THE MAKEUP PROVIDED BARELY COVERED UP THE BRUISES left on me, and it took more and more to make it appear like I hadn't a single trace of Freya left on me. I plastered it on carefully, layer by layer, finally stopping dissatisfied as the now extremely fake-looking face of Emily Newman appeared.

Moving back, I frowned, staring at the mirror and the almost dead eyes that watched back. It looked fake, just like everything else in this world - at this point, I wasn't sure how anyone truly fell for the lie that was Emily Newman. I knew I wouldn't.

Still, it would have to do, and I stepped away to grab the last thing to layer on my face. I was filled with a dull eagerness to leave the room and get the day over and done with already. The less time I had to waste staring at my own broken and bruised face and watch it transform into the innocence that made up Emily, the better. Otherwise, I knew I'd surely break myself before anyone else could lay a finger on me.

It was going to be difficult. I couldn't lie to myself on that; seeing Peter so desolated and down was going to be a torturous task in itself, but dealing with the struggles of pretending to be a shattered identity wasn't going to help. I didn't want to do it, and I wasn't even sure if I could do it. Being Emily Newman took so much out of me that at that point, I wasn't sure what I had left. Without her, I was slowly becoming nothing.

"Just a few more days," I muttered, breaking the silence that hung off every surface possible, including my own weary shoulders. "Just a few more days, and then it's all over. You - I - can do this. You have to do this. For Peter. You...you owe it to him."

Maybe I should stop giving my own self-failed pep talks in the mirror, I mused, maybe then things could actually start moving and I could accomplish what I came for.

...

A hand coming out of nowhere startled me out of my thoughts, and I flipped around to stare wide-eyed at Gwen, who had raised her arms in a hasty surrender at my expression. She quickly backed up and waved her arms wildly as though she was soothing a wild animal. "Whoa, sorry girlie, I just - I just wanted to get your attention, that's all. You okay?"

"Yeah, no, sorry, I'm fine. Just tired." 

"Can I talk to you, then?"

I glanced back up in another bout of surprise, this time with a tinge of worry clouding my thoughts. "Sure, okay."

Gwen took the lead and I followed her through the halls until we were in a smaller, more reclusive area, where fewer people sat and spoke at the top of their lungs and more were either studying or crying - a strange contrast that didn't make much sense to me, but not one I was eager to question. She gestured for me to sit down beside her in one patch of tiled floors, which gave off a somewhat bitter smell, and watched me with the dark eyes I had grown to admire; they were focused and seemingly always sure of what they were trying to get.

"So."

"So?"

She sighed and patted my hand comfortingly, immediately making me tense and drawback. "Look, Em, I heard about what happened - yesterday, you know, with you and Peter? Mary Jane and I heard about everything."

Immediately, my throat caved in and the lump in my stomach increased tenfold, leaving me to stare and grit my teeth through the waves of pain that echoed at the sound of the event. I fought the urge to rip apart the skin on my lip. "Oh."

"Look, Peter wouldn't get into it, but he..." the girl trailed off, unsure of her words, and sighed. "I and well, everyone else thought you liked him. I think even he thought that was what was going on - which, let me tell you, having your hopes up for a pretty girl like you just to have them be crushed is pretty heartbreaking to a guy like him - or to anyone, I think. And I'm not sitting here saying you had to say yes to him because love is from the heart and all that shit, but...he was really upset. As in, I haven't seen him that upset since Ben. Losing him was worse, but he's really shaken up about this."

Gwen kept her voice light and pleasant up until the end, but it wasn't hard to know that she was harbouring a secret anger towards me and my actions - and it also wasn't hard to think that anyone connected to him shared that hidden hatred for me right about now. I couldn't really blame them, either; after all, if I had been in that situation with the same mindset and hopes, I - Emily - would be crushed too. Crushes were an unfamiliar, almost childish feeling area I wasn't familiar with, but if Peter's heart felt as bad as mine did, I could easily understand his pain and what he was going through.

I sighed. "I didn't want to hurt the guy, I just thought it was best for him. Peter's a great guy, and he deserves the best. Whatever that is for him, it's not me."

It wasn't hard to tell that the girl wasn't totally sure of my logic or words - which made sense, from what she knew about me - but nodded along slowly. "Well, okay, but he...he asked you, not whoever you think is the best. Doesn't that mean something to you?"

"It means everything to me," I whispered, biting back tears welling behind clumsily thrown up walls. "But Peter needs someone who can match him perfectly, and I'm not that girl. He needs someone who treats him right."

"Em, what are you going on about - why are you talking like this? Treats him right? What were you planning to do, tie him up in your basement and torture him?" Gwen gasped a little at the thought, shuddering to herself even as she spoke. "You're a kid, this is high school, and it's not like this will change your future forever or something!"

"I need him to be - he doesn't need me. He doesn't want me, he just thinks he does. Trust me, I'm not that great, and he - Peter is a good guy. I can't hurt him like that."

She stood up right after my exit, short heels clicking after me as I stumbled away. "Em, is everything okay? You don't sound like yourself anymore - what's gotten into you? Is something wrong that we don't know about? I mean, you seemed okay the other day, but if something is bothering you, I want to help!"

I didn't stop, only continuing on my clumsy path - not even sure where I was heading, just knowing I needed to be alone. "I'm fine, I just...I'm fine. Everything's fine."

"Look-" Gwen's hand hit my shoulder and whirled me around, pools of worry shining back at me. "Emily, if something's going on, we're here to help you. Even Peter; if you're not okay, I want to help you. You're my friend. It's what I'm here for."

Her voice had broken on the last syllables, making it even harder for me to face a mollified expression. "I know, and, um, thanks. I'm okay, really, I just...I just need some time, is all. Everything will work itself out, I know it, okay?" I glanced backwards, smiling as we stood in front of my first class. "Can we still meet for lunch?"

She hesitated and when she nodded me my reply, it was short and sad, as if she wasn't even sure of her answer. "Yeah, okay. See you then, I guess."

"Okay."

As the girl walked away, a considerably smaller skip in her step then before, I sighed. She was too good for the world, and especially too good for me - no matter what I said about her being irritating and flaky, Gwen Stacy was a good person with a good heart, and I was slowly breaking it to pieces, just like everyone else's.

However, my pain of the choice I made wouldn't end there; as I stepped into the room, my eyes immediately, almost by habit, drew to Peter's, who had been looking right back at me too. Pain locked with sadness, and it was like I was drowning in the pain I had caused him, pulling me deeper and deeper into the whirlpool that was the boy's tormented mind. It was-

"-Ms Newman?"

In an instant, the moment was shattered to pieces, and the boy looked back down, not recognising me anymore. I was left to turn to the teacher, who was raising an eyebrow and gesturing to the spot I took. "Are you going to sit down?"

"Yeah, right, sorry." Slumping down at the desk, I spared one last glance his way, but he had seemingly blocked me out altogether, focusing all his attention on the board and anything but me. He was still hurting, from the stormclouds coating his eyes, but he had built back up the walls that shrouded anyone from seeing his pain, leaving me to wallow outside in my own hurt and regret. 

It took every single bit of whatever strength left in my body not to rush over and make things right - in a perfect world, I would in a heartbeat. Of all the things I had built up an immunity to, somehow he broke that all down and seeing him sad made me feel like the worst person alive. He didn't deserve that from me.

He didn't deserve any of it.

...

"I just don't know what I did wrong, Ned. How did I mess up?"

Silver streams of tears fell and joined the river flowing off my bed, flooding me in my own hurt and regret. The tiny recording device laid beside me, but I hardly acknowledged the faint words coming out of it. I had listened to it so many times, I knew exactly what was being said, forwards and backwards. I had tuned it out and it simply played in the back of my dreary thoughts, Peter's frantic voice acting as a subconscious tear-jerker as I sat alone.

He sounded so hurt. He was so innocent. He didn't understand what I did and why I had done it. I couldn't blame him for that, for after all, I had done, it seemed like his move would be right on time. Peter no doubt gave himself a pep talk in the mirror like he was prone to do, and worked hard on perfecting his speech so that he wouldn't mess it up - though nerves never did help the poor boy - and he was all prepared to return back home victorious. 

Instead, he had received nothing but a freshly broken heart.

I did not regret my decision to do what I had done. It was what needed to be done; he needed to believe that I didn't want him because otherwise, he'd mess up the plan. If I became alienated and cold, he wouldn't care about me, and then once the time arose, he could go back to a normal life. Who knew? Maybe, I mused, he would go out with another girl. I knew he had had feelings for the one Allen girl, so it was entirely possible that they would strike up a relationship. I wouldn't know, and I didn't really care to find out.

My hand shook as it pressed the pen to the blank paper, but it remained firm as the first letters emerged from the glossy ink. It read nothing more than 'Of Grave Importance' after a long minute, but it was still the beginning of a victory. I would have to write many of these letters, a task that would take a great deal of time and a great deal of secrecy, but I knew I could do it. I didn't have much of a choice.

The repeat of his conversation with Ned was getting too much. I snapped out a hand to turn it off and dropped the device back to the sheets, losing it amidst scattered papers and clothing and everything else that would hide such a tiny machine. I'd no doubt lose it and have to spend a few valuable minutes to find it, but I did not really care to do so.

More words fell onto the paper, and soon I had struck up a rhythm; my hand stroked the paper carefully but quickly, making sure to spell everything perfectly and make sense so that the reader wouldn't have any trouble with figuring out the story. They needed to make sense and they needed to be believable. I could not guarantee the latter, but I would do everything in my power to ensure the former.

The tick, tick, tick of a clock echoed from a while away, and behind me and closed blinds, the sun began to emerge from the clouds to coat New York in a glossy red sunset. The scuffle from Inga outside began to tap out a small beat, and as my hands shook and I hurried to finish, I lost myself in the quiet music of America's beloved city.

This chapter is a bit jumpy, I know; for this and I believe up until chapter forty, it's going to have that sort of style because I'm trying to pack in the important details into one chapter, rather than dedicating another chapter for something easily explained. However, I hope you guys still enjoyed; I don't mind this chapter, I think it's a good development of Freya's mental health and how hard it is for her to maintain all the lies being thrown everywhere. I got some comments about this and let me just remind people that she's not the Black Widow, even though she wants to be; she's always been told she's not good enough and now that she has an opportunity to prove otherwise, she's blowing that on a civilian, so to speak. I dunno, I think that would take a toll on anyone. 

Also, before people say anything because I've had someone say this before - she doesn't literally cry that many tears, no. It's a hyperbole and she's just crying and I guess picturing herself drowning in it all. Don't come at me please darlings, I'm trash for horrid descriptive writing.

Thank you for reading!