Introduction
He had always been a curious child, forever wondering where the rainbow ends and where his dad might be. Questions spilled over in his mind like marbles scattered on a wooden floor, uncontainable and relentless. A pretty little card he drew for Father's Day lay hidden at the bottom of his drawer, untouched and unseen. At first, he didn’t care much about his absent father; his mother was the only adult he had ever needed. Yet, in kindergarten, it was impossible not to notice that most of the other children had something he didn’t—a dad. Some of them asked about his family, their small faces puzzled when they learned he had only one parent. But he wasn’t angry, or sad, or even jealous. It was hard to miss something you’d never had. What he did miss, though, was what he already had—or used to have—a family. Small, flawed, and imperfect, but his family nonetheless. His mother, who hadn’t touched a sip of alcohol for the first thirty years of her life, had seemed invincible. But something shifted after his tenth birthday. The memory was hazy, but he knew that day changed everything. There was no tragedy, no dramatic fallout. No one had died. She still had her job, he wasn’t a difficult child, and Aunt May was as dependable and kind as ever. But that day, his mother had taken her first sip of alcohol.
Then another. And another.
It never stopped.
She wasn’t the kind of drunk who yelled or broke things or became cruel. No, she was a sad drunk, the kind whose sorrow sat in her eyes like storm clouds. She stopped smiling. When Peter gave her a drawing of the two of them, she barely glanced at it. No report card, no glittering rows of A’s, could coax her into joy. On her days off, she began drinking in the morning, the glass already in her hand when the sunlight poured through the windows. He watched her fall apart and tried to make sense of it, tried to piece together the puzzle of her sadness. He never found an answer.
Why did Aunt May never send his mother away for good? Why had she settled for half custody instead of fighting for him entirely? May was everything his mother wasn’t. She praised his drawings, kissed his forehead, and hugged him tightly for every accomplishment, no matter how small. But May’s love, as unwavering as it was, couldn’t fill the growing void inside him. Peter wanted to fix his mother. He needed to understand her pain, to take it from her and bear it himself if that’s what it took. For years, he promised himself he would never drink, never smoke, never fall into the trap of addiction. But as he grew older, he realized he was already addicted—to her. He had become consumed by the endless cycle of trying to make her happy, of trying to save her from herself. Addiction, he read in a school pamphlet, is a chronic condition that involves compulsive seeking and taking of a substance or performing an activity despite negative or harmful consequences.
That was him. He was addicted to saving her.
She came back from rehab on his twelfth birthday, sober and smiling, and for the first time in months, Peter felt hope bloom inside him. He thought maybe things could go back to the way they used to be—before the bottles, before the shouting, before the quiet sobs he’d overheard through the walls. For a few weeks, it seemed like that hope might have been well-placed. She cooked breakfast again, laughed at his jokes, and even helped him with his science project - even if he could do it himself. But by the third week, the bottles reappeared, hidden under the sink or tucked behind the cereal boxes. The hope withered as quickly as it had bloomed, leaving Peter with a hollow ache he didn’t know how to fill.
And so it became a cycle.
His mother would lose another job, May would cry and send her away to rehab, and she’d come back just in time for his birthday, promising this time would be different. Peter wanted to believe her so badly. He wanted to believe that the woman who hugged him tight and told him bedtime stories could beat whatever it was that kept pulling her under. On his fourteenth birthday, she smiled at him during her first week of sobriety. He dared to hope again. For those fleeting days, he let himself imagine a future where she stayed sober. But by the third week, the familiar smell of alcohol clung to her breath. His chest tightened when he saw the half-empty bottle on the counter. This time wasn’t different.
By the time his fifteenth birthday came, Peter felt something break inside him. The hope he’d clung to for years shattered, leaving behind jagged pieces that cut him every time he dared to dream things could be better. That year, he couldn’t take the pain anymore. He wanted—needed—something to make it stop, even if only for a moment.
It was at a party, surrounded by kids who didn’t know or care about the chaos at home, that he tasted alcohol for the first time. It burned his throat, made his head spin, and yet, for a brief moment, the ache in his chest went away. He hated himself for liking it. The relief was fleeting because by the next morning the emptiness was back, heavier than before. At another party, someone offered him something stronger. A pill. A needle. He didn’t ask what it was, and they didn’t tell him. He hesitated, fear curling in his stomach, but the memory of his mother’s broken promises and Aunt May’s eyes filled with tears pushed him over the edge. He gave in. The quiet that followed was unlike anything he’d ever known. For the first time, the screaming inside him stopped.
But quiet didn’t last.
Peter told himself it was just this once. He wasn’t like his mom. He could stop whenever he wanted. But once turned into twice, and twice turned into a habit. He chased that silence, that fleeting escape from the questions that haunted him every day. Why couldn’t he fix her? Why couldn’t he make her smile? By the time his sixteenth birthday came, Peter was lost in the same spiral he’d tried so desperately to save his mother from. His grades slipped, his teachers stopped calling home, and Aunt May’s hugs couldn’t reach him anymore. The sketchbooks he once filled with dreams of new gadgets lay abandoned in the corner of his room, gathering dust. The void inside him grew wider, swallowing everything in its path. For years, Peter had sworn he’d never become like his mother. He’d promised himself he’d be stronger, smarter, better. He never realized how easy it was to fall and how quietly the darkness crept in, until it felt like it had always been there. And yet, deep down, a small part of him still held onto hope. But that hope was fragile, buried beneath the weight of his guilt and shame.
Because Peter Parker didn’t know how to stop falling.
Yet, he shouldn't have been as surprised as he was now, standing with May in front of the sign that read Intensive Care Unit in the hospital she was working in. Given his mother's years of alcohol abuse, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. He should've knwon. He should've expected it.
But it still hit him like a punch to his face.
Here he was, staring at the cold letters of ICU sign. He could only imagine how bad her liver must me. An organ transplant wasn't an option- she'd been in and out of rehab so many times that no doctor would even consider it. And every single time, she went straight back to the bottle. He wanted to blame her, blame the alcohol, the cycle she resufed to break, the choices she kept making. He wanted to scream, to cry, to demand an explanation. But instead, he just stood there with May, frozen, unsure of what to do or say.
What could he say? Get better? I hope you'll finally stop drinking after abusing your liver for years? I miss the person you were before? I need my mom back? Thinking about it felt hallow.
May, standing beside him, looked like she was carrying the weight of it all on her shoulders. Peter glanced at her face, at the pain etched there, and wondered what was going through her mind. Was she feeding herself lies, trying to believe this wasn't the end for his mom? Did she see the same parallels Peter did- his mother's struggles, his own battles with addiction, the way their lives seemed to circle the same drain? And how could she stay so calm, knowing that just a short while ago, she could've lost Peter too? Whether it was the drugs he couldn’t get enough of or the dangerous people who came with them, death had loomed over his life more times than he cared to count.
" I see you " May said suddenly, her soft voice breaking through his spiraling thoughts.
Peter blinked, caught off guard. " What? " his own voice was hoarse, barely louder than a whisper.
" I see you " she repeated.
For a moment, Peter stared at her in confusion, trying to process what she meant. Then he followed her gaze and saw the sign.
ICU.
Peter let out a small, humorless laugh, the sound bitter in his own ears. How stupid of him.
Was it though?
Because for a brief second, he wished someone did see him - the version of him he didn't have to hold together, the one that was just as lost as he felt now.