"you?" "me."

I grabbed Peters hand and ran to the train excitedly.

“PETER THEY’RE DOING A SPIDER-MAN SHORT FILM CONTEST AND I WANT YOU TO BE MY SPIDER-MAN” I practically scream in his face out of excitement. He seems shocked and confused.

“Me? Spider-Man in your short film?” he said sounding astounded.

“You. Spider-Man in my short film. I know you can do it Peter, besides it’s not like you’re really him and being in the suit will expose your identity,” I say laughing and walking onto the train, Peter behind me. We somehow magically sit next to each other.

“Yeah,” he scoffs, “me, Spider-Man in real life, as if PFT”

I laugh and put my head on his shoulder, we just listen to music and read or do work for the rest of the ride. We arrive at our stop finally, get off, and walk the rest of the way to school. We talk about the details of the film and when we should start filming.

“Uh so, my friend, Ben, remember him?”

“Yeah he’s the kid always composing something new that you always talk about, right?”

“Yeah! He’s going to do some music for it,” I say delightedly.

Peter just nods his head and tenses up when we see Flash on the steps to the school, terrorizing some random kid. I immediately want to run up and stop him but Peter stops me, holding me back.

“Just walk calmly by, you’ve managed to stay off his radar this far, if you try something now, you might be that kid next time,” he says smoothly and calmly.

I huff and just walk past the situation sadly.

Peter slouches beside me  making his tall figure as small as possible.

Our lockers are next to each others so we reach them at about the same time, shoving our stuff in, in practical unison.  I shove my heavy coat, scarf, and gloves into my locker placing the scarf in the gloves into the pockets of the jacket. I close my locker and watch Peter struggle to fit his coat among the other miscellaneous things in his locker. I reopen mine and take his jacket from him putting it into my locker. He mutters words of thanks and grabs something out of his locker and shuts it.

I walk with him to our first period, study hall in the computer lab. I start to write the script for the short film with Peter humming and fidgeting with something diligently next to me. I get lost in the universe I create within the script.

My focus isn’t broken when the bell rings. It’s only when Peter reaches over and touches my shoulder that my focus is gone, that boy makes me a mess sometimes. I look at what I wrote and save it, smiling at Peter waiting for me like he always does and we part ways, until lunch, once we reach my next class. Peter and the film are stuck in my mind.

Why is Peter on my mind?

I brush it off but the feeling of his hand in mine is stuck there.

I get my lunch, the usual, and sit with Peter and Ned. We discuss the film and Peters involvement and Ned looks at him curiously, and Peter shrugs it off.

Peter and I sit next to each other, so I scooted closer to him. I sensed his alarm when he felt my leg pressed against his. He eased into the feeling of closeness while we talked with Ned.

Ned laughed along with us, not noticing the fact that me and Peter were sitting so close we were practically on top of each other.

Peter put his hands down onto his legs wiping them off. He relaxed them next to mine and it took every ounce of my being not to grab his hand.

Why do I want to hold his hand?

It felt so right when I did this morning.

I slip my hand next to his hooking my pinky with his. He looked at me with those big, brown puppy dog eyes and I melt like ice.

We smile at each other and Ned coughs loudly, breaking the eye contact between us. I snatch my hand away from his and pat down my mess of hair awkwardly.

“Why don’t you two just get together already, Jesus!?” Ned said wiping his mouth.

I instinctively scoot away, getting nervous and laughing.

“You know my kind of man,” I sigh, “Spider-Man, the masked crusader,” I say very dramatically, throwing myself jokingly onto the table.

“You cast Peter as your Spider-Man in your film thing.” Ned said pointedly, and I get off of the table, straightening my sweatshirt.

“Uhhhhh,” I look at Peter awkwardly, “I have to get to my next class, I’ll see you both there.” I said trying to collect my things but Peter grabs my arm.

“I’ll go with you, we need to talk anyway.” He said handing me my things and then grabbing his own.

We walk awkwardly together not really saying a word. We were the first ones to class since lunch still had 15 minutes left. We sit in our seats by each other and he turns to me as I pull out my laptop.

“Elle, you know we need to talk about what Ned said,” Peter said looking slightly like a hurt puppy.

“Not right now, Peter. I don’t know what I’m feeling but it’s sudden and terrifying,” I open my laptop and open the script.

“Elle,” Peter put his hand on my tense shoulder.

“Peter, let’s start going over your lines. I’m going to be Gwen, the main female lead. You’re ‘UNNAMED IDENTITY’ aka ‘Spider-Man’,” I say heavily.

He looks at me and then starts reading the lines.

The scene is an intense one of Spider-Man coming to terms that he can never have a normal love life because of who he is. Gwen and him argue about her love for him and him not accepting it. Gwen knows about his identity and loves him anyway. After we finish the scene me and Peter look at each other, both of us with tears in our eyes.

I wipe my eyes quickly as the bell rings and more students filter in, including Ned.