Apologies
The compass moved before he reached the roof.
It had been sitting at two for nine days. He'd learned to sleep through it. He hadn't learned to stop checking.
He came up over the edge of Cindy's building and the needle ticked to three. She was up here.
She was sitting on the far side of the roof with her back against the HVAC unit, knees pulled up. Hoodie, joggers, hair down. Phone in her hand, screen dark.
She looked at him. The compass went to four.
"You took a while," she said.
He walked across the roof. The tar paper was cold through his sneakers and a pigeon on the ledge was staring at him with a fixed intensity that suggested it had confused him for someone carrying bread.
"I practiced what I was going to say on the train," he said.
"And?"
"It was terrible. I had index cards."
"You don't have index cards."
"I had metaphorical index cards. In my head. They were organized."
She looked at him. Her mouth was flat.
He sat down. Next to her, against the HVAC unit, close enough that the compass ticked to five. The lavender shampoo she'd switched to in October.
"I was wrong," he said.
She didn't say anything.
"At your mom's table. When I said 'we'll think about it.' That wasn't mine to say. Your powers. Your body. Your decision about Ezekiel. All of it." He looked at his hands. His fingernails needed cutting. "I don't get to decide for you. I don't get to speak for you."
The HVAC unit hummed behind them. A car horn honked somewhere below.
Cindy was quiet for a long time. Her phone was in her hand, screen dark. She turned it over. Turned it back.
"You're learning," she said.
"Slowly."
"Very slowly."
Her mouth pulled at the corner. Small. Tired.
"I'm going to investigate Ezekiel myself," she said. "I'll decide what to do."
"Okay."
It cost him to say. The follow-up sentences were lining up behind it, but be careful, but let me come, but tell me what you find, and he killed every one of them before they reached his mouth.
The compass was at five. Steady.
Cindy put her head on his shoulder.
She was warm against his arm and her hair smelled like lavender and the compass crept to six and the pigeon on the ledge had lost interest and left. Her breathing slowed. His matched.
"I missed you," she said. Into his shoulder.
"I missed you too."
"Don't do it again."
"I'll try."
"Try harder."
He put his arm around her. She let him. The compass held at six.
She'd remember the fight, though. Eidetic memory kept the receipts.
MJ smiled at him on Monday.
He saw it in the hallway before second period. She was at her locker, pulling out her history textbook, and she looked up and saw him and smiled. The smile was perfect. Bright, warm, the right amount of teeth. The one she'd used at Keisha Williams' party when someone told a bad joke about her dress. Peter had sat across from a SHIELD agent four days ago and the smile was scarier.
"Hey, Tiger."
The word was there. The tone was there.
"Hey."
She closed her locker. Hitched her bag. Her hair was down today, which Peter had been tracking because he'd apparently lost his mind, and hair-down on Monday broke her weekend ponytail pattern and he didn't know what it meant and he was going to need professional help if he kept analyzing MJ Watson's hairstyle choices.
"How was your weekend?"
"Good. Quiet. You?"
"Busy. Keisha had a thing." She tucked hair behind her ear. Smooth. No hesitation.
"Cool," he said.
"Cool," she said.
She walked past him. Her shoulder didn't brush his. She kept space. She was pulling her phone out before she'd taken three steps, texting someone or pretending to.
She'd asked who is she and he'd said it's complicated and now the mask was back up and he'd done that.
He went to class. Mr. Warren was talking about mitosis.
The locker door was stuck again.
Peter hit it with the heel of his hand and it popped open. The latch had been bent since October when Flash slammed it and the janitor had said he'd fix it and the janitor was a liar. Peter had considered bending the latch back himself but the margin between fixed and ripped the door off was narrower than he trusted his spider-strength to manage at school.
He was pulling out his chem textbook when Liz Allan walked up.
Denim jacket over a yellow top. Hair in a braid, pulled over one shoulder. She leaned her hip against the next locker and her posture said she'd rehearsed this.
"There's a movie Friday," she said.
Peter looked at her. Brown eyes, steady.
"Come with me."
His chem textbook hit the floor. The sound of hardcover on linoleum echoed and a sophomore ten feet away looked over and Peter's face was hot.
Liz bent down. Picked it up. Handed it back and her fingers stayed on his. Her thumb resting on his knuckle. Her nail polish was chipped on the index finger.
"Say yes, Parker."
He opened his mouth. MJ was twenty feet down the hallway, performing not-looking-at-him. Cindy was in Queens, compass at a warm six. Felicia was in Manhattan with green eyes and a name she'd given him on a water tower.
And Liz Allan was standing at his locker with her thumb on his knuckle, asking him out.
He didn't say yes. He didn't say no.
"I'll take that as a maybe," Liz said.
She let go. Smiled. Warm, real. Her braid swung against her back as she walked away.
Peter stood at his locker with the textbook in his hand and his knuckle warm.
Behind him, someone shifted weight against the water fountain. Peter turned. Harry was leaning there, arms crossed. His face was blank. Carefully blank. His eyes followed Liz down the hallway. Then they came to Peter. Then they went to his own shoes.
"Harry-"
"Don't." Harry pushed off the fountain. His voice was flat. "Just don't." He walked toward fifth period with his hands in his pockets.
The Oscorp gala. Crab puffs. Harry had said it while eating one and watching Liz fix Peter's lapel. I've had a crush on Liz Allan since freshman year. Just so you know. His voice had been casual. Too casual.
Peter closed his locker, two tries, the latch still bent. Went to class.
Ben was at the kitchen table.
Crossword. Blue ink pen. Coffee mug with the chipping letters. May's shift didn't end until eight and the house was quiet except for the furnace clicking on in the basement and the third step on the staircase doing its creak.
Peter dropped his backpack on the chair. Sat down. Put his forehead on the table. The wood smelled like Pine-Sol.
Ben's pen scratched newsprint. He didn't look up.
"Girl trouble?" Ben said.
Peter's forehead was on the table. "Something like that."
"Which one?"
Peter raised his head. Stared.
Ben was looking at the crossword. Reading glasses crooked on his nose, pen hovering over 14 across. His mouth had the arrangement it got when he was pretending he hadn't said something on purpose.
"What?"
"Peter." Ben put the pen down. Looked at him. Kind eyes, thin face. "I was young once. It's never just one."
Peter put his forehead back on the table. His ears were warm.
"They're- it's- there's not-"
"You don't have to explain." Ben picked the pen up. "Just be honest with them. Whatever else you do."
Peter kept his forehead on the table.
"Seven letters," Ben said. "'Candor.' Starts with H."
"Honesty."
Ben counted under his breath. Wrote it in. Blue ink, careful letters.
"That's the one," he said.
Peter's phone buzzed. Text from Liz: Friday. 7pm. The one on Queens Blvd. Don't overthink it.
A movie emoji. A popcorn emoji.
He put the phone face-down on the table.
Ben glanced at it. Glanced at Peter. Back at the crossword.
"You know," Ben said, "your Aunt May made me wait three weeks before I got a yes. I asked seven times."
"How'd you get her to say yes?"
"Showed up." Ben capped the pen. "That's the whole trick, Peter. You just keep showing up."
He got up. Took his mug to the sink. Rinsed it. Put it upside down on the drying rack, the chipping letters facing out.
Peter sat at the kitchen table and listened to the water run. The compass was at six. Cindy was in Queens. MJ was next door. Liz's text was on the other side of his phone, waiting.
Ben was at the sink, looking out the window at the backyard. Peter couldn't tell if he was looking at something or just standing. People did that sometimes. Stood in kitchens and looked at yards.
Peter picked up the phone.