Marvel – I am Spiderman

Gwen's bus didn't come.

Peter was still at the bus stop because he'd been walking home and she'd been waiting and the bus was twelve minutes late and the sky was getting dark and she was sitting on the bench with her project binder on her lap and her bag between her feet and the cold was the kind of cold that got worse when you stopped moving.

"I can walk," she said. "It's only twenty blocks."

"Twenty blocks in November."

"I have a coat."

"You have a cardigan."

"It's a warm cardigan."

He looked at the cardigan. It was blue. She was already hunching her shoulders against the wind and her nose was pink.

"I'll walk you," he said.

"You don't have to."

"I know."

They walked. The sidewalk was crowded for four blocks and then it thinned out as they moved away from school. Gwen walked fast. Her stride was long for her height and she kept up with him without trying.

They passed a bodega where a guy was stacking oranges in a pyramid in the window. Peter watched one fall. The guy caught it without looking and put it back.

"The regional competition is in March," Gwen said. "Mrs. Henderson wants us to expand the paper. Add a section on UV degradation."

"I can do the UV testing."

"I already started." She pulled her binder tighter against her chest. The wind caught a page and she pressed it flat. "I set up the exposure array in the chem lab last week. Six samples at different wavelengths. I need to take readings every forty-eight hours for two months."

"You set up a two-month experiment without telling me?"

"I was going to tell you."

"When?"

"When I had preliminary results." She looked at him sideways. "I don't show incomplete data."

"We're lab partners."

"I don't show incomplete data to ANYONE."

They turned onto her street. Brownstones and walk-ups and trees that still had a few yellow leaves holding on. A dog barked from an open window on the second floor of a building they passed.

"This is me," Gwen said.

The Stacy apartment was on the third floor of a brownstone on the corner. The windows were dark. No lights. The building had a front stoop with iron railings and a doormat that said WELCOME in faded letters.

"Is your dad home?" Peter asked.

"He's on shift. Enhanced Crimes." She pulled her keys out. Three keys on a plain ring. No keychain, no charm. "He won't be back until midnight."

She unlocked the door. Looked at Peter. She was standing in the doorway with the dark apartment behind her and the streetlight on her face and her headband was straight for once.

"Do you want to come in?" she said. "I have coffee."

"You drink coffee?"

"I have a coffee maker. My dad drinks coffee. I drink tea." She pushed the door open wider. "But I have coffee."

He went in.

The apartment was clean.

Every book on the shelf was alphabetized. The surfaces were clear. The kitchen counter had nothing on it except a coffee maker and a folded dish towel. The couch cushions were aligned. The shoes by the door were arranged by type and size. A coat rack with two coats, both hung at the same height. The carpet had vacuum lines. A small kitchen table had two chairs and two placemats, evenly spaced. Two mugs on the rack above the coffee maker. Two of everything.

Gwen put her bag down by the door. Hung her cardigan on the coat rack. It went on the hook next to her father's jacket, same height, aligned.

"You can sit anywhere," she said. "I'll make coffee."

Peter sat on the couch. The cushions were stiff. The coffee table had a single coaster and a TV remote with the batteries facing the same direction. On the wall above the bookshelf there was a hook. An empty hook. The paint around it was a slightly different shade from the rest of the wall.

Gwen came back with two mugs. Coffee for him, tea for her. She set his down on the coaster and held hers in both hands and sat on the other end of the couch.

"Your apartment is very clean," Peter said.

"I like things where they belong."

He looked at the alphabetized books. The vacuum lines. The empty hook.

"Gwen, this isn't organized. This is-"

"Controlled." She drank her tea. "I know."

She was looking at the empty hook. Her jaw was loose and her eyes were steady and she was holding the mug with both hands, fingers wrapped around it.

"My mom left when I was twelve." She said it flat. A sentence she'd said before and the edges had worn off. "No warning. No fight. She didn't pack in front of me. She didn't explain. I came home from school and my dad was sitting at the kitchen table and he said 'Your mom isn't going to be living here anymore' and the coat rack had one fewer coat and the bathroom had one fewer toothbrush and that was it."

The mug in Peter's hand was warm. The coffee was strong. Captain Stacy made his coffee strong.

"She sends a card on my birthday," Gwen said. "And Christmas. The handwriting is hers. The cards are from a drug store. She signs them 'Love, Mom' and the 'Love' looks like it takes her a while."

Peter drank the coffee.

"I started studying after she left. Like, actually studying. Before that I was just smart. After that I was-" She waved the mug. Tea sloshed. "I was the girl who aced everything. And everyone said 'she's so driven' and 'she's going to go far' and they meant it as a compliment and I took it as one because the alternative was telling them that I studied because I thought if I understood how things work I could predict when things leave."

She looked at the empty hook.

"A family photo used to hang there. Me and my dad and my mom at Coney Island. I was nine. She was laughing. My dad was holding a stuffed bear he'd won at a booth. I took it down when I was fourteen because I kept looking at her face and trying to figure out what I missed. What sign I should have seen. There had to be a sign. There's always a sign if you look at the data."

"Was there?"

"No." She drank her tea. "People aren't equations. There's no data set that predicts when someone decides to stop being in your life." She looked at Peter. "It doesn't work, by the way. The studying. The control. The alphabetized books. None of it stops people from leaving."

"I know what empty houses sound like," he said.

"You said that yesterday."

"Yeah."

"What makes your house empty?"

He thought about it. His house wasn't empty. His house had Ben and May and MJ in the guest room and the sound of a crossword pen and bacon in the morning. But he'd had empty before. In the other life. The apartment with one plate and no visitors and the TV on for noise.

"Before this," he said. "Before Queens. My house was empty in a different way."

She watched him. He couldn't say more without saying too much and she didn't push.

"You're different," she said. "From what I expected."

"How?"

"You listen." She put the mug down. Her hands went to her knees. "Most people hear the grades and the headband and they think they have me figured out. You listen like you're still collecting data."

"Maybe I am."

"On me?"

"On everyone."

She smiled. Small. Her eyes crinkled at the corners and the streetlight came through the window and caught the side of her face.

She put her head on his shoulder.

He didn't move. She was warm against his arm and her hair smelled like the diner's kitchen grease from two hours ago and underneath that her shampoo and her tea. Her headband pressed against his jaw. She was tense for three seconds and then she relaxed and her weight settled against him and she exhaled and the exhale was long and quiet.

He sat there. She sat there.

"Parker?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't go yet."

"I'm not going anywhere."

She stayed on his shoulder. He stayed on the couch. Outside, the streetlight buzzed. A car passed. The dog from earlier barked again, fading.

They sat on the couch for a long time. She didn't talk. He didn't talk. At some point her breathing evened out and he thought she might have fallen asleep but then she shifted and picked up her tea and drank it cold and made a face.

"Cold tea is worse than cold coffee," she said.

"That's objectively true."

"I should reheat it."

She didn't get up. Her shoulder was still against his arm. She stayed there for another minute and then she sat up and straightened her headband and picked up both mugs and went to the kitchen.

"You should go," she said from the kitchen. "It's getting late."

"Yeah."

He stood up. Picked up his bag. She came back from the kitchen. They stood in the hallway near the front door.

"Parker."

"Yeah."

"Thanks for walking me home."

"The bus didn't come."

"Thanks anyway."

She opened the door. The hallway was bright after the dark apartment and she was standing in the doorframe with her eyes clear.

"See you Monday?" she said.

"See you Monday."

He walked down the stairs. Through the front door. The streetlight was on and the cold air hit his face. He walked home. Twenty blocks.

The Parker house had lights on when he got there. Ben's car in the driveway. The kitchen window warm and yellow. May's shadow moving behind the curtain.

He went inside.