has chosen to sit next to us. It's a little confusing, but I'm not complaining. Her presence is welcome, even if it's a bit off-putting.

If I were still keen on reading people's thoughts, I would love to read MJ's. Her head is full of them. She thinks she is much smarter than everyone else, that's for sure, and maybe she is, or maybe she's not. I wonder what it's like, to think you are smart. I wouldn't know, that's for sure.

Anthony is rattling off about some plans he has with Dantae later this week. He doesn't seem to care that MJ is listening, although MJ wouldn't have anyone to gossip with about Dantae's escapades with my brother. Dantae and I still haven't talked since he tried to beat the shit out of Sergio. I haven't talked to either of them about that night. Maybe Dantae did wipe away all of Sergio's feelings for me. My brain honestly feels like a slurry about the whole thing.

"It seems the spell you cast has been broken," MJ says.

I look up at her. Her interruption pulls me out of my interrupting brain. I lost Anthony a minute ago.

"What?" I ask.

She gestures to her left, "Liz Allen has a date to homecoming."

In all this chaos, I hadn't even thought about how soon homecoming is. I'm sure Anthony and I will go as each other's dates. I went with Harry last year and honestly so gross. Anyway, I follow the direction she is pointed in, and of course, it's Peter. Of course, he is taking out Liz Allen. Well, his crush on her was quite obvious even last year, but it still feels weird. Not only has Anthony kissed my brother, but now a guy I've kissed is going to kiss someone who has kissed my brother. That is if she hasn't already kissed my brother. All of this is super weird and uncomfortable.

"Good," I say.

"You're usually a good liar," Anthony says. "It's one of the things that makes it the most difficult to be your friend."

"Would you like me to pretend I'm happy?" I cross my arms over my chest. "I certainly didn't pretend to be happy when I found out about you and Dantae. This is absolutely worse."

"Well, you could talk to him," Anthony offers.

I roll my eyes, "fuck, Anthony, I hadn't thought about talking to him."

MJ snorts.

"You still haven't explained what happened that was so bad between the two of you that you ran away for months," he snaps. He might sound angry, but he isn't. Being around Dantae has made him somehow snappier. "Like, the kid couldn't hurt a fly."

Spiders are known to eat flies.

"Whatever," I say, crossing my arms.

I look at Peter. Reading his mind feels even more repulsive than before. He might be thinking about her. Now I am thinking about how he is thinking about her. Yeah, disgusting. I didn't like her when she was dating my brother, and dating Peter isn't really endearing her to me.

Now, I can't help but wonder what he felt when he saw me nearly making out with Sergio. I hope it was some similar feeling like this. Dantae would know for sure. I wish Dantae was in school, in senior year, just like Liz. He wouldn't go to Midtown since he isn't good at science and can't read minds, but a girl can dream.

Just like a girl can dream about how she could have not exploded her relationship with a kind superhero. It's almost as bad as the incident at the Bodega.

"Can you distract Dantae tonight?" I ask Anthony.

He grimaces like his sandwich is sour, "I don't like where this is going."

"I'm sure he told you that he and Sergio got in a fistfight," I explain.

"Please, I do not want to get in the middle of this," Anthony shakes his head.

Well, he is going to be forced in. If he didn't want to be involved in my family drama, he shouldn't have started screwing my brother, "come on."

"I already lied to him and said Sergio kept his hands to himself at the party," Anthony continues. "I'd rather not betray him again."

"I need a date to homecoming and Sergio-"

"Nope!" Anthony cuts me off. "No way."

"I can't go alone," I shake my head.

"Well, I'm going alone," Anthony says. "Aren't I enough for you?"

I pout my bottom lip. He glares at me with daggers. They are worse than when I woke him up after my very first encounter with Spider-man when I showed up at his house in the middle of the night with illegal materials.

Then, he groans, "fine. Just, I like lilies."

"What?" I ask.

"For my funeral," he says.

I roll my eyes, but I text Sergio and ask him if he wants to meet me at a mall nearby after school. It has an arcade, and Sergio actually likes games as far as I can tell. He texts back quickly that he will be able to meet me there.

The rest of the day it takes everything in my power to concentrate on my school work. Sophomore year is much harder, and I cannot for the life of me tell if it's because the material is substantially harder, or if refusing to read teachers' minds makes learning the content harder.

In physics, Peter passes me a note.

Read my mind if Mr. Harrington asks you any questions about the mousetrap car.

I had forgotten that we were supposed to present today.

We get the mouse trap cars set up, and of course, ours goes the farthest, no thanks to me. Mr. Harrington asks all the teams a bunch of questions. I explain our results without reading Peter's mind for the most part. I only had to go in once to find the weight of the CDs we initially used compared to the records that we ultimately went with for our mousetrap car. Peter puts on a show of high-fiving me when we get our prizes. Dantae would be able to tell me if it was genuine.

Eventually, school is over, and I race to the arcade. Sergio is already at a machine near the front.

"Hey," I call out as I move up next to him.

He doesn't look over at me, eyes still on the screen. He's got a nasty bruise on his cheekbone.

"My brother, huh?" I ask.

He shrugs, "he's a good brother."

"He's a shithead," I correct. "He's probably making out with my best friend as we speak."

"Well," Sergio pauses. He doesn't say anything for a minute.

"Homecoming is this Friday," I offer, trying to smile.

He laughs, "and you're trying to piss off your brother or Peter?"

I feel my heart sink. Peter, definitely. Maybe this isn't fair to Sergio. At least, it's causing a lot of problems for him and my brother, and they've been friends for ages. He shouldn't risk anything just to try and win me over. It's not going to work.

"Hopefully Peter," he says, finally looking over. His character dies in the game, but he doesn't seem to mind. He's nowhere near the leaderboard either. "As you can see from my face, making your brother mad sucks."

Yeah, he's right. In addition to the cut on his cheekbone, he's got a split lip. I miss when it was him, Manu, and Dantae doing graffiti. Before I almost kissed Sergio, before we lost the Bodega, before Manu was shot, and before my brother and Manu were arrested.

"I don't want to lead you on," I decide.

He shrugs, "I mean, I'm the one following. You're not the big bad wolf. Hell, I'm not as naive as little red riding hood either. I know what you're doing. I'm game."

It's tempting. It really is. I had fun dancing with him at Liz Allen's house. Sergio is nice company, and he's fun and exciting, and you know, sometimes it's fun to do things that make my brother a little mad because as much as I love my brother I hate him equally.

Then again, I felt my stomach slip when I thought about Liz Allen and Peter. It's not just because she's my brother's ex. If it were anyone else, I would still feel nauseous. I'm not ready. I want Peter back, even though I only barely had him in the first place.

"I was just wondering if you were planning on doing a grand gesture worth something around three thousand dollars, but you didn't have three thousand dollars, what would you do?"

Sergio grins and he cracks his knuckles, "let's see how many tickets I rack up with the tokens I currently have."

~~~~~

OMG lol, it was bothering me that this wasn't completed and I only had like five chapters left including this one. So, I am hoping to power through this bad boy so I can add it to the list of my completed works. Holy Hell. If anyone even knows this exists anymore, let me know, but I am doing this for me.