INVISIBLE | P. PARKER

NINE

NINE;
QUEEN OF HEARTS

+++

        
"THAT'S NOT FAIR!" Pietro exclaimed, looking down at Cassie's cards.

"Life's not fair, Pietro." Cassie smiled, shuffling the cards in her small hands. "Do you want to see a magic trick?" She questioned, raising her eyebrows.

"Alright," The boy smiled, sitting straight on the floor of the training room. "But don't disappear me."

"That's not how it works." The girl laughed, shuffling the white deck of cards. "Now, pick one." She shuffled them in front of him. "Did you pick one? Or I did it too fast?"

"I did pick one." Pietro rolled his eyes playfully. "Continue before Clint comes in and notices we are not doing anything." Cassie smirked.

"Wait, I got bored." She yawned. "Let's do something else." With the help of the confused boy, she stood up from the cold floor and walked out of the room.

"But the card—" Pietro mumbled, following after. "You can leave a magic trick unfinished!" He protested.

"Wait," Cassie stopped abruptly, kneeling down next to him. "Is this your card?" A smirk appeared on her features as soon as he realized it was his card.

"Queen of hearts!" Pietro smiled, taking the card from her thin fingers. "That was amazing!" He turned at the small girl with amused eyes. "How did you do that?"

"I won't tell you." Cassie smiled, walking inside the guest room that was hers for a short period of time. "Keep trying, though." With that, she closed the door. Dividing reality from her demons.

Cassie turned invisible as soon as she heard the door closed, sighing deeply, she crawled into her covers and hugged herself with agony. She had been thinking about Charlie a lot, she knew it was unhealthy for her, but she did it anyway. Because it wasn't easy to just forget about the only family you had left, and deep down she knew he would remember her. She grasped to the memory of his smile, and the idea of being together again, teasing each other like the old times.

She also knew it was unhealthy to hide her pain, to bottle everything inside her body and let it out when she felt like it, when her mind urged her to stop torturing herself like that. It urged her to stop pretending being fine, to stop pretending she didn't miss him and to stop pretending she didn't need Peter. Even though he couldn't save Charlie, Cassie couldn't stop thinking about how much she needed her geeky friend to make her smile with his awkward, nerdy jokes.

But he hated her now, she knew he hated her. And who wouldn't? She treated him like trash for something he didn't know. Hell, he didn't even know she had a brother! Cassie hated herself for a lot of things, and she hated herself more for going out late that night months before, and she hated herself for telling Peter she hated him, when in reality, she loved him.

It was a winter morning in New York when Cassie admitted her feelings for the awkward boy. They were casually playing poker, as usual, before Chemistry class, and Peter's fingers brushed hers when she handed him his cards. Maybe it was a tiny spark, but that made her body, mind and soul explode. After that day, she wasn't herself. Everything around her made her think about him, and it was foolish, because he obviously saw her as a friend.