all you ghosts in her head
“I’m going in for emergency surgery, Harley. I’ll be fine. Rhonda’s here.” Harley’s mom is reassuring him, over and over, but it’s different over the phone.
He clenches his fist, hard enough for his nails to leave red moon indentations on his palm, and rests his forehead against it. “They said this tumor is pressing on your heart?”
“Yes. It’s just a surgery, Harley. Nothing I haven’t done before. And it’s Doctor Kate, who’s done this before, and the success rate is good -”
“What’s the success rate?”
“90% of patients survive. I’ll be fine. I’ve beat worse odds.” She still sounds nervous, that slight shake in her voice, the uncharacteristic loss of endearing terms. 10%. A 10% chance he doesn’t get to actually say goodbye to his mother. A 10% chance he loses her today, not in a few months, not this year, today. “I know what you’re thinking. I’ll be okay, baby. I’ll have the doctor call you when I’m out.”
Harley exhales, trying to get rid of all the doubt in his body. “Promise, alright? If I don’t hear anything by tonight I’m coming home.”
“I’ll kick your ass back to New York, baby. You need time away from all this more than anyone.”
“I just - I love you, Mom. So much. So much,” he repeats quietly.
“I love you, too, Harley. This isn’t goodbye, you know that? But I still love you. See you soon, sweetheart.”
“I love you, Mom -” the connection cuts out. Harley thuds his phone down. It feels like his heart has burst. The floor has given away under him. His eyes burn with unwanted tears. Grief, grief like this, is like water in his lungs. The thing with cancer is, there’s nothing he can fight. He’s not like Tony. He can’t go avenge his mother. There’s nothing he can do to make it better. Nothing he can fix, which is not an easy thing for an engineer to understand. Though, he guesses, that’s probably why he does it all in the first place. If he can fix anything, they’ll be fine again. It’s the only control he has left and damn if he isn’t going to use it. If only it was as easy as pulling apart a machine.
Harley knocks on Peter’s door, hand shaking slightly as he does so.
“Come in!”
It’s not like how Rosie’s books describe it, not really. It doesn’t feel like his hand is the one doing the reaching, that some spirit of self-compassion has possessed him, that it’s natural. No, Harley’s hand is his own. It’s his hand reaching for the door knob, his hand twisting it, his hand emerging from above stormy water, his hand, his hand, his hand.
“Wanna go sit on a rooftop again?” Harley’s voice cracks, and he’s not sure if it’s from puberty or from his internal screaming leaking into his vocal cords.
Peter’s focused eyes soften. “Of course, Cowboy.”
They end up somewhere close to the tower, having walked a block or two in complete silence. If Harley speaks, he’s going to cry, and he doesn’t want to start crying in the middle of the street. Peter doesn’t say anything about Harley’s blank stare or dragging feet. It’s silent as they sneak onto the roof, it’s silent as they open the door, it’s silent as they situate themselves on objectively uncomfortable concrete.
They’re on the roof for an immeasurable chunk of time before anything is said. It’s a city kind of quiet, though, with blurry cars and chatter from the street. It’s a kind of white noise that’s foreign to Harley. He’s away from home in a lot of ways, but this is one that’s pressing into his mind like a hand too tight around fruit.
It’s barely a conscious choice when he breaks the non-silence.
“My mom has terminal cancer.” Harley says, looking straight at the sky. “She just went into surgery because there’s this tumor pressing into her heart. I know all this medical stuff now, like CABG and metastatic and immunotherapy and how to talk to doctors about her medical history because her memory is awful, and I drive my sister to the library once a week because she has to read so she doesn’t think about our mom dying and I think that if I fully relaxed I would completely fall apart.”
“And I know that I’ll have a life after she - she dies, and it’s weird that I’m still afraid to say that, as if my words are going to change anything. I know that I’ll graduate and go to college, maybe, and fall in love, all of it. I’ll be content. But none of it is real to me. I can’t imagine any of it in detail. It’s blurry and terrifying.”
Somehow, he’s not crying. He feels like stone. The stars above him are a lullaby. They’re consistent. They’re born from death, like Peter said. Born from death. Maybe there’s something to that.
Peter moves closer to him, shoulder to shoulder, elbows touching. “I saw my uncle get shot when I was a kid. He and my aunt are the only parents I’ve ever known. It’s what made me want to learn about photography. If I can take photos, it’s like I can capture a moment, freeze it, so it doesn’t slip away, so I can keep it safe. He was a big believer in the whole with great power comes great responsibility.” Peter sighs.
“I didn’t know that.” Harley picks a few stars to string together into a heart. An anatomical one, of course, with no tumor, no problems, just perfect and healthy and safe.
Peter turns his neck to look at Harley, who does the same, until they’re holding eye contact, faces close enough that Harley can see each eyelash on his face. There’s a scar just above his eyebrow, so faded it’s nearly invisible against the rest of his skin.
“Harley, here’s a deal. No more suffering in silence. For each of us. We both talk about what ails us.” Peter looks straight into Harley’s eyes.
“Here’s to that oath. I, Harley Keener, will not bottle up my problems.”
“I, Peter Parker, will not bottle up my problems, either.” Peter doesn’t move back to his previous spot. Instead, he stays right next to Harley, so close he can hear the other boy’s breathing, even above the humming city. He can live with this, Harley thinks, next to a beautiful boy, stargazing with barely visible stars.