Arachnophobia ⇒ Peter Parker

twenty seven: bitter coffee, sweet surprise

      "Who the hell is Isaac, and who is he going to kidnap?" Peter said, slowly walking toward me. I walked backward. Suddenly, I felt soft fabric engulf my shins and I feel back onto Peter's bed. My heart had stopped beating, the color left my face, and my palms became clammy. The air in the room felt stale, and I never realized how little space the room occupied. The only identifiable factor of life in my shaking figure was the thick, heavy breath that left my lips.

     "It's a premise for a movie I'm working on Peter. It's nothing."

     He slowly inched forward, taking small steps in between the strings of dialogue that quaked from my hoarse throat. He finally said, in a rough voice, "Don't lie to me, Rose."

     At that moment, it may have been his cold exterior or his words, but the image of someone else entered my mind. I could remember him saying, 'Don't lie to me, Rose.' And my body kicked into a mode, muscle memory.

     "Get away from me, Peter," I said smoothly. These words scared me. Quite possibly because of the smooth way they left my throat, or the slack tone they came out in. I had never used this tone before when the largest of my worries was who I wanted to ask out to homecoming. The life I lived in now was stark in contrast to the one I used to live.

     "No Rose. I'm not--"

     "I said," I declared firmly and stood up, "get away." With these words, Peter stepped back, leaving a clear pathway for me to exit. The sound of the door slamming echoed behind me and I ran out of his apartment.

     My nerves were bubbling and I couldn't stand still. I needed something to happen. After finally reaching my apartment, I ripped open the door and stepped in. My figure flashed through the rooms until I reached my bedroom. I needed to act. So, I did. I ripped open my backpack and grabbed a flyer for Academic Decathlon. The paper rippled as I threw it onto the ground, and my hands began to weave through my backpack, weaving through documents and throwing them down into a pile.

     After scanning through all the necessary papers there, I grabbed my phone. My fingers tapped away, and I found myself throwing Isaac and I's text conversations down with the pile of evidence. The group seeped with documents and small trinkets. I ran over to my supplies closet and sifted through the items inside, finally spotting a set of thick black sharpies and thin red yarn that had corse fabric. My hands began to work by themselves, and I began to arrange all of the items I had gathered into intricate patterns. My hands weaved in and out of the papers, tapping the corners down and tacking them down with sharp staples. Once everything was pasted on, I began to string the yarn in between the pictures, connecting correlating evidence.

     I was in a daze, but my mind was consciously creating the board in front of me. I caught a glimpse of one of my old papers and snorted. Next to a line that was printed by the word "name" I had written Amalia. The name seemed so foreign to me, it was almost as if it didn't belong to me. In a way it didn't, it belonged to another girl, a younger, more pure girl. I wasn't that girl anymore, and I wasn't sure about how I felt about that fact. Regardless, I let my eyes drift past the name and over to the other documents. In my tired state, I wasn't able to fully comprehend what I had done.

     I needed energy. My feet led me over to the coffee machine in my kitchen The machine was old, was composed of cheap white plastic that was tinted with brown coffee stains, and was lined with cracks. I pulled out coffee grounds that I had flippantly bought at the dollar store, and I watched as they poured into the cheap thing. The soft boiling of the water being mixed with the grounds was the only noise that filled the placid room. I stared blandly, my red tinted eyes watching the process cautiously.

     Finally, a buzzing noise indicated that the coffee was ready. I grabbed the mug. Spare coffee grounds lingered at the top, surrounding the rim of the cup. I pressed the drink to my lips, cringing at the stale taste of water tinted with the plain scent of coffee. Disregarding the bitter taste, I steadily walked back into the next room. The heat of the cup seared my hand, and it teetered in my hand. I had always wondered why adults loved coffee, while kids loathed it. I had come to realize that adults were used to the bitterness.

     I once again stared at the board, ignoring the mess that surrounded it. At that moment, a thought entered my mind. The truth behind this thought was so powerful that my chest sucked in a string of air, and I lost control as the cup in my hand fell onto the ground. A shattering noise filled the room, and I didn't bother to glance down as glass shards dug into my foot and seething hot coffee etched burns into my heels. What faced me terrified me, but gave me hope beyond belief. A smile finally crept onto the edges of my wide lips, and a booming laughter escaped them.

     I went over to the light switch and turned it off, disregarding the state that my room was in. I walked over to my bed and fell on top of it, finally allowing that smile that had so brilliantly shown on my face to disappear.

     What I had done in that late night would change the course of the sequential events that followed. I had completed something that night, something bigger than my relationship with Peter or fending from the monster that was Isaac. That night, I lay across from the board, knowing that what I had just created would get me out of my situation.

     The board was a collection of evidence of what Isaac had done, and all I needed to do was to tell Tony Stark to ensure an end to this nightmare and safety for my family. The truth is that my plan may have worked if only I had been the first one to reach him.