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It’s a Tuesday afternoon and she’s sitting in her favourite spot, tucked away in the corner of the library. She’s holding her favourite copy of Sister Outsider in one hand and a pencil in the other. Armed for what could have been an afternoon of ‘light’ reading, she can’t help but admit that her mind is somewhere else.
She’s sixteen and she can’t think straight. It’s embarrassing and she refuses to admit it. She can’t really pinpoint when she became a walking cliche. Michelle Jones was never one to conform to social convention. Why start now?
She’s sixteen and this flood of emotion makes it so hard to focus on things that ‘really matter’. There’s this constant ebb and flow of flutter that pushes against her body. For some reason it causes the ball of fire in her chest to burst and this annoying fleet of ‘feeling’ seems to manifest. And oh. God. She's blushing.
It’s not that she doesn’t like this feeling. She’s only human. It’s just a little inconvenient sometimes. Most times.
It’s been 30 minutes and she’s stuck on the same page and she can’t help but accept that the only way to move past this distraction is to face it. The heat travels from her chest and up her neck and suddenly it hits her. It's mortifying to admit.
How can she focus on the cadence of Lorde’s prose when all she can think about is whether or not Parker knows how to Foucault all night?
He’s sitting across her, chewing on the ends of his pencil murmuring to no one in particular, “No me gusta hacer la tarea” over and over again in the most botched accent he can muster. The broken record spiel is overdone and if it had been anyone else, Michelle would not have hesitated to dish out one of her deathly stares accompanied by a not-so-light punch to the shoulder.
But alas, Peter Parker was not just anyone else. Not to her at least.
And again, she doesn’t understand where this romanticization of her best friend even came from. They’re not sitting in some pseudo-bohemian cafe falling in love over their chai. (And whoa where did that word even come from?)
It’s not like he’s the Sartre to her Beauvoir. And rightfully so. Sartre was an asshole but Peter, oh Peter. Peter reeked of goodness and responsibility - the kind that always gives and never expects.
They weren’t even alone. Ned sat next Parker furiously typing away on his laptop. They were supposed to be a trio. She couldn’t let something as trivial as ‘arbitrary infatuation’ compromise their friendship.
Michelle Jones was supposed to be better than her hormonal peers. And yet, she couldn’t help but notice the way his shoulders were beginning to fill out his never-ending rotation of punny sweatshirts.
She’s peering over her book and she feels sick knowing that her eyes are filled with adoration. And why shouldn’t they be? He’s the smartest kid she knows (next to her of course).
Peter was such a mystery - ever elusive and always flaky. That was part of the package and yet she found him more intriguing than off-putting because of it. She’ll chalk it up to the need to chase the story. After all, where would her career in investigative journalism be without its next headline? She just didn’t expect the never-ending appearances that Parker seemed to make in her daydreams. Somehow, it comes as a shock to her when she realizes she can’t seem to escape his wide-eyes and crooked smile.
Cue the butterflies.
Here’s the thing. She’s 82% sure that Peter Parker does not feel that way about her. There’s an emptiness in her chest and she doesn’t know how to fill it. She knows what Parker looks like when he’s in his own spell of obsessive longing. It’s all part of the observation, or so she tells herself. It’s been nearly over a year since Liz had left them for Oregon and in that time, Michelle had yet to see that dumb expression make a comeback on Peter’s face. She can’t help but wonder if she’s become a cliche when this feeling in her gut makes her silently wish that he would flash her the same dumb-founded look, even for a split second.
It sucks because she’s 115% sure that she feels that way about him. She can’t watch another Nora Ephron feature or her favourite Linklater trilogy without thinking about the way that Peter’s crooked smile ignites a surge of energy through her veins that makes her feel like she’s on fire. It’s all so very dramatic.
What did she expect? She’s 16 and she’s begrudgingly confident that she’s desperately falling for her best friend and for the first time in her life, Michelle has no plan of action.
It had sounded so contrived when she had said it out loud for the first time to herself the other day, even if it had been in the safety of her bedroom. She’s not trying to make him sound like Prince Charming. He’s not. (And there she goes again with the cliches) She doesn’t even need Prince Charming. She’s Michelle-freaking-Jones - captain of the decathlon team and budding journalist in the making. He’s just this boy that likes to sit across her from her at lunch and sometimes in her favourite corner at the library - innocent and devoid of the egos she had to face everyday.
Maybe it was that look of determination on his face that spoke to her of passion. And when she says passion, she’s not talking about the kind you find in a harlequin romance. Peter Parker’s passion looks like it comes from the the need to inflict and spread the goodness that sits at the very core of his heart. Because he’s so good and so pure. It’s not even fair.
At the end of the day, if she’s wiling to admit it, she doesn’t even deserve him. Or so she thinks.
It’s a Tuesday afternoon and she settles for the not-frequent-enough instances when his sneaker manages to brush against the sliver of bare ankle uncovered by her Doc Martens. She tries to cherish these moments as much as possible. Sometimes he makes her feel like they’ve got their own secret. But sometimes she feels like he is the secret and she’s still trying to figure it out. She hears Ned cough beside him and all of a sudden Parker is burying his face deeper into his textbook and she can’t help but hope that maybe she’s wrong about him. It’s his turn to look at her. She rolls her eyes at him as if she’s exasperated by his antics. Michelle pushes the book closer to her face, hoping that Audre is doing a better job of hiding the twitch in her mouth as it slowly turns into a smile.
She’s still Michelle Jones and she has a reputation to uphold.
She’s 16 and she can’t help but think Peter Parker is going to be the end of her.
The bell is about to ring and they’re packing their bags to leave. Ned is talking about hosting yet another Star Wars marathon when she feels his hand brush against hers as he reaches for the stack of notecards sitting in front of her. It feels like a moment in one of her movies and she decides to embrace the tugging feeling in her stomach that pulls the corners of her mouth up into a-sort-of-kind-of smile.
I guess at the end of the day, it’s not that she doesn’t like this feeling. She’s just not used to it yet.