The Amazing Spider-Man 3

Chapter 6

"M.J, you didn't."

"Didn't what?" M.J. replied to her best friend's inquiry.

"Did you seriously ambush him like that?" Liz clarified.

"I didn't ambush him," M.J. defensively asserted. She had just begun sharing with Liz about her conversation with Peter the night prior, and already she was accusing her of things.

"Oh, then what would you call it?" Liz asked, her eyes wide as she awaited the answer to her question.

"He didn't have to come with me, Liz," M.J. defended. Her best friend's head tilted and an expression took over her face that indicated she didn't believe her. "Seriously, he didn't," she continued. "He could've just gone up the elevator and left me there. Anyway, we actually had a nice talk; that is until he randomly got some reminder on his phone about having something to do and kind of abruptly left."

"So, let me get this straight," Liz said, "not only did you basically ambush this guy that you've only encountered briefly before, but you also flirted with him non-stop all the way up the stairs?"

"It wasn't flirting," M.J. defended, almost starting to get a little flustered at her friend's making more out of last night's encounter than it was. "I was just being neighborly."

"And it just so happens that your neighbor happens to be really cute?" Liz questioned.

"Okay, so he's good looking," M.J. said, "so what?"

Liz stopped walking, standing there along the street and just staring at her.

"Liz, what is it?" M.J. asked, almost starting to get a little irritated at her best friend's behavior during the conversation.

Liz shook her head a little at first, like she was in disbelief about something.

"Mary Jane, what is this really about?" Anytime her best friend used more than just her initials, M.J. knew she was serious. She thought about it for a moment, trying to give her the answer she deserved. The truth was that M.J. didn't know quite how to put into words what had driven last night's interaction. It was something that had been in her mind for years, something she had wrestled with a lot, but never really expressed to anybody, even her best friend.

"You know how I used to be," she finally began, "in high school, maybe even worse in college. I was always the party girl, and the life of it at that. And I always had a guy with me, like I couldn't survive without one."

"Yeah, I remember," Liz said, nodding. The sad truth was, her best friend had warned her many times against almost every guy M.J. had ever been interested in, but she never listened.

"Well, after the way the last one ended, I decided to take a good, hard look at myself," M.J. said. "When I did, I realized I never actually had a relationship with any of those guys. It was all physical attraction and even some emotion, but never anything......"

"Never anything REAL," Liz finished for her. M.J. looked up to meet her eyes, her best friend's expression being one of knowing sympathy, like she'd already known all this without her ever saying it. In hindsight, that made total sense; anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to her life during her school years could see obvious evidence of everything she had just said. This was helpful given that it was only within the last few years that she'd gotten better at expressing herself in a deeper way to anybody.

"Anyway," M.J. continued, "now that I've had a few years to myself, I've been thinking more recently about what I really want. I think it goes without saying that I never had a very good example in terms of seeing what a healthy relationship looks like, but... I don't know, I just feel like there needs to be a friendship there first."