Adventures in Babysitting ↠ Peter Parker [1] ✓

15 | Until Another Day

╔══════════════════╗

ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING
xv. UNTIL ANOTHER DAY

╚══════════════════╝

   THERE'S ALWAYS A WARNING. In everything, there's always a sign that foreshadows what's to come next. It's the wind whirling through the heavens. It's a veil of smoke wandering into your nostrils or a flock of birds migrating away in a frenzied state. In those warnings, you're given only a matter of seconds to act. We call this the fight or flight response—the reaction in which you can either march into the disaster head-first or flee with your life. If you're sane, you'll run away. If you're unlucky, you'll freeze. But if you're Riley Stark, you'll face the oncoming storm with a smile.

   That's the strange thing about growing up. It's been wired in our brains since adolescence to resent conflict. No one truly craves hardship. We're taught to work around it or push through it, oftentimes without strategy. It isn't until we're older that we learn that struggles make us stronger, smarter, braver.

   Growing up isn't about eradicating conflicts from our lives completely. It's problem-solving, it's learning, it's figuring out how to strategize. It's discovering how to take on the storm not with a grimace, but with a smile.

  Or, at least, for Peter Parker, it's learning how to cope with his girlfriend being a morning person.

   She sat in a field with the grass poking at the palms of her hands and the skin of her arms. A gentle wind peppered her face with kisses as if to say goodbye, farewell, and bon voyage! Saying goodbye seemed fitting, after all. Today was the day Camp Mirkhaven closed for the season. Today was the day Riley Stark's summer officially ended.

   Riley Stark stared up at the sky. It was still dark with stars twinkling down on the sleeping Earthlings, protecting them from nightmares that lurk in the darkest corners of their minds. Though the constellations always seemed like they varied every evening, Riley knew they were the same as always.

   She felt comfort seeing the darkness of the sky. Though the world still rested after another long day, Riley was wide awake. She was the sunrise the world anticipated.

   A rustling in the trees grasped Riley's attention. It wasn't a simple wave that came from the trees meeting with the wind. The sound was, instead, forced. Someone was coming.

   Riley pinched her eyebrows together, her brown eyes trained on the noise. Her fight or flight instinct flared up in an instant. 'What idiot is up at this hour?' she thought to herself. She paused, noting to herself, '...Other than me.'

   A hand poked through the branches before the rest of his body followed through. Peter Parker emerged from the shadows. A camp tee hung on his muscular body with jeans and an old pair of tennis shoes to accompany it. Though filled with fondness, Peter's brown eyes were dragged down by prominent dark circles. Riley's face stretched with a light layer of surprise.