Excerpt from the next chapter of The Gwen Stacy Syndrome (Patreon)

Dear MJ, I’m writing this on my tablet, in the backseat of your car as you drive to the airport, Felicia in the passenger seat, pointing out landmarks from a tour guide. I think she wants you to stay. I know I do. But it’s my job—my privilege—to support you and I could never be as selfish as to ask you to turn an opportunity like this down. So don’t think for a second that we can’t endure being apart from you. Even if I’m missing you already. I know I’m striking a bit of a contradictory tone here— You know me. I would spend every waking moment with you, if I could, but that wouldn’t be good for us. You need to have your life and I need to have mine—we need to choose to live together, not have no other options. I’m making a mess of this—the last time we tried being together, I think we got some things wrong, and everything we did wrong I want to get right this time. I don’t want you to feel left out. I don’t want you to think anything you do or feel is unimportant, because it’s important to me and it’s important to Cat, even if she doesn’t admit it. I know I’ve had a pretty crazy job over the worlds, you have always made me feel strong and capable and that’s how I want to make you feel. I mean, my goodness, you’re one of the leads in a two hundred million dollar movie. Don’t think for one second I don’t think that has its own pressures and challenges and a lot of BS that I’ll never have to deal with. But you can handle it, I know you can. And whatever changes this makes for our life together, we can handle those too. As an… us. I’m going to write this out longhand and send it to you in England via air mail, so hopefully I’ll have thought of a better way to phrase all this. Please don’t ask to look at the first draft. It is getting deleted. I know, I know, our life together has been crazy and Felicia isn’t going to simplify matters. But that’s good, complicated is good. You’re complicated and I love you to death. One good thing about said crazy life is that I know you can take care of things in England, and I can take care of things back here, even apart. I’ve been thinking about Gwen lately. Not in a bad way, a fearful way—I haven’t been to the bridge—but I thought about the three of us, and Flash, and Harry… the Coffee Bean, Empire State University, all that. Things with Gwen were always simple, and I think I’ve been using that as a benchmark for a long time. Like love should be simple. But it wasn’t simple, not really. She was lying to me and I was lying to her. How’s that saying go? ‘Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t have lasted’? It’s hard to write that down. Don’t think that I resent her. I still have feelings for her, the same way I have scars. But if she were back, I would still choose you and Felicia. She wasn’t the love of my life, you two are. Because my life didn’t end with her. It went on. You stood by me, and Felicia fought for me, and as complicated and weird as things got, that’s still love. I have no idea how to end this letter, so I’m not going to. I’m just gonna send what I’ve written today and send some more tomorrow. Maybe let Felicia write something. Probably not. I’m still not sure what I could have possibly done to deserve the two of you, so I can only assume that I’ve just gotten phenomenally lucky. Like a lottery winner or something. You hear about those lottery winners who waste it all on beer cozies or whatever? I don’t want to be that guy. I’m gonna remember how lucky I am, always.