Chapter Text
Falling in love with your best friend always sucks. Watching him fall in love with someone else right before your eyes sucks even more.
I met Peter Parker freshman year at ESU. We were both in the science department so we often ran in the same circles. We always ended up taking the same classes and, over time, we started to gravitate towards each other. We would partner up for every project, we’d try to be lab partners as much as possible, and we’d even spend endless nights studying together. Soon, we became best friends and he came to be one of the most important people in my life.
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“Y/N, I’m serious, we have to keep studying.” Peter says after nudging my shoulder.
“Pete, my brain is about to explode. Please shut up or I will throw your laptop out the window.” I answered, throwing my pillow over my eyes.
Peter was lying down on my dorm room floor, while I was splayed out on my bed. An array of textbooks, notes and flash cards surrounded me and my pillows.
“Now that’s way too harsh, Y/N! It’s the most expensive thing I own.” He says in mock offense.
I groan. “I know, you’re broke. I’m sorry. Pass me something cheaper.” I say, still not looking at him.
“Anything for you, Y/N.” He respond while grabbing handful of popcorn.
Before I realize what he’s about to do, he’s winding up to chuck a butter-smothered snack at my face. Once they hit me, the studying-induced tiredness immediately leaves my body.
“Peter! You did not just do that. I just washed these sheets!.” I whisper-yelled in attempt not to wake the whole building. It was past midnight after all.
His infectious laugh and charming smile make it hard for me to even pretend to be mad. So, I start laughing as well.
“Hey, now you’re awake and we can get back to studying! Don’t blame me for my methods if they work.” He says, still chuckling.
I roll my eyes. “You’re lucky I like you. And popcorn.” I say, popping some of his ammo into my mouth.
“Come here, Y/N.” He says, patting the ground beside him. “We need to cover every chapter before the exam Monday. Acing this class is a sure-fire way for us to get you that scholarship.” He says as I smile at his dedication to helping me.
Money was tight that year. My family was having money trouble and I was helping my parent as much as I could. It took a lot of extra shifts and sleepless nights to help them pay the bills. I barely had any money left over for tuition and Peter, being the amazing friends he was, decided to help me as much as he could. He suggested that I try to get a scholarship and after I agreed, he immediately did everything he could to help me make it happen.
I think that was the night I realized I had feelings for him. It was nothing in particular that was the trigger. He made me laugh, he made me smile. He was dedicating time to help me, despite everything he had going on in his life. God knows I wasn’t the only one having money problems. Everything about him was good. He was such a good person. Almost too good sometimes. I always had to help him realize that he was also worth people’s time and effort. He only thought it was the other way around.
Our friendship meant so much to me and I didn’t want to ruin what we had. So, like a coward, I shut the feelings out and never told him.
I did get pretty close to blurting it out once, about a few weeks after that night. I was stressing about finals and barely getting any sleep. On top of that, my mom's health was beginning to dwindle. All that stress and depression led my grades to slip and I almost lost my chances at getting the scholarship Peter was helping me with. Everything was falling apart and he turned out to be the only thing that could keep me together.
One night, he found me in my dorm, crying into my pillow. All the bad things in my life kept piling up until I could barely take it. So, I broke down and let my emotions pour out of me.
"Hey, Y/N." He said, softly, sitting at the edge of my bed. "What's wrong? Do you want to talk about it?" He asked, trying to be careful of my fragile state.
"Oh, you know, it's just that typical college breakdown." I answered through a sniffle. I reluctantly removed my face from the safety of my pillow to look up at him. In exchange, he gave me the sweetest smile I had ever seen.
"You can talk to me about anything, you know that right?" He tells me, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder.
‘There's one thing I can't tell you about because it would ruin everything and you'd hate me for it.’ I thought about saying. Instead, I replied "Of course. Thank you, Pete." So, I told him everything except the part where I was in love with my best friend and I was too terrified to do anything about it. He listened intently, offered advice where he could and gave me a shoulder to cry on. After a short while, I was no longer crying.
"Thank you for listening to me. I really appreciate everything you do for me, Pete." I told him, resting my head on his shoulder. I was so close to telling him right at that moment. I wanted to tell him that he made my heart beat a mile a minute. I wanted to tell him that he was the most important person in my life. I wanted to tell him that he made me feel happier than I've felt in years. But his voice interrupted my speeding train of thought.
"You know I'd do anything for you, Y/N. You're my closest friend." He says. The first part of his sentence made my heart jump. The part where he reminded me that we were just friends stung a little. But, it made me realize that we were better as friends. Things were perfect at the moment and I couldn't bring myself to risk changing everything. I couldn't risk losing him. So, I said nothing.
Instead, I suggested that we watch a movie to take our minds of the impending doom of finals season. I made room for him on my bed and we watched Empire Strikes Back on my dingy laptop. By the end of the movie, he was resting his head on my shoulder and sleeping soundly. It pained me to wake him up, but ESU had a strict policy against people of the opposite sex sleeping in the same dorm. As I was about to wake him up, all I could think about was my fear of losing him.
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Senior year came around and he landed the girl of his dreams. Her name was Mary Jane Watson, or MJ as he liked to call her. They’d been best friends since middle school and he’d been hopelessly in love with her since high school. Since the day we became friends, he always confided in me. He told me all about his high school crush and how he thought he missed his chance. Lucky for him, it turned out that he was wrong.
Although watching them fall in love was painful, it was obvious that they were meant to be together. They were soulmates. He deserved to be happy even if it wasn’t with me. So, I swallowed all the feelings I had for him and let go of any hopes of us being together. He started spending more time with M.J and we started drifting apart. After graduation, we didn’t speak much. He went on to work with Dr. Otto Octavius and I started my first year as a nurse at ES General. Sure, we spoke on the phone every now and then, but we weren’t nearly as close as we used to be.
Losing him as a best friend was even more painful than watching him and MJ fall in love.