Chapter 18

The next morning, you woke up in your apartment by yourself. You smiled when you remembered your encounter with Peter at the club. You don't think you'd been looking at him the way he had been looking at you for the last 10 months, but the last three weeks, you'd definitely noticed him.

All the little things with him were now making a lot more sense. It wasn't just situational. It wasn't just because you were close, and things were starting. The things were already there for Peter, and you now realised that he had been holding himself back.

You stopped smiling when you remembered that it technically meant you cheated on your boyfriend. Not physically, but this was definitely emotional cheating that you were doing.

You didn't want to ever be that person. Although Ruby was right in some senses - your relationship with Adam was pretty much dead already.

Adam had called you that morning, asking when you disappeared as he'd 'only just seen your texts'...12 hours later. He was defensive when you replied that you both looked for him and tried calling him, but you didn't have enough motivation to challenge him on it.

Then you called Ruby, and rehashed last night in a sober light. You had a plan for confronting him. In a few days, on Wednesday, it was Adam's birthday, and you'd been invited round to his mum's for dinner. You were going to confront him then, in front of his mum. He might be a lying bastard, but he was a mummy's boy, so he wouldn't lie as easily in front of her.

By the time the evening rolled round, you were exhausted from your planning, and you were watching TV while eating your takeout on the couch. That was, until you heard a tapping on your window.

You looked to the window to see a red suit on the other side. You went up to it, pushing your window open, and came face to face with the infamous Spiderman, aka, Peter.

"Hi." You said softly. He reached up and pulled his mask off his face.

"Hi. Checking you're okay. You never replied to my text." He said.

"Sorry, I haven't checked my phone in a while. But yeah, I'm okay."

"I followed him again today. He left the apartment a few hours ago, and went into a building over on Central."

"You don't have to do that."

"I didn't see who he was meeting there, but I'll go back and see if I can find out."

"Peter, it's fine."

"It's not fine." He said, putting his hand on your cheek as he leaned over your windowsill. "I just want to help you finish this. You don't deserve him doing this to you, and the quicker he's out of your life, and the quicker we can..."

You nodded in his hand, and he leaned forward slightly, before you visibly stilled, making him freeze. He rested his forehead against yours, his mouth setting in a straight line.

"I know..." He whispered. "I'm sorry, I know."

Instead, he moved so that he could kiss your forehead, his lips lingering, and then he pulled back. "Gotta go." He said before pulling his mask back on, and then you were watching him swing away from you.

A couple of days later, you were walking home to your place. Tomorrow was Adam's birthday. The day you were going to end it all. You'd been rehearsing your speech since Peter came to your window, you'd ran it past Ruby, and you felt ready.

You didn't care what his reason for working late was anymore. When you first thought of what to say, you were going to ask him, but as you perfected your speech, you realised that it made no difference. His lies had been driving a wedge between you for months, and up until now, you had just taken it. Accepting it without a second thought.

Well right now was your second thought. Adam was an asshole. A lying asshole. And you weren't taking it anymore.

As you turned the corner to your building, you spotted a scrabble outside.

Outside your door.

As you ran up, shouting at the pair, and as you got closer, you realised that you recognised them.

"What the- Adam?! Peter?! What the fuck!" You shouted as you approached them, shoving your hands between them, trying to separate them while keeping your head away from the flying punches. "STOP!" You yelled, finding a gap in their fight to push them apart.

They both stumbled away from each other, Peter falling to the ground, and Adam spit blood out of his mouth.

"What the fuck is going on? Why are you fighting on my fucking doorstep?!" You screamed at them, looking between them as neither one spoke. "Adam, why are you here?"

Adam looked at you. "I came to see my fucking girlfriend. Then this guy is waiting outside and starts-"

"I didn't start shit!" Peter snapped, as he scrambled to stand up. You held a hand out to him, making him stop in his tracks. Peter breathed heavily as he wiped his mouth, looking at his hand briefly as the blood transferred to his fingers.

"Adam," You said as you turned back to your boyfriend. "I'm seeing you tomorrow." You added bluntly. "Me and Peter have plans tonight."

Adam scoffed at you, putting his hands on his hips.

"I thought that you would rather come and spend the evening at mine, not watching movies with your 'bestie'."

"Adam," You rolled your eyes as you felt Peter tense up again. "I'm seeing you tomorrow. For your birthday. Tonight, I have plans." You said, keeping your ground as he kept your eyes on him.

"Fine." Adam finally muttered, glaring at Peter as he passed the two of you and stormed off down the street.

You took a few breaths before turning to Peter. You grabbed his hand and pulled him into your apartment.

Peter didn't say a word as he let himself be dragged through the building, up the stairs, through your door, down the hall and into the bathroom. You pushed him harshly onto the toilet and started clattering in the cupboard under the sink. Peter watched, in silence, as he started touching his face and feeling around until he found where it was cut, hissing in pain at the contact. You whipped back around and slapped his hand away from his face, then wet the washcloth in the sink and squeezed the water out. Kneeling in front of him, your face a mixture of thunderous anger and an expression that read 'you dumbfuck', he stayed quiet as you started to wipe away the trickling blood from his cheek. You were both trying to avoid each other's eyes, both of you breathing heavily in the echoing bathroom.

He licked his lips before trying to speak.

"Thank you." He whispered, making your eyes flick up to his briefly before your face hardened and you reached behind you and rinsed the cloth. "Luka..." he sighed.

"Shut up and let me clean you up." You muttered, bringing the cloth back up and getting the last bits of blood.

After another 30 seconds of angry silence, he couldn't take it anymore.

"We didn't have plans." He whispered, making your hands falter. You ignored him as you took the cloth away, chucking it in the sink and getting a clean towel. You reached up to his face again, but he grabbed your wrist, making you stop. "Why did you say that?"

"I'm guessing that you came over unannounced for a reason." You replied, pulling your wrist out of his grasp and drying his face.

"I did." He shifted slightly. "You've just...since I sent you that picture, you haven't..."

"What picture?" You interrupted.

"What...Luka the picture. From the club. Of Adam?" He said, feeling very confused when you frowned at him. "I sent it the other day."

"Peter, I never got a picture from you."

"No I definitely sent it to you, after you left the club, like 2am?"

"I'm telling you, I did not receive a picture from you."

He scoffed and got his phone out of his pocket. You leaned back as he tapped on his phone then held it out to you. You took it, breathing in as you saw the image on the screen.

A cold sweat flooded through you.

Nodding, you handed the phone back to him. Then you started to clear up the bathroom as the nausea bubbled inside your stomach. He was watching you in silence, waiting for the reaction that you never gave him.

"Are you okay?" He asked after a few moments.

"Yeah." You replied, chucking the cloths into your laundry basket, then aimlessly rearranging the stuff on top of your sink.

"Luka," He said, standing up and putting a hand on your arm, making you still. "I thought it's what you wanted. Proof that he-"

"Yeah, it is." You snapped, whipping round to him. "To see my boyfriend wrapped around some other woman! Exactly what I fucking wanted."

Peter didn't reply. He just grabbed your shoulders and pulled you into his chest, wrapping his arms around you and burying his face in your hair. You thought about pushing him off, but then something broke inside you, and you started crying into his chest.

Somehow, the thought of Adam cheating on you all this time was different from physically seeing it. It was very different to actually knowing.

Peter just held you tight, whispering soothing words into your hair as your mind spiralled. You wondered how long it was happening. Wondered how he was so blase, making out with someone just on the street. You wondered if he knew you'd already left the club at that point.

You wondered if he regretted it at all.

You finally caught your breath again, and pulled back slightly, wiping your eyes dry. The solid chest you'd been resting on shifted, and you looked up to see Peter was now looking down at you.

His hand moved to your face.

"What can I do?"

You looked at Peter, as he waited for your response. You were angry. Enraged. But, there was only one response that you could think about giving him.

A response that you no longer felt that you would regret.