Spider Brats (Previously "When In New York") TASM

Chapter Nine

Fall nights in Indiana were something to be remembered. Every Friday, after school had ended, mom would make enough of a cider-like drink to last all weekend. It tasted like caramel apples, but there was always a spice she added that none of us could ever pinpoint. When I tried to make it, in nearer times, I found it was cinnamon. But it didn't taste like cinnamon while in the mix, so it didn't matter that I couldn't name it. Dad would then build a fire made out of sticks pulled from the neighbors stockpile in the back, so they hardly noticed. We'd all sit around the fire, Neena usually winding up in my lap and taking cookies from my plate of snacks Josh secretly loved to make.

Usually, mom brought out her guitar and dad would sing classic 80s tunes we all knew by heart. Even Neena would sing along to songs like Pour Some Sugar on Me and Summer of '69. Our neighbors would complain, and the dog would just growl in response, giving them a reason to step out of the yard. When I was fifteen, the fall before the accident, my boyfriend would come to the backyard sessions. After going from neighborhood kid who always wound up in our kitchen after school, to being the boy I talked nonstop about, he was part of the family, I suppose.

Now that I think about it, that fall included a lot of things that made me into the girl I am today. For example, when my closest friend at the time turned on me because one of the school's most loved and hated girls invited her to do so, I learned to not trust anyone unless they seriously deserved it. Hence why it took me 6 months to even get two sentences out when having to speak to Peter. At the time, he was just some boy I had to live with until I graduated and moved out. Had I known how much I could trust him, things probably would have been easier.

In the same subject of not trusting people, it was also that fall when I learned I could break someone's nose. That, of course, wasn't an act of aggravation, but of a sort of payback for that jerk who apparently had been dating me on a bet. With the money he won for hitting the year mark, he used to fix his precious nose. His friends weren't laughing then. At least, not at me. They seemed to be more amused that the scrawny fifteen year old girl could break one of the football player's nose. Not to mention it was an actual impact on him, rather than what Josh did to him. Apparently, though, dying the white uniform pink wasn't easy to pay off. Either way, we cost that boy a lot of money.

I turned sixteen two months before my parents died. Or, two months before they decided to let Neena die and disappear with Josh. It was really a great birthday. They took us out to the ice skating rink in a nearby town, and a lot of my friends came. Or, at least, the ones in my photography club I'd started. Which were about ten people? Either way, we ended up dancing around on the skates, the snow falling all around us as we looped arms and danced to The Beatles and Queen. When they called for the couples skate, some of the couples in the group headed out, and I had started to pig out. That is, until my dad ended up coming over, and dragging me out into the rink. It was then he'd told me that he'd always be there to catch me if I fell. I guess that was a lie.

By six in the morning, it was raining. The thick droplets padded on my bare feet, filling up my converse beside me, and added up in my exposed eyelashes. The letter was tucked away safely in a small loose floorboard I used to hide all of my things in my room, just to the right of my bedside table. I was surprised when four hours ago, Peter still was snoring, cuddled up the blanket and stuffed toy. I guess I just sort of started walking after that, and then later started swinging my way up to the top of the Daily Bugle building. I've been sat on the ledge ever since. Not many people look up, or, rather, to the top of building.

Maybe it was just the mental shock of the real possibility that my parents were alive, or just the inability to feel anything at the moment, but I hadn't said anything after finding out. I don't know if there was just nothing really to say, or if I just couldn't get myself to scream yet, but it was just silence. Pure silence other than the sputtering of little liquid droplets upon my shivering skin. There were questions upon questions forming, and I didn't know where to begin. I'd already concluded this wasn't a prank. The only people who knew who my parents were are Peter, May, and Ben had known, too. Nobody really had a Facebook back home, and we didn't get online much. Besides, Flash wasn't heartless enough to do something like this, and nobody really cared enough to do it, either. So, with a giant sigh, I had made the conclusion this couldn't be fake. Where the hell they were, or why they didn't, you know, come and get me, I didn't know. Nor was I excited to find out. Which, I knew I would. Eventually I had to. I wanted to know why they pretended to die, and why they had let Neena die. Let alone leave me.