𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐦𝐞- 𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐫

5.

Days went by without Peter saying much. He would ignore my calls and say the bare minimum to me in class or around the halls. He would keep to himself and draw in his notebook without raising his hand to answer a question that he did often.

"Hey, Peter. I just wanted to check in to see how you're doing. Um, you've heard a few of these calls I'm sure, but... wait mom, leave that on!"

I hung up the call quickly, ignoring Steve's sigh as I sat on the coffee table in his direct view. A vigilante, also accused of being an anarchist, was running around town dressed in a red mask.

I pulled out my phone right as Serena sent me a video of what seemed like a human body swinging through the air on youtube. Everyone at school was talking about this as well.

I rushed up to Peter that day, listening to the two boys in front of us talking about the vigilante. He tilted his head down to reach my height, smiling. "Hey."

"Hey?" It came out more of a question. "You haven't been answering my calls. I mean, you didn't have to, but I wanted to make sure you're okay."

"I'm getting things done." Was his answer.

I wasn't sure what that meant. "Here, I got you a coffee." I forgot I was holding two cups instead of one. "And this." I reached into my backpack to grab a bag with a muffin inside. "Chocolate chip. Pretty basic, but everyone was raving about them."

"Thank you." He took both the drink and the muffin.

"Where'd your skateboard go?" I asked.

"Listen, I have to go." He stopped, "I'll talk to you later."

I watched as he rushed away. I furrowed, confused with his behavior. First he was ignoring my calls and now he's barely speaking to me in person. It was rational for him to act this way, but I've seen him have plenty of conversations with Gwen in the hallways.

"What was that about?" Serena came up from behind me.

"Nothing." I convinced myself. "Wanna hang out?"

My mom was home alone when Serena and I entered my apartment. We got a bowl of chips and hibernated in my room for the rest of the night.

I was working on one of my projects, so close to coming up with a reasonable murder suspect for one of the cases Mr. Rosenthal gave us for homework. "Fuck." I muttered.

"That reminds me, Robby and I..."

I was about to lose my mind between Serena, Peter, and this new vigilante. And having Serena over was something I regretted the moment she chose herself again.

"Listen, what about Peter?"

My head snapped up, breaking my train of thought. "What?"

"You missed the whole conversation." She groaned, leaning her head back on the bed. "You and Peter."

"What about us?" I furrowed.

"I mean, your last boyfriend... he was kind of a dick."

"That was freshmen year. We called each other boyfriend and girlfriend, but it was really nothing." I shook my head, already disapproving the conversation about to go down.

"I mean yes, but-"

"Did you see the new video of the vigilante?" I cut her off, slamming my pencil down onto the paper.

"I mean, yeah, haven't we all?"

"Do you want to know who it is?" I shoved my phone at her, forcing her to watch another sighting of this person.

"Don't you think it would be cool if they were a women?" She smiled, admiring the way the person flew through the air with some type of web shooter.

"I mean, based off the body structure..." I trailed off.

"Yeah, yeah. I've been through health." She handed me back my phone.

"I feel like they're right at the tip of our noses." I muttered, rewatching the video.

The cops call this vigilante a menace. But really I didn't think of them that way. They were taking out half of the thieves night by night that people didn't even notice. Part of me wondered how they were noticing, or better yet who they were going after.

Every one of the crimes this person followed had to do with long blonde haired men. Most were beating on women, but others were just plain old thieves. There seemed to be a pattern here because either way they had long blonde hair down to the shoulders.

They all looked familiar to something I've seen before. Something I couldn't connect the dots to.