me a million times over. I felt so good, I felt so needed, and I felt like a part of him. I heard pianos in my sleep, the notes changing. I dreamed blue oceans and yellowed, faded, parchment suns; I dreamed of eternity in his eyes.

I could not have been more upset. It reminded me of things I had forgotten. It made me feel like I needed to catch up to Peter. I felt like I was so not a part of his life, because this was something rare. Usually I spend time with him, go home. I got to stay. I got to be there, like I was one with him. And it was new and strange, and that meant it wasn't regular. I want it to be regular; but we were just lucky.

I could have woken up in the middle of the night, alone on the pew. Peter could have gone off to fight another suited demon, another rapist, another awful mastermind criminal. I would have gone home, or maybe stayed to pray, or something. I don't know. I ought to be thankful for that; instead, I only want to return to the church again.

Peter, what do I do? There's something that I need. There's someplace where I need to go to get back to that moment when being with you for an instant was enough.

I am greedy, worthless, too easily moved.

I am overly emotional, overly sensitive, and overly clingy. Not admirable traits in a girl like me, are they?

I'm so, so harsh on you, so harsh on myself. What do I do to go back to the way I used to be? Make me revert. Convert me to the old ways.

When I kissed you under the red windows, and our cocoa mugs were empty, I thought to myself, "I am content in your arms, in your kiss, under your grace. I am happy. Just take me here, take me away." I just wanted your everything. What's unhealthy with that? And then I thought, "Take yourself away from everything," and that was something wrong to even think of vaguely. It was like I didn't love you.

How odd is that. I do love you, don't I? And, yet, I didn't there; I didn't want you to be a part of you, or something. Maybe, perhaps, does this have to do with the fact that it's not just that I can't accept your commitments, but I cannot accept who you are?

I can't accept you. How can I love you?

I am so confused. I don't like myself right now, because I don't feel like I know myself. I don't think I know anything.

~~~

Excerpt from Mary Jane Watson's journal, date unknown, date unimportant:

I feel like there is a revolution going on inside of me. I don't like it, not at all. I am not changing for the better, but for the worst. I feel like I am becoming a danger to myself. I am becoming a selfish brat. But, if it were only that, I would be happy. More than becoming spoiled, I am becoming unappreciative.

I can't remember when it started. I think it might have started the day that he took off his costume, but maybe it was only then that I realized it and it had been going on long before. It was like Peter had become only himself, with no attachments. And I liked having no attachments, no worries, no troubles. That was heaven for me. And, now, I want it back. I will take nothing less.

I love Peter. I have never loved one person more in all my life. In fact, the love I have for Peter alone surpasses the love I have had for the rest of entire world. And, yet, I am insatiable. Why can't I disregard the little things? He warned me that he wasn't perfect. I am unable to accept less than perfect from him.

                                     

And it's not him, you see? He is as close to perfect as a human can be. Do I expect him to be a god, a saint? Of course I shouldn't, but I do. It's like – it's something I can't even explain. I don't know. My brain's cluttered right now. It's like I want him to always be waiting, and I cannot wait for him. It's like I want to be dominant instead of equal. It's like I'm so obsessed with loving him that I cannot get enough of it.

That's not just my problem, either. It becomes our problem now.  Now Peter sees my annoyance, and he feels bad for it, in that caring way of his.

I am actress. I can pretend that it doesn't bother me. But, in my heart, I can't fake it.

~~~

"It's romantic," she said, "to be all alone with candles." The walls answered her with their white, sad silence, the kind that listened and saw but did not speak. Walls could not console a crying young woman.

Mary Jane wandered from the table. A table of one was far too lonely for her tastes. She flicked off the oven, knowing that she could save the leftovers of her masterpiece later, when she felt up to it. Right then she didn't feel like doing much of anything except for going into her room and curling up under the covers and letting herself be sad for a change instead of bottling it up under her plastic actress's grin.

So she did.

Mary Jane did not bother to turn on the lights. She simply wandered aimlessly into the room and pulled back the deep red covers and crawled underneath the thick comforter. The room was very dark, with the cream-colored blinds yanked closed so that even streetlamps and traffic signals didn't invade her sleeping space; the blackness invaded as she yanked the covers over her head.

I have to sleep, so that I cannot think. She did not want to have to lie awake and ponder things she didn't want to know the answers to. God, fate, sandman, whatever you are, let me sleep.  She closed her eyes tightly and nothing seeped in, so her eyelids swarmed around the color of black and drowned out her consciousness.

Mary Jane did not sleep well at all. In her nightmare, she was sitting on the floor in a barren white room. A boy was sitting at one end of a table, which had something on top of it, which was covered with a sheet. He clutched a doll to his chest, hugging it tenderly. The boy looked like Peter at a very young age, before she had known him, where he was three or so. He was the pictures she had seen hanging on the walls of his aunt's house, the faded photographs, the old days when he had not carried the burdens he carried now.

"What's your name?" he said in a childish voice. He hugged the doll tighter.

"Mary Jane. What's yours?"

"They say I'm dead," said the boy coldly, rising from his cross-legged position on the edge of the table. He hopped down and waddled to the other end, grabbing a fistful of cloth. Mary Jane cocked her head as she watched him with a blind terror creeping past her eyes and dragging down the corners of her mouth. The young boy yanked back the cover from the table, letting the sheet fall to the floor. "See?"

Mary Jane stumbled back, shrieking as she hit the wall behind her, scooting on her rear with panicked hands guiding her frantic form. Peter's dead, blank eyes stared back at her, sweat still running into them from exertion. He had not been dead long. The eyes, though, were what struck her most harshly; they  did not blink, and they did not move. They merely watched her, unseeing, scaring her so that the pit of her stomach dropped out. His blue eyes, once so beautiful, were lifeless, and in their death they lost their preciousness.

"He died trying to save you!" laughed the boy, his eyes rolling up back into his head as he threw his teddy bear at her. She rolled away from it, cowering in a corner as the menace of a boy screamed his delight.

"Go away!" she yelled at the boy.

"No!" he said in a voice that was too forceful to be that of a toddler. "I died trying to save you. Can't you just hold me now, please?" He fell to his knees, crawling towards her babyishly. She lashed out at him with her heel, sending him sprawling into the wall. She was immediately ashamed of what she had done as he hit the floor with a strained cry.

The dead body blinked.

Mary Jane shot up in her bed, panting, her eyes searching in vain through the darkness. Light! her brain screamed, and she tripped out of the bed to the door, flinging it open with a vengeance and letting in the kitchen light. She couldn't breathe, and she was crying, and her throat was sore, and she knew she had been wailing in her sleep, because someone was ringing the doorbell to be sure she was alright.

~~~

Excerpt from Mary Jane Watson's journal, written approximately a day after then previous episode:

I am not alright.

~~~

Peter sat with his face staring blank into a cup of blank coffee; he wasn't at Moon Dance, daring to not face her there. He sipped the hot liquid very quietly, feeling the hot, scalding pain, feeling cold. The day was icky, rainy, sickening in its stillness.

Peter was the only one at the place so late in the night. The waitress, who was a busty blonde with bubblegum in her mouth, turned on the radio. She could have cared less if she disturbed him or not. She sighed romantically as a piano started to play in the background, fading with the voice of the disc jockey.

"Here's Ben Folds Five and their song, 'Brick.' Easy listening, right here, on 93NYC," he said in a suave tone, the melting sounds flickering with slightly poor reception. The waitress swooned and danced around with her mop, her bleached hair falling into her eyes. Peter looked away, slightly embarrassed for her.

6 a.m., day after Christmas
I throw some clothes on in the dark
The smell of cold
Car seat is freezing
The world is sleeping
I am numb

"One of my favorite songs," the waitress told him. Peter hadn't noticed, but she had seized her pad and paper in exchange for her romantic house-cleaning tool. "You like it?"

"I've never… I've never heard of it before," Peter responded brokenly, flustered.

"Yeah. Good song. Another coffee?"

"Please," Peter replied, shaking off uneasiness.


Up the stairs to her apartment
She is balled up on the couch
Her mom and dad went down to Charlotte
They're not home to find us out
And we drive
Now that I have found someone
I'm feeling more alone
Than I ever have before

"You look lonely," said the waitress in a saucy voice, her lashes fluttering as she set down the steaming cup of black liquid. Peter eyed her suspiciously, the blue meeting her brown.

"I'm not looking for someone," Peter told her very sternly. However, he did not deny her statement. A disappointed look crossed her features, and she pouted.

"It's a shame. You have such pretty eyes," the waitress commented, leaning on the table.

Peter rose up from his seat with the passion trembling behind his gaze, his fingers fumbling for money. He shoved a five-dollar bill into her hands. "Keep the change," he stuttered, unable to meet her eyes, because he felt dirty doing so. Peter pushed by her, careful not to touch her.


She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly

Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere

She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly

"Your drink!" the waitress called after him, grabbing the drink, some of it spilling onto her creamy white hand. "You forgot it!"

Peter stopped in his tracks, but he couldn't look back. "I don't want it," he replied to the woman, his voice shaking audibly. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.


They call her name at 7:30
I pace around the parking lot
Then I walk down to buy her flowers
And sell some gifts that I got

"I'm sorry," she said in a very soft voice. She yanked some napkins out of her apron, a few fluttering to the ground unceremoniously. "Take these, to wipe your eyes with, or something."

Peter didn't look back still. "No, no, I'm quite alright," he assured her with a voice that certainly was not alright. "Really." He pushed open the glass door and went out into the cold, black night, watching the streetlights flicker as the light bulbs died. He was very uncomfortable as rain pelted the back of his head. Peter drew his coat tighter around himself and walked on.


Can't you see?
It's not me you're dying for
Now she's feeling more alone
Than she ever has before

"Mary Jane," he whispered to the night, longing for her distant touch. "Mary Jane," he repeated, thinking that maybe she could hear him from somewhere across the city.  He saw her eyes upon his face, saw her smirking smile, saw the red hair across the back of his hands. The air smelled like her from far away; it was like when she entered a room and he just knew she was there, even without seeing her. Mary Jane was everywhere on his mind.

He could hear cathedral bells singing from a few blocks away.

 
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly

Ten minutes later he pushed open the door to the chapel. It was seemingly empty. Someone had started to set up poinsettias for the holiday season, and a few sat on the altar. He stepped in, closing the door behind him. The bells had ceased their loud ringing, and a vacant stillness had descended on the dark place.

Peter walked down the aisle, but he was hardly getting married. He knew that he was not alone. Carefully, with some caution, Peter stepped up to the altar and put both hands on it, feeling the smooth woodwork. Keeping his left palm on it, he rounded the corner of the altar. A figure was sitting behind it, leaning on the back of the wood. Her eyes lifted, and Mary Jane met Peter's expectant gaze.


As weeks went by
It showed that she was not fine
They told me, "Son, it's time to tell the truth."
She broke down and I broke down
Cause I was tired of lying

"Hi," he said. His voice was monotone.

"Hi," she said. Her eyes were teary.

"Am I bothering you?" he asked very calmly.

"No, not at all," she responded, looking at her tennis shoes. "I was just thinking, that's all."

Peter fell to his knees in front of her. Mary Jane's eyes rose, and there were tears running in rivulets down her face still, and she bit her lip with an anxious fear. She crawled into his lap and his open arms and huddled there.

Driving back to her apartment
For the moment we're alone
She's alone
I'm alone
Now I know it

They rocked back and forth, and Mary Jane was humming church songs, muffled by Peter's shirt. He buried his face in her hair, kissing the crown of her head, running his fingers across her ribs and wrists, her vulnerable spots.

"I love you," he whispered to her ear, liking the melody of the sound and thinking that it completed the moment. She only nodded.

She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly

~~~

AN: Wow. I'm amazed! I've finished this chapter! *cheers* Took me a while, huh? Well, I'm sorry. Blame my history teacher. Still, I'm really proud of this chapter. It's very disjointed, and for a while I didn't even like it, but now I do, and I'm pleased. It underwent so many re-doings, though.

The song is Ben Folds Five's "Brick." I didn't want to do a songfic, but I couldn't help it! AGH! Geez, I broke my own rules.

Again, all standard disclaimers apply.

There is more to come. Be alert.