Catch Me // Spider-Man (BOOK 1)

Chapter 1 - New girl

New York aka the concrete jungle where dreams are made of. Well according to Alicia Keys and Jay-Z anyway. Why mention the big apple you ask? It's where I'm headed, where I'm about to start a new life. It hasn't been easy getting to this point. In fact it's been damn depressing.

For the last 17 years of my life I've been moved from pillar to post. My over ambitious father Michael had it stuck in his head that he was set to be the next great rock legend like Dylan or McCartney. Eventually he gave in to his failings and settled to be a college professor teaching music history instead. He was never happy doing that though. He was constantly moving us from state to state, college to college hoping to find some happiness, some fulfilment. He never found it and as a result our relationship pretty much crumbled and he turned to the drink. My Mum divorced him when I was 12, not being able to stand seeing him like he was and took me away. I never saw him or heard from him again. My Dad's story ended when he'd been found 'unresponsive' in an apartment in Kansas City when I was 14. Turns out alcohol had become his new priority and it was ultimately what cost him his life. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss him sometimes. Even though he was a useless ass, in the end he was still my Dad. He was still a part of me.

From the age of 12 up to now my Mum Sally and me lived in Chicago where she worked any job she could get hold of just to keep a roof over our heads and food on our table. I hardly ever saw her. What with me being at school and then her working I may as well have been living on my own. A couple of years ago Mom got sick, like really sick and rather than it bringing us closer like you'd think it would, it just drove us further apart. She blamed me for getting her ill. Said that all the stress of providing for me, clothing me, feeding me, bringing me up was what made her that way. I tried to make her see sense, tried to show her that I loved her and that she was being stupid but she didn't see it. Any relationship we ever had died when my Dad did. She only took me with her when she left because HE was the person she loved most and she knew me being with him would drive him to the edge faster. She didn't do it for me, not like an outsider would assume. She was angry, angry at the world for not giving her a break, angry at me for and I quote leading her to an early grave. It wasn't the stress that killed her, it was stage 4 cancer and when her time came in all honesty I was relieved. She wasn't in pain anymore, she wasn't hurting. I wasn't being guilt tripped into thinking it was my fault and now I could finally make a life of my own, live where I wanted to live.

I never considered my Mum and Dad as family, not a proper one anyway. They were just the people I lived with. There was only one person in my whole world that I could ever rely on, only one person who had ever shown even an iota of kindness, my Mums older sister Aunt Penny. I hardly ever saw her. She lived in New York and didn't have a lot of money so couldn't afford to come and visit. We had the same problem so we couldn't either. Our relationship therefore consisted of telephone calls and letters, lots of letters. She always said there was a place for me at her home, if it ever got too much for me. She knew what my Mum and Dad were like. Time and time again though I would turn down the appealing offer, not wanting to give up on my parents. I never lost hope that one day they'd see the daughter that had been standing there all along. That hope was unfounded as you now know.

After Mum passed away a few weeks ago there was only one place I wanted to go. Only one place I could go. That was to New York and to my Aunt Penny.

So here I am. Present day Forest Hills, New York and I am settling myself in to my new room. Already I feel more at home here than I ever did anywhere else. If only I'd given in and come here a long time ago.

"Sweetie, can you come down and just help me with the groceries for a minute please?" Aunt Penny called as she came through the front door. No one had ever called me sweetie before.

"Coming," I yelled with a massive grin on my face, placing a pile of clothes on the bed and then rushing down the stairs.

"Wow you brought enough to feed an army," I observed struggling with the endless bags that were still on the porch.