Chapter 1
I stand with the wind blowing on my tear-streaked face. Blood dribbles down my face and all I can think about is May.
Sweet May. Her sticky cakes and sweet smile, All her recipes that have failed. The way she brushes it off. When she helped me with Homecoming dance. The nights we cried together, The nights we laughed together, The nights we dance till we couldn’t breathe.
I see May fall, A deep hole in the middle of her forehead. Her eyes rolling back exposing the white. Her body falling limp, and her words dying on her lips.
Then she crashes. I can’t move and everything freezes. Just me and her. I try to cry out, But somewhere between me thinking of screaming and doing the action it gets lost. I’m stuck looking like gaping fish. My knees buckle letting me hit the hard ground. I can’t even begin to comprehend what just happened. I fall next to May. Then the situation hits me. May is gone.
She’s never coming back. No more late nights. No more deep discussions. No more terrible baking. No more May. No more of anything. I turn around my eyes widening and the multiple red blotches growing on her body. I gasp frantically. Do I start CPR? Or do I stop her bleeding?
She can’t leave me. Not now. She was never supposed to leave me! But the bullet to her forehead stopped all her organs. Pump Pump. Bang! Then nothing. I should’ve saved her. I should’ve done something! Anything. As I’m standing screaming her name, Her blood covers my hands. This sickly blood. Red and bright. Death. Oh my God. I brush the hair away from her glassy eyes. Her mouth is wide open like she was screaming. I whimper her name.
“May, May come on you can’t leave me!” I’m pounding on her chest. Her body jerking frantically with each pound. “Come on! Breath! Breath! May please!”. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear them calling me. A shoulder on my hand brings me back. Whoever touched me is on the ground. Choking with my hands around their neck and my forced breathing.
I want whoever this person is to die. They made May die. The shiny red armour disappears and a devastated face appears. It’s tony. Oh my gosh, it’s Tony. My whole face falls and I let go rushing over to where Tony is wheezing and clawing at the air. “Oh my gosh I-I I just wasn’t thinking I didn’t mean to…” Tony silences me and I turn back to May. Her blue lips remind me of the time we ate blue lollies together and pretended to be lizards.
“No May you’re not a lizard! May! May! don’t leave me! Please! I promise I’ll do everything you want! I’ll buy us a mansion! A nice new house! I’ll stop getting so anxious! Please just don’t leave me!” Shaking May as if that’ll help. A sputtering sound comes from May. “May?” I whisper.
I watch as her eyes flicker open. “Peter baby, Peter, I love you so much! So so much. I’ll see you when the time is right” She whispers. Specks of blood fly out of her mouth as she talks the splatter over my suit. She closes her eyes. Her last breath escapes her mouth and her body limps down. Tears splatter over her blood-drenched face and I start to sob.
My shaking body grips May. I cry out angrily. I cry out for May. For the person, she never got to be. “Kid we have to go” Tony whispers. He stands there unsure what to do. “Shut up!” I angrily spit. He’s never lost, someone. Never felt like this. He doesn’t even know how it feels to lose a piece of yourself. He places a hand on my shoulder and sighs sadly. “We’ll take May don’t worry.” He whispers.
“No!” I scream. “May and I are staying here and I don’t care if it kills us!” I yell. “ Kiddo I’m so sorry but she’s gone” He whispers. I shake my head. I start singing again. A different song this time. Just mumbling different things and sobbing while holding May’s body. “Tony?” I whisper
He nods. “Can we- Can bruce save her? Like the time my heart stopped? Maybe they can just transplant it or give her blood like me?” I say hopefully looking at May. He looks at me and I can already see the answer. “Sorry, It was stupid of me” I whisper hugging May. I clutch desperately onto her. Tony walks over his face unreadable. He pulls me off May. I start screaming at him. But he holds me back. Keeping me away from May. How dare he. I thrash and try hitting him put my knuckles are meet with iron.
Eventually, bruce arrives. He gives May one look and shakes his head. He pronounces the time of her death. Those numbers are connected to May. People will see her grave and know the age she died. But they’ll never know how she had a major crush on the guy that gave us free stuff at the Thai place.
They’ll never know the pain she was in when Ben died. Or the debt she was in. They’ll step over her. Just like everyone else did. Step over her. Not give a damn shit about the people killing themselves to survive. She went days without food because of me. Because she was too nice to accept money from anyone only excepting the money she worked hard for.
I let out a sob as her face disappears when they zip up a white bag over her body. Body. Corpse. Dead. Rotting. Flesh. Tony hugs me. I cover my mouth crying loudly. This isn’t even a hug just me slobbering all over a black suit. Me collapsing. Me yelling. Me telling everyone it’s their fault. Me hitting and hurting everyone. They sedate me. Injecting me. Next, they’ll send me off to la-la land telling me it’s for my mental health, But it’s just a code word for, This guy’s so batshit crazy he eats people, Can’t kill him cause it’s illegal so we make sure we can’t kill him and he can’t kill himself.
That’s where it all began. All this ‘babysitting’ and safety checks and no belts stuff and all this stupid mental hospital shit that drove me to insanity. Seriously. Of course, I wake up on another shit day. But of course, I wake up smile, and tell myself. It’s a lovely day Peter! Why don’t you go catch some butterflies with the other mentally unstable kids? Oh right. You’re not in a mental hospital anymore. Cause Tony got you out with some stupid suing warning And told them I’d be fine.
Wrong!!! Completely wrong! He thinks he’s doing a favour but he’s not. Yeah sure when I get nightmares so bad I can’t breathe he’s better than the nurses. But his stupid questions like ‘Are you ok?’ No of course I’m not but would I tell you if I wasn’t? No! So why ask me?
But anyway I drag myself out of my rugged bed and make my way downstairs. Breakfast is waiting on a plate on the table. Where all the rest of the Avengers are and they pretend I’m not some nutcase that tried to sneak into the room at night to do God knows what! No, we’re just a normal family! With no issues at all. It’s so dumb how they all pretend I’m not about to slit my wrists or down a bunch of pills. The way they take the razors away and say “Oh Sorry I need it” Like I’m gonna believe that!
They all think they are doing great in disguising the fact that they're trying to stop me from ending up in a grave But they're not. The side-eyed glances and hushed tones make it even worse than the hospital. Natasha is the only one that doesn’t baby me. She simples says, “Spider-baby hand over the blood spilling devices, I know you need them to slash people's necks. But we do not need your neck slashed. You can have them back when you're not batshit crazy alright?” She seems rude but it makes me feel like they’re not ashamed of me because of whatever's going on in my head.
Anyway, I sit down and eat. If I don’t eat all of it Tony gets mad. Then I cry. Then we have what the doctors call, A setback. Which is when I push myself even deeper in the hole of stupidity and trust even less. Anyway, My hole is so big it’s impossible to get out of. That’s what my good doctor Celine said anyway. She told me because of my parent's death, My uncles and my Aunts, Those are all undiggable holes and will stay the same. She also told me that having dead parents is cool.
So I guess I’m a cool kid now! Tony walks in and smiles at me shoving food in my face. “Nice work!” He says. I roll my eyes. Why bother he sounds like a parent of a baby child who just took it's first steps. All I’m doing is eating. Jesus. Nat sits down and begins eating. She looks hella tired. “Up all night?” I ask. She nods. “Bruce nonstop keep farting in the night how about you spider baby?” She asks after shooting a look at bruce. He smiles back unaware he’s being targeted. “Ok, I guess. I just had a real weird dream about a llama eating my nose” I say back and she smiles. “Did the I got your nose game as a baby give you trauma?” She says. “I dunno maybe? My nose is still here so they can’t of taken it for that long” Nat smiles back and ruffles my hair. God, they’re all so stupid! Can’t they see it in my eyes? Can’t they see I’m just planning every day just to return to May? Day by day, hour by hour. I’m not fixed. I was pretending! I have a plan. Not too long now May. Not too long.