[17]

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MY EYES HADN'T MOVED FROM PETER IN AN HOUR, and I was beginning to worry myself about how obsessed I was with the boy.

Nay, not obsessed - it was my job to know where he was and what he was doing, and while it was considered creepy or stalker-ish to the imbeciles that attended this school, it was nothing more than a simple mission. However, even I would be dumb not to realise how much of my life now revolved around the boy; in a way, he had become the sun in my solar system or something like that. Even now as I sat beside him in the school library, every thought was on him and how to mend the rift between us.

We weren't 'okay', at least, not in the traditional sense. Peter was quiet today, and I wondered if it had something to do with me, but it had been so tense between us that I wasn't sure where to start with the questions. As much as I hated to admit it, Ned's presence would have been the tiniest bit useful, at least as a way to break apart the silence that hung between us.

Still, I had to try. That was the job, after all; to open him up and get him to tell me his ways, his secrets, and anything he could, really, about himself. I couldn't exactly do that when we sat in silence and stared at everything but each other. Not in this case, at least.

"What are you looking at?" I finally piped in, casually sending a curious glance in his direction. "You seem awfully into whatever's on your phone, that's for sure."

His eyes didn't move from the small screen, and the only movement that came out was the shift of his weight as he turned the slightest bit away from me. "It's nothing. Um, where were we?"

"Well, I was trying to say sorry for being rude yesterday - I am sorry, Peter. I don't know what came over me."

"It's fine."

"No, it's not. If it was, you wouldn't be ignoring me and maybe we could work on our project and not be sitting here awkwardly. Can we move forward and get to the part where you don't hate me?"

Peter finally dragged his gaze upwards, glancing at me solemnly before grabbing his pencil, scribbling something down that was almost illegible for my eyes. "It's fine, I'm fine, everything is fine. Let's just work on our project."

This wasn't something I was very good at - I had no idea how to get myself out of this situation, or how to make things better with the suddenly sullen boy. I had apologised, and had made it somewhat sincere, so what more did he want from me? This was a strange boy.

"Peter?"

"What?"

"I'm..." dammit, words, work for me for once and help me make things less awkward. "I don't know how to make things better, but I am sorry. I didn't mean what I said then, I was just in a bad mood. Things were crazy at my house, and I was stressed, but I don't hate you or your rambling. I'm sorry."

He didn't speak for several seconds, making me believe he was just going to reject that apology as well, but the Parker boy finally spoke up. "What happened?"

"What?"

"At your house. What happened?"

Biting my lip, I turned away, unsure how to answer his question. I had messed up. I had said the wrong thing. I had tried to come up with a valid excuse, something that would make him stop his sulky ways and be the awkward idiot he always was, but apparently, his new interest was in me and my 'family life'. "Um, nothing, just...you know, moving and all that - takes a while and so it's stressful."

He didn't believe me. It was evident in his eyes; he frowned and poured over my stumbled, clumsy words, unravelling my badly formed lies and realising there was more I wasn't saying. However, to my relief, he simply shrugged, "it's okay, really. Should we get started on this project again, though?"

Little Spy | Peter Parker ✓Where stories live. Discover now