Mama is all over me in the hospital. She checks up on my head, and I thankfully don't have a concussion (what can I say, I'm thick-skulled), but I'm to be under supervision in my house until further notice, in case I start bleeding out of my ears, or if something else goes wrong.

Since Mama left her shift to watch me all night, periodically waking me up to make sure that I was still able to be conscious, I haven't been able to talk to Anthony at all. He offered to supervise me today, but instead I elected to go to the bodega with Dantae. It was easier than pretending nothing is going on between Anthony and me.

So now, I am sitting on a bodega floor, in pain, listening to my brother shuffle around. Mama gave Dantae my phone to hold on to, because she said the screen isn't any good for my head right now. I wish she had just held on to it, but unfortunately it is in the custody of my brother. He hasn't tried to talk to me yet, so I stew in my anger.

"Trouble in paradise?" Dantae asks, ruining the silence. Apparently, I can't slip anything by him. I miss the days where we actually didn't care about the others lives.

"I'll talk about Anthony and me, if you talk about Liz Allen," I counter, lifting the ice pack up against my head. My skull has been killing me, and though I am taking exactly the proper amount of Advil (Mama made sure of that), my brain isn't giving me a break. Even if I wanted to read Dantae's mind, which I don't, I probably couldn't.

Everything's been rattled.

Dantae sticks his tongue out at me, and I stick it back before I wince.

"Don't hurt yourself, or Mama will have a fit," Dantae points out.

"Mama's already having a fit," I roll my eyes.

Dantae grins. "You're lucky Spider-man saved you."

"You hate that shithead as much as I do," I groan, putting my head in my hands. Although, now I'm not so sure what to do when I find out who he is. Maybe I will just have somebody to talk to about being secretly a superhero. Not that I want to be friends with him. I still angry that he got me busted and that he almost ruined my brother's probation.

Actually, my brother is doing a pretty good job of that himself.

"Are you an alcoholic?" I ask.

Dantae's shoulders stiffen. He turns around and glares at me. "Obviously not."

"Well, it seems like you have a drinking problem," I tell him.

He shakes his head back and forth. "Sometimes I just get carried away."

I would throw something at him if I had the energy to move. Instead, I pull my crossed legs in tighter and I massage my temples. All of this thinking isn't helping me. Spider-man this, Anthony that, Dantae whatever. At least now I have a good reason not to do the academic decathlon.

"Besides, I'm over Liz Allen," he says, and I can't tell if I'm convinced or not.

"Sure," I roll my eyes. "Just like Sergio is over me."

Dantae picks up a banana off the basket of fruits on the counter. He winds up to throw it at me. I wince. He squeezes it so tight that the skin busts and banana squishes out of the peel. He slams it down against the counter, tightening his face.

"Don't joke about that," he tells me.

I shrug. "It could be worse. It could be Manu."

"Don't ever joke about that," he seethes, turning to face me.

I see I've crossed a line. I raise one hand in defense, and he brushes past me to use the sink and wash the banana guts off of his hand. As he leaves, the bell in the doorway rings. I groan, and force myself off the floor.

As I stand up, I freeze. It's the man from the park, all those weeks ago. He stares at me, a smile creeping on his face. The woman isn't with him this time, so it's just him and I alone.

"I'd like a pastrami on rye," he grins at me.

I try to keep my face as straight as possible. "I'll be right on that."

I race back to the kitchen, where Dantae is.

"There's a customer," I tell him.

He blinks at me, rapidly. Dantae looks at me, narrowing in his eyes. "What's wrong?"

I shake my head back and forth. I refuse to give in. "Nothing. He wants a pastrami on rye."

"Stay back here," Dantae instructs, and then he dashes around the corner.

As he makes the sandwich, I pull myself closer and listen in. Last time, I heard the man's thoughts loud and clear.

Reading minds isn't a passive activity. Listening isn't really the right word. It's more active than that. It's like running; I can always start but I get tired after a while. So, I put my head up against the doorway and force my head to listen, even though it makes me dizzy.

I'm too tired to hear anything but surface level thoughts. I try to dig in deeper, but it's hard without looking at him in the face. That's why I can never figure out who Spider-man is. The first time we met, I could hear his surface level thoughts through the mask with all that adrenaline pumping through my system. Without a face to face connection, it's impossible.

Through his thoughts, I figure out that he doesn't recognize me. He's not planning on killing me, at least not yet. He thinks that my disappearance is odd, but only slightly. Really, he's mostly hungry. He doesn't like our cat Murph, and I'm surprised we both have that in common.

Eventually though, my head starts to hurt. I stumble backwards, crashing into the sink and hitting the ground. In a flash, Dantae is helping me up. My vision is black at the edges, and everything in the middle is blurry.

"I'm calling Mama."

I push his hand down. My idiocy is the cause of my own headache. There is no need to get Mama involved. Still, I'm having trouble seeing anything but black. "I'm fine."

"Darcy, you just cut open your arm on the sink. You might need stitches." I reach my hand down to my arm and discover that, yes, my arm is bleeding. Only slightly.

I shrug. "Delmar's are tough, Dantae. I'm fine."

The pause tells me that he's considering it. Or that he's dialled Mama and is waiting for her to pick up. As my vision clears, I realize that he is staring at my phone.

"Give that back," I lunge forward.

He shoves the phone in his pocket, before he gets up. He leaves me to head into the storeroom. My head hurts too much to figure out why. When Dantae gets back, he has gauze in his hand and steri strips.

Dantae leans over, and begins to bandage my arm. Mama insisted that we both get trained in first aid from the time we learned how to walk, basically. Still, I'm surprised by how gently he is, and how good he is at it. If he hadn't dropped out, he could've made a good nurse.

"Will you stop being so reckless now?" he asks me.

I shake my head. "Only if you tell me what's been bothering you."

"Liz, mostly," he answers, helping me up off the ground. He guides me to the storeroom, where he grabs a chair and then leads both of us behind the counter.

Without my ability to read minds, I feel blind. It's been with me during my entire waking memory.

"What else?" I ask as I sit down. I scoot the chair closer to him.

He raises an eyebrow. "You first. What's been bothering you?"

There is no feasible way I could tell him that I am upset because Spider-man might have saved me from serious injured and now I'm having trouble getting revenge. So instead, I focus on Anthony.

"Tony said some pretty vile things about you," I tell him.

Dantae furrows his brow and shakes his head. He actually chuckles. "You know Tony. He's pretty emotionally volatile. He'll get over it soon, and so should you."

I shake my head back and forth. "He called you a would-be gangbanger."

"He's kind of right," Dantae nods. "I have a record. At least until I turn 18. Tone's going through a lot right now. He told me his teachers are letting him finish the rest of the semester mostly online; that's how bad it's gotten. Give him peace."

He's right and I know it. In our never-ending competition, Dantae is always the winner. He always guesses right (except for, you know, Peter being gay but that's hardly the point).

I pause. This is all a distraction so that he doesn't have to talk about Liz. "Anyway, tell me your thing. The one that's been bothering you."

Dantae looks at me. He shoves his hands in his pockets, trying to hide that they are trembling from me. Dantae turns around to hide from me.

"I'm bi," he whispers. So quietly that I think he might not want me to hear it. "And you know how Mama and Papa feel about gay people."

I look up at him. Our parents are catholic, but surely not catholic enough to become upset, right? Like, Mama talks about how she wants grandkids (not anytime soon, but she wants them), but she would never say anything bad. I think. Our parents are nothing but loving.

"I think it might be different if you told them." I whisper back, trying to let him keep his secret.

He turns around to look at me. Tears are welling in his eyes. "Darce, you can't be sure. I don't want to have to move in with Ximena upstate."

I can't be sure, and that's the scary part.

Now there is one more thing for me to worry about.