From the Shadows | PETER PARKER [2]

| 5 |

"You've been avoiding me."

Eloise jumps and whips her head to her bedroom window. Spider-Man without his mask is staring at her while upside down, hanging on a web attached to the above floor's fire escape.

Eloise looks down at her homework and sighs when she sees the dark mark she made when Peter startled her a second ago.

"I'm not avoiding you," Eloise denies as she stands from her comfortable spot on her bed and steps over to Peter. He raises his brow at her, but since he's upside down he's technically lowering it. "If I was avoiding you, I'd run away and hide right now."

"So you haven't been staying after school for a long time so you don't have to walk with me and Ned?" Peter challenges, although it's not a question.

Eloise crosses her arms and chews her bottom lip. "I've been staying after school to get help so I can raise my grade in Chemistry."

"You know that I could help you with that, I've taken Chemistry, AP Chemistry, and Organic Chemistry." He moves so he is no longer hanging upside down. When his feet hit the metal fire escape, he leans against the open window sill with an expecting look.

Eloise tries to come up with another excuse, but she can't. There is no good reason why she stays after school to get help in Chemistry when her neighbor is probably more educated to teach the class than the actual teacher. Ever since the Friday night where Lucy and Peter got all friendly, Eloise has tried to back off of Peter because it was almost painfully obvious that Lucy had a thing for him. At first Eloise was skeptical Lucy liked him like that because she never really saw them engage in an actual conversation before and Peter kissed her a few months ago. However, once she replayed the night over and over in her head and recalled Lucy's words and body language, Eloise realized that Lucy definitely likes Peter. And she decided that she would not interfere with her friends' happiness. An entire week has gone by and Eloise hasn't said more than a sentence or two to Peter. Had his romantic feelings for her deteriorate into just platonic feelings?

But with Peter looking at Eloise with his big brown eyes, waiting for a response, she wants to ask Peter the question she has been dying to know—Do you like Lucy?

She almost says it, too. It's at the top of her tongue, but before she blurts out the question she stops herself and instead tells Peter, "I guess I've been accidentally avoiding everyone lately. I've just been super focused on my academics that I haven't had time to think about anything else."

Lies. She can't stop thinking about Lucy and Peter. Eloise bite her lip harder to hold back the truth.

Peter frowns. "I have a feeling that's not why."

Eloise's eyes dart to the floor. If she opens her mouth right now she fears she wouldn't be able to keep in the truth, so she stays quiet.

Peter climbs through the window. As he straightens in front of Eloise, she can feel his eyes burning into her face. She doesn't meet his eyes.

Softly, Peter asks, "Is it because you're scared of losing control? Because it won't happen again. Mr. Banner said that if you haven't a month since you left the tower that you have zero chances of losing control again."

Eloise's eyes dart to his. Although she has been having nightmares again, both of herself going out of control and Zagan, she hadn't shown any signs of doing anything dangerous in her sleep. As long as that doesn't happen then she's fine.