Why Does It Hurt To Love You? (Why Am I In Pain?)
Peter winced when he sat up the next morning. He slammed the off button on his ancient alarm clock.
Smog-filtered sunlight shot through his window in rays, casting a square of yellow light over his face and onto his floor. He squinted against the bright, groaning as he turned his head. His neck was stiff, his ribs ached, but besides that, he felt fine.
Slowly, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He stood with a groan. He dressed in the first garments he saw, a scuffed pair of jeans and free T-shirt from a science fair, and padded slowly out of his room. He strained his ears and heard that May’s heartbeat was slow, steady. He breathed out a sigh of relief; she was asleep.
Renewed, he unwrapped a granola bar that had been left out on the table. He hummed quietly to himself as he fumbled around the apartment, gathering books and binders and stuffing them haphazardly into his backpack.
As he tied his shoes, he heard May’s heartbeat begin to speed up. He heard her sheets rustle as she stirred.
By the time she woke up, Peter had flown out the door and was halfway down the block.
——
May was staying out later and later. Sometimes, Peter wouldn’t see her for days at a time. He found himself equally relieved and disappointed whenever she didn’t come home.
He still never dared to go out on patrol. He didn’t want another blow-up, as he had started to call them. May had begun to have these fits of rage when Peter asked for the simplest things. Even a grocery request would end with slammed doors and a mixture of blood and tears streaming down Peter’s face.
He tried to make himself as small as he could. He stayed in his room, silently reading or staring out of his window. He left only to go to school and to eat, and always tiptoed his way around. It was the least he could do, right? If he stayed out of May’s way, she wouldn’t have a reason to be mad at him. She wouldn’t have to see such a disgusting face every time she left her bedroom.
Some people had started to wonder why Spider-Man was showing up less and less, but at least he showed up. An hour of patrol here and there was better than leaving his city to the rats and gangs.
And even though May’s pushes and slaps never really hurt, he would prefer to be stabbed in an alley by a criminal he had cornered. Even though she’d only laid her hand on him four times, it was always equally excruciating.
Like when an angry shove sent his head into the corner of a coffee table.
Or when a thoughtless slap landed on a still-purple bruise.
Or when a simple handhold had just gone too far and left bleeding nail marks. Ones he could trace over every time he wondered if he truly deserved this. The sick perversion of such a loving gesture reminded him to just sit, wait everything out until May got back to normal, until she stopped coming home with prescriptions that weren’t in her name instead of macaroni from the deli.
So, he waited for the moments he loved. For the day when, while nursing a broken finger from patrol, May brought home his favorite ice cream flavor and played Scrabble with him. For the day when, as an apology for hurting him, she took him to Times Square to watch confused tourists get scammed out of thirty dollars by someone dressed in a cheap version of his alter ego. In those moments, it was easy for him to forget that he deserved none of it. He was just happy and safe and loved for a blissful snapshot of time.
But it was okay. He’d be okay. He always was. May still loved him, Spider-Man still kept citizens safe, and Mr. Stark still invited him over every Friday for check-in and suit advancements.
But he still shifted nervously outside of May’s bedroom, trying to work up the nerve to go in. Without a phone to check due dates, submit assignments, and e-mail teachers, his grades had slipped far past the point of comfort. If his GPA dipped below a 3.0, he’d lose his scholarship to Midtown Tech, and it was becoming a struggle to keep it that high. He knew he didn’t deserve his phone, that the punishment was fair, but surely getting kicked out of his dream school was far too high a price, even for May. She’d never pay tuition, and before he knew it he’d end up at his local school.
So, before he could back out, trembling from head to toe, Peter knocked on the door.
”What?” May called, her voice gruff. A spike of fear shot through him, but he had already come this far, right? He forced himself to speak.
”Uh, May?” Peter said quietly. “Can I come in?”
”Whatever.”
Slowly, Peter opened the door. May was sitting in her bed, a glass of whiskey in one hand, her cell phone in the other. She didn’t look up at him.
A long moment of silence passed. Peter gulped.
Still fixated at the screen in front of her, May said, “What do you want, Peter?”
Peter took a deep breath. Gathering his scraps of courage, he said, “May, you’ve had my phone for, like, a month, and—and without it I haven’t been able to keep up with my schoolwork and I really don’t want to lose my scholarships so...uh...”
Peter trailed off. His chest started to feel constricted, every breath was a struggle. Even with the freezing fear turning his body to ice, his lungs burned.
May put down her phone. She met his gaze and said, “So, you’re asking me for your phone back?”
”Uh, I’m—I mean, I...yeah. Yeah, I—I am. Please.”
May sighed. She lifted a hand and started to massage her temples. “Peter, I just—I can’t deal with you right now. No, you can’t have your phone back, you’re fucking grounded. That’s the point.”
Peter’s desperation began to grow, clawing at his stomach. He took a step forwards. “But, May, I really can’t keep track of all my assignments without it—“
”And that’s not my problem.”
”May, please—“
May slammed her glass down suddenly. Peter flinched as half of the liquid sloshed out of it. May didn’t seem to notice.
”I’m starting to get pissed off! Do you want that to happen?” Her volume had doubled.
Peter wilted, curling in on himself. He shook his head slowly, lowering his eyes.
From the edge of his vision, he saw her deflate and relax. “Good,” she said. “Now go to bed.”
And even though it was five O’clock in the afternoon, Peter did what she told him to. He crawled into his bed and stared at the wall for five hours straight, thinking of nothing at all.
——
The next morning, May threw open his door before dawn. He started awake, throwing his blankets to the floor. He looked wildly around the room until his eyes landed on the figure of his aunt, towering over him with her arms crossed and her hair tied in a tight bun. She wasn’t dressed, wrapped in a pink bathrobe. It didn’t soften her exterior in the slightest.
”Get up,” she commanded, her voice hard. Peter leapt to his feet immediately.
”You are ungrateful,” she said, as if she had rehearsed the whole thing. “You don’t appreciate anything I do for you, and I’m sick of it. And if you refuse to acknowledge all the work I put in to keeping you alive, you don’t get to enjoy what I provide. From now on, anything I bought, you don’t get to use. Since the apartment is leased in Ben’s name, you can say here, but I don’t want you to cost me a dollar in food or water. I don’t want you using the television, the chairs, your bed, any of it. All you’re entitled to in this house is the floor and anything you can buy and keep in the cabinets. Lay so much as a finger on my faucet and you’re sleeping on the sidewalk. Got it?”
And before Peter could so much as nod his head in assent, she slammed his door shut and stalked out of the apartment.
Slowly, his brow furrowed in confusion, Peter blinked and started moving. After dressing, Peter opened his door and walked out. He tiptoed to the kitchen. Surely May was joking, right? She would—she wouldn’t starve her nephew!
He shivered when he realized he wasn’t quite convinced.
He warily opened a cabinet. He would just pour a small bowl of cereal and go to school, right? But when he pulled out the box of Frosted Flakes, he saw a ruler taped to the side with a mark halfway down the wold. When he grabbed a box of granola bars, he saw tallies on the lid for how many were left.
Peter couldn’t eat without May knowing. And if she cared enough to label each box, she was serious. Goosebumps popped up over his skin, and suddenly the apartment was too cramped, tiny and suffocating. He grabbed his backpack, hardly taking in a full breath, and sprinted out the door with his shoes barely on his feet.
——
Peter spent his first-hour algebra class with his pen still in his bag, trying to focus on quieting his screaming stomach. Fourteen hours since he had last eaten, eight spent asleep, and he already felt like his body was trying to digest itself. If he focused hard enough, he could almost see his fat burning away with the naked eye.
He hardly felt the hour fly by, but the bell startled him out of his reverie. He quickly stood and grabbed his bag, hoping he could slip through the halls and to his next class without having to talk to anyone. Unfortunately, before he could escape unseen, his teacher called, “Peter, could you stay after a minute?”
Peter stopped in his tracks and groaned. “A-Alright, Mr. Harsch.”
He watched the swarm of students thunder out of the door. Finally, when he was alone, he approached his teacher’s desk. “You wanted to talk to me?” He asked, his voice shaking in time with his knees.
Mr. Harsch dropped his pen. “Yes, Peter,” he said, meeting his eyes. The thinning red hair and crinkled eyes radiated concern, but Peter felt no comfort. If anything, the idea of a near-stranger afraid for him increased his shivering. “You’ve always been one of my best students. I knew right away that you don’t just excel in math, you enjoy it. That’s a sight I see once every few years. But grading your last test was a train wreck. You barely scraped by with a sixty-six percent. You made simple math errors that I’ve seen you perfect hundreds of time. And it wasnt just one test—you’ve been coming to classes late, falling asleep at your desk, and you haven’t turned in homework in almost a month. I mean, i didn’t see you take a single note today. And I know you’re not lazy. What’s going on?”
Peter paled. “N-Nothing, sir, I’ve just been having some problems with my aunt. She has to come first, and school’s just been, Uh, hard to juggle with it all. But I’m working on everything and I ought to be alright by next month.”
”Why is your aunt having such effects on your grades? Isn’t that your parents’ problem?”
Peter froze; he had never really had a conversation with Mr. Harsch, had he? They knew nothing about one another beyond math. And God, he didn’t want to pull the orphan card, but the seconds were ticking away until his next tardy and he couldn’t risk detention, not tonight. Not when May probably wanted him back home to watch him fall apart.
So, reluctantly, guilt plagueing his body and bringing a convincing pitiful tone to his voice, Peter said, “I, Uh, I don’t have parents, sir. They died a little while back. I lived with my aunt and uncle, but—but then my uncle got killed last year and it’s been hard to navigate around it all. I’m sorry.” By the end, his voice had dropped to a near whisper. He kept his eyes trained down; he didn’t want to see yet another pitying gaze.
But he hardly held back a triumphant smile when an excuse note was Held out to him and Mr. Harsch said softly, “I’m sorry for your loss. Give this to your next hour teacher if you’re late. And if you can come back to my room at lunch, we’ll work out some extra credit work, alright?”
Peter breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much, Mr. Harsch. I’ll see you at lunch.”
He all but ran out the door, feeling a spark of hope light in his chest. If he just sacrificed today’s lunch, he might have a chance of graduating Magna Cum Laude.
He ignored his stomach’s painful contractions at the idea of missing another meal. It would have to learn to be hungry anyways, right?
As a particularly violent cramp forced him to stop in the middle of the hallway, he tried to convince himself that that was a good thing.