Epilogue
Two years later...
The sun was very comforting as it shone through the leaves over her face. Gwen was lying with her head on Miles' lap as the two were at a park. The combination of Miles caressing her face and playing with her hair, and the sun shining right over them was enough to make her fall asleep, if it weren't for the fact that today was an important day for Gwen.
"It's been two years," Gwen softly said and opened her eyes to look at Miles.
"What do you mean?" Miles asked as he looked down at her and lightly massaged her forehead.
"It was today two years ago that I started my recovery," Gwen told him.
It's been two years since that fateful evening, where Gwen was intervened by Jessica and Miguel. Two years since Gwen was face to face - or more so face to picture - with her younger self and her life flipped upside down.
"Has it really been two years?" Miles quietly asked as he looked at their now intertwined hands.
They rarely talked about her anorexia. It was a rule between them that they no longer wanted to talk about those days as the emotional pain was at times too strong for them to bear. The last time they talked about it was a year ago when Gwen celebrated her one year of recovery with a cake, and that evening the two decided to never bring it up unless Gwen was emotionally unwell and needed to talk. They were ready to move on.
"It feels forever ago, doesn't it?" Gwen asked him.
Gwen took out a polaroid picture from her pockets and stared at it. It was the polaroid that Peter B. took of her two years ago when Miles' family had invited them over for the dinner party. A few days ago, Gwen and Miles were asked to babysit Mayday since Peter wanted to celebrate his wedding aniversary with MJ. Before the couple left though, Peter had pulled her aside, handed her the polaroid and said: "Here for you. I think you might need it."
The polaroid was originally for Mayday's photo album, but that first christmas during her recovery, Peter had replaced the picture with another one where Mayday was sitting on Gwen's lap and the two were smiling at the camera.
Gwen stared at the picture and thought to herself how much she looked like a regular, happy and carefree girl. But Gwen knew better. She remembered that day vividly. Her talk with Mayday, how she was starting to feel cold and wore a big coat, her anxiety during the meal, just everything. Things were starting to go down by that point, and older Gwen was the only one who could see it in this picture - younger Gwen wouldn't had seen anything wrong there.
She wanted to jump into this picture, hold that younger version of herself, hug her, apologize and tell her that none of this was worth it, that she was worth so much more than all this misery. But things couldn't be changed, unfortunately, and Gwen was just grateful that she became a much stronger person through all this.
Gwen didn't see her anorexia as something from her past that no longer mattered. The memories caused pain, and sometimes she found herself crying for her younger self, feeling how lonely she was and how much she hated herself. But Gwen made peace with it. She made peace with her trauma because - as one therapy session had made her realize - Gwen had a whole story left to write. So many unwritten chapters were left, and Gwen wanted to write a whole new journey.
"What are you looking at?" Miles asked suddenly.
Gwen handed him the picture and said: "Just a memory."
Miles looked at the picture and started smiling. "I completely forgot about this hairstyle. I really liked it."
Gwen liked it, too, and had even considered getting the same haircut again. But whenever she looked at older pictures of herself with that haircut, her anxiety would show its face. Memories of how her hair was ruined through starvation, the way it would break off at the ends and fall out was now forever associated with that haircut.
"You don't like my hair now?" Gwen jokingly pouted at him.
"You look gorgeous with every hairstyle. Now, stop pouting," Miles said with laugh as he tried to form a smile on her face with his fingers.
Gwen laughed at his gesture and grabbed his hand and pulled it to her chest, holding it close.
"I was already anorexic in this picture," Gwen quietly said.
Miles' smile slowly faded as he eyed the picture.
"This was during the dinner party, right?" Miles asked, to which Gwen nodded. "Then yeah, I know that."
Gwen raised an eyebrow at that. "Really? How?"
"I didn't know it at the time, but when I noticed how you started losing weight and looked more sick, I just remembered that day and how you were freezing cold and acting strangely. I didn't think you were anorexic that day, but I knew that whatever was bothering you started back then."
This was new to Gwen. She studied Miles' expression as he continued looking at the picture. He looked haunted, as if he was no longer present in the moment but caught up in the past. That was when another question hit Gwen, something that she had been trying to get out of him.
"How did you feel when I was anorexic?" Gwen asked.
Ever since her recovery, Miles let Gwen talk about everything that had been bothering her, let her cry next to him as she put his head on his shoulder. and there had been moments where Gwen wanted to let him talk, too. He would never cooperate though, avoiding the question like the plague and changing the topic. At most he would only say that he'd been worried, but nothing more.
Miles hesitated for a moment, but then said: "I told you before, Gwen. I was really worried about you, and I just wanted you to be okay."
Gwen only shook her head. "Miles, I know it was way beyond just worrying. You always allowed to wear my heart on my sleeves. I’m way past those days, it’s not gonna affect me anymore," Gwen said, hoping it would get him to open up, even though her heart was beating rapidly against her chest. "Please, tell me."
Miles closed his eyes, released a sigh and waited for a moment. It looked like he was looking for the right words. He rubbed his face with his hands, looked around the park and contemplated with himself whether he should tell her the truth or not.
He looked down again and met her gaze as his voice was low and strained. "I was scared," he started after a few seconds of silence and then snorted.
"Scratch that, I was terrified. I woke up every morning scared to death that I would receive a phone call from somebody about you being... gone," Miles admitted through gritted teeth.
Gwen got up from her lying position and sat down next to him, still holding his hand close to her chest.
"There had been moments where I was so angry at you for doing this to yourself. I kept thinking ‘How could anyone be so reckless and do this to themselves? How could anyone torture themselves so slowly into their own death?’"
Gwen kept her flinch back. Truthfully, there had been times she had asked herself the same thing, as ridiculous as that might sound. But with a mind as sick as hers was at that stage in life, it all seemed plausible once.
"But more so, we all wanted to help you but didn’t know how. We were so worried that we no longer even knew how to behave around you anymore, afraid that anything could set something off or make it worse. But when you started distancing yourself from us, we became hopeless and kept asking ourselves if we did something wrong for you to leave us," Miles said and ran his other hand through his hair.
She could feel how his hand was violently shaking. Gwen sighed and started caressing and massaging his fingers. Miles looked down at their intertwined hands and smiled lightly, though his eyes were clouded with grieve and pain.
"How can you possibly help someone who runs away from help? I was so desperate to find a way to help and reach out to you but I felt useless when I realized that I didn’t know how. It felt like you took ten steps back after I would take a step forward."
The pain was obvious on his face, and even though those words hurt Gwen immensely, she let him continue speaking because she knew there were a lot of pent-up emotions. And she herself needed to her his words.
"You looked so fragile and weak, not like a Spider-Woman who could easily lift a car with her bare hands, but like someone who could barely keep her head up anymore. And I always wanted to hold and cuddle you because you looked so cold and alone, but I was afraid of being so strong that I could physically break you. Mind you, I held baby Mayday before," Miles’ voice broke and the tears coming out of his eyes mirrored the tears running down her cheeks.
'Oh God,' Gwen thought. She had always been aware that she had caused everyone a lot of pain,but hearing it coming out of his mouth made her realize how bad it truly was.
Everyone had been walking on eggshells around her for a very long time. Even during her recovery, everyone had been overly careful and cautious around her with their words and actions, terrified that something that they viewed as minor could perhaps trigger a bomb in her head. It took them almost forever to behave normally around her again, something that Gwen thought was nearly impossible for them.
Miles was the only who managed to make her feel normal. He treated her the way he always had and even managed to make her forget about all her problems. But despite all that, he had been hurting just as much as everyone else, if not, even more than them.
"But more than anything, I was so proud of you. Still am," Miles said after he swallowed down the lump in his throat and looked at her with a genuine smile on his face. "Every time you sat down with us and ate, every time we met up and you joked around, and every time I saw you and you looked happier and healthier, it all made me so proud of you."
This time, Miles took Gwen’s hands and held them in his trembling ones. His hands were tough and marked with scars that never healed. But she loved the way his hands felt and how hers fit in them.
"You are my hero, Gwen. You are amazing and the strongest person I have ever known."
Gwen tried her best not to start crying as they were still in public, and it seemed like Miles must have realized this - he could read her like an open book - since he pulled her close into his arms and hid her face in his shoulder.
"You will always be my hero, Gwen. Always," Miles whispered and kissed her behind her ear.
Gwen clutched onto his shirt, scared that he would slip from her fingertips if she let go. But Miles wouldn’t leave, he was here to stay. He had been staying through every fight, every breakdown, every time Gwen was close to relapsing, and so much more.
After Gwen calmed down, she leaned back and held eye contact with Miles. "Thank you, Miles. Thank you for everything,"
Gwen whispered with a raspy voice. "You've always been there for me. I don’t know if I would still be here if it weren’t for you."
"Oh, hell no. You’re not giving me all the credit. You did it all by yourself, I was just simply supporting you," Miles interjected, disapprovingly. "Don’t make me call Spider-Psychologist on you. You know how he gets when you start selling yourself short."
Gwen rolled her eyes playfully and snorted. "I haven’t seen him in forever. I think he’s too busy right now dealing with all those Peters losing their Uncle Bens. Besides, I'm not giving you all the credit. The credit still goes to this little monster right here."
Gwen took out her phone and opened the very picture that started her recovery. Six year old Gwen in the ballet studio smiling widely at the camera.
"I love her," Gwen said as she smiled at the picture. "She taught me more about life than anyone else ever could."
"Oh yes, she's so adorable. Just the cutest little baby, until she turns into the scariest devil."
"Hey, what do you mean by that?" Gwen asked with a pout on her face.
He just laughed. "Just kidding. But you gotta admit, she's amazing."
Gwen smiled at the picture on her phone.
'Yes, she is,' Gwen thought to herself. 'Thank you.'
The End