Chapter 3
To be fair, Gwen was sort of aware that what she was doing was completely irrational, stupid and nuts. That skipping-breakfast-plan on its own was totally dumb and foolish, especially because it failed before she could even take the action for it.
But when Gwen skipped lunch at school and spent that time in the school's library instead, she had to admit that she felt sickeningly proud of herself and in control. It was strange to describe it, but the only way Gwen could put it into words was by thinking of the time, where her life completely out of control. Now, she felt like a part of herself was in her hands again. And not only that, the voices in her head stopped spewing aggressive and harsh words to her.
It was with that that any kind of rational thinking was pushed away from her mind and she was pulled towards that sick obsession that Gwen just started to develop. It felt too good for her to see how wrong it was.
At school, it was not unusual to be spending lunchtime not eating, so her presence in the library thankfully caused nobody to question anything. During that time, she listened to music, did her history homework, doodled into her notebook and looked out of the window.
Despite the messy morning, she felt better today than she had been feeling for quite some time. And now that the sun was shining through the windows in the library, Gwen felt like the sun was shining for her, too.
For a while, Gwen closed her eyes and enjoyed the sunlight hitting her face until her phone sent her a notification. When she looked at her phone she saw that Miles was texting her, and a smile crept up on Gwen's face.
Miles: I am deeply and utterly bored please distract me
Gwen chuckled at his text, assuming that he must be in school right now, too.
Gwen: why? what's going on?
Miles: history class and it's sooo boring especially without ganke here
Miles: anyway what r u up to?
Gwen: history homework and music in the library
Miles: can you maybe kidnap me?
Miles: I'm about to fall asleep
Gwen laughed out loud and immediately closed her mouth when she remembered that she was in the library and a boy from another table was giving her disturbed glances.
Gwen: stop being such a drama queen
Gwen: what's the topic anyway? maybe I can help
Miles: idk, I actually stopped listening after our teacher said 'good morning'
Gwen: Milesss you have to pay attention
Miles: I can't tho talking to you is better
Miles: btw are you better? you looked pretty out of it yesterday
Gwen smiled at his texts and texted him back.
Gwen: yes, I'm a lot better today. It really was just sleep
It definitely was not just sleep, but he didn't have to know that, even though guilt was creeping up in the back of her mind for lying again.
Miles: Good, otherwise I would have jumped into your universe and dragged you back home
Miles: I mean I can still do that. you just have to say the words
Gwen rolled her eyes and lightly laughed, understanding what he was up to.
Gwen: Miles pay attention to class
Miles: ):
Miles: ok):
Gwen: I'll text you later then you can rant about anything as much as you like
Gwen: I still wanna know about your parents' reaction to you jumping off a bridge
Miles: Trust me you don't but sure
*
At first, Gwen thought that her school day went as good as it could possibly do, until she realized that she did not pay attention once, and that her mind was constantly thinking about plans on how to skip meals.
Not only was she a hypocrite for telling Miles to pay attention in class, thinking now about how she thought about her no-meal plan was mind-boggling to her. She spent the entire day at school thinking about lies she could tell her dad or the excuses she could make up to avoid eating.
Once, Gwen was back home she dressed into her suit and patrolled around the city. So far, her crime app hadn't notified her of any crime, neither did she come across any during her patrol around the city. But simply being outside, swinging and moving around and feeling that adrenaline rush made her feel so alive.
Until she felt her headache return and she had to stop at another rooftop.
"Fuck," Gwen muttered, held her head in her hand and closed her eyes.
The migraine hurt like hell, and she knew she should go home and relax, but right now she really didn't want to go home. The fresh spring air, the sun shining over the city and the perfect temperature made everything too good to want to go back home.
But then she also thought about how moving around burned calories, especially swinging around. And Gwen was adamant about burning off her breakfast, her small cereal breakfast. Her breakfast that was not even half of what she would usually eat for breakfast.
Gwen took several deep breaths, hoping that it would somehow relief her from the pounding headache so she could continue, at least for an hour.
But when Gwen realized it wouldn't leave, she sucked it up and continued swinging around anyway, however, her goal of doing so for an hour was reduced to half an hour when Gwen started feeling like she was about to faint.
The moment she arrived back inside her room, Gwen let herself fall onto her bed. Her migraine was intense to the point her vision got worryingly blurry during her swinging back home, and her hunger got more painful with each hour passing by.
she lifted up her knees towards her chest and wrapped her arms around her waist, hoping it could get rid of the pain in her stomach. She was hungry, but couldn't bring herself to eat. Because Gwen was strong, and she wanted to be in control in at least one aspect of her life. And not only that, but she felt unworthy of eating something good when she caused disaster wherever she went.
A thought popped up in her mind and Gwen dragged herself out of her bed trembling and walked towards the kitchen hoping to have some of the painkiller left that was especially designed for all the Spider-People. She filled a bottle full with water, took a painkiller and walked back towards her room where she sat down on her bed.
"This should help," Gwen mumbled to herself and started drinking the whole bottle of water after she took the medication.
She hoped that drinking a lot could help curbing down her hunger, even if that didn't make a lot of sense. But Gwen was desperate, and the idea seemed somewhat logical.
Once she was finished, Gwen felt a teeny tiny bit better than before surprisingly enough, and when she looked at her watch she realized that it was three in the afternoon, which meant that there were five hours left until her father would come home from his shift at work.
So Gwen decided to take a warm shower to calm down her nerves a bit more, and then do the rest of her homework. Just doing anything to pass time, and distract herself from her hunger.
*
The shower felt like heaven, and Gwen felt a million times better than she did before. The affect of the painkiller kicked in, and gone was the pounding headache. So she sat down and started doing her homework.
As Gwen finished up her English homework, another message was sent in their group chat.
Miles: dinner Party at my home on Saturday evening
Miles: it's too late to cancel btw
Peter: ...
Miles: oh and family members are invited too
Peter: yess!!!
Gwen started getting irritated when she read his message. Why, why did he have to throw a dinner party? She wasn't sure if this was like this before, but suddenly everyone kept on either inviting her over to eat and make her eat. It felt like everybody kept on testing her patience.
Gwen grinded her teeth and closed her eyes. She really didn't want to go, and on second thought, she wanted to jump over to Miles' dimension and shake him for making things so difficult for her.
But at the same time, she didn't want to lose these people. And with all of their full schedules, it was already as hard as it was for everyone to meet up. She could somehow make up an excuse for not eating, or at least skip breakfast that day.
For the sake of seeing her friends, Gwen ended up agreeing.
Gwen: I mean you're leaving us no choice sooo
*
During the entire week, Gwen had found a new routine. Since her dad was home every morning and insisting for his 'growing daughter' to eat her breakfast, she had been avoiding lunch at school and dinner at home, too.
Everyday, he came home from work around 8pm, which gave Gwen the perfect way to lie about eating dinner during the evening.
"Oh, I just get so hungry after school. I eat during patrol," Gwen said to her father, who actually believed her.
Patrols were getting more and more intense, as in spending longer time outside and swinging around every corner until she would detect a crime-scene. She got more movement in that one week than she ever did before in months, and every patrol ended with Gwen taking very deep breaths.
At home, she would study and do her homework until it was all done and find something else to distract herself with. Anything, just anything to pass her time and not think about anything.
All of this worked like magic, until it didn't. Because once the sun was down and Gwen would lay in bed at night, her thoughts would be so dark filled with all of her insecurities and her hunger hitting her.
It was excruciatingly painful because Gwen was both physically and mentally exhausted. Yet she couldn't find a way to rest. All Gwen wanted was to sleep, but her mind never shut off. It was filled with the guilt about lying to Miles, shame about killing Peter and regret about her relationship with her father.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep, her evermore growing self hatred, or a combination of the two of them, but it was enough to make tears pour down her face as she would stare at the ceiling and hope that she would be tired enough to just fall asleep. At this point, it was the only way she could sleep.
*
When Saturday finally arrived, Gwen woke up feeling like a ghost, and she was sure that her reflection in the mirror could attest to that. Her body was trembling due to the lack of sleep, and it even felt like it was slightly vibrating and shaking. Her headache was still there and her hunger was so painful that she started feeling nauseous.
Still, she forced herself to get up, get ready for the day and suck it all up so she could stay strong. There was no way she was going to eat breakfast now that they were invited to Miles' place for this evening.
So last night, as Gwen was staring around the room until her eyes caught sight of her drums, she got the idea of telling her dad that she would have band practice for the Mary Janes and then eat breakfast together at a café.
It seemed like a good enough excuse. So when she left her room and realized that he was still asleep, Gwen took a piece of paper, a pen and wrote a note for him:
band practice with the girls, and then we'll go to a café for breakfast. I'll be home before we leave.
Gwen
Gwen left the note on the dinner table, put on her coat and left to wherever her feet carried her, as long as she was gone from their apartment. Gwen mindlessly walked around until she reached a park and sat down on a park bench and watched the people passing by.
It was quite cold today, and Gwen felt relatively sensitive to the blowing wind, but with how sick she had been lately, this made her feel a little more alive. Just closing her eyes for a little bit, and taking in the (somewhat) fresh air.
"Tag, you're it!" a kid shouted, making Gwen open up hey eyes and look around.
She spotted two little kids, who didn't look older than six years old, running around and playing Tag. It was a boy and a girl, and now the girl was the one running after the boy to catch him. The way these two were carefreely running around while laughing and stumbling over their feet, reminded Gwen of herself and Peter from when they were younger, and she felt a pang to her chest.
No, she couldn't think about that. She didn't want to remember the way Peter was once the most lovable human being walking in this universe, because then she would have to think of how she ripped his life away from him. And that never led to her having a normal reaction, even right now as she felt her eyes getting teary.
But Gwen couldn't look away, and continued longingly staring at the two while she thought of her own childhood memories. When the girl unexpectedly fell down and started crying, Gwen was ready to get up and help her until the little boy stopped running away and instead ran towards her.
"Oh no, Hailee. Are you okay?" the boy asked the little girl, who she guessed must be Hailee.
"It hurts," Hailee cried as she held her hands up that were scrapped from the fall.
The boy leaned down and reluctantly kissed her hands. "Better now?"
Gwen watched as the little girl seemed to ponder about whether it helped or not. But as she didn't answer the boy said: "Come on, my mom can kiss it better for you."
Gwen decided that she had had enough, because she was really not in the mood to have a breakdown in the middle of a public space with a bunch of people around. Watching the two hurt too much, and brought back memories that opened up the fresh wound in her heart.
Walking around could help setting her mind off things, because she was really not in the mood to think about anything right now. So she put in her earphones and started listening to her playlist.
*
Gwen couldn't believe it, but she managed to walk around the city until four in the evening. It took a while, but eventually her mind was quiet and the walk helped a bit with her sleep deprivation. But it was honestly really cold today, and she hoped to God that Miles' dimension was warmer than this.
Her father was ready by the time she arrived back home, so she got a few of her things and the two jumped to the other universe.
"Holy shit, how do you do this all the time?" her dad asked while trying to get rid of the dizziness.
"You eventually get used to it," Gwen said and chuckled at his reaction.
The two entered the terrace through the door and saw that everyone had already arrived here before them. Music was playing, though not so loud that it felt like a huge party, and the atmosphere was just beautiful overall.
"Gwen. George. it's nice to see you two," Rio and Jeff approached them with a smile.
Gwen was about to speak until a hand grabbed and pulled her aside out of nowhere.
"Woah," Gwen yelped out, until she saw Peter standing in front of her with a polaroid camera.
"All right, now stand straight and smile for the camera," Peter said as he lifted up the camera.
But Gwen didn't operate, and just gave him a confused look. Peter rolled his eyes and said: "It's for Mayday's photo album. You bet that I am going to include pictures of her family."
Gwen's heart fluttered at the fact that he considered her a part of his family, so Gwen smiled unwillingly at him, giving him the opportunity to take a picture of her.
"Perfect, thanks Gwen," Peter said, pinched her cheek and then walked away.
Gwen only chuckled and shook her head until she heard another familiar voice shouting her name. When she turned her head around she saw Miles running up to her and literally lifting her off her feet.
"Gwen, it's been so long," Miles said after spinning her around and putting her back on the ground.
"We just saw each other last week," Gwen laughed at his childish, yet cute reaction.
"A week too long. Come on, we've all been waiting for you," Miles said and ran towards where the rest of the gang was waiting for them with her following him.
"A coat? Did you take an ice bath before coming here?" Pavitr asked Gwen the second his eyes landed on her.
"Hey guys," Gwen said. "And what do you mean with ice bath? I'm just cold, that's all."
But now as Gwen was looking around, nobody was wearing as many layers of clothing as she was. Most were either in a sweater or a cardigan that should keep them warm from the chill air. But Gwen felt herself freezing from the inside out.
Dinner was not ready until an hour so they spent the time talking and joking around. Gwen was pretty happy during the time, despite not feeling well. But once it was time for them to eat, Gwen felt the happiness getting sucked out of her immediately.
But she couldn't avoid it. Everyone was sitting around her and eating. This had been planned over a week ago, so lying about having eaten something before coming would just be disrespectful. So just like during breakfast, Gwen had to suffer through eating dinner now, no matter how delicious it was. Seriously, Rio's cooking was outlandish, and Puerto Rican food was just so tasty.
But she had to give it to herself, after a whole week of having been forced to eat breakfast in front of her father she had nailed the art of hiding her utter discomfort, so nobody should be able to realize how much she just wanted to purge it all out. She was not going to do it though, because the idea of vomitting was pretty terrifying to her.
Funny, Spider-Woman fighting crime on a day to day basis scared of puking. That sounded like a ridiculous joke to her.
She felt some of the stress leave her body when everybody started getting up. The moment she did her eyes fell on Mayday who was in MJ's arms, and an idea popped up in her mind. It was stupid, but Mayday seemed to be the only person she could do this with.
So she approached them with a smile and said: "MJ, hey. You don't mind, right?" Gwen asked as she spread her arms towards her in order to hold Mayday.
MJ chuckled and said: "Absolutely not, take care of the little rascal for me."
"I will," Gwen said, held Maday in her arms and looked for a place where the two could be alone.
When her eyes caught an old wornout couch at a corner, Gwen thought to herself "Bingo," and sat down with the baby still in her arms. Mayday smiled up at Gwen, who only smiled back at her until she looked her up and down.
"Aren't you cold either? Come here," Gwen said and opened up her coat so Mayday could be wrapped up in it, too.
Gwen was silent for a moment, just looking at her with sad, tired eyes until she released a sigh.
"You won't tell anybody, right?" Gwen asked, but Mayday only looked at her with big eyes, sensing the serious tone.
"Don't ever become like me, May. I wouldn't recommend it, really," Gwen continued as she felt a lump in her throat.
"It's rotten work, and you're only gonna disappoint and hurt everyone around you," Gwen said and released a shaky breath.
Mayday only kept on looking with her big eyes.
"I... I don't deserve anything. I don't deserve their friendship, I don't deserve happiness, and I don't... deserve to eat either," Gwen said through gritted teeth.
"I hope you stay good, May. I hope you become just like your parents. Just don't ever become like me, okay?" Gwen asked insistently.
Gwen stopped talking after that, and when Mayday realized this she blinked a couple times, babbled something and started wiping Gwen's face as a mean for comfort. Gwen was surprised at her reaction, not expecting for this tiny baby to understand Gwen's distress, but it felt good.
It felt good, because someone could actually feel her pain, but not stop her bad habits or do anything that could potentially even piss her off.
"Thank you, Mayday," Gwen said with eyes closed, because Mayday's hands were too close to her eyes as she caressed - actually slapped - her face.
"Come on, let's go back to your parents," Gwen said with a small smile and walked back towards Peter, who was talking to Hobie.
"Hey Pete, your baby missed you," Gwen said jokingly and handed Mayday back to her father.
"Of course, she did. I missed you, too, honey," Peter said and held her in his arms.
But what came next shocked Gwen to her core. Because Mayday was frantically babbling and kept on pointing with a finger towards Gwen. She understood immediately what was going on.
"That little-" Gwen thought as she caught up to the situation.
"What, what's going on, darling?" Peter asked as he sensed Mayday's hectic turmoil.
Gwen needed to save herself somehow, especially because she could feel Hobie's studying eyes on her just like last Sunday.
"Oh, I just told her a few stories from the time I was patroling. That's all. I think she just got worried from some of my stunts," Gwen fake laughed.
"Oh, better not tell MJ about this. I've already gotten my ass beaten up for causing Mayday to have nightmares," Peter just laughed back.
But Mayday still kept on babbling, and Gwen felt the need to get away as soon as possible.
"I better catch up with Miles and see what he's up to," Gwen said.
"All right, have fun. But not too much!" Peter joked and laughed.
Gwen gave him a death glare and said: "Really? Do you want me to tell MJ about the way speak around Mayday?" And just like that his laughter was gone. Gwen only smirked at that and walked off.
She saw Miles sitting on a chair and looking across the city contently. He looked so happy like this, making her smile as well.
"You guys have a beautiful view up here. I forgot how nice it was since last time," Gwen said and pulled up a chair to sit next to him.
"Yeah, I never get enough of it either," Miles said and turned to smile at her.
They talked for a while, about their week, school and such until his smile faded and he looked a bit more serious.
"Gwen, are you all right?" Miles asked with a concerned look on his face.
Gwen's heart dropped to her stomach. How on earth could he tell that something was off?
"Why?" Was all Gwen could ask.
Miles only shrugged his shoulder. "I don't know, you just seem off lately. Not like yourself, and you're cold, too, even if it's quite warm outside. I'm just worried, y'know?"
Holy shit, was this guy observant. But she didn't want to tell him. She couldn't tell him. She had just told Mayday, and even that was close to backfiring. So she was going to lie again, even though she hated lying, especially to him.
But lately, that was all she had been doing. Lying, it started becoming her native language.
"I'm... I'm just tired, y'know? School is getting to me, band practice, patrolling. Sometimes, it just gets too much," Gwen said without any hesitation.
"I feel you, just... please, if it get's too much just talk to me. You know I understand you more than anyone, right?" Miles asked pleadingly.
'But you actually don't', Gwen thought to herself, and hoped to God that he would never understand her. She should be the last person he ever related to, and she hoped that she would never affect him in a way that he turned out to be like her.
But still Gwen smiled ignoring the pain in her chest, the guilt creeping up in her mind and said: "I will."