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Michelle folded her arms over her chest.“Yes, I’m fine, completely fine. I barely even knew him.” she spoke into her phone. “No of course I’m sad. I’m not completely numb to the world.” she let out a small bitter laugh. “Yeah, ok fine I’ll see you tonight, coming home for thanksgiving weekend, Mom, I gotta go, I have class now. It’s not like high school, now I actually need to attend the classes to do well.”She hung up, stabbing the ‘end call’ button with her finger.
Of course I’m sad.
She should be sad. It was the proper response after all, the effect after the cause. She could picture it written down properly as a fact- ‘if someone known to a person dies, then the person will be sad’. But if she had to confront the one thing pervading her mind ever since she had heard the news, not even directly, overheard from two students whispering in hushed voices glancing her way, if she had to identify the lead in the pit of her stomach that hit her as they explained, pity in their eyes, it wasn’t sorrow.It was anger.She wasn’t sure at whom she was angry, but the rage filled her nevertheless at the sheer stupidity of it, of the idiocy of how things had happened. Of how one day he was there in front of her, talking about something with some other guy, running a hand through his already messed up brown hair, eyes bright and vibrant, laugh ringing out loud and alive, and the next he was gone. No not ‘gone’. Michelle refused to let her mind do that, make it sound better than it was, like everyone kept saying, as though he was just ‘gone’ for the weekend. He was dead. And he was never coming back.She kept walking down the path, kicking a loose stone ahead of her, letting her hair fall into her face. She did have class now, about that she had not lied, but that wasn’t where she was heading. She had planned to go back to her own room, but a quick glance in, enough to see her perpetually perky roommate sitting on the bed with two of her friends, confirmed that she needed to look elsewhere for some proper alone time. She made her way back to the back of the building, her mind flitting back to the only person who had found her there, poking his head in with that stupid smile appearing as he saw her.“What’re you doing here?” She had asked.“You left your book behind.” He had held it out, and she had taken it, both of them standing awkwardly, not exactly knowing what to say. They had become friends over the senior year, and, the rage faded a bit as she remembered at the end of their final decathlon, the thrill of the win and the grin that spanned his entire face prompting her to pull him towards her, and kiss him. But then….life had happened, and they both agreed that they didn’t want to go to college in a relationship, it didn’t make sense, it wouldn’t work out. Michelle had made half these arguments herself, they were right, they were logical, and she hated them. They were still friends, but over the months they had drifted, him finding new friends and her finding a group of people she could tolerate being around. But she had still kept track of him, in the back of her mind, seeing him out of the corner of her mind. And now she wouldn’t even be doing that. The rage came back full force, an ice cold streak of raw anger, that this should happen, that the life of a nineteen year old kid who was kind of awkward, kind of funny, very smart, very kind, very- very him should end this way. A car accident they had said. Some driver didn’t see the sign, someone had the wrong signal, someone had screwed up, and this was the consequence. And it was just stupid.She turned to leave, unable to stay in one place, filled with an energy she couldn’t contain when something caught her eye, the tail of knapsack trailing out from under some pipes. She didn’t know why she did it, why she picked up the bag, why she had unzipped it to reveal the red and black suit inside. She didn’t know why she pulled it out, why she looked on the bottom of the bag where she saw a small label, fallen off from something else with the initials P.P. She knew she should put it back. She should leave it and walk away. The rage thundered through her as she held the suit, the owner of which she now knew would never be coming back. In a split second decision, she took hold of the lightning coursing through her veins and compressed it tightly, hiding it away, where she knew it would only grow, where she would have to let it out later, grabbed the suit stuffed it back into the knapsack and left, back to her room, now empty, the girls having to actually go to class. She crossed to her desk, drawing out the suit and let her eyes rove over the surface, turning it inside out and admiring it despite herself. It was more than just multi colored textiles, that much was clear. She found the places where it could be connected to a computer, found the different pockets, the different equipment holders, and just stared for several minutes before putting it back into the bag and crossing to the larger bag she had packed for the weekend. She was going to need more space.She spent the four hour ride on her laptop, wires trailing into her bag where she kept the suit just under the zippered surface, going through the coding within. The deeper she went the more she realized she needed to get out, this was stark level coding right there, but she felt no fear as to what would happen if she got caught, just a mild annoyance at having to bypass so many barriers to disable communication, security and tracking, the lead in her stomach still present, and still bottled up tightly but ever growing rage in her mind.She went through the motions of coming home mechanically, the hugs the ‘how are you’s until she was finally alone in her room, with the suit. She took it out gingerly, and, as though watching someone else, a stranger in her body, she donned it, before pressing the spider emblem on her chest, feeling it conform to her body, and the AI come online.“Peter Parker, welcome b-” the smooth female voice began before cutting off.“Yeah.” Michelle muttered. “Not Peter. He’s not wearing this anymore.”“I’m sorry, would you care to tell me your name?”Michelle paused before giving the name she had stopped going by after high school, the one that now nobody called her.“MJ”“Hello MJ. Welcome to the spidersuit! I am Karen. Would you like to view the tutorial?”“Yes.” Michelle answered immediately, determined to learn all she could, sitting through Karen explaining how it worked and how, in fact, it could help her, not be spiderman of course, she didn’t possess the athletic skill, but maybe, she thought, she didn’t need to. Karen finished the tutorial with-”And of course Peter has experience, you can talk with him if you have further questions.”“Peter’s gone.” She hated saying it, and realised, talking to a computer she could just spit it out. “Peter’s dead.”There was a moment of silence.“I’m sorry.” Michelle added.“There is no reason to be sorry. I am a computer. I do not express any emotions. I only work and fulfill my tasks.”Michelle opened the window of her bedroom and slid out, the suit’s adhesive’s letting her climb down the wall.“Allright. Let’s work.”