To Love a Spider

Chapter 8

As Elizabeth walked to school that morning she could feel somebody's eyes on her. After the events of the attack she kept pepper spray on her at all times. She carefully pulled it out of her bag and uncapped the lid, making sure to face it away from herself. The last thing she needed was too accidentally spray herself in the face and make her under-eye bags even more apparent.

She continued on down the street to school, turning around ever so often. She had never been this paranoid before. Even after she was attacked Elizabeth put the idea of being assaulted again to the back of her mind. It seemed very unlikely to her that she would be the victim ever again.

Once, she could have sworn that she saw a glimpse of green but she talked herself out of it. It was just the trees, or The lack of sleep is getting to my head.

When Elizabeth made it into the school she went straight to her locker. She had made up her mind that today was the day she would break up with Peter. She didn't bother to go look for him, she knew that he would magically appear beside her like he does every day. It broke her heart to end their relationship, with him being such a sweet guy and all, but this dream was close to making her crazy. There was no way she could focus on both at the same time.

Just a she predicted, Peter showed up with a smile on his face. "Hey Liz!"

Elizabeth groaned. He was making it so hard to break up, what with his pet names and all. "Hi Peter," She said back unenthusiastically. She was just so drained. After the long nap she had yesterday she couldn't go back to sleep at all last night.

Peter noticed this and his face went from happy to serious. "Are you okay? Whats wrong?"

Elizabeth hated this part. She had never had to break up with someone before, Peter was her first boyfriend. She didn't want to sugarcoat it, she thought it might be easier to deal with that way. "Peter, I think we should break up."

This time Peter's face went from concerned to downright hurt. Elizabeth closed her eyes so that she wouldn't have to see his pained expression. It was all too much for her.

When he didn't answer she opened her eyes again. Peter was still staring back at her with the same emotion in his eyes. His beautiful, sad eyes. "Snap out of it, Elizabeth. This is all for the best." She took a deep breath and spoke again. "It's just that I'm overwhelmed with everything right now. I need time to figure things out and I can't do that very well if we're still dating."

She looked up at him, then looked back down, immediately wishing she hadn't. He looked so hurt, so sad, so miserable. He opened his mouth to speak. Then closed it. Then opened it again. "Okay." With that he walked off down the hallway.

Elizabeth felt like crying. Not necessarily from breaking up with Peter, but from her whole the past couple of months. She had almost died, been saved by the most confusing person on the planet, has been having terrible nightmares, and now she had just broken up with the one person she thought could understand her. It was all too much. It was an overload of loneliness and it made Elizabeth want to curl up into a corner and scream. She had thought that breaking up with Peter would protect him from the Green-man and herself from more mental damage. Now she realized that she had been wrong. She had lost Peter anyway.

Elizabeth wasn't one to admit she was wrong but she was now considering going back to him. After a second, though, the uncertainties about her decision went away. She stuck by her actions, it would give her time to get her grades back up and unmask the Spiderman. This was going to save her a lot of stress in the future.

Lost in her own thoughts, Elizabeth didn't notice the crowd forming around her until she was completely surrounded. "Why won't they leave me alone? Can't they see that I'm not in the mood to talk?" Soon enough people were ambushing her with questions about Peter and Spiderman. All of that drama still hadn't calmed down and with everything going on, it made Elizabeth feel even worse.

The feeling of emptiness returned and once again Elizabeth was overwhelmed. Usually she was able to fight it off but this time she didn't want to. She wanted it to swallow her whole so that maybe it would just devour her and the pain would stay the same. It wouldn't escalate to the point of sickness or withdrawal from her entirely and tricking her from thinking that it is gone. It would be constant.

She let it consume her entirely as she fell to the ground.

* * *

Elizabeth woke up to bright lights. Her head hurt and her left arm was bothering her again. Although her arm was hidden by her sweatshirt she judged by the pain level she was experiencing that her arm was badly bruised. When her vision cleared she realized that she was in the nurse's office at school. She sat up on the cot and ran her fingers through her hair. She was a mess.

Soon enough, the nurse came in and checked on Elizabeth. "Oh you're awake now. That was a nasty fall you took, Sweetie. My guess is from dehydration..."

"Definitely not from dehydration," thought Elizabeth.

"Anyway, as soon as you drink all this," the nurse handed Elizabeth a bottle of water, "you are free to go." With that the nurse walked away and Elizabeth was once again alone in the room.

She gulped the water down as quickly as possible, wanting to get home. This had been, quite possibly, the worst day of her life. It might even beat the day she was attacked.

Elizabeth left the school quickly and started the trek home. She was too tired to notice the feeling of someone watching her again. She was even too tired to be aware of the Man in Green standing across the street from her, which is why she had no chance of escaping when he flew towards her.