;ocean under the moon

BIOGRAPHY tw. emotional child abuse, homophobia, slight allusions to depression, drug use, and near death experience…

it’s always been odd having a stepfather. well, not in the sense that his mother wasn’t allowed to remarry when she made it to ohio, but odd in the sense that he always got the idea that the man hadn’t liked him very much. even when he was nine years old, he could feel it. in the man’s eyes, he wasn’t his son and never would be. to adrian marino, little eddie wasn’t someone worth his time. another man’s seed. it wasn’t a surprise when his mother had his little brother and sister that he was easily pushed to the side. not by her, never her. to claudia, he would always be her baby boy. not enough to leave the man that didn’t love him…. but he never put hands on him. never raised a finger… so that was enough… right?

it was desperation that he got into sports. anything to make himself seem worth the love his mother gave him or to see if he could get a smile from his stepfather. while adrian would have preferred soccer, american football, or even swimming – he could not argue that eddie was highly capable in gymnastics. sure, it had taken a deep conversation [see argument] with claudia for him to give in, but when eduardo started to earn medals and recognition. one simply couldn’t argue with results.

to add onto the onion layers of his life, he had to, of course, be into something non-conventional. romantically and physically, that is. sure, he came off as a friendly athletic hot boy, but the truth was, his eyes lingered on men more often than not. it was the one fight between him and his stepfather that nearly came to blows. the reason he was out of the house the exact moment the older man could toss him out. the one thing that actually challenged his mother’s love for him. since then, she has warmed up again, checking in on her cariño. but things were still different and eddie was sure they would always be.

losing out on his olympic spot due to an injury, changed the trajectory of his life forever. he went from clean cut good boy to a party boy in a split second it seemed. anything to help him forget he lost out on the chance of a lifetime because of stupid chance of an error in the fucking air as he flipped. then to being kicked out for his well-hidden secret of liking men. for at least four years, eddie partied. he couch surfed. he wasted his life just highs of all different kinds. it took a near death experience of him and a friend that had him finally looking at his life and realizing how far he had fallen. how much he had fucked up.

was it strange to say that waking up in the woods probably saved eddie’s life? after a particular bender, he found himself at a camp site in california, alone but not lost. hearing the birds, feeling the sun, it reminded him of one of the few choices he made as a kid that was entirely his own. camp had been something wonderful for him. he made friends that he had even sought out during his worst times over the years. all it took was that one morning to remind him that maybe, nature was meant to be his solitude. so when the time came for the car accident and barely making it out…. he knew where he could seek solace.

rock climbing was like a second birth for him. training muscles he had only been using for aesthetics for a few years, ached in the best way. with ever new hurdle, every friendly barb with other climbers, it was as if eddie was coming alive again after being dead for longer than he had ever thought. it was the connection to nature that had him wanting to go back to that camp that had meant so much to him. even with the darker bits at the end, seeing people that had meant so much to him in one summer, was something he was willing to do

HEAD CANONS

a multilingual king, eddie has the ability of speaking english, spanish and italian with a small dash of latin.  the latter of the alive languages was never one he preferred to ever use but had been forced to learn by his stepfather. honestly, he didn’t really understand the hard on the man seemed to have outside of being italian but there he was, suffering as a kid because of it.

while eddie doesn’t hold anything against his little siblings, he doesn’t really take the time to see them often. it seemed they were easily influenced by a father that gave them everything they wanted. maybe he would have been too, in another life, a different universe. still, he can’t bring himself to hate them. so, instead he does what he always does. offers a nonchalant wave and smile. allowing them to decide if that day they wanted to acknowledge their connection or not. sure, their last names matched but hell if he would ever go out of his way to point it out.

despite all of the bad memories, eddie still has the medals he earned. still has the national qualification for the olympics. if he was hard pressed, he could even pull off the move that had injured him and ruined his life. only this time, it seemed to go off without a hitch. he doesn’t hold an animosity to the sport but certainly isn’t interested in revisiting it ever again.