September 6th, 2017
Observation 1.
Peter Parker has one friend, Ned Leeds.

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Nellie tapped her pen absentmindedly against the cafeteria table, her thoughts spinning around in her head like a twister. She let out a huff, her bangs becoming disheveled from the blast of air from her rosy lips.

"Let me guess, Peter Parker's life isn't as interesting as you thought, huh?" Michelle asked dryly, shooting Nellie an arched brow as she pulled apart the cheap cardboard milk carton in front of her.

"MJ, shut it. I picked him as my subject because he's one of those silent geniuses that everyone underestimates because he never speaks up during lectures. I know there is more to him than everyone thinks." Nellie argued, finally jamming her pen through her messy bun piled up on her head.

Today, she was giving up. Peter Parker was eating his lunch and staring at Liz Allan again for the third day in a row. She decided lunch time was not the time to observe this boy. She wasn't getting any interesting content for her news article yet.

"No," MJ rolled her eyes and chugged the entire milk carton. "You chose Peter as your subject because you have a massive crush on him."

Nellie widened her eyes in disbelief, "That is not true. I do not have a crush on him. I just think he is smart and intriguing."

MJ let out a chuckle along with what Nellie believed was a muffled burp, "Okay, Nel, the boy you find so smart and intriguing is literally drooling over Liz and has peanut butter smeared on his chin. Please, spare me. This is sad."

Choosing to ignore her friend and the judgment radiating from her, Nellie pushed her lunch tray away. She was too busy thinking about how she was going to write an A-worthy article before Winter Formal to eat, and watching MJ chug an entire school milk in under seven seconds was making her stomach all queasy.

"Oh, come on! Don't tell me you're ditching me for the library again. Lunch isn't over for another 20." MJ pouted, snatching the red apple from Nellie's lunch tray like a wild animal.

Nel's brows furrowed, "Dude, seriously?"

"You were done," MJ retaliated with a chunk of apple in her mouth.

"I'll see you in History. I've gotta go somewhere quiet so I can focus on this article."

Nellie reached for her lunch tray and gave Peter one last glance.

Yep, his eyes were still locked on Liz as she hung up the HOMECOMING banner over the doorway. Nellie really disliked Liz sometimes—not because she wasn't nice or anything, but because of how her skin glistened in the sunlight and her lipgloss always looked perfect. It was no surprise as to why Peter spent thirty minutes each day of the week just staring at her. Liz was a goddess walking among them all, and Nellie couldn't help but envy her just a bit.

MJ wasn't wrong when she speculated that she had a crush on Peter Parker. She did. She had for two years, secretly. However, her conversations with Peter usually were limited to the following:

'Hey, Peter, you study for that Psych test today?'

'What Psych test?'

And, end of conversation. This was the point Peter usually began shuffling through his backpack frantically in search of a crumpled up study guide that he'd never locate.

But that was alright with Nellie. It made him an eligible candidate to be her subject for the article. She wasn't supposed to choose someone she was friends with to write about, due to what Mrs. Hernandez considered 'personal bias' becoming an issue if you wrote about someone you knew.

Little did Mrs. Hernandez know, Peter Parker was no stranger to Nellie Jenkins. She'd went to school with him since fourth grade, and though they usually never exchanged more than those eleven words a year, she had come to learn a lot about him over the years.

She knew Peter was lactose intolerant. She knew his favorite color was red. She knew he lived with his Aunt May and he hadn't missed a day of school since he had the flu in sixth grade.

And she knew that his parents were no longer a part of the picture.

Nellie could relate to Peter, even if it was from a distance. Her father had abandoned her and her mom when she was just eleven, and her mom slipped so deep into another realm when she started taking pills, social services had Nellie removed from her home and placed into foster care only one year after her father left.

"Nel," MJ's voice snapped Nellie's attention away from Peter, who she now realized was looking at her from across the cafeteria.

"Huh?" She turned her attention to her friend.

"I think a fly just flew in your mouth. You better shut that thing ASAP, I'm not giving your ass CPR if you start choking."

Her cheeks turned pink in embarrassment, though it wasn't as if anyone else sat remotely close enough to the two girls to overhear their conversation. Nellie could just feel Peter's eyes still on them. She was more than relieved that the cafeteria was filled with babbling teens and he was more than five tables away, meaning he couldn't hear MJ and her verbal harassment.

"I'm going now." Nellie cleared her throat and gave her gal pal a brief eye-roll as she crossed the cafeteria and dumped her tray.

"So, who is your article for the school paper gonna be about?"

A male voice startled Nellie from behind. She nearly dropped the now-empty tray from her grasp.

Spinning around on her heel, she was faced by Ned Leeds—AKA, Parker's closest companion.

"Oh, hey, Ned. I'm not supposed to tell anyone who I'm writing about until the paper's published." Nellie explained, tucking a fly-away behind her ear.

Ned narrowed his eyes at the girl, "It's about me, isn't it?"

Nellie scrunched her nose and shook her head hesitantly, "No," she chuckled, "it isn't about you, Ned. Though, I'm sure you would've been a great subject for my article."

Shrugging his shoulders, he let out a snort, "Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking."

Nellie felt as though she could sense a bit of embarrassment now lacing his tone.

"I just noticed you were staring in my direction while writing things on your little notepad. Seemed serious, too. Your tongue was poking out a little while you scribbled away."

Nellie nearly choked on air. It wasn't Ned she was staring at—it was Peter, who of course, was sitting right next to him at the time.

As Peter crossed her mind once more, she glanced past Ned to see that he was no longer seated at the cafeteria table he had been at just a minute earlier.

"Stop harassing the poor girl, Ned!"

Nellie found herself twisting her neck to see Peter approaching from beside them, hiking his backpack further on his back.

"Don't let him fool you, he's already asked four other girls to Homecoming just today." Peter grinned, giving his buddy a slap on the back.

Ned's eyes nearly popped right out of his skull, "I-I wasn't asking her—"

Nellie thought she ought to save Ned from further embarrassment, especially as she was more than familiar with what it was like to have a friend whose hobby was publicly humiliating her.

"Ned was actually just asking me about the school newspaper is all. Which," she pulled her phone from her pocket to check the time, "isn't going to work on itself. I have a volleyball article due by the end of the day; it was nice talking to you, Ned."

She gave the trembling boy a small smile, her eyes then flickering over to Peter. This was the most they'd ever engaged in all their years of school together, and here she was, cutting it short due to a 'volleyball article' that didn't actually exist.

"You do the school newspaper?" Peter inquired, his eyes nearly sparkling as he looked down at her.

Damn you, Parker, she thought to herself.

"Sometimes, mostly just the little articles at the back. The stories no one actually reads," Nellie replied modestly. If there was one thing she didn't want to do, it was bring up the topic of the article she was choosing to write about him for.

In fact, she wasn't even sure how Ned knew about that. Only the people in her class were supposed to know. Blabber mouths.

"Well, the next paper that comes out, I'll be sure to turn it over and take a look," Peter grinned, taking a step back from her.

Nellie nodded shyly—normally she wasn't like this. She had no trouble speaking and engaging with people. But Peter Parker wasn't the average teenage boy. He was different. Now, she just had to figure out everything about him that made him so interesting in order for her to have the perfect article she needed.