Webs We Weave



Chapter Eight

DISCLAIMER :: This tale blends together aspects of Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy/Ghost Spider/Spider-Gwen from Marvel Comics, Marvel Television, and Marvel Studios. Fanfiction? Sort of. The world and characters are mine, but they may seem familiar.

Author's note: This was so much fun to write thanks to the soundtrack idea I got from comments on the last chapter! Posting this in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep and the night owls will get a kick out of the "early access".

The deluge threatened to overtake me as a number of teenagers made their way toward the stairs. I quickly moved to the side and plastered myself against the wall. The current of bodies passed me. Their eyes, however, lingered on me longer than would usually be comfortable. Their expressions read as confused and suspicious. One glance at the pieces of paper in my hands told them the information they were looking for. They seemed to instantly know that one was my schedule and the other was a map of the school. Their eyes rolled and each one seemed to individually tag me as “the new girl”. Once that classification was applied, the confusion left their faces but the suspicion lingered.

‘High school sucks! Why the hell am I doing this again?’ was all my brain could conjure up.

Choosing not to be the animal on display, I collected myself and began looking for the strategies I had used long ago to survive the class-to-class chaos. It wasn’t returning to me, even after the third backpack to the face. When I began to factor in that I had been on the planet twice as long as these people, it didn’t help summon the muscle memory in the slightest. The volume of chatter was at a constant high level as if nobody cared about the effect they might be having on anyone else. Pairing that with the overuse of Axe body spray or Bath & Body Works perfumes only made things worse. The sneaker squeaks on the linoleum and the sounds of lockers being opened or slammed shut provided the soundtrack. If the streets of New York City were a symphony, any high school in the five boroughs would be a punk rock concert—complete with a mosh pit.

Slowly, I navigated the flood of bodies while glancing at the room numbers next to the classroom doors. They were positioned at an ADA-compliant level with corresponding braille for the visually impaired. Glancing at them through the sea of bodies added a degree of difficulty I wasn’t expecting. I cross-referenced the room numbers with the schedule a couple of times. Dead giveaway that I was new. I should have committed it to memory and worked from there. I overheard a few people proclaim at full volume that I didn’t really belong. Social suicide committed in the first five minutes. That’s got to be a new record.

Mercifully, I finally arrived at the designated classroom and made my way inside. It appeared to be like any other classroom I’d been in before. Linoleum flooring, fluorescent overhead lighting, some cupboards in the back, plastic and metal desks arranged in rows and columns, subject-specific decor around the perimeter, and a single wooden desk positioned in the front to convey authority. The differences began with the 19th-century windows on the far wall then moved to the electronic projector hanging from the ceiling, the white marker boards at the front, and the flat screen in the corner. It was a 21st-century classroom with 19th-century DNA.

The teacher stood from behind the wooden desk at the front and strode in my direction. He looked to be about the age I used to be. His brown hair was neat and combed nicely. His beard was groomed in a professional manner. He wore a white button-up that hung on him a tad loosely with the sleeves rolled up. His tan slacks were a more relaxed fit. He wore tennis shoes rather than oxfords. The brown eyes behind his wire-framed glasses bore a flicker of kindness. My eyes darted between him and the collection of desks that seemed halfway filled up with students.

“Are you lost, young lady?” He asked quietly as he approached.

I lightly shook my head. “No, I’m sure this is the room I’m supposed to be in.”

“I know my students and you are not one of them. You sure you didn’t hop in here to momentarily avoid the crowd outside?”

“Positive,” I stated firmly. Turning the schedule toward him, I held it up as evidence. “Frankly, I’m kind of amazed I wasn’t late.”

He took a moment to examine the schedule in front of him, then offered an apologetic smile. “It would seem that I’m mistaken. We don’t usually get new students this late in the year.” He spun around to his desk, where he seemed to have a seating chart prepared. “Let’s set you… second row, fourth column.” He pointed at a seat nearer to the far wall and close to the door. “We had a student transfer out after the Christmas break. You’ll be fine there for the next couple of months. What’s your name again?”

“Parker. Saoirse Parker.” I responded while keeping focus on the spot that would make it impossible for me to hide in the back and avoid the social situation I was now facing.

"Well, Miss Parker, I'm Mr. Harrington and this is History of the United States. We're closing out the year discussing the Indian Removal Act, the Trail of Tears, and President Jackson's defiance of the Supreme Court. It's not exactly on our greatest hits album. You'll hate it. Most people do." He dryly chuckled to himself as if he'd given that trigger warning before.

My body moved in the direction of my assigned seat to avoid the awkwardness. “Splendid.”

Sliding into the seat I had been assigned, I pulled the hood over my head in an effort to hide as much as possible. Every single part of me wanted to not be a spectacle. I kept my head lowered as more students trickled in from the hallway and took their seats. My backpack was set next to my seat on the ground. Unzipping the main compartment, I found a hardbound 3-ring binder with some paper inside as well as a decent enough mechanical pencil. Without a textbook, it would be difficult to make it seem like I was paying attention, but I could at least try. The charade had begun.

There were sporadic whispers throughout the class, but I couldn’t decipher the subject matter. Maybe my senses were calibrated too high and nobody really cared? I did take some notes, but doubted I’d have to use them. I’d always had a talent for reading through the material and retaining the knowledge contained within. I could simply ask the teacher for a copy of the textbook, read through it in a few nights, and probably pass the final. The skill got me through MIT, so high school was going to be a breeze.

As Mr. Harrington was giving his closing remarks, I checked my schedule. After this class, I’d have to navigate up two more floors and find the cafeteria because it was lunch period. It couldn’t have come at a better time because I was incredibly hungry. The couple of bites of a waffle earlier that morning had not had any staying power. I stuffed the binder and pencil into the backpack Maven had given me that morning at the exact moment the dismissal bell rang out. It was a mad scramble for the door. It was deluge conditions once again. I was purposefully one of the last people out the door because I wasn’t going to get squeezed out the door like some kind of grape.

Into the hallway once more, the schedule and map were individually folded small enough to fit into the waist pockets of the hoodie I was wearing. My hands loosely gripped the straps of the backpack as I walked along. Finding the stairs was easy enough. Once I climbed the two floors, my eyes darted up and down the corridor. There seemed to be a large room at one end that the current of bodies was moving toward. I simply followed the flow. These kids knew what they were doing, so… “when in Rome”.

About halfway down the hallway, the skin on the back of my neck and up toward the crown of my head started tingling. The hairs on my neck and arms seemed to stand on end. Out of my peripheral vision, I could barely make out the river of teenage humans parting. In the next second, something collided with me and I was knocked off balance. I didn’t fall, thankfully. My eyes darted in the direction of travel to catch sight of a girl spinning around. She looked like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez might have a decade and a half ago. Her sleek black hair was up in a high ponytail. The white, hooded, cropped sweatshirt along with black leggings and white shoes probably worth more than my uncle’s house draped over her frame looked more like an Instagram or TikTok star than a high school student.

Once spun around to me and walking backwards, she simply stated in a high-pitched voice, “Oops.” She then proceeded to smirk in an unsettling manner before turning around and walking forward down the hall, flanked by her equally well-dressed entourage of two other girls roughly the same age.

Oh, what fun. The “Queen Bee” trope was somewhat overused in Hollywood, but it wouldn’t exist in the first place if it weren’t based on something real. I had just failed to yield the hallway for Regina George and the Plastics. Yay me.

After she and her friends were gone, the hallway refilled once again and we all continued toward the cafeteria. I started to smell all the options on offer and it caused me to salivate. The moment the crowd reached the cafeteria, everybody fanned out to wherever they were going as if the river had deposited into a lake. My eyes darted around to figure out what I was supposed to do from there. I glanced over the many tables arranged in the giant room. One visual inspection and anyone can have a surface understanding of the sociological situation in any high school in the country. All the usual cliques gathered together. The differences lay in how the “outcasts” were arranged. When I was at The High in the ‘00s, there was the emo table, the Magic: The Gathering table, and the science nerd table. While the jocks, cheerleaders, theater kids, and band nerds were predictable, the social outcasts were an ever-changing variable with one exception: the influencers. There was a whole table dedicated to pretty people in expensive, up-to-date fashion and their overly decorated smartphones were either held up for a selfie or not far away. A couple of people were even doing a TikTok dance while a third held up the recording phone.

Upon spotting the line at the entrance to the area with all the food, I moved through the cafeteria with my hands still gripping the shoulder straps of the backpack. The guy in front of me likely stopped off at his locker between classes and applied a fresh spritz of too much Axe body spray. It was overwhelming. Instead of focusing on that, my ears wandered to peripheral sounds. The volume of conversation in the cafeteria was a bit louder than it had been in the hallway. That was overwhelming, too. My mind asked itself how I had survived high school the first time around. No answers were given.

Slowly but surely, the line moved along and I was able to grab a tray. Deciphering the signage all around me was another new stimulant. Eventually, I was able to decipher everything. One entree, one side, one fruit, one vegetable, and a small dessert with a pint of milk to wash it all down were the requirements. I made my way to the cashier with a square piece of pizza, some peaches, the saddest attempt at a salad I’d ever seen, and a small square of brownie. At the cashier, I noticed a flaw in the system: I absolutely needed to get my student ID card from the office if I wanted anything to work right. The school’s doors wouldn’t open for me in the morning and the system didn’t recognize that I’m a free lunch student automatically. The cashier was able to punch in my OSIS number and fix everything, but the process was arduous enough to annoy my fellow students.

I quickly got out of the way once the situation was resolved. No part of me wanted to hold up the line any more than I already had. A few feet from the cashier, my eyes once again scanned the tables before me. Once again, I recognized all the cliques sitting together as before. I wasn’t looking for that. When my eyes landed on an empty table, my feet carried me straight to it. Setting my tray down and having a seat, I resolved to have my lunch in solitude at one of the only tables without a metaphorical flag planted on it. I gladly deleted the bit of my brain that paid any attention to high school politics fifteen years ago. Zero fucks given.

For a few minutes, everything was fine. I had my hood over my head as if it were an invisibility cloak. The expected teenage chaos occurred all around me as I poked at my depressed salad and shoveled lettuce into my mouth. My mom had instilled in me that one should consume the vegetables first before moving on to the fun stuff. It was a lesson that remained a habit. Opening the pint of milk remained the exercise in aggravation as it had always been. My eyes remained downward so that the only thing in my field of vision was the empty table around me.

A body appeared to my left. My senses tingled before the shadow appeared on the surface of the table. My body froze and my chewing slowed as I anticipated the worst-case scenario.

“Is this seat taken?” asked a sweet, high-pitched voice.

My head raised and my eyes lifted to the form. The face associated with the voice knocked the wind out of me. She was more than conventionally attractive. She was the kind of attractive people paid a lot of money to achieve. Her almost angelic face was framed by wavy, almost curly hair that hung to about shoulder level. The color of it seemed brown at first, but turned almost blood red in the right lighting. Her bright green eyes were the most striking about her. They commanded attention. She seemed about average height, which wasn’t saying much, but everything about her form screamed “top model material”. I couldn’t see her shoes but her jeans looked like they’d been pulled out of a donation bin and washed ten times. She had a gray t-shirt with a Nirvana smiley face on it and an oversized flannel shirt over it. She had an ear with an earbud and one without. The tray in her hands had about the same level of sadness as mine.

When I finally caught my breath, I shook my head. “No. It’s just me.”

She smiled as she set her tray down. “I kinda figured that. You’re new.”

My eyes rolled all on their own. “Is it that obvious?”

She giggled. “It kinda is, yeah. I mean, nobody’s ever seen you before and you don’t even have a student ID to pay for your lunch. It’s a bit of a dead giveaway.”

My body slumped. “Geez, just cut right in there. Are you stalking me or something?”

“No. You’re not that cute and I’m unfortunately very straight.” She smirked, perhaps hoping to get a rise out of me.

“Bully for you?”

She snorted a little into her giggle. “I’m Hailey, by the way.”

“Saoirse,” I responded and returned to poking the sad salad.

“Oof. That one feels like an oldie. Your grandma give that one to you?”

“No. My aunt. It came out of the 1920s, but it’s pretty contemporary. Ever seen Lady Bird?”

“Oh yea! I thought it was pronounced ‘soar-shuh’ because that’s how she pronounces it. Yours is ‘seer-shuh’?”

“It’s the more traditional Irish pronunciation. It’s huge over there. Not so much here.”

She struggled with her own pint of milk while speaking. “So, what brings you to Midtown High just in time for testing that puts the fear of God into your heart and, y’know, Prom… or something…”

After chewing some lettuce and swallowing, I shrugged. It was time to adhere to the cover story. “Required by law. My aunt was homeschooling me for a few years down in Jersey. She died and now… now I’m in the city.”

She visibly slumped and her entire demeanor changed to concern. “Oh, look, I don’t mean to be a jerk and pry too much. I’m sorry if I’m overstepping.”

“You’re not. I’m still processing. It’s been a long day.”

“Somebody put you through a ringer, huh?”

“Yea. A lot of paperwork.”

“Ouch. I wouldn’t even know the first thing about what a newer student might go through. I’ve been at Midtown since freshman year. It’s got its ups and downs, but it doesn’t completely suck.”

“I had to find my second period class. That’s when the bell rang.”

“You said you were homeschooled? Have you ever been to a public school this big?” I simply shook my head at her. The concern returned to her face. “Oh… my… god… that’s a big yikes! It’s almost like making a toddler try to swim like an Olympian in the deep end. Are they crazy?!”

I gently shrugged. “I’ve already committed about thirty acts of social suicide. What’s one more?”

Laughter erupted from the previously empty, unclaimed table. Full, unadulterated, belly laughter. If she had tried to drink anything before I spoke, it would probably be coming out of her nose by now. Was I really that funny? I had no idea because I’d mostly only said these types of things to myself in my own head. To my chagrin, the people in our immediate vicinity stopped talking. A quarter of the cafeteria was suddenly quiet. A bit of panic began to engulf me. It’s never a good sign when teenagers get quiet and intentionally begin to pay attention to something or someone. Catching her breath, Hailey noticed as well. She turned to see that my pupils were likely dilated, there was a little sweat on my face, and my lips were pressed together.

She turned and gave the people around us a quick glance. When she turned back to me, she was shaking her head. “It’s almost like they’ve never heard anyone genuinely laugh before.”

I was practically frozen in place. My eyes darted from one face to another. Every part of me wanted them to stop looking. To stop noticing. When my eyes fell on the girl from the hall earlier glancing over with an eyebrow raised, my lungs quickly sucked in breath. “Oh, god, not her…”

“Who?” Hailey turned around once more to figure out who I might be referring to. She followed my line of sight, which fell on a table between the jocks and influencers. She almost instantly recognized to whom I might be referring. “Oh. ‘Flashdance’? She’s generally harmless unless you catch her attention. Then, she’s kind of a bitch.”

Wait a minute. “Flashdance? Seriously?”

“Yea. She showed up to ‘80s Spirit Day dressed like that girl from the movie last year when she was a sophomore. She owned the look and the attitude, so she got the nickname. That’s Evelyn Thompson. She’s one of the Fifth Avenue kids that thinks she’s the queen of everything. Money doesn’t mean importance, but you can’t get that through the heads of people like her.”

My head slowly turned to Hailey. “I failed to yield.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She ran into me in the hallway because I failed to yield. I didn’t even know that was a thing. Usually, it’s just a clever blocking trick movie directors use to showcase main characters. Like… I dunno… Regina George and the Plastics.”

“You have seen way too many movies.” Hailey giggled. “Evelyn’s bad news, but she’s not that evil. Not that I’ve seen, anyway.”

“How should I know? I haven’t…” I had to stop myself. My brain automatically wanted to blurt out that I hadn’t been in high school for about as long as Hailey had been alive. I pulled the emergency brake on that train of thought. “...ever been to a school like this.”

“It’s not as scary as the movies make it seem. Sometimes, it’s worse.” She smirked with her tongue out at me.

“Har… har…”

“Oh, girl, you are not going to pass the vibe check with that ‘tude. It’s giving blood in the water inviting sharks.”

My brain swirled into a double-take. I hadn't anticipated having to learn an entirely new language as of yet. I could work out the basics of what she was saying. "So what do you suggest I do? That look on her face creeps me out and I'd rather just fade into the background."

She tilted her head like the answer was obvious. "Okay, so the hoodie stays, I get it, it's your whole thing. But you're sitting like you're waiting for a deposition. Shoulders down, fork in hand, eyes on your food. Unbothered energy. You're not hiding if you look like you don't care that you're hiding."

“You lost me about five miles back.”

She laughed, picked up her fork, and demonstrated with her own body — shoulders visibly dropping, posture loosening, eyes falling casually to her tray like nothing in the room was worth the energy. “Like this. You’re a main character who doesn’t know she’s the main character yet. Act like you’d be fine if somebody just kept swiping up.”

It hit me: she was referencing short-form social media videos. If the viewer wasn’t interested in the content, they just swiped upward on the screen with their thumb. It was starting to make some sense. “Right. Be boring, not the victim.”

“That’s it! Now you’re more like me: someone who doesn’t really care what anyone thinks. I’m not chasing clout online, a ball on a field, or a shot at a Tony Award. I’m just me. I float from clique to clique because I was raised around some of these people and they all chose a lane. I refuse.”

There was something pretty admirable about this girl. “I can respect that. I’m more comfortable around a math book or a chemistry set than running out the battery watching videos on my phone.”

She threw a chunk of sad salad in her mouth and chewed as she considered my statement. Her head bobbed for a few moments before she swallowed. “Okay, a STEM girlie. That’s genuine and pretty fire, actually. So, you’re like the girl I’d have desperately face-timed at 2 am when I was failing pre-calc?”

Finished with the salad, I had moved on to the peaches. “I mean, I guess so? I can’t guarantee I’d have answered at 2 am, though.”

She offered a sideways smile in my direction. “Setting boundaries already? Respect. Most people would have said ‘yes’ just to sound nice. Not you, though. I appreciate keeping it real.”

“What am I gonna do? Lie and keep you in suspense? I think not. I’d offer to help you prepare for a test or show you how to do your homework right, though. Y’know, like a tutor.”

Her head lowered slightly. “Wait, are you actually offering to tutor me right now? We literally just met. You’re either one of the most kind people in this school or you’re running a long con and pre-calc is your opening move.”

“I’m just me… and I’m better at chess than that. You don’t open with f3. It’s suicide.”

She dropped her fork. “Excuse me, what?!”

It was my turn to laugh. “It’s a chess thing. It’s really not important otherwise. Expose the king equals bad. Make sense?”

“Not even a little bit. It shows that I wouldn’t be able to tell if you were playing the long con, you chess wiz.”

Both of us shared a laugh as we dug into our pizza squares that were a far cry from restaurant quality. Mediocre cafeteria food suddenly tasted a little better after a pleasant interaction with a new acquaintance. I had a feeling that Hailey and I might actually get along pretty well. We shared a little bit more banter as we finished eating. Just before I finished my pizza, something caught my eye.

About halfway across the room, some guy stood up. The world seemed to slow as my heartbeat quickened. His height was almost intimidating before I remembered being about as tall a week ago. His fluffy brown hair looked like he’d just rolled out of bed and looked great. His green eyes lit up as he smiled down at whomever was talking to him. He wore a graphic tee with some pop art of William Shakespeare on it. His blue and red letterman jacket was overtop of that. His loose fit jeans sat well on his hips. The room started to feel a little bit warmer. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Hailey waved her hand in front of my face without a reaction from me. “What are you… ?” She began to ask but followed my line of sight and answered her own question. “Oh. You’re crushing on ‘Em-Jay’.”

The trance was broken. “Who-dee what-now?”

She grinned at me like she had a secret. “Oh, he’s called ‘MJ’. That’s Mark Watson. He did this killer Michael Jackson routine at a pep rally in middle school. The nickname remains. It helps that his middle name is Jacob, though. Really nice guy, too. I can see why you’re crushing on him so hard.”

My cheeks burned. “I’m not… he’s just… shut up, Hailey.”

She laughed so hard she fell off her seat.