The Story Of Your Life, Starring Gwyneth Paltrow
The dress itches, but the way he looked at you in it means you'll stand there, artistically framed in the window, until he returns. Like a movie heroine or a painting, you'll stand and wait and look beautiful doing so.
Peter Parker is Spider-man whispers in your head, an endlessly looping song, Spider-man, Spider-man, he does just what a spider can. You wonder who will play you in the movie version (you hope it's someone good, someone pretty).
Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Anna Paquin. That girl from My So-Called Life.
Someone pretty, someone good, and you can even see her Oscar dress, this phantom star of your life, and it's white like your wedding gown and perfect like this moment. Like that moment, running through the park, your dress fluttering behind you like wings.
He's the boy you're going to marry, Peter Parker, and you swallow his name as your own.
Hours pass, days, or maybe it's only minutes. The sirens stop, the sun sets, and you step out from behind the window. Peter's room is a mess. Small and messy and it reminds you of the boy next door, all awkward angles and hidden behind his glasses.
You let him do your chemistry homework some nights, and only felt guilty the morning after. Now you're both older, and you're still the same girl, and you're tempted to ruffle through his backpack for clues. You're the same, and he's not, and you want to read his belongings like Braille.
He is everything you are not. Your father was not. You want to know him, but you know you never will, not really, just as you know that you'll always be that girl with the jaded eyes.
Night falls.
The lights in Peter's room flicker, yellowing and surreal, and your fingers twitch. You pick at imaginary lint on the skirt of your gown. The room shrinks, grows, shrinks again, and you're about to poke your head out the window when a knock on the door startles you.
"Peter?" Another knock, and a soft voice asking, "Are you in there?"
And you don't answer, you hold your breath and count to five (to ten), and there's a scuffling outside the door and footsteps. So you exhale, and shift on the bed, and try not to ask yourself why there's a girl who knocks on Peter's door.
You have no right to be jealous. You, who until a few hours ago were marrying another man. (You are. You wonder if she's prettier than you.)
It's late, you're tired, and you try to sleep in his lumpy bed.
When you wake, the sun's peeking above the skyscrapers, and Peter's still not home.
(Home? Is this, though, your home?) You think it is.
And you hate yourself for asking, hate yourself for worrying, "will this be my life, forever waiting for the hero to return from battle?", but it doesn't stop the doubt from settling in your stomach. It tastes like last night's pizza, like morning-after beer.
You hate yourself for thinking that this was all much more romantic in your fantasies.
But the taste of cold pizza and stale beer doesn't go away. So you curl up in his bed, sniffing his unwashed sheets, and you close your eyes against the morning.
(In your dreams, he would already be home. And he always tastes like licorice and green tea. In your dreams, he'd be home, and home would be white and airy and clean, and he'd kiss your neck as you lay snuggled in bed.)
This is not a dream, though. This is not a movie.
In real life, the room smells slightly of cheese, and the bed creaks. Peter stays out all night, saving the world, and you watch the walls close in. You contemplate contacting John, to try to apologize, but what would you say?
"I'm sorry, but-"
Peter Parker is Spider-man, and you're only an astronaut. Peter Parker is the boy next door, and you're the boy on the moon. Peter Parker looks at me like I'm the only woman in the world, and you never have.
-better now than later, right?" (An awkward laugh, a gesture, you can see it on screen; it will be played for laughs, maybe, but the kind that hurt. You hope Scarlett- or Gwyneth or Anna or whoever- plays the moment better than you would.)
You won't. Your note said everything you had to say; it stripped you to the bones.
You straighten your hair and walk to the window. Peter will be home soon.