I Can't Make You Love Me || Peter Parker x OC

Chapter 1: The Illusion to Life

Standing on the vast balcony of our penthouse, the water-tight seal of the smile that I had been perfecting for the past 5 years did its job like always and sealed in the burning-hot tears that were trying to blaze their ways out of my eyes. My hand moved in the constant flow of a good-bye wave as I watched the departing forms of my parents and their private driver as they left to go god-knows-where.

It was like clockwork. Every month, they would leave me for some big-shot press conference or business meeting. Since I turned 18 a few months ago, naturally the week they weren't home, they could give me my own apartment to stay in, but they've been doing it since I turned 13, leaving me to stay home by myself, apartment or not.

The actual words haven't been said to me in a long time, but I know my mom and dad love me, they just love their jobs a little more. They buy me everything I ask for, and even the things I don't. Laptops and watches, clothes and things with price tags bigger than my designer bags. Half of the rooms in our Penthouse were filled with the things that they bought to fill the parental-sized hole that they were never present to fill.

I had been showered in gifts for as long as I could remember, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't annoy me to no end. The few things that I actually did ask for were not actually all that expensive: things like little tourist-shop souvenirs from the places they get to travel to, not just a rolex that they happened to purchase in Dubai. I wanted pictures and Facetime calls and actual family time doing things that families without a $ 61.2 billion net worth to their name would do.

Having the Surname of Malcolm or not, I dont think it's that much to ask for to spend even a day alone with your mother and father. Ian and Sarah Malcolm didn't seem to agree with their only daughter.

Seeing the black Tesla round the final corner and disappear from my sight, my smile cracked like an eggshell and the tears cut tracks through the layers of Fenty foundation that laid over my face as they danced over my pale skin and pooled on the underside of my chin. The sounds of New York got drowned out as I stepped back into the sitting room and pressed the sliding glass door shut.

Pressing myself against the refurbished oak paneling, my back slid down until my butt hit the floor and my kneecaps brushed my chin, soaking the tears into my jeans. I let myself stay curled in my ball for a few minutes, trying to get all of my pent-up emotions out in one go so I wouldn't have to stay up all night crying about it. I'd done that more than I cared to admit, and I needed to get over myself.

After a few minutes, I had wrung myself dry of tears, and I was able to stand up. Pressing my hands to the laminated walls, I moved myself over to the large sectional couch, the white leather bending around the open space, the effect amplified by the white vaulted ceilings and chandeliers. Indian and Irish cashmere blankets lay over the back of the couch, serving as yet another cushion as I allowed my body to absorb into the plush couch. The glint of my watch, the newest series of apple watch with the silver-plated band, caught my attention when it reflected the sunlight from the window into my eyes. moving over a foot or so, I carefully peeled the band off of my wrist and looked at the little square with more intensity than something its size probably deserved.

My fingers carefully toyed with the little dials and brushed down the chain-linked effect of the band. I turned the box over, and the screen disappeared from my sight, instead I only saw the rose-gold back of it and the few small words that had been engraved upon its purchase in Shanghai around 4 months ago.

Anneliesa Malcolm

A bare fingernail delicately glided over the letters that formed my name, occasionally moving with the ribbing of the lines. Then they moved down to the second line of text, moving with extra care and tracing along the lines rather than plowing straight across them.