Chapter 2
Noticed I was using past tense, huh? Okay, I’ll tell you. Still have those tissues I told you to get? Good. You’ll need them.
Peter was a smart, kind, compassionate kid and as I would do anything for him, he would do anything for me. Even if it meant he would be in the direct line of danger. One day when I was in a particularly heated fight with one of my regulars, he stepped out from somewhere. I can’t remember where, but we were really high up and he tried to help me. It was in a particularly abandoned part of town, so no one would see if something happened. I tried to scream for him to get away, but he wouldn’t listen.
I don’t know if he was thinking when he stepped up on the ledge of that very high place and tried to shoot the villain down with a makeshift bow and arrow, but he did. The villain saw this as the perfect opportunity to hurt me and they did. They swooped near Peter causing him to lose his balance and fall from that great height.
I used my webs to catch him. I was high up off the ground as he was falling at an alarming speed. My web caught him right in the middle of his torso, where one's stomach would be. I saw him at the end of my web and I was grateful I caught him in time as I held onto the ledge of the building for dear life. For a blissful moment relief flooded my system as I thought I had saved my cousin.
Boy was I wrong.
When I finally reached the end where Peter was hanging just off the ground, I saw that he was limp, not breathing, dead. I lifted his head up. His eyes were closed in peaceful little crescents and he looked like he was sleeping, but I knew better. From that height and at that speed…I should have known better. I broke his neck. Snapped it like a twig. I killed my cousin. I held his still body in my shaking arms crying my eyes out, screaming until I thought I would burst my eardrums or lose my voice. Whichever one came first.
Then the sirens sounded coming nearer to me and I knew I couldn’t stay there any longer. I went home, a stone dropped so heavy in my stomach I thought I was going to throw up. I was holed up in my room where Peter’s things still were, haunting me, when I heard the knock on the door. A loud crash, my aunt’s horrible scream and sobs and tears. So many sobs and tears. They came into my room later and told me the news but I was numb. I didn’t cry. I didn’t speak. All I did was stay sitting on my bed, staring at the wall, shaking, gripping the bed frame until my hands turned white.
At that moment, I knew I would never forgive myself for what I did to him.
I was 16.
For a long time, I became mute. When I was spider woman, I didn’t say anything to the police unless it was absolutely necessary. They called me the silent spider. I didn’t quip, I didn’t laugh, I didn’t look anything but depressed and I was. Everyday I carried on despite my mind telling me to give up and everyday I carried around a load of baggage I wasn’t sure I was ever going to lose. I didn’t know what I was fighting for anymore.
During school, I stayed quiet and didn’t talk to anyone, a haunted and blank stare painted on my face. Most students guessed what it was but no one ever knew to what extent I was hurting. I didn’t tell them. I couldn’t. No one could ever know again that I was spider woman. They’d only end up dead.
They could never understand the guilt that was eating me alive. The fact that I killed Peter. I was the reason he was dead. For a while, I was withering away. I wasn’t eating too much, I couldn’t sleep. My aunt and my uncle were desperate to help me, but even they didn’t know what to do. I was alone and I was going to stay that way if I could help it.
But there was one person who made sure I wasn’t.