The next morning, Andrew was glad it was the weekend. Before going to bed, Gwen had texted him to meet her early the next day for practice.
Wiping off the steam that had built up on the bathroom mirror that was near the showers, Andrew sighed when he saw his reflection.
He didn't want to talk about it, but Spider-man's death had affected him even more than other New Yorkers. Mainly, because he had witnessed everything.
Once out of the shower, he grabbed his clean clothes. Since there was no school today, he had grabbed a casual set of clothes for the day; jeans, a hoodie and... a t-shirt with the Spider-man logo on it.
"He charged me with stopping the Collider. But how am I supposed to stop it?" He muttered angrily as he threw his towel over his shoulder and gathered his dirty laundry before exiting the common bathroom and heading back to his dorm. "How is a teenager supposed to stop supervillains who can fight Spider-man?"
But he knew, he wasn't alone. He had Gwen by his side. And with Gwen's experience in this hero business, maybe he could get through this in one piece. Well, relatively in one piece. He had to set realistic expectations for himself after all... especially after Spider-man's death.
Sighing wearily, he returned to his dorm room, moving carefully so as not to wake Miles.
…A few minutes later…
"Hi." Said Gwen when she spotted him.
She was sitting atop the concrete railing at the main entrance of the school, a cup of coffee she had in her hand while nodding her head to the music she was listening to on her earbuds. Removing said earphones, she stuffed them into her jacket pocket.
"Hi." He nodded.
Gwen finished her coffee and tossed the plastic over her shoulder into a nearby trash can.
"Nice throw." He complimented.
"I try." She smiled as she climbed down from the railing. "All right, time to practice."
He looked at her curiously.
"Speaking of which, how exactly are we going to do this? Is there some kind of twelve-step program for becoming a superhero or something?" He asked.
"Or something else." She answered cryptically with a shrug.
"Why doesn't that fill me with confidence?" He asked, frowning.
A smile was her only answer.
Gwen led him through the city, eventually taking him to an empty, abandoned warehouse.
"Here we are. A place to train without anyone else getting hurt and, more importantly, finding out." She said.
"Okay, secret identity and all that." Andrew nodded as he looked around, remembering Spider-man's words to keep his identity hidden. "So, what do we do first?" He asked as he turned back to Gwen.
"You know how to fight, don't you?" She asked rhetorically. "4th dan in kendo, a sandan in kenjutsu and a black belt in krav maga, pretty impressive."
That made it stop, Andrew.
"Did you... Google me?" He asked, a little amused.
"I had to." She said shamelessly shrugging her shoulders. "See what I was working with."
"You could have asked." He smiled. He never talked about these accomplishments, his mother taught him that bragging is for people who make up for something. However, he wasn't offended that Gwen was checking his background, in fact, he felt a little flattered.
"Would you have answered me truthfully?" She replied.
Andrew paused to think about it.
"Hm, not wrong." He said.
"So, since you don't need to learn how to fight, you need to learn how to move like a Spider-person does, flown at the end of a web." She declared before gesturing to the warehouse around them. "Hence the warehouse. Since your web comes straight out of your wrists, all you have to do is get familiar with the aerobatics."
"Care to demonstrate?" He asked.
"I thought you'd never ask." Said Gwen, a smile on her face.
Before Andrew could react, she weaved from some sort of device on her wrist, pulling herself up to swing from the warehouse rafters.
He watched her move, swaying from web weave to web weave. It was... beautiful actually.
She completely circled around him before landing in the same spot she had originally started from.
"Ta-da!" She smiled as she bowed. "Now it's your turn to try."
Andrew discarded his jacket, setting it aside to keep the flash drive Spider-man had given him safe. He rolled up his sleeves.
"Hmm…"
Andrew looked up to see Gwen watching him with her head tilted to the side, her gaze turned to her wrists as if trying to see them from a different angle.
"It must be weird for you to see someone with the same powers, but the canvases include in the packaging." Noted Andrew.
"Yes but not that. " She answered.
"Uh... Remember when I said my Spider-sense was acting up when I met you?" She asked nervously.
"Vaguely." Answered the teenager.
She winced.
"Well, when you had your quote-unquote headaches, my spider-sense was triggered. I realize now that it was reacting to the fact that we were both people with spider powers but at the time I didn't know why. So maybe I followed you when you went to the subway and saw what was going on with the Collider." Explained Gwen.
This surprised Andrew who gave his friend a puzzled look.
"Look, I'm sorry, okay?" She said, raising her hands in apology. "I didn't mean to, it just happened like that."
He frowned, considering her for a moment before sighing.
"It's okay." He said.
"Really?" She asked, looking at him in surprise.
"Well, if you hadn't, you wouldn't have found me and I'd be solving this all by myself." He answered with a shrug. "Besides, it was only once, wasn't it? Is that the only time you've ever done it?"
"Absolutely." She nodded energetically. "It was just once, I'm not a stalker."
"Good."
"Great."
"Cool."
There was an awkward moment of silence between them as they could not look each other in the eye. Andrew finally spoke, remembering why they were here.
"Maybe we should continue training." He said, a little embarrassed.
"Uh, go ahead." Said Gwen gesturing towards the ceiling.
Looking up at the ceiling, Andrew raised his right hand towards him and a web identical to the one used by Spider-man and Gwen sprang from his wrist. Once the other end stuck to the surface of the ceiling, he took a deep breath.
"Oh I feel it bad..." He muttered before swinging.
And nearly ended up in a back wall before weaving another web with his other hand to move in the other direction.
"Watch your speed, Andrew." Advised Gwen. "But if you want to go faster, shift your weight on the next swing. You've done gymnastics before, right? Have you ever done the rings? The same rules apply."
"That was years ago!" He shouted, swaying unsteadily.
He had a lot of trouble maintaining a proper swing. But being too proud to allow himself to miss in front of the girl he fell in love with at first sight, he put more effort into the overall web swing. But it was clear that his web was too long for the swing distance.
He ended up slamming into a wall moments later, making Gwen wince in sympathy as he slid down. It would have been funny if her continued existence didn't depend on his help. She hoped Andrew's recovery was as or more rapid than hers, otherwise she probably should have brought a first aid kit.
She winced again when she saw him fall off the wall while still stunned, ending up flat on the floor.
No, she definitely should have brought that first aid kit.
Determined not to leave Gwen behind, and risk her dying, or the universe collapsing, Andrew stood up, much to Gwen's approval. Raising his arm to weave another web on the roof above, he gave himself a jolt before swinging, giving her some distance. But when he wove another web to change direction, the movement was jerky and unsteady.
Gwen shook her head with a sigh before weaving a web of her own and swinging at the same pace as him.
"Just keep moving, okay?" She told him. "Match your movements to mine. Thwip and release. Thwip and release. Thwip and release."
"Thwip and release." He repeated, like a mantra, he then repeated it in his head and after a few minutes he was moving in sync with Gwen.
"See, you got the trick!" She said to him, smiling to herself.
"Yeah, I got it..." He murmured as he concentrated on the act of swinging.
"Alright, let's get back on the ground." Declared Gwen before the two stopped swinging and landed on the concrete floor. "Okay, so now I want you to move in the direction I tell you, okay? We'll keep doing this until you can move in no time."
He nodded.
For the next few hours, Gwen ordered him to swing, making him develop his skills on his own. Using the experience she'd accumulated from swinging while running from cops or previous bad guys, she had him perform exercises over and over again. And Andrew didn't complain, the repetition reminded him of the lessons and training he had done for kendo and kenjutsu.
"Alright, next lesson." Said Gwen, catching his attention after landing on the floor. "Stick to the surfaces with only your hands and feet. Next, walk around the warehouse four times using only the walls."
Andrew nodded before approaching one of the walls. Tentatively, he placed his fingertips on the concrete wall and gently tried to pull, only to find that his hand stuck to it. With a small sigh of relief, he then placed his other hand higher on the wall. Then a foot, then another.
Except that when he tried to climb higher, he got stuck.
"Shit, not again..." He said.
Gwen, having followed him to keep an eye on him, shook her head.
"Don't think too much about the 'sticking' part. It's like moving in general when you walk, run or swim, it's instinctive. Just think about where you want to go and let your body do the rest." She said.
Andrew looked at her with a frown as he took her advice. Looking at the wall, he chose a spot near the ceiling before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. And with a slight tug, raised a hand.
After a few more hours, they both got tired of the exercises and training. But it was much more beneficial than they expected, they learned that Andrew had the ability to make himself invisible. This had manifested itself when Gwen had tried to attack him to test his spider-sense, in addition to dodging the attack, he had made himself invisible, it was a kind of camouflage. They had to spend a good hour for him to master his camouflage.
Hearing the chime of his phone, Andrew took it out of his pocket and looked at the screen after entering his key combination.
Spider-man's funeral will be held today by his wife and aunt.
And just like that, his guilt returned.
"Hey, Gwen? Do you think we can go to Spider-man's funeral today?" He asked. "I just want to pay my respects."
She frowned.
"Are you sure?" She asked.
"I owe him that much." He nodded.
"It's at noon today, isn't it? In Queens?" She said, pulling out her own phone to check the time and details. "Yeah, we can go there. If we leave now, we can grab brunch on the way."
"Thanks." He smiled gratefully.
Heading to the appropriate subway station that would take them to Queens, Andrew and Gwen found some empty seats and sat down for the ride. Andrew pulled out his phone and read another article about Spider-man's death, giving his real face and name.
Peter Parker.
"You know, it wasn't hard to forget that underneath the mask there was a person." He said aloud, staring at Peter's picture. "But it was easy to put him on the pedestal, especially after some of the threats the city has faced. Shocker, Lizard, Green Goblin, Mysterio. He was always there to save the day. He died in front of me and it's still a little hard to believe he's gone."
Gwen laid a hand on his arm.
"Believe me, Andrew, it will be like this for a long time. It won't get easier, but it won't be as hard to live with." She said.
"You said you couldn't save the Peter Parker of your dimension, right?" He said as he turned to her.
"Yeah." She nodded. "He, uh, he was the lizard there. Pete was always awkward in school, a prime target for bullies. We resisted them as best we could, but when I started my career as a Ghost-Spider, he apparently admired Ghost-Spider a lot. Enough to use the Lizard Serum, he wanted to be like Ghost-Spider, like me." She cleared her throat as her voice grew heavy. "Except when I was fighting the Lizard, I didn't know it was Pete and he died."
Andrew stared at her, even as she kept her gaze fixed on the floor of the train. Accidentally killing his best friend, he didn't know if he couldn't live with that. He'd let a lot of friendships slip away over the past year, which had especially started when he'd broken up with Beth now that he thought about it. Miles was probably the only friend he had left at Visions Academy, shit, he was probably his best friend. He wasn't sure he could live with himself if he accidentally killed Miles.
"I'm so sorry." He said, fighting a little unable to think of anything else to say.
But it was enough.
"Thank you, Andrew." She said, gracing him with a small smile.
He returned her smile as he looked into her bright blue eyes. Eventually, though, both teens realized they were staring and as blushes bloomed on their respective faces, they looked away.
"Whatever." She said, clearing her throat again as she tried to suppress her blush. "From that moment on, I worked to keep people safe in my New York, to make sure that what happened to Pete never happened to anyone else. To be the hero the city deserves."
Andrew managed to control his own blush.
"Well, then it sounds like you're already doing a good job doing it." Said Andrew.
"How can you be so sure?" She asked, one eyebrow raised.
"You want to be a hero not for the sake of it, but because it's the right thing to do." Said he, shrugging his shoulders. "A lot of people in this town, especially kids, would say they wish they could be a hero like Spider-man, but honestly, I don't think half of them even know what being a hero means."
"Do you... ? " She asked, gauging his reaction.
"No, I'm not shirking." He said, immediately shaking his head. "And that's my point, for all the talk people give about being a hero, we all don't know when we become the hero and understand the role until we do."
She frowned a little, a smile playing on her lips.
"Well said, Andrew." She nodded.
Eventually, they arrived near the church area where the funeral was to be held. However, the two stopped at a cafe for a bite to eat, but were baffled by the number of people who had dressed up in Spider-man costumes or at least had the masks.
"Whoa." Said Gwen, surprised as her eyes looked at the masked people.
"We probably get away with not wearing masks." Said Andrew, frowning at her ironic statement.
"I know." She nodded. "I have to admit, it's a little weird."
The two placed their orders at the register and grabbed an empty table by the window to wait. But a thought crossed his mind as their discussion on the subway came to mind.
"Hey, Gwen, you don't have to come with me to the funeral if it's going to make you uncomfortable." He told her.
"What? Andrew, what do you mean?" She asked, frowning.
"Won't it be weird to attend another Peter Parker's funeral?" He asked, concern etched on his face.
"Oh. Ohhh." She said before stopping herself. Biting her lower lip, she thought about it for a long moment. Long enough for their orders to arrive and be placed in front of them. "No." She finally said after taking a sip of her bubble tea. "It's not the same Peter Parker, same name, same face, but oddly, different hair. I was a little surprised to find out that he was blond in this dimension." She said, addressed him a grateful smile. "But thanks anyway, for your attention."
"That's what interdimensional friends are for." He said, shrugging his shoulders with a small laugh. "But if it gets too hard for noit, we can leave anytime."
She chuckled, shaking her head before picking up her ham sandwich. After swallowing a bite, she looked across the table at Andrew's left wrist, which had a bracelet on it. It was a small chain with a medallion visibly soldered to it. The side of the locket hiding the picture had a pattern that looked like some kind of sword. If she remembered correctly, Andrew's mother also had a similar bracelet on her wrist.
"Do you mind if I ask a personal question?" She asked.
"Go ahead." He nodded before taking a bite of his sandwich.
"Where do the bracelets you and your mom have on your wrists come from?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's rare to see lockets in bracelets and not necklaces."
He blinked before swallowing a bite of his sandwich.
"Well, my dad had them for him and my mom. Inside there's a picture of them." Answered Andrew as he opened his locket to show a picture of Isabelle and a man with long black hair and ocean blue eyes. It was Patrick, Andrew's father. The couple looked happy with the Disneyland castle behind them.
"Why do you need to remember him? Isn't he with you and your mother?" Asked Gwen, her curiosity growing.
"No. He left a little over a decade ago. I don't know what happened to him. I suspect my mother knows, but I never dared ask her. My father left us his bracelet. Apparently so we wouldn't forget it. But since they had been separated for a year at the time, I have my suspicions about why he left." Answered the teenager.
"Oh, uh... I'm sorry." Said Gwen, feeling bad for her friend.
"Don't worry, I have good memories of when he was still around. Besides, it happened a long time ago." Said Andrew with a shrug.
"Still, in a way, you lost a father." She answered. "I don't know what I would do if I lost mine, he's all I have left. Even though you've grieved, so to speak, it must have left some impact on you, right?"
"A lot of intimidation attempts but that's it." He grumbled, scowling at the memory.
Gwen let out a small mocking laugh as she lowered her sandwich.
"Kids can be cruel, can't they?" She said; She went through some stuff from bullies as a kid for not having a mom and it was way worse than being bullied for being weird or liking things that "normal" girls shouldn't like because it was a harsher reminder that her mom had been taken away from her and her dad. "I know what it's like, kids used to make fun of me for not having a mom."
"I'm sorry." Said Andrew sympathetically.
"Thank you." She nodded. "We're quite the pair, aren't we? Two people who lost their parents."
"Mmhmm." Hummed Andrew before letting out a sigh and giving her a wry smile. "Well, this conversation has turned out to be a little depressing."
"Yeah, a little." Gwen chuckled.
However, before he could add another word, he heard his name being called.
"Andrew? Andrew, is that you?"
Naturally, he had been a little surprised when a girl he didn't recognize, a brunette the same age as him and Gwen, had appeared at their table, giving him a big smile.
"Uh, I'm sorry." He said, frowning. "Do I know you?"
"It's me, Liz." The girl smiled at him.
He stared at her, the name not ringing a bell.
"We had biology together last year?" Clarified Liz.
He blinked.
"We were partners on our molecular genetics project?" Said Liz looking a little hurt as she tried again.
"Oh!" Said Andrew, his eyes widening before he nodded. "Right, sorry, it's just that I've been having a crazy time the last few days. That class was with Mrs. Kowalski, I remember that."
Liz gave him a bright smile, tinged with relief.
"Yeah, so how are you? It's been a while since I've seen you, how was your summer?" She asked.
"It was good, I can't complain." He answered. "How about you?"
"Not too bad." She said with a shrug. "I heard earlier that you and Beth broke up not too long ago. I'm really sorry to hear that."
"Well, it happens." He shrugged, frowning a little at the reminder of his ex.
"Still, a breakup is never easy." She said, giving him a sympathetic smile.
"Yeah." He said nodding his head before noticing that Gwen was looking at them both with a little amusement on her face, stirring her buddle tea with her straw. "Oh, shit. Liz, this is Gwen. Gwen, Liz."
"Hi, Gwen." Said Liz in a stiff tone.
Gwen raised an eyebrow at the rather stiff tone the girl was speaking to her, but still smiled politely.
"Hi." She said.
…
The silence was tense between the two girls, but to Andrew, it was awkward as hell. His gaze shifted from one to the other as the mood between them was as if the other had just insulted her family or something. Polite smiles were still pasted on their faces, reflecting a mood that was clearly not there.
"Suddenly, I don't feel like being here anymore...I feel like I could be caught in the crossfire." Thought Andrew.
"So...how are you Andrew?" Finally asked Liz.
"We have the same lunch period." Answered Gwen, giving Andrew an affectionate smile across the table. "Actually, we met when he got chewed out for writing on one of the lunch tables with his lunch. A plan for an art project, right?"
When the two girls' attention was now focused on him, he looked like a deer in the headlights.
"Uh, uh-huh." He said, nodding uncertainly.
"Is that true?" Said Liz." I didn't know you were into art, Andrew."
"Uh, yeah, I am." He answered slowly. "Whatever's going on, he doesn't like it."
"It's good that you like art." Said Liz quickly, congratulating him with a smile. "Of course, you're already smart, so it would make sense that you have time for your hobbies. Thanks again for all your help with our project last year, it was the first time I got an A+ in a science class . I've always preferred literature."
"You're welcome?" Said Andrew not intending to phrase it as a question.
"I have to say, Andrew." Interjected Gwen. "It's amazing that you've managed to put so much time and effort into your sculptures when you have to juggle school work with your kendo, kenjutsu and krav maga training. How do you do it?"
He gave the blonde teenager a disconcerted look. What was she doing?
"Uh, good planning, I guess?" He said.
"Hmm, that makes sense." She nodded, noting how one of Liz's hands had clenched into a fist when she heard Gwen list Andrew's other extracurricular activities and hobbies. Ones that Liz obviously didn't know about.
However, before another word could be said, the three teens heard Liz's name being called by a group of girls standing at the entrance to the café, one of them waving at her.
"Sorry, Andrew, I have to go." She smiled at him apologetically.
Gwen rolled her eyes.
"But here." she took a strip of paper out of her purse that hung over her shoulder, wrote her phone number on it and put it on the table in front of him. "Why don't you call me later and we can talk about the good old days?"
"Sure." He nodded hesitantly.
Smiling at her, she gave Gwen a dark look as she joined her friends. A look that Gwen caught straight away as she took a sip of her bubble tea. Lowering her glass, she glanced at Andrew as he had paid no attention to the piece of paper that had Liz's number on it and had returned to his sandwich.
"You have no idea who she was, do you?" She accused with a sly smile.
"Not a clue, no." He said shaking his head.
Gwen could only laugh softly.
Poor Liz.
… Elsewhere …
From the rooftops, a man dressed in an authentic Spider-man suit stood at the edge of the roof as he watched people prepare everything for a funeral. His funeral. Or rather, the funeral of the Peter Parker of the universe he was now in. It certainly wasn't going to be confusing in any way.
He was on his way to talk with his ex-wife, Mary Jane, to try to fix things and make their marriage work again when a portal sucked him in and threw him into another New York City that had a Spider-man. A Spider-man that was Peter Parker, but it wasn't him. He wasn't going to lie, he looked pretty good in blond hair. Or rather, that New York had a Spider-man. Watching your own funeral, how crazy was that?
"It's completely crazy." He muttered.
...A little later...
"He didn't ask for his powers, but he chose to be Spider-man." Declared Peter Parker's wife, Mary Jane Parker, from the scene in front of the church, and the man's aunt standing nearby.
"My favorite thing about Peter is that he made us all feel powerful. We all have powers of one kind or another and in our own way, we are all Spider-man."
Andrew and Gwen stood in the middle of the crowd that had gathered to pay their final respects to New York's hero, listening to the man's wife give her speech. She had started with a story about how they first met in high school, which had turned into a story about how the nerd had ended up dating the head cheerleader. And Andrew found it interesting that throughout her speech, Mary Jane didn't talk much about her husband directly as Spider-man, but as a man who wanted to make the world a better place.
Peter's aunt was about to go upstairs and speak when Mary Jane finished, but that's when Andrew found a hand gripping his tightly. Looking down, he saw that it was Gwen's, looking at her face, he saw that she was barely holding it. He was about to pull his hand away from hers so he could pull her out of the crowd, but she squeezed it even tighter when he tried.
He was glad that among her powers was the fact that her body was stronger, because he was sure that she would end up breaking the bones in his hand.
Placing his free hand on his shoulder, he slowly made his way through the crowd, mumbling an apology and asking for passage. Fortunately, the people gathered for Spider-man's funeral were courteous enough to allow him to pass. Eventually, they were able to get out of the crowd where he led her further into a rather secluded alley.
"Are you okay?" He asked softly after sitting her down on a few steps of the alleyway stairs, she still hadn't let go of his hand.
She shook her head, her blonde hair waving.
"No." She said in a husky voice. "I'm sorry, I thought I could handle it, I really thought I could. But seeing Mary Jane and May there, it made me realize that no one really knew about my Peter Parker. No one knew what he was struggling with and how he wanted to be a little better, to be a little stronger. To be recognized and respected as a person and not someone's target or punching bag."
"You have nothing to regret, Gwen." He assured her. Then he considered her words. "Sometimes it just doesn't feel right, does it?"
She nodded shakily in agreement as the tears began to roll down her face as she remained hunched over, bent over her knees.
"No." She exclaimed. "It's not at all."
Since she still had her hand in a fierce grip, all Andrew could do was lean gently against her as his own tears began to fall. The two leaned against each other as they cried for those they had lost. He cried, he cried for the death of the Peter Parker of this dimension, cried for the loss of the biggest hero in town, and without even knowing the guy, he also cried for the Peter Parker of Gwen's dimension.
Because loss, no matter where it occurred, was always tragic.
Some time passed and the mourners gathered to honor Spider-man had finally left after Peter's body was buried. Neither Andrew nor Gwen witnessed the burial. They had left with the crowd, they didn't really have a destination in mind, they were just walking. Finally, however, after a long walk, he noticed that it was getting dark.
"It's going to be dark soon." He observed.
"What?" Asked Gwen, the corner of her lips lifted into a ghost of a smirk. "Are you afraid witches will come out and get you? Don't worry, Andrew, I'll protect you."
He looked at her with amusement.
"Hilarious." He said.
"I think so too." She giggled with a shrug.
He was glad that his mood had improved a bit, today was really a busy day; talking about their respective dead or missing parents, the death of two Peter Parkers. He didn't really blame Gwen for letting him get to her, he barely kept it that way. The only reason he was able to do that was because if he had lost it, then the two of them would have been a big mess and there would have been nothing they could do.
"You know, my house isn't that far from here." Said Andrew as he glanced around the neighborhood they were in. "We can go there to determine what the next step is."
She blinked before a teasing smile curved her mouth. Even though she knew that wasn't what he had meant, she still saw an opportunity.
He raised an eyebrow at her, puzzled for a moment before a blush began to stain his cheeks.
"No no No!" He said shaking his head frantically. "Gwen, I wasn't thinking of..."
She couldn't help but burst out laughing, stopping him from continuing. He just looked so cute and innocent, like a puppy who realized he had done something wrong and was trying to figure out how to fix it. Laughing so hard, she had to hold her stomach, her laughter doubled when she saw the confused look on his face.
"R-Relax, Andrew." She said between laughs. "I know what you meant. But, will your mother have a problem with me showing up unannounced?"
Andrew frowned for a moment as she raised a solid point, as she recovered from her laughter, he texted his mother. Soon after, he received a reply.
"There you go, problem solved" He said as he slipped his phone into his pocket.
"Just like that?" She asked raising an eyebrow doubtfully.
"Pretty much." He answered with a shrug. "By the way, I hope you like lox, because that's what my mom is making dinner for tonight."
"Sounds good." She nodded.
Leading Gwen to the house he grew up in, a modest apartment in Manathan, Andrew was about to unlock the door with his house keys when the door opened. He smiled, ready to greet his mother who must have seen them through the window, but to his horror, it was not his mother who opened the door.
It was his grandmother.
"Ah, Andrew, it's so good to see you, big guy." The old woman smiled at him before noticing Gwen. "Oh, and you must be Gwen. Isabelle said you'd bring a guest here. Go ahead, come in, come in."
Gwen entered as Andrew let out a groan as he buried his face in his hands. With his grandmother at his mother's house, he knew one word would sum up his situation: awkward.