CHAPTER TWO.
I'LL TELL YOU A SECRET

" Because if someone told him this was a dream he would actually believe them. "

THE most difficult part, taking into account the dragging of an unconscious drunk girl, finding the car at the end of the curb, opening said car while supporting said girl, and helping her inside was: not waking her up in the process. See this is why it could have been any other person, but god, did it have to be her. And of course, it didn't work. Peter had the backseat door open, helping Amelia inside when she stirred. She mumbled something. Peter didn't catch it. He pulled back, one hand on the car door, and stepped away to go.

"You didn't answer," Amelia mumbled. Peter turned. Amelia was sitting up, looking expectantly at him. "You're in my physics class, right?" Peter nodded slowly. "What's magnetic flux?" she slurred.

Peter let out an absurd laugh, caught off guard. "What?"

"Get in," she said. "Tell me what magnetic flux is, I can't remember." 

Peter got in. Peter told Amelia about magnetic flux. Amelia laughed.

AMELIA should not have drunk this much. Her head was buzzing and her vision was glazed and rose-colored. She was only half aware of what she was speaking and what she was doing. The other half of her was sleeping. She remembered when she came to. She was sitting in a car. The backseat smelled of gasoline and lavender. This was no doubt her own car. There was also a sound in her ear, a sound of mindless bubbling joy that somehow made her heart grow twice its size. She turned her head.

Peter Parker was sitting beside her in the backseat of her car, his face scrunched up from laughter. He said something like, "You never show it."

Amelia asked, "Show what?"

Peter seemed to come to a halting pause. Maybe he realized how her speech wasn't slurred anymore or how her tongue didn't feel like clouds. His face was like a deer caught in headlights. "What did I say?" She sounded almost embarrassed, the top of her cheeks flaring red.

Peter hesitated, "That you don't like Flash."

Amelia said, "Oh." She shook her head. Her hair danced with the movement. "I keep my opinions to myself. I don't know him personally enough to say he's a bad person."

Now there was the Amelia Sóng Peter Parker knew. Articulate and always right. Peter nodded slowly. The silence stretched awkwardly. Drunk Amelia had not been hard to talk to. Superior high-school genius Amelia, adored by students and teachers alike made him terrified of opening his mouth and making a fool out of himself. She seemed unapproachable and unattainable. 

Amelia wrung her hands together. She was acutely aware of the fact that her dress did not reach her knee and that her hair was a frenzied mess. She did not feel physically sick anymore so that was a win but the crushing silence was definitely going to be a blow to emotional health. She cleared her throat. "Where are Gemma and Monika?"

"Oh, um," Peter's voice got trapped in his throat, cracking like a teenager going through puberty which he definitely did not want to be at the moment. No, thank you! He swallowed. He said, "Uh, Monika went back in, something about a bet so Gemma went after her." He didn't mean to put it like a question but his voice raised at the end. He suspected if there was such a thing as second-hand drinking or was that only about smoking. At Amelia's silence, he turned to look. The atmosphere in the car tensed and Peter raised her eyebrows again at the heavy air.

Amelia was craning her neck to get a glimpse at the house from the window. She mumbled something like, "We shouldn't have come." She shifted and in a flash was opening the door on her side and climbing out. Peter, slow to react, opened his door and stepped out.

Seeing her striding away, he stretched his arm out in front of her. "Hey, hey, woah, where are you going?" 

Amelia's lips were stretched wire-thin. She maneuvered her way around him and jerked open the driver's side door. As she ducked to sit in, she said, "Get in." Peter hesitated. She was drunk. He did not know if she could drive well. And this car looked like it had had a rough day. Amelia huffed at Peter's hesitance. "Relax, we'll just circle round the block. I need to clear my head. Driving does that."

Peter hesitated again. But he got in the passenger side. She inserted the key and turned and the car came to life. As she started down the cul de sac, Peter observed was that the car was loud. Deafening, almost drowning out the song on the retro radio. Who even had a radio in their car nowadays? As she sped up, the cold air from outside rushed in, nipping at their skins. The biting cold was enough to rejuvenate them, make them feel more awake. Peter closed his eyes for a moment.

This was nice. The silence in the car didn't feel awkward anymore, not a burden. But a mutual understanding now. Neither of them had any words to say, neither of them wanted to say any words. Amelia felt her thoughts pause, felt her neurons slow their processing of information. She would worry about Monika and money and bets and Gemma when she saw them next. Her right-hand grip on the stick shift tightened as her hair swept her face against the wind. Here she was no longer Amelia Sóng, daughter of a business tycoon, survivor of an impossible and deadly crash, trust fund child with a decorated future ahead of her.

Here she was Amelia Sóng, a fifteen-year-old kid, buzzed-driving down suburb roads with the smartest boy in school sitting next to her.

As the road ran under them, something in Peter took root. The restless part of him quietened and felt his heart slow and the beats in his wrist calmed. Here, he was no longer Peter Parker, student of Midtown High by day, super-hero vigilante by night. 

Here he was Peter Parker, a fifteen-year-old kid sitting in the passenger seat of his crush's car at eleven o'clock in the night. His eyes popped wide open. Eleven. May was going to kill him.

As if Amelia heard him, she cut right and took a very illegal U-turn. Peter was thrown hard left and grabbed for the overhead support. She said sheepishly, "Sorry." He chuckled. When they arrived back in front of the house, she idled the car. Peter would get out but her whole demeanor had changed in just thirty seconds. He followed her gaze to the patio where Monika was talking, more like arguing with a guy, and Gemma was trying desperately to try and talk sense into them. Peter's senses told him that he should go help, try and break a fight before it happened. Believe it or not, Monika was famous for fistfights more than the boys. What was he talking about, of course, you believe that.

But as if sensing him move, Amelia reached out and put her hand on his, keeping him there. Her eyes were still glued to the scene. "Just wait," she whispered like some unwanted emotion was holding back her regular articulated speech. "Gemma will sort it out."

And sure enough the next moment Gemma and Monika were walking towards them. Well, Gemma was walking, Monika was more like stomping. Behind them, Ned followed. The back door opened and Monika shuffled in followed by Gemma. Peter turned to leave but Amelia had yet to let go of his hand. If he didn't have super-strength he would actually tell her she was crushing his hand. And if he didn't have quick-healing he would tell he was going to get a bruise. Amelia, voice still strained, leaned her head out and waved at Ned. "Want a lift?" she asked politely.

She was always polite. To everyone. Ned raised his eyebrows but then spotted Peter in the passenger seat. Then lowered his gaze and spotted Amelia's hand on Peter's. Peter pursed his lips and glared at him to not say anything. Ned nodded at Amelia's offer pretty enthusiastically. He slid in and shut the door after him.

The car went ghost quiet. Amelia removed her hand from over Peter's. Gemma asked quietly if she was well enough to drive to which she replied, "Yes."

They started. They drove. Peter told her the address to his apartment on 15th Street, Queens.

Amelia gripped the staring wheel very hard. Her eyes set front, her knuckles white. The door had shut after Ned and there had been absolute silence since then. Not even that shitty another century radio was on. When she spoke, he almost jumped under his skin. 

"Jesus," she whispered under her breath and looked at Monika in the rearview mirror. Monika was glaring out the left side window, looking at nothing. "Jesus, Mon," Amelia said again, but this time with more conviction and less whispered. "What were you thinking?" Amelia shook her head. "How much did you lose this time?"

More interested in her leather bracelets, Monika mumbled, "Five."

"Five what?" Amelia snapped. "Five dollars? Five grand?"

"Five hundred!" Monika shouted. Peter flinched. Amelia didn't. She seemed acutely aware that he and Ned were sitting in the same car. Maybe that's why she was giving them a lift. She didn't want to say anything she'd regret. And she knew she wouldn't do that with them here. "Look, I'm sorry, alright," Monika said.

The car screeched to a hasty stop. Before any of them could collect themselves, Amelia looked at Monika and said, "Mean it next time you say it." She opened her door and slammed it shut. It was then that Peter realized that they were at his apartment complex. He stepped out and so did Ned. He'd stay over. He didn't have to ask, Peter didn't have to tell. Ned thanked Amelia with a toothed grin then glanced over at Peter and ran towards the apartment. Peter might just kill Ned today, he had been planning on it.

Amelia turned to him. She said, "Thanks for taking care of drunk me."

Peter chuckled. "Yeah, she was easy. Wasn't around much and was hyperverbal."

"No!" Amelia protested laughing. "Oh my god, I'm sure I must've embarrassed myself and I can't even remember it."

"Well," Peter shrugged, "not- not really."

"Really?" she said, eyebrows raised, unconvinced.

"I mean," Peter smiled slowly, "you did ask me what magnetic flux was."

Amelia covered her face with her hands. The streetlights hit her figure differently, illuminating like little stars in her eyes. She groaned in embarrassment and Peter laughed and if he could have bottled this moment he would have. Paused right here. Go no further. Because if someone told him this was a dream he would actually believe them. Only if he had known where this night would lead them. The thing was, contradictory to his own beliefs that he would do no such thing, he actually would. He'd follow every path and make the same choices again. And again and again and again. Even knowing the future now, imagining a time ─ a reality where he didn't know Amelia hurt. Somewhere very deeply.

So that was Amelia's Friday. No party at her birthday party. Getting drunk at an actual totally unrelated party. Asking about magnetic flux. And witnessing Monika's ─ Amelia couldn't even think about it. It set her heart on fire, even thinking why Monika did it. Why would she bet her money, play with it? Why couldn't she just ─ no, she could not go into a spiral again. At least not now. Not when the best part of it all was standing in front of her, hands in his pocket. When Amelia looked back at this memory, she always thought: There. That's the moment everything changed. Amelia's starry eyes, Peter's moon-rivaling smile. This was the memory she would have chosen to keep in her heart if given the choice.

Amelia extended her hand. Peter shook it, never looking away from her smiling face. He had brought up this smile on her clouded expression. He wanted to do it again. She said, "It was nice meeting you, Peter Parker."

Peter smiled. "You too, Amelia Sóng."