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You knew you’d never forget Peter Parker, but you never thought it’d be in this way. Remembering him was an ache in your chest and a burning in your eyes. Remembering him meant staring off in a way that had your friends concerned for weeks, almost months on end.
The memories came and went anyway, though, in that cruel, cruel way that memories do. Some happy, some sad, some angry. All of them made you hurt, but they came along anyway, creeping into the silences between words and thoughts that tried to drown him out.
The first one was happy.
You were at one of your friend’s parties. It smelled like alcohol and cigarettes, and the hot, stuffy air was hazy with the smoke. You remember the way the bass rattled the walls of that frat house, shaking that stupid chandelier where it stayed hooked to the ceiling because they insisted it was classy.
You wouldn’t be surprised if it turns into a lawsuit one day.
You were squeezing your way through the crowd, avoiding a couple who were grinding very enthusiastically and shoving your way through a group of guys who blatantly refused to move. You swore you repeated excuse me at least fifty times before you got through.
Then it happened.
You smacked right into someone who felt like a brick wall and felt their drink splash down the front of your shirt.
“Oh shit, I’m so so sorry. I didn’t even look where I was going—”
When you looked up, you saw him. The first thing you noticed was his mortified expression. Pretty brown eyes wide in panic, his hands held out awkwardly like he wanted to help but didn’t know how, the empty solo cup still balanced between his fingers.
Then his eyes met yours, and he froze. His mouth worked wordlessly as he tried to find the words to apologize, which had come so easily before but now? Now they were jammed in his throat, stuck like a chip he’d swallowed sideways.
You felt your face burning at the way he looked at you. Like he’d noticed the way your eyes caught the dim light from the kitchen, or the way your lipstick was the perfect shade that complimented your face. The noise of the party seemed to fade into the background, the bass giving away to the heartbeat that pounded in your ears.
“I’m sorry!” He repeated in a louder, gravelly tone that gave away how dry his throat was. “I…wasn’t paying attention.”
“It’s okay,” You said. You’re not really sure why you weren’t pissed right now. Any other time you’d be cussing him out, poking a finger into his chest and rushing out the door to go home early. But no. You stood there, the wine still dripping from your shirt and seeping into the floorboards as you reassured him. “This shirt needed some color anyway.”
You weren’t prepared for the smile that spread after your joke.
At first, you were glad he was finally looking less like a kicked puppy. Then it hit you in the chest.
It was shy, spreading slowly as he realized that you weren’t actually mad at him. It tilted the corners of his mouth up, revealing the dimples in his blushing cheeks. It was charming, it was crooked, it was so damn attractive that it made your heart literally skip a beat.
You didn’t even know his name.
“Yeah? It could be a trend now,” He chuckled, gesturing to your shirt. “You totally rock it.”
You blinked and looked down, stretching the hem out to check the damage. It covered your front in a splotch of burgundy against the otherwise plain gray T-shirt, smelling sharply of cherries.
“Thanks,” You laughed too. “I think I’ll keep it this way.”
You still had that shirt, tucked away into your closet with your keepsakes. Sometimes you’d wear it on the bad days, and you swore you could still smell the wine on it.
The next memory was happy, too.
It was early in the morning, at least 4am. You sat on the carpeted floor of his dormitory. You’d known him for months now, and you knew your feelings still simmered beneath the surface. It had turned from the sharp edge of first attraction to something warmer, something more dangerous than a passing crush.
You always told yourself that it was a normal thing that friends felt. There was a platonic love, right? That was it. You’d grown close over time, and you’d definitely consider him your closest friend.
But it settled deep in your bones anyway as you looked at him now, nothing close to how you felt about your other friends.
Peter sat across from you on the floor with your feet in his lap, staring at a pack of incense he had found buried in his vinyl shelf. His brows were furrowed as he read the back of the package, his lips moving soundlessly as he tried to pronounce the complicated words.
God, you wanted to kiss him.
“What the hell?” Peter giggled, and you blamed the rosé for it. “How the hell…pay? Pa? Patch. That’s definitely patch, right?” He met your eyes with a goofy grin, and it took everything in you to not flinch like you’d been staring the whole time.
“What are you talking about?” You laughed. “Here, give it.”
“No!” He laughed again, holding the package above his head to dodge your hands. “I can do it. Just…just give me a second. Pay…patcho? What the hell is patcho?” He squinted at the print on the back as your fingers brushed the box.
“Peter, I swear to god,” You giggled, sitting up to reach it better. “Hand it over!” You reached up again.
“I said no!” He giggled and grinned as his hand shot out to grip your wrist without looking away from the package. “I’ll figure it out. I’m smart. Just be patient.”
When his hand wrapped around your wrist, you felt a burn spread down your arm, through your chest and up into your cheekbones. Your heart pounded faster as he tried once again to pronounce the word on the back.
His voice turned into a hum in the background as you watched his face scrunch up again. Your gaze slipped down to his lips before you could stop it. They looked ridiculously soft, curling around each word in a way that made your head spin.
You could kiss him.
“Patchoulli!” Peter exclaimed suddenly, snapping you out of your thoughts so violently you actually flinched this time. “That’s it! Patchoulli! Who the hell spells it like that?”
His fingers slipped from your wrist as he laughed again. You missed the heat immediately, the slight roughness of his hand against your skin, the way his hand nearly covered your whole wrist.
You leaned back to put some sort of distance between you two, because if he looked at you like that again, you were sure you couldn’t control yourself.
The conversation settled, warm and comfortable between you two in that natural way it always did. But something else was always there, just under the surface. You felt it burn as your heart refused to calm down.
“How’d we end up on the floor, anyway?” Peter asked suddenly, cutting off his previous nerdy spiel. He smiled, tilting his head at you like a confused puppy as he turned the incense in his hands.
“Your roommate’s cheap-ass screw-top rosé, that’s how,” You responded, leaning back on your palms just so your hands would be occupied. Your calves were still draped across his legs, occupying the space like you belonged there.
You wanted to belong there.
“That makes sense,” He nodded sagely, his cheeks flushed pink in that way it always did when he drank. “It’s always the rosé.”
You used to see him everyday.
Maybe that’s the part that made the warmth in your chest turn to a sharp ache. Memories were rude that way, reminding you that it used to be good. It used to be everyday.
The next one was angry.
It happened at night. You don’t remember the time. You were supposed to be meeting up to go to a movie together. You only remember the look on his face as he opened the door to his dormitory.
“You’re late you know—“ Peter’s eyes met yours briefly before they spotted the mark on your neck. You’d never forget the way that friendly grin fell from his face, the way his eyebrows furrowed in a way that was never directed at you before.
Sitting right above your collarbone was a maroon mark. You knew it.
Over the last few weeks, you had convinced yourself that it would be better for both of you without your messy feelings getting in the way of every interaction.
So you distanced yourself. You stopped showing up every day, you stopped texting him first. You told yourself you needed time. You never were the type of person to sleep around, but after that night with the incense you needed your feelings gone. It happened last night.
It didn’t work. It only made you close your eyes and wish that it was Peter’s lips on your neck instead. That it was his hands on your hips, that it was his skin under your fingertips. Your feelings burned brighter without him around.
Unfortunately, absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Now that he stood there, looking at you like he’d never seen you before, you immediately regretted it.
“You’ve been busy, huh?” He asked, and his voice sounded like it was underwater.
“What?” You managed to choke out.
“You know what,” He scoffed, gesturing to his own collarbone. “Am I crazy? You didn’t say you were dating anyone—“
“I don’t have to!” You snapped.
“Well if you had plans, don’t cancel them on my account!” Peter shook his head, huffing out a sharp breath. “I had to call you three times to even see you tonight. If you were busy with some guy—”
“Are you kidding me?” You felt your voice raise in the middle of the dormitory building. “Why is that any of your business?”
“It’s not!” He laughed, though there wasn’t any humor in it. “It’s really not. I just—I really don’t understand what’s going on with you lately—“
Don’t say you miss me, you think. I won’t be able to stop myself.
“—Did I do something wrong?” He asked quietly, standing hollow eyed in the hallway. “You’re disappearing on me and—“
“You’re not my boyfriend, Peter. God, you don’t have to worry about me!” You interrupt him, and you immediately regret it.
The silence that follows is deafening. You can feel the tears prick at the corners of your eyes as you try to find the right words.
Apologize, your mind screams as your voice refuses to work.
“Peter—“
“No,” He shakes his head again, and you swore you saw his eyes watering. “Don’t. Don’t make this worse than it already is.”
“Wait, please—“ The door closed in your face before you could get another word out.
That one always stung the most.
It replayed over and over again in your head. You remember standing there long after the door closed, trying to come up with something to do, something to say. You remember the tears that tracked down your cheeks later that night when you sobbed with your head in your hands.
Ain’t that the way shit always ends?
It felt like the same tears that escaped out of your eyes now as you sat curled on your bed in the middle of the night. His memory hovered like a cloud over your head, haunting your dreams and your waking life.
The rust grew so fast between your telephone lines. It went from daily texts to weekly to nothing after that night. You typed and deleted so many messages that you could’ve sent, never finding the right words.
You knew it was your fault, and maybe that was the worst part of it all. Not the permanent ache in your chest, but the fact that you had driven the dagger through your own heart. You’d thought you’d never hear from him again. You told yourself it was for the best anyway.
Until your phone started to buzz on your nightstand.
You scramble for your phone, and you spot the contact name.
Peter❤️
You stare at it. Surely you were dreaming. Your hands are shaking so hard that you missed the answer button twice.
“…hello?”
His voice is so familiar it makes your heart ache harder than it has in a long time.
You’ve thought about what you would say hundreds of times. Rehearsed apologizes, love confessions, or even just asking about the weather. But the shock of hearing his voice for the first time in months has your words stuck in your throat.
“Peter?” You finally choke out.
“Yeah,” He says. “Yeah, it’s me. Look, I know this is random, but I just…” He sighs, long and slow suffering through the speaker pressed to your ear. “I miss you. Is that stupid?”
You don’t miss a beat.
“It’s not—it’s not stupid.” You answer. You could spill it all now, confess to the tears and the self deprecation you went through because you ruined your friendship. You could say how much you missed his endless talks about science, that it’s too quiet without him here. You could finally say that you love him, that you’ve loved him for a long time now.
And God, you wanted to say it all, but it feels like too much. Too heavy for the first conversation. So you just say the only thing that feels right:
“I miss you too.”
“Yeah?” You hear a relieved sigh on the other end. “That’s—that’s good. I just need to talk to you for a while. It’s been really rough lately and—“ You hear his voice thicken, and you’re already putting on your shoes before you register it.
“I’ll be there,” You walk right out of your dorm in your pajamas. “Let me in, okay?”
“You’re coming here? I—yeah.” Peter answers, and you can tell he’s startled. “Okay.”
It doesn’t take long until you’re at his door. You knock, and it swings open immediately like he was waiting for you.
The sight of him brings back the memories you tried so hard to suppress. His brown hair is messier than normal, sticking up in all directions like he’d been running his hands through it. His brown eyes were watery and puffy, like he’d been crying. He’s in that dorky science pun t-shirt that you got him for his birthday, and the sight of it makes your heart pound harder.
“Peter, I’m—“
You’re crushed in his arms before you can get the words out, pressed hard against the warmth of his body.
“I know,” He whispers. “I’m sorry too.”
You nod against his chest, tightening your arms around his middle.
You stay like that for a while, standing intertwined in the middle of the hallway. You forgot how good he smells, like clean laundry and that cologne that you always tease him for wearing.
“Where’d you go?” He asks, his voice thick and muffled against the top of your head. “How the hell did we lose sight of us?”
“I don’t know,” You respond, sighing as he finally pulls back just enough to see your face. He reaches up and wipes the tears from your cheeks with his thumb, so gentle, so soft that it makes your cheeks flush red under his fingers.
Your eyes flick down to your shoes, but his fingers slide under your chin to tilt your head back up.
“Hey, don’t hide,” He whispers when you meet his eyes, pushing your hair away from your face. His fingertips graze your face, and warmth blooms from where he touches. “There you are.”
“What are you doing?” You raise a brow, trying to put some of that familiar teasing energy back into the conversation before it went off the deep end into something you couldn’t take back.
“Shh,” He smiles as his eyes flick down to your lips and back up to your gaze. “I’m doing what I should’ve done a while ago.”
Your heart picks up speed as he leans in slowly, giving you every chance to pull away. Peter’s hand slides into the hair at the base of your neck, tangling in the soft strands. His breath ghosted over your lips before he finally closed the gap.
His lips were warm and slightly chapped, moving slowly and tentatively against yours. A small contented noise escaped his throat as you tilted your head to deepen it. Your hands fisted into his t-shirt as his back thudded against the hallway wall, and you felt him gasp against your lips at the bold move.
Peter pulled you flush against him as your tongue slipped into his mouth, tasting all of him in the way you only had in your dreams. A warmth spread through your chest, slow and steady like a fire in your veins.
When you finally parted, you rested your forehead against his. You were both breathing heavy, and you could feel his heart pounding in his chest, just as hard as yours was.
“…wow,” He breathed out, smiling as his eyes met yours. His pupils were blown wide, swallowing up his honey brown irises. His cheeks were flushed in that familiar way, but you knew it wasn’t because of the rosé this time.
“Yeah,” You agreed. You were close enough that you could feel the heat radiating from his face. “Wow.”
“I missed you so much,” He mutters, one of his thumbs tracing over your kiss-swollen bottom lip. The sensation sent a jolt of adrenaline down your spine. “You have no idea. I kept waiting for you to reach out. I thought you wanted nothing to do with me.”
“Peter—“
“I’m serious,” He says, huffing out a laugh as his eyes water again. “I thought you hated me for some reason. I couldn’t figure it out.”
“I don’t hate you,” You say. “I was…trying to stop myself from feeling like this towards you. I thought—I thought you didn’t like me that way and I couldn’t deal with it. I was a coward.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t call yourself that,” He reassures you, his thumb passing over your cheek to catch the stray tear that's falling. “We’re all a little scared sometimes.”
“I hurt you, though,” You protest, leaning into his touch. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, hey, look at me,” He whispers, tilting your chin up again to meet his gaze. “There you are. Listen to me, okay? I get it. I felt the same way. I thought there was no way in hell that you’d feel the same. I was scared of losing you. I’m not mad at you, I could never be mad at you. I’m just glad you’re here now,” He smiles at you in that endearing, dorky way that makes your heart thud faster. “Don’t beat yourself up over it, okay?” Peter squishes your cheeks in his hands, and you grin.
“Peter, cmon,” You huff out a laugh as he squishes your face again. “Stop it.”
“Nope,” He chuckles. “Come on, let’s hear it. You’re not gonna berate yourself right?”
“I won’t,” You protest.
“Good to hear.” Peter says, and you let out a small squeak as he bends down and quickly presses a kiss to your forehead. “Now, I think we should…catch up.”
“Peter,” You snort, though your cheeks still burn a bright scarlet under his hands.
“What? I’m serious,” He presses another kiss to your face, this time to your cheek before he whispers in your ear. “Just let me show you—” His hands squeeze your waist. “What you’ve been missing.”
Goosebumps run over your body as his lips brush your ear, his hands sliding from your face to your waist. “Yeah?” You respond. “Is it worth the wait?”
“Guess you’ll have to find out.” He chuckles, the familiar laugh suddenly sounding different, warmer in this context.
He kissed you again in the hallway then, his warm lips moving against yours in a way that’s becoming increasingly familiar. This one felt different, less hesitant and more wanting. It was scarlet like your cheeks were when you first saw him. It was burgundy like the wine he spilled on your t-shirt when you first met.
It was maroon.