Reckless

Gwen doesn't move. She isn't sure if she's allowed to. Suddenly she feels half her size, like she is seven years old again, back when the worst thing imaginable was disappointing her parents—god, things were so trivial then, a window she cracked throwing a baseball, a toy she stole from her brother, a cranberry juice stain on the carpet—things that seemed like the end of her tiny universe, moments she wishes she could have back now that she is standing here with the weight of her mother's accusations stifling the room.

"Well?" her mother prompts her, her voice so quiet and controlled that a shiver runs up Gwen's spine. She wishes her mother would raise her voice, or grow red in the face, or anything but this.

Gwen looks at her mother helplessly. She can't say it. She can't say anything, not if there's any chance in this world that her mother can still be kept in the dark.

"It's just—it's a mask," Gwen stammers, but even she knows this lie is insulting to both of them. "Maybe it belongs to one of the boys."

Not one muscle in her mother's face moves. "Gwendolyn."

Gwen closes her eyes and tries to think, but there is nothing but shrill panic and quiet.

"I'm waiting."

The words feel sound like they're underwater, muffled and distant, but she still hears her mother all too clearly. There's a clock in their kitchen, one that Gwen long since forgot about because their apartment is never this silent, but without the boys here she can hear the ticks and tocks measuring the time she has spent standing like a statue, wishing she could disappear.

She opens her eyes again. Her mother is a different kind of still, a terrifying, grounded kind. She is not going to back down.

"What … what do you want me to say?" Gwen asks.

Her mother doesn't wait even a beat to respond. "Who is he, Gwen? Who is he and what was he doing in your bedroom?"

Gwen shakes her head, feeling a lump in her throat. "I can't," she says.

"No, Gwendolyn, you no longer have a choice," says her mother, the words snapping like a whip. "Whoever this man is, you let him into our home. The man who murdered your father—"

"Stop," Gwen yells, and the volume of it shocks them both into taking a step back from each other. Gwen recovers as quickly as she can, taking a breath before her mother can find hers and saying, "You have no idea what happened that night—"

"Because you won't tell me," her mother says, and only then does she see the pleading expression in her mother's eyes, the desperation in her voice. She wants to understand. And it kills Gwen, because she can't let her. "Please, Gwen," says her mother, "if I'm ever going to—you have to tell me."

Gwen feels her throat tightening, her eyes prickling with the threat of frustrated tears. She hates to disappoint her mother this way, her mother is the only person in her life she can depend on, the woman who gave her everything and has only ever asked for her honesty in this moment in return.

The words sound strangled, like they are struggling to escape her: "I can't."

"Gwen—"

"I can't tell you everything," Gwen interrupts, putting her hand up and asking for some form of mercy. "I can't. But I can tell you that Spiderman did not murder my father. They were helping each other that night—"

"But tell me how you could know that. You weren't there," her mother persists, her shoulders visibly shaking as she gestures, grappling at the air like she is trying to draw some sense out of the situation. "You weren't there on that rooftop, so tell me Gwen. How could you know anything?"

Gwen stares at the floors, at the little dings and creases in the hardwood where she and her brothers left their marks. Tonka trucks, dropped silverware, soccer cleats. Gwen closes her fists and wishes she could have everything back.

"Unless you knew him," says her mother, her voice uncharacteristically dark. "Unless you knew him from the start."

It is in this moment that Gwen makes a fatal error—she looks up reflexively, her neck jerking and her eyes locking on her mothers with unmistakable guilt. She looks back down as fast as she can, but the damage is already done. She hears her mother breathe in, hears the sound of everything locking into place too quickly, and all she can do is stand and wait.

"You've known him from the beginning," her mother repeats, her voice suddenly soft. It isn't a question anymore. She doesn't need Gwen's confirmation. For a moment the apartment is silent, so silent it feels like the air around her ears is roaring, because she knows what her mother is going to say long before she says it, because she has imagined this scenario on sleepless nights in bed too many times to count.

"It's Peter Parker," says her mother, so softly that Gwen knows she could easily pretend she hadn't heard. She feels her mother's eyes on her, compelling her to look back up, but she can't. She knows her face will betray her faster than any words will.

"It's Peter Parker," her mother says again, this time less in awe and more in accusation. "Isn't it?"

"Mom," says Gwen, protesting.

"Oh my god," says her mother, and only then does she break the intimidating pose and start pacing the foyer, toward the living room. "Oh my god."

Gwen follows her, on her mother's heels, blurting, "You see, Mom, you know Peter—you met him, you know he's a good kid, the police are just—"

"Stop," says her mother, and her voice isn't even raised, she's just looking at Gwen with this helpless, bewildered expression and it occurs to her for the first time that her mother looks old. Old, and worn out. Gwen takes a step back. She doesn't want to notice these things. She doesn't want to notice and know that she is the one to blame.

Her mother reaches the couch, where the mask is laying, watching them in its detached, ominous way. "I didn't …" Her mother shakes her head, staring at the mask, then extending her hand so she can feel the fabric between her fingers. She moves like her body isn't aware of it, as if she has been smacked and is now standing in a trance-state of disbelief. "I didn't think you were even still seeing that boy. So this—this whole time, you've been—"

"No," says Gwen vehemently, because she thinks it's important, important that her mother understand she never once made this decision easily. "No, I just—I haven't spoken to him in years, Daddy made him promise, but I—"

Her mother's eyes are welling with angry, incredulous tears. "Your father specifically told you to stay away from this boy, and yet you persist—"

"I love him," she says. Gwen knows it's a stupid argument, that it sounds childish and rash coming out of her 20-year-old mouth and that those three little words do absolutely no justice to the way she feels about Peter, but she feels the heat of this argument burning in her lungs and it bursts out of her before she can suck it back in.

Her mother stares at her, her mouth slightly open, her eyebrows set in a way Gwen has never seen them before. "You don't know what love is, Gwendolyn," she says.

Gwen doesn't dare contradict her. Not after everything her mother has been through these past few years. She breathes in, barely moving. It's too late to hide this from her mother. But maybe it's not too late to make her understand.

"Peter is good," she says softly. "I know it. Daddy knew it. When he told Peter to stay away from me … it was to keep me safe."

Her mother isn't looking at her anymore.

"And Peter kept that promise," says Gwen. "He kept it for so long, even when I begged him not to, but we can't—I can't …" None of this sounds very responsible, or convincing in the slightest. She takes another breath, trying to ground herself, but in all her imagined conversations with her mother she has never let them get this far. "I'm sorry … that I didn't tell you. I didn't think it would ever come to this."

"To what, Gwendolyn?" asks her mother, her jaw tense, her hands making inexplicable, angry gestures in the space in front of her. "To you chasing around a some boy who could get you killed? You let him in this house, you let him near your brothers, you—you have been lying to me, you've been lying," she says, her voice growing quiet, her eyes wandering away from Gwen in disbelief.

Gwen shakes her head. "No," she says dumbly. "No, no, I—"

"You've been lying to me for years," says her mother, pacing the floor away from her, not even hearing.

"Mom," Gwen sputters, because it feels like her lungs are bursting—she didn't mean for this to hurt anyone, least of all her mother, who has hurt worse than Gwen will ever know, but there's no way to take this all back. It's not just the past few months of reconnecting with Peter, or the years they spent orbiting each other, it's the moment she first laid eyes on him and then the inevitable crash course that she could never steer herself away from. She didn't want this, she didn't ask for it, she has never had a choice.

But now, staring at her mother as she holds her hands up to the sides of her head in shock, she knows that she did have a choice. She has always had a choice. She could have told her the truth any moment of any day in the years since her father died, but she couldn't tell her mother something she didn't want to believe herself. She thought she would be stronger, she thought she would stay away from Peter for good, and that admitting to what happened would be admitting a weakness in her that she didn't want to face—a weakness that is staring back at her with wide, red-rimmed eyes and quivering lips, demanding an explanation, knowing that an explanation will never be enough.

"I can't—I can't," her mother says, shaking her head. "I don't even know what to do."

The disappointment in her mother's voice makes her eyes sting, but Gwen can't let this faze her. The urgency of everything hits her at full force again and she takes a step forward and hopes that her mother will listen.

"There is a man on the loose, pretending to be Spiderman. You've seen the news, the bank robberies, the assaults—they aren't him. This man, he can shape shift—"

"You're being ridiculous," her mother mutters, throwing the mask back down on the couch with a tight snap of her wrist. "For Christ's sake, Gwen, open your eyes. They're the same person—"

"No," Gwen exclaims, louder than she should. Her mother startles and Gwen knows she can't waste a moment of her attention. "The imposter is real. It's an accident, a mistake, it's OsCorp's fault—"

"It's always OsCorp, how convenient—"

"Listen to me!" Gwen shouts. Her mother opens her mouth to shout back but Gwen holds up her hand and says, "You wanted the truth, you asked for it and now you're going to get it, so listen to me." Gwen walks closer to her mother, until their eyes are level and their toes are only inches apart. "There is a madman on the loose, and I know it sounds insane, but he can shape-shift—into anything. You, me—even Peter. And when he does this, he can take on Peter's abilities, and go out in the city and create chaos in Spiderman's name."

Her mother is shaking her head.

"I'm not asking you to believe me for my sake, or for Peter's," Gwen says carefully, trying to relay the urgency of the matter without revealing her own panic, brewing under the surface. "I'm asking you to believe me because everyone's safety is at stake here. And the only person who can stop this guy is Peter."

There is a moment where Gwen is afraid her mother is actually baring her teeth. "Then why hasn't he," she says lowly.

Gwen looks her straight in the eye. "It's hard to get anything done with the police trying to kill you," she says, "and for that matter, your boyfriend just arrested him. So as far as I can see, unless they release him, we're all screwed."

"If he's Spiderman why can't he just escape?" her mother challenges her, even though it seems like the lines around her eyes are softening and she might just be starting to believe.

"Isn't it obvious?" says Gwen. She crosses her arms over her chest, glancing briefly at her shoes because she needs a moment, just one second to collect herself. "He's protecting me. And his aunt. And everyone he cares about." She swallows hard, feeling a pang in her chest, thinking of the brief, fleeting moment she caught Peter's eyes that last time before the cop car drove away. "That's why he wears the mask. He isn't hiding, he isn't ashamed, he's a good person who has to—"

A sharp rapping interrupts them—a knock at the door. Neither of them reacts for a moment, and finally her mother yells, "Who is it?"

"It's MJ," calls the voice on the other end. "Is Gwen home? I just—I was walking home from my audition, and I really need to pee!"

Gwen can see her mother deflate, her shoulders start to cave in and her arm lift up as if to wave MJ inside. "Come—"

"No," says Gwen, under her breath, sharply enough that her mother freezes mid-sentence. She raises her eyebrows at Gwen.

"The doorman," Gwen says quietly. "He didn't ring her up."

Her mother looks uneasy, but not nearly uneasy enough. "Mary Jane is here often enough," she says, walking forward.

"Mom, don't," says Gwen, trying to keep her voice down, because she doesn't want whatever it is on the other side of the door to hear. Her mother keeps walking, so Gwen grabs her forearm, trying to hold her in place.

Her mother shakes her off. "Gwendolyn," she says, shaking her head, reaching for the door. "Come on inside," she says as she twists the knob.

Gwen can't explain why she doesn't fight her mother harder, why she doesn't scream or rush forward or do anything to stop her from opening the door. She supposes it's because she knows that in the end, it doesn't matter whether or not her mother opens it. If it's MJ, then it's MJ. And if it's not, he will get inside, and he will find her, with or without an open door ushering him inside.

The door creaks and Gwen sees her friend's petite form in the doorway. She doesn't react for a moment, just staring at her. MJ is shifting her weight uncomfortably, half-hopping in the doorway with her mouth pinched, not even looking at Gwen; her eyes dart down the hallway where she knows the bathroom is, but it's not enough for Gwen that she has MJ's mannerisms, that she knows things that MJ knows.

Gwen steps forward and grabs MJ's hand roughly, knowing that if it's the imposter she needs to do this quick, before he outmatches her.

"Ow," MJ exclaims, right on the heels of Gwen's mother scolding her with a sharp, "Gwendolyn!"

"Where is it?" Gwen demands, staring at MJ's bare, pale hand.

MJ tries to yank her hand away. "What—what are you doing? I said I needed to—"

"You don't move," says Gwen menacingly, "until you tell me what I drew on your hand."

MJ stares at her, her eyes wide. "What the hell, Gwen?"

Her mother is frozen, watching her with her mouth agape, only now really seeming to comprehend the magnitude of the situation and everything and everyone involved in it. Gwen looks back at her, exhaling a breath, still clutching to MJ's hand. You have to understand, she tries to tell her mother. Gwen is not the only one in danger now.

"Tell her," says Gwen's mother softly. "Tell her what she drew on your hand, Mary Jane."

MJ wheels around to look at Gwen's mother, her expression gobsmacked, her eyes starting to mist with confusion and hurt. She sees the grave look in Gwen's mother's eyes, takes a shaky, uncertain breath and turns back to Gwen to say, "A—a heart. You drew me a heart."

Gwen doesn't loosen her grip. A tear threatens to roll down MJ's cheek.

"Let go of me," she says again. "Gwen, let go."

Gwen releases her. She feels heat flooding into her cheeks but she doesn't apologize or so much as take a step back. The room is punctuated with silence and the sound of MJ breathing as she nurses the red ring around her forearm left by the impression of Gwen's hand.

"What's going on?" asks MJ in a small voice.

Nobody answers her. She takes a few steps back, looking at them with clearly mounting disquiet, until she hits the door with her shoulder and shudders at the impact.

"Gwen?" she asks, her face pale, her cheeks and her nose burning red.

Gwen tears her eyes away from her friend. "I have to go," she says. She kneels down and grabs her purse from the floor. She can't spend another second here while Connors' formula is demanding every shred of attention she has left.

"Where are you going?" her mother demands.

"OsCorp."

"I'll come with you—"

"No," says Gwen sharply. Her mother is about to argue. "You should stay here. Wait for the boys to come home. I've got this."

Her mother nods. "Be careful. Stay in touch."

"Gwen," MJ bleats, looking more bewildered than ever.

"I'm sorry," says Gwen, wishing she had the time or the charity left in her to squeeze MJ's hand, to reassure her, to somehow make up for the insanity of the last few weeks, but she doesn't. She looks at her mother, then back at MJ, before straightening her bag on her shoulder and saying a second time, "I'm sorry, I really am."

Well, I'm officially done dating college boys, ever. I briefly forayed back into the dating world by going on a casual coffee trip, and the guy basically cried when I wouldn't let him grope me in his car afterward. Like, he took it really personally like some wounded bird, then asked me if there was something wrong with him, and is that why I wouldn't let him feel me up. Is this really the world we live in? Are we expected to shell out our boobs after paying for our own two dollar hot chocolate and listening to men talk about football for an hour?! Why isn't it like the movies, where after the first date we kiss chastely and then take a casual ride web-slinging hundreds of feet over Manhattan?

My favorite part is that he's now writing angsty facebook statuses alluding to heartbreak. After ONE UNOFFICIAL DATE. Where he tried to GROPE ME IN HIS CAR. I literally am roflcoptering to the end of the universe, what a big fat baby. (My insensitivity on this topic may or may not explain the term of endearment "ice queen" I earned back in my high school days).

NOTE TO MEN: These behaviors are the QUICKEST way to make sure you will NEVER HAVE A GIRLFRIEND EVER.