Wicked Game || CURRENTLY EDITING

Chapter 7: Friends

"Where should I stop?" asked Happy as he drove through the streets of Queens.

"Here's fine," I respond.

He pulls over in front of a Thai restaurant and I get out of the vehicle. I bend down to peek inside the car and say, "don't worry about picking me up, I'll just call an Uber." I slam the door and begin to stroll down the street.

I walk into a tall building and take the stairs to go up to the roof. Once I'm up there, I place my folded arms on the tall ledge and lean against it, looking down towards the city. The view from up here is quite beautiful. Living with a billionaire in a high-tech facility is great and most people would prefer that type of lifestyle, but there's something about the urban atmosphere in Queens that I love. Perhaps it's because the people feel more real here. The luxurious lifestyle seems like such a fantasy, whereas being in "the ghetto" makes me feel like I'm among real people. I heavily sigh and drop my head into my hands. After a good two minutes of wallowing in my own self-pity, I feel a gust of wind and hear a thwip behind me. I lift my head up from my hands and whirl around.

Spider-Man is standing behind me. I turn away and quickly wipe my eyes.

"What are you doing here, Parker?"

"I was just swinging around, you know, after trying to stop some bank robbers a-and saw you up here... I thought I'd come check on you," he answers.

I sniffle and don't say anything. I just continue looking over the city.

"What are you doing up here? I thought you'd be with Mr. Stark at the tower," he spoke again.

"I didn't wanna go back yet. There's a lot of people going in and out of the tower, preparing for moving day, and I know Stark or Pepper would try to talk to me... I just wanted to be alone," I confess.

He comes up next to me, resting his arms on the ledge as well. He pulls off his mask before replying, "do you want me to go?"

I glance over at him. His curly brown hair is a mess, a different sight from the neatly gelled back hair I was used to, and his big brown eyes stared at me in concern. It was easy to tell that he was waiting for me to push him away, but in his eyes I could see a smidgen of hope that I wouldn't. To be truthful, his presence is comforting.

"No," I softly answer. "Please stay."

He nods his head and averts his gaze to stare out into the city. "What's got you so down?"

My frown deepens as the negative thoughts resurface. "Remember how I said that I was going to go see an old friend today?"

"Yeah," Peter notes.

"That friend was Jonathan Byers. The guy in the picture."

"Your ex," Peter says in realization. I nod and take a deep breath.

"We dated for like two years... we were so in love," I laugh bitterly.

"We went through a lot together but we always came out on top in the end. We even had our future planned out. He was going to go to NYU and I was gonna follow after graduating the year after. Both of us love photography, so we planned on applying to the Photography and Imaging Program there... Our lives weren't perfect, of course we weren't either, no relationship is perfect, right? But we were pretty damn close." I pause to inhale a shaky breath. My vision got blurry as tears welled up in my eyes.

"We were happy. I was happy... but of course, the universe couldn't have that, right," my voice dripped with sarcasm. "It decided to play a wicked game on me by making me a popsicle for 32 years only to come back to a world that has moved on without me. From me... I visited him today. It was weird seeing him like that. He's so much older now, he looks different, he sounds different... and he's married... married to none other than Nancy Wheeler, my best friend." By this point, my voice cracks and the tears start flowing.