just breathe ⇒ peter parker

C H A P T E R O N E

My best friend, Lia Carson, was a genius.

She was a scholarship kid, so she had to be pretty damn smart to even attend Midtown Science, and on top of that she was a decathlon team member, one of the top 10% of the sophomore class, and interned at Oscorp with her free time that she somehow had.

It worked out better for me that she was always busy, because then I didn't have to make up excuses for why I couldn't hang out, or why I didn't want to go to my house instead of hers. Danielle didn't like people seeing her yet, since it had only been 6 or 7 months since the incident. I didn't like being at my house, so I left early and stayed out late as Tempest. Danielle was the only person who knew and she was too worried about her condition to worry about me.

Every morning before school Lia would be waiting for me at my locker, since she had to arrive early for her A period. I couldn't take an extra period in order for Antonia to also be able to drive Charlotte to her elementary school. I mean I could take one if I wanted to drive myself, but we only had Antonia's SUV and Danielle's old sports car.

This morning, for some reason, Lia was nowhere to be found.

Being alone was very quiet- normally my ear would be have talked off five seconds after I arrived at my locker. I sighed and twisted my lock, opening my locker more violently than necessary. I traded my Chem textbook and notebook for my AP Euro textbook, then grabbed my Algebra 2 and Spanish stuff. Wednesday's were the worst, at least on Thursday's I had a chill class, aka Choir.

"EMMY!" Lia yelled directly in my ear, causing me to yelp and whirl around.

I put a hand to my beating heart, a terrified, "Jesus fuck, Lia!" slipping out of my mouth.

She rolled her eyes and mumbled something about being dramatic, then clapped her hands together. "You know Peter, right, Emmy?" she gestured behind herself towards another sophomore I recognized. His brown hair was slightly messed up, and he was blushing for some reason. He was probably flustered by Lia, she had that effect on people.

"Uh, hi," he said, offering me a small smile.

I smiled back then looked at her again, wondering why he was following her around. "Peter and I have an Honors Chem test first period, so we were studying. Oh my fucking god, do you know how boring Stoichiometry is?" I caught Peter's eye as Lia continued to rant, digging something out of her backpack. He honestly looked scared of her, which, me too. I bit my lip to keep from laughing at his expression, which made him turn pinker. "Emmy! What happened to your neck?" my hand automatically flew to cover to bruise in the shape of a hand that I knew was on my neck. There was a group of men out while I was patrolling the night before, and one had a gun so I was a little too distracted to notice that one was in the perfect position to strangle me.

"Nothing," I said, way too quickly. Lia squinted at me.

"Are you sure? It looks like..." she trailed off and looked at Peter. She thankfully dropped the subject, understanding that if I wanted to have this conversation (I didn't) it wouldn't be in front of basically a stranger. Peter was still staring at my neck, but glanced up at me when I shifted the collar of my shirt. His eyes were a deep chocolate brown, almost the color of coffee. The bell rang suddenly, and I hastily looked away from him. I muttered a goodbye and closed my locker.

The two of them walked off, discussing more Stoichiometry stuff, and I headed towards my math classroom. Algebra 2 honestly wasn't that difficult, since I had a good teacher, so I decided to doze off in class a bit. I had only gotten a couple hours of sleep the night before, due to that whole strangling issue. Danielle was still up when I had arrived at the house, and I expected her to at least say something about the dark bruise on my neck. All she did was sigh, and then say good night.