Sharp Edges / Peter Parker

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

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NED STARED AT TILLIE, SURPRISED. "Wait, seriously?!" It was December 23rd, and he and MJ just found out that Tillie would be spending her Christmas Day alone, probably not leaving her apartment.

"I mean, yeah," she shrugged. "It's not a big deal, I'm kind of used to it by now. The year before last year I was with some of the people from my group therapy, but only a couple of them also didn't have any family so we mostly just sat around and watched whatever was on TV."

MJ approached, having just finished ringing up a customer and overhearing the last part of their conversation. "But you have someone to spend Christmas Eve with at least, right?"

"Yeah, I'm going to visit a friend. He's actually from group therapy too, I haven't seen him in a while. But he calls me every once in a while to check in, and he asked if I wanted to come over for dinner when I told him that I'd be spending this year alone. So I guess it'll be nice to not be completely by myself," Tillie shrugged it off, trying to make light of the situation.

Her 2 new friends both started to protest, immediately inviting her over on Christmas Day.

"You guys, I appreciate that, but I'm okay. I wasn't saying all of that to make you feel bad. I really have gotten used to it," Tillie shrugged once again.

The sad thing was, she wasn't lying. Her guardian wasn't the cheerful celebratory type, and even when she lived with him, sometimes holidays were spent in her room. Most of the time he was pretty serious. So Tillie had started to think of holidays as just more ordinary days.

After the death of her parents and Tillie came into all of that money, occasionally she'd treat herself to nice things, even at the young age of 12. She'd splurge on a nice dinner, or go out and buy a bunch of new clothes. Now that she was older, Tillie was a lot more careful with her money.

Her parents had both been employees of S.H.I.E.L.D., and while she was never allowed to know the exact nature of their work, it must've been important because the payout on their insurance was big. One day she did the calculations, and she figured out that if she didn't get a job and just lived solely off of that money, she'd be comfortable for a long time. Almost for the rest of her life. But she realized that wasn't practical.

So, now that she was older, Tillie was way more cautious with her spendings. She restricted her shopping sprees to her birthday, Christmas, and maybe one or two random days when she just felt like treating herself.

2 years ago when she'd met up with some of the other group therapy members, they all gathered at her family home and sat around in pajamas watching movies. None of them had been too thrilled at the thought of gathering at first, but Joe pointed out that they couldn't go on moping around forever, so they could at least try to make things feel a little normal for one day.

And it was. It was the most normal Tillie had felt in a long time. But last year it seemed everyone was either busy, or in some sort of mental funk. So she spent the 24th and 25th like they were any other days.

The thought of doing the same thing this year did make her a little sad, but she didn't want to come across as—

"Tillie?" Ned waved a hand in front of her face. "You good?"