Every since I was a little girl I had the same ambition – and the same nightmare. I always wanted to be an actress, there was never anything else I could imagine being. I never wanted to be a nurse or a teacher or anything like that. Some of my friends would play with their dolls like they were children but I would turn my dolls in my perfect audience. They always thought I was a hit and they always gave me a standing ovation.
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Mary Jane Watson
Spiderman
444 Words

Dear Harry,

We never really sat down and did that talk, you know the one; the one no one wants to have. You just walked into that room and I looked at you and you looked at Peter and then I looked at Peter and you looked at me – we never looked at each other at the same time. Maybe that was our problem? But, you just walked into that room and we both knew what the end looked like when we saw it. So we never really had that talk, we just knew it was the end.

Looking back I realise now that we were both so young --- but we didn’t seem to realise it at the time.

It sounds so ridiculous of me to say that, as if I’ve somehow developed the wisdom of age – I haven’t, not really, the only difference is that now I realise how young we are and how much we don’t know and I only hope we both get the time to know more, about each other and about life and about ourselves. I didn’t realise back then how fragile life is, how close we come every day to, well, I just never realised. So many things I didn’t understand – and maybe I was happier for not understanding.

So many things I still don’t understand, except now I’m starting to appreciate my ignorance.

When I was a kid, I’d hear my parents fighting and I’d try to hide from the sound. But the funny thing about sounds is the more you try to ignore them the more audible they become. It’s like how, you know, you can never stop yourself from listening to a whisper, even as you’re trying to honour the right to privacy your ears strain to listen to those hushed voices. But when I was a kid the problem wasn’t whispering, it was the opposite and I was so ashamed of my house and my family and everything and I knew as soon as I could I would get away. Life would be better, life would be easier.

Life is better but it isn’t easier, it seems to just get harder and more complicated and sometimes I think the worst is yet to come. But I also think that if we’re going make it through we need to be kind to each other, we were never as kind to each other as we should have been, you and I. I regret that, because we do love each other, and you would think that kindness should be a logical extension of that, but it isn’t, is it? It isn’t, love isn’t kind, people aren’t kind, we delight in others misfortune, in scathing reviews and falls from grace, in tabloid scandals and public ridicule. We are not a kind species by nature, I think, but I know we can be, maybe, if we try a little harder – and if we don’t try, well, I’m not sure what the point of any of it is.
I’ve missed you, Harry Osborn – ever since we sat in that room and you looked at me and I looked at Peter and you looked at Peter and I looked at you – I’ve missed you.


Your friend,

Mary Jane.

- and -

Dear Peter,

I noticed you back then, even though you though I didn’t, I noticed you. I saw you looking at me in the classroom or in a cafeteria or in hallways or on the school bus. I saw the way you’d hang around out in the yard hoping to see me, you’d take out the trash and then just hang around for no reason whatsoever, I mean, it wasn’t like we had a view.

I didn’t know why you liked me but I knew you did and it made me feel… special, I suppose. I liked you looking, which I realise sounds more suggestive than I mean it to, because after all I was just a small thing when we first saw each other. But even then I liked how you made me feel, Peter Parker, even before I really knew you.

Then I knew you and although the way you looked at me didn’t change, the way I looked at you did.

Even through the times when we were apart, you felt so distant, never where I hoped you would be, never where you said you’d be, the worst of it was that when you were there, you still looked at me the same way you always had, the way no one else ever did. There came a time when I hated you for that, not just for all the disappointment, but for the fact that after all those disappointments you still thought you could look that way at me – even as you were running out the door.

I didn’t hate you, of course, I loved you, I always loved you and I never stopped, as much as I tried I never did stop.

But sometimes, now, I stare at you, searching for that look and I’m not sure it’s there. I love you as much as I ever did and, don’t get me wrong, Peter Parker, I know that you love me, but sometimes now I feel as if you don’t look at me at all. I wonder if that is just what happens when passion fades into familiarity?

I knew what I signed up for, I knew who you were and what you faced and I wanted to face it with you. I wanted to be the one that was there for you, saving you, while you were out there saving the world. I still want to be that person who waits for you and loves you and protects you, Peter. But I need you to look at me and to see me and to remember the way you felt way back when our lives were so simple and you’d loiter with the trash, even in the cold, waiting for me to come outside. I need you to look at me, Peter, because sometimes, lately, I think you’ve forgotten that I’m even there.

Love always,

Mary Jane.

Religion – I think that’s one of those things you’re not supposed to discuss in polite company – one of those conversations that we all agree not to have and I think that makes some people want to talk about it even more. So many little unspoken rules that we have in life and that we all agree to be bound by – because if we keep following the rules we’re promised that although things wont change, at least they wont break anymore.

I’ve thought for a while now that you can divide most of us into one of two categories. You could be Martha or you could be a Honey. Well, of course, you could also be a Nick or a George, but I’m never going to play Nick or George, not unless it’s in some strange off Broadway role reversal experiment of a production. So, for arguments sake, you could be a Martha or you could be a Honey. And Martha is the person who is determined to talk about religion, not in spite of the fact that it could make someone uncomfortable – but because of the fact it could make someone uncomfortable.

Honey for her part would avoid the conversation at all cost – and we’re all supposed to believe that she’s less of a person than Martha because of this. Honey is the status quo. The evil and complacent status quo. And Martha is the radical terrorist against normality refusing to accept it. Sometimes I’d like to be a Martha – and occasionally I am. Occasionally I find myself running through the street in my wedding dress and I realise that there’s a little Martha in all of us. But mostly I’m not her. I’m the other girl.

I’d love to play Honey someday. Well, let’s face it, I’d love to play Martha. I’d love to play Nick or George in some weird role reversal experiment. I’d really just like a job at this point – and a review that wasn’t completely scathing might be a nice added bonus. But what I’d really love to do is play Honey and show the world that it’s okay to be that girl. Without you there could be no Martha’s. You’re the one holding the show together – we can’t all be the mad and bad girls.

Which doesn’t say much about religion, I suppose. But I’m not a Martha and I guess I just don’t have much to say about it.


Mary Jane Watson
Spiderman
406 Words