Walking the Wire | PETER PARKER [1]

| 10 |

Elena shuts her creaky locker and turns to her brother. "I can't tell if you're talking to me or Eloise."

He shrugs. "Both." He looks at Eloise and says, "You look tired."

"That's because I am tired," The girl replies, peeling his arm off of her achy shoulders. Every time she gets little to no sleep and she's stressed, her shoulders and neck start to hurt and get tense. It's a struggle.

"No le hablas así a una mujer, hermano," Elena snaps. "Even if she is. Don't."

Eloise smiles tiredly. "Nah, it's okay."

Luis shrugs. "Anyways, you gonna come to our game tonight? It's home again."

Eloise opens her mouth, but before she can shut him down, Luis's hopeful eyes make her say, "I'll try to." Even though there's no space in her schedule today.

"And of course I'm coming," Elena pipes and points to herself. "Number one fan, right here."

Luis grins at the two and kisses them both on their cheeks.

"Thanks guys!"

He scurries off to his next class, leaving the girls idling by their lockers. Eloise sighs and shuts her open locker.

Elena studies Eloise. "You good?"

She nods. "Always."

🕸

"We need to talk about your grades," Mom tells Eloise when she gets home that night. Eloise is pushing her feet into her sneakers and getting ready to leave for the soccer game that started ten minutes ago.

"Can we talk about it later? I'm already late." Eloise walks around her mother and snatches her purse off of the table.

"No," she says, catching Eloise's wrist and bringing her to a halt. "We're going to talk now."

Her dad walks out of his room, still dressed in his bland suit and tie.

Eloise looks between the two. "Okay." This is weird; they usually never talk as a family. The only time they ever have conversations is when they need Eloise to pick something up from the store or if she needs to do something around the house.

Her mother holds up Eloise's progress report and lies it on the table. She points at the grades. "Your grade point average is slipping. At the rate you're at, you won't be accepted into any good colleges."

Eloise looks down at the paper. All B's and C's. Average.

"So?" Eloise asks. "I don't even know what I want to do with my life yet, plus I have another year before I graduate."

The woman pinched the bridge of her nose. "I know that we're not around 24/7 to tell you everything you need to do, but I — we still expect some responsibility from you."

Her father holds up a newspaper from a stack on the kitchen counter. "You need a job."

"But I'm already so busy-"

"Doing what?" Her mom asks. "Running around with your little friends?"

Eloise bites her lip.

Dad sighs. "I know that your mother and I are not raising a slacker. You need more responsibility and you need to improve your grades. We're not just going to sit back and watch you grow up to be a loser."

"A loser?" Eloise repeats. "I didn't think that being there for my friends and not failing any classes meant that I'm destined to be a loser."

"Destiny's a joke, Eloise," the middle-aged woman says. "You need to get your act together and grow up."

Eloise pulls her purse over her shoulder and walks past her parents. Once her hand touches the front door knob, her mom asks, "And where do you think you're going? We're in the middle of a conversation."

Eloise turns and crosses her arms. She holds back from being disrespectful to her parents and says, "I'm going to go support my friends."

"No you're not," Her father says. "Get back over here."

"Why?" Eloise asks.

"Is all your homework done?" Mom questions. "Are the dishes done? Did you actually eat dinner and not just junk food?"

Eloise internally groans. She's never getting out of this.

"Fine," She gives in. Eloise walks straight past her parents and shuts herself in her room.

And then climbs out onto the fire escape.

🕸

After the game ends, which Park East won, Luis and Elena offer to drive Eloise home. She tells them that she'll be fine walking, not feeling like being stuffed into a cramped car full of their loud siblings. Don't get her wrong, they're lovely, but they tend to give her a headache.

Eloise reaches the apartment complex, but instead of going through the front, she climbs her way back up the fire escape on the side of the building while praying she doesn't fall and die.

Thankfully, she reaches her level within minutes without as much as a scratch.

Eloise pulls up on her window, which she made sure to keep unlocked so she didn't trap herself outside in the brisk dark all night, and the glass slides up.

"What are you doing?"

Eloise almost falls as she jumps back, startled. Her head whips around and there's Ned, poking his head out of Peter's window.

She lets out a laugh and holds her hand to her rapidly beating heart. "You almost gave me a heart attack."

Peter's head pops out next to Ned's. Amazingly, his bruises are almost completely healed. He looks at Eloise with confusion, mirroring his friend.

"Yeah, what are you doing?"

"Sneaking in," Eloise replies in a duh tone.

Peter's brow furrows. "Why?"

"Because I snuck out, and walking in through the front door kind of defeats the purpose."

Ned smiles. "Badass."

Eloise lets out a small laugh and shakes her head. "Whatever. I've got to get back in my room before my parents realize I've skipped out on them." She swings herself into her room, turns, and sticks her head out of her window. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."

"Goodnight," Ned calls before they shut their windows.

Eloise flops back on her bed. Goodnight? She thinks. The night hasn't even begun yet.

She pulls out her phone and opens the Netflix app.

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Attached Song: Walking The Wire by Imagine Dragons

So I forgot to upload this chapter last Friday, so there's gonna be a double update :)

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