1 | ISSUES ( Peter Parker )

23

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE | THINGS FALL APART

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i was a woman, i suffered, i was there.

-from eurydice at the mouth, published in memorious // yanyi

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Never did Bella think the day would come when she held Liz as she cried. And never did Bella think that Adrian Allan, the man who was like a father to her all her life, would be a criminal.

"I don't want to move away," Liz sobbed. "I don't want to leave you guys."

"It'll be fine," Bella said, blinking back tears. She had cried too much this weekend already. "We'll still talk every day and you can come stay with me during vacations. Alex won't mind."

"I hate him," Liz muttered, burying her head into Bella's neck. "I hate him for doing this to us."

Bella didn't know what to say. She knew what it was like to have an awful father... but was Liz's dad all that awful, really? Sure, she couldn't agree with what he did or his methods behind it, but he didn't mistreat his wife or child. He loved them. Everything he did was for them, and not his own personal greed. It was a murky issue.

"It'll be okay, Liz," Bella finally said, tightening her grip on her best friend.

It was mindblowing to Bella how easy it was for things to fall apart in the way they did. In the span of mere hours, Bella was abandoned by her boyfriend for what was probably the twentieth time. Liz's father fought Spiderman and lost. Everything had gone wrong for the two girls when things were finally looking right.

[ ... ]

Sunday night, Bella laid awake on her bed, staring at the ceiling. She wasn't tired. Her mind crawled all over the place, eventually landing on Spiderman. Bitterly, she regretted not kissing him when she had the chance to.

Sleep didn't come easily to Bella. And what little she got had been full of restless tossing and turning. Her dreams were haunted by Peter's sorrowful eyes and the whispered 'I'm sorry' before he ran off. Spidey was there too, taunting her with a face she'd never get to see.

When her alarm went off at 6:00, Bella threw the clock across the room. It smashed to absolute bits, and she could hear Alex yelling downstairs, but she couldn't bring herself to care. There were deep purple bruises beneath her eyes, Bella noted, due to a weekend of practically no sleep. She stared at herself in the mirror.

"Peter, I'm breaking up with you," she said in an even voice. "We're breaking up. We're done. Over. Finished. No more."

Her calm facade quickly crumbled and tears welled. Cursing, Bella dabbed at her eyes with tissues and stomped out of the bathroom. School was waiting and she had to go and act like she didn't want to scream at the sun just for merely existing.

Arden threw an arm around Bella's shoulder when she walked into school. "Want me to kick his ass?"

"No," Bella said, feeling a small laugh bubble in her throat. "I'm gonna verbally do that later. I can fight my own battles, you know."

Arden smiled. "I know this doesn't make it any better, but I am sure he had a good reason. I mean, God only knows how he even managed to get someone as hot as you to date him."

Despite the tears begging to fall, Bella felt her lips curl up into a sad smile. "I'd really rather not trash him," Bella said. "I know things sort of just really fell apart this past month, but the four other months were really great."