unapologetically obsessed

You’ve tried to tell him before, awkward and pulse-pounding with the brittle honesty of it, but you’re always met with some form of careful roughhousing in retaliation, when he assumes as always that you’re poking fun at him—not at all unwelcome, but frustrating nonetheless. What the hell does he see when he looks in the mirror, if not the only diamond tucked away in the shittiest town in the midwest?

Across the room, Eddie clips his thigh against the corner of a table while speeding past it at about twenty miles per hour and curses like a sailor, pausing and scrunching his face up to let the ache subside before continuing to make the rounds, collecting empty glasses. He catches your eye before you can bite down a smile at his expense and inclines his head towards you in a comically miffed glare. Only smiling wider, you turn back around to face the bar as penance, resting your chin on your hand.

Lately, you’ve been thinking about telling him the truth.

Actually, it’s almost all that you’ve thought about since the new year rang in. Nineteen eighty-nine; the closing chapter of a decade that began with your first honest acknowledgement of the most obvious thing in the world. The realization of the gravity of it, that the sunflower in your chest would only ever point in his direction, and that you can’t imagine wanting it any other way.

It’s been a long time coming, to put it mildly. 

Loving Eddie was never difficult. He arrived in your life at a time when no one else particularly wanted to be there. You weren’t always shy, but being in the company of other kids your age taught you a swift and brutal lesson—that you were peculiar, an off-putting wallflower; nearly mute and woefully unpretty. Hardly anyone wanted to look at you, let alone to be your friend.

Until the year you shared a class with Eddie. You noticed immediately that he wasn’t liked much, either. In fact, while you were mostly ignored, deliberately or otherwise, Eddie found himself actively despised by teachers and students alike. He was loud and disruptive, bouncing off the walls, lashing out in grief or boredom, and prone to leaving casualties in his wake. But he talked to you when no one else would, and you never soured on him, even if he stepped on your toes or yanked too hard at your hair.

He was never too much for you, and you were always enough for him. It was the most beautiful thing that ever happened to you. Growing up beside him, watching him find himself, find his confidence; growing closer, spending endless days and nights together, and still getting to see that same gleaming, dimpled smile he gave you on the playground when you agreed to be his friend, like you were the only person in the entire world that mattered. You aren’t really sure how you couldn’t have fallen in love with him. 

A tap on your left shoulder pulls you from your thoughts. Your head twitches automatically in the same direction, then snaps to the other side with a click of your tongue to find Eddie sliding behind the bar.

“Christ, you’re off your game tonight,” he says, shaking his head in disappointment. A harsh, layered clink sounds out as he drops his bin into the sink with a little too much force. “That’s like, the third time that’s worked on you. It’s shameful.” 

“Why are you preying on the perpetually distracted in the first place?” you complain.

He gives you a smirk, pushing his fallen sleeves back above his elbows. “To keep you on your toes, obviously. I didn’t raise you to be a slacker.”

Your eyes linger along the contours of the puppet master on his forearm. Your snort comes out belatedly. “...Yeah, well I didn’t raise you to be a total dweeb, so I guess we’re both disappointed.”

“Why, you…” 

Jokingly incensed, he reaches over the bar to flick you right in the middle of the forehead. You let your head whip backwards with a grunt, and then drop it heavily into your arms on top of the bar.

“Sorry, I forgot you were a delicate waif,” he jokes. “I didn’t bust your skull open, did I?”

The splash of water crashing into the metal sink makes your head pop back up, shamefully eager to watch him work. He wets a bar rag, stuffs it into a glass and twists back and forth, tendons shifting in his forearm. Despite having barely started, he’s already splashed water up to elbows, soaking the dark sleeves of his KISS sweatshirt even darker. It takes your mind to places you’ve already imagined a hundred times before—two names on a property deed, wrapping your arms around his middle.

“You okay?” he asks. Your eyes snap up to the bemused little smile on his face. “...You’re totally zoning out on me.”

“I’m alright.” You rest your chin on top of your crossed arms. “Just tired.”

He cocks his head at you. “You don’t always have to wait for me to get off, y’know.”

“You know damn well you’re my ride.” A yawn distorts the latter half of your sentence.

“Yeah, I do,” he says around a laugh, “but Jeff would’ve taken you home. Just because I’m dying of boredom doesn’t mean you have to waste an entire weeknight in solidarity.”

“I’m not wasting it,” you argue, watching him shift from cleaning to drying. “I like hanging out with you.”

He gives you a big, cheesy smile, crinkling his eyes in the corners. “Well, aren’t you a sweetheart?”

Your heart always picks up a little when he calls you that, like it’s startled by how much you enjoy it. Even if he is making fun of you.

“...Can I sleep at your place tonight?” you ask, for no real reason other than stealing every chance you can to lay down beside him.

Eddie scoffs, amused by the question. “Why?”

“Your bed is comfier than mine.”

“You mean my lumpy sack of rocks and springs that we barely even fit on anymore?” he says, eyebrows raised skeptically.

“Yep.”

He gives you a squint. “...Don’t you have work in the morning? You’re gonna wake me up at like six a.m. trying to leave, and I’m gonna have to strangle you.”

Unbidden, your brain decides to linger on how his hands would feel cupping your neck, pulling you closer. “...No, you won’t. You sleep like a log. You’ll probably wake me up with your snoring.” 

“Then why do you wanna sleep over?”

With no other recourse, you poke your bottom lip out at him like a toddler. Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Fine, you spoiled brat. You’ll get your slumber party. But bedtime is at twelve o’clock flat, no ‘if’s ‘and’s or ‘but’s.”

“Okay, Dad,” you groan with teenage drama.

“Oh, you want ‘dad’? Cause I can give you ‘dad,’” he threatens with a frightening smile, tossing the towel over his shoulder. 

“Oh, God, no. I do not want dad.”

Eddie’s already sliding around the bar, stretching his arms out. “Come here, sport,” he says in his best suburban father voice.

You slide off of your stool to flee, but Eddie’s legs are longer than yours, and you’re never really trying to get away. He catches you easily, hooking his arm around the side of your neck, and you cry out in  whiny “nooo!” as he scrubs his knuckles into your head and giggles at your halfhearted struggle.

He lets you go with a gentle push on the back and you whine again, clutching your abused scalp as you turn back around to frown at him. He’s already making his way back behind the bar.

“You’re a fucking animal,” you accuse.

“Yeah, and you’re the sicko that sticks around.”

Your pout melts into a smile, and Eddie smiles back like the little devil he is, and you decide right then and there that you’re going to tell him. You have to tell him. He’s all you’ve ever dreamt about, and you’ve pushed your luck far enough by waiting this long in the first place.

Later, as you walk across the parking lot to his van, Eddie throws an obnoxious arm around your shoulders and drops enough weight on you to wreck your balance, laughing as both of you sway and stumble until you adjust to it. You groan like you always do, artificially annoyed, wishing on the inside that he’d take it even further. 

Once, in a dream, he’d spread out on top of you, squishing you into the carpet like a 170 pound blanket, and you’ve been longing for it ever since. It’d probably be the best sleep of your life.

…

It’s a Sunday, the twelfth of February when you’re finally prepared to go through with it. The one day of the week that neither of you typically work, it’s a frequent contender for lazing around and dozing off, smoking and stuffing your care-free faces until the sun goes down.

Eddie knows you’re coming. He just doesn’t know what you’re bringing with you.

The door is unlocked, as it usually is when you’re expected. Eddie, stretched all the way across the couch on his side, calls you by your last name in exuberant greeting. Just the sight of him makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

“You took your sweet time, didn’t you?” he gibes. “...I was starting to think I’d been stood up.”

“Hey,” you say, trying not to sound off, and probably sounding twice as off because of it. Eddie’s hand, rustling in a bag of chips, pauses as he watches you. “...Where’s Wayne?”

“Hardware store,” he says, but his eyes are too inquisitive. “We’ve got a leaky window emergency.” Thank fucking God. “…Are you good?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” But you’re still just standing there, barely one step into the living room, wondering how you ever could’ve thought this was a good idea.

When Eddie notices the envelope in your hands, his eyes get stuck on it. “Whatcha got there?”

A compulsive, airy laugh gusts between your dry lips. “Um… It’s for you, actually.”

“For me?” he asks, lips twitching into a smile as he pulls himself upright, then stands to his feet. “What’s the occasion?”

“I guess it’s sort of an…early Valentine’s Day gift.”

His brow furrows as he steps around the table, and he looks like he thinks you’re fucking with him. It’s not like you’ve ever bought each other anything for Valentine’s Day before. 

“Okay,” he says, drawn out with uncertainty. “...Why?”

Your face starts burning like a radiator. “Well, um…” 

The rushing currents of your blood are roaring in your ears, your heart squeezing so persistently that it feels a little concerning. You’ve never, ever felt so scared when you were with Eddie, and that in itself makes it all so much scarier.

He’s lost you, zoning out somewhere in the realm of his sternum. Eddie stoops down, waving one hand, trying to catch your eye with worry written all over him. He stretches his arms out, brushing against each of your shoulders as if prepared to steady you. “...Hey, sweetheart, are you sure you’re alright? Cause you look like you’re gonna blow chunks.”

He doesn’t mean to, of course, but he makes you smile. You blink yourself back to earth and, before you can seize up again in terror, you all but shove the envelope into his hands. 

Eddie’s concern recedes back into perplexed amusement as he examines the blank envelope, front and back, and then rips the corny heart-shaped sticker in half to open the flap, but as he goes instantly to tug the letter out, your arm whips out in a panic to stop him.

“No, it’s— Look inside first,” you explain urgently, almost breathless, startling his eyes wide open. “Then read the letter.”

“Whatever you say,” he assures you easily. “Just…keep breathing, alright? You wanna sit down?”

“No, I’m fine.”

He stares at you, but relents with a sigh. You take a deep, dizzy breath as he changes trajectory, fighting desperately to get your breathing back in rhythm. He thumbs the envelope open until he finds the two smaller pieces of paper slotted in front of the card, and when he digs them out for a closer look, he goes rigid. As soon as he processes the names written across them, his eyes snap back to yours and go wide as saucers.

“You’re fucking kidding,” he accuses lowly.

Jittery and bubbling with anxious energy, you smile ridiculously wide and nod. He reads them over a second time, awestruck down to his goddamn socks, then holds them up to you, gravely serious.

“How the hell did you get these?” 

Two tickets to see Poison and Tesla at Market Square Arena on February nineteenth. About three weeks back, you took a day off work and drove almost an hour to the nearest Karma Records at the asscrack of dawn to go wait in line for them in the freezing cold. Anything less than that, and you wouldn’t have had the guts to throw in the second part of your “gift.” 

You shrug, but you’re definitely too twitchy to seem authentically coy. “I’ll never tell.”

“No, for real. Tell me you didn’t do something crazy to get these.”

Your brow furrows in thought. “Define crazy.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he says, expression twisting even more dire. “Please tell me you didn’t blow someone for these tickets. The guilt will eat me alive.”

An incredulous laugh pops out of you a little too easy. “You’re the one that’s crazy. Don’t you know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth?”

“Oh my God,” he groans, face falling into his hands, and you laugh even louder.

“No, you geek. I acquired the tickets through legal and wholly non-blowjob-related means, so relax.”

You can see his smile growing before he even drops his hands. When he does, he surges into you like a bullet to wrap his arms around you in a huge, obnoxious hug, slightly awkward from the papers he still holds in his hands.

“You are the best fucking best friend ever. You’re a goddamn marvel. I could fucking kiss you right now. Scratch that, I’m going to, and you can’t stop me.”

He tilts his face to smack a noisy, extravagant kiss into the side of your head, and you giggle like you’re already high as a kite from the affection alone. Smothered into his chest like this, held tight and snug like something precious, you could probably die spontaneously from the heart attack you kind of feel like you’ve been having all day, and be totally and thoroughly at peace with it.

When he retreats, he shines a beaming smile at you, shaking his head in disbelief as he tucks the tickets back into the envelope.

As soon as his fingers grab onto the letter, your insides start wriggling like a pit of angry worms. If you weren’t manually ushering each breath, you wouldn’t be breathing at all. He looks at the cover first—hand-doodled, a clumsy collage of things he loves, very embarrassing. The way he smiles at it makes your already steaming face burn even hotter.

“You drew this?” he asks softly, and you try to stifle a pout as you nod. His pretty eyes crinkle at you. “Very cute.”

He opens it and starts reading. It’ll take him a minute to get through it—you poured an entire lifetime onto that paper; crumpled it up, tossed it away, and restarted it more times than you can count. You have to clasp your hands together, hold them tight to suppress the urge to just yank the thing out of his hands and rip it to shreds at his feet.

You watch in heart-aching terror as the easy smile on his face inches smaller and smaller, replaced first with confusion, brows pulling together like he isn’t quite fluent in the language it’s written in, and then entirely, nauseatingly blank. He must read it all two or more times for how long he keeps his eyes on it, dragging slowly from side to side, beginning to end to beginning again, stretching out the agonizing wait for all that it’s worth.

Finally, he glances up at you, back down to the confession, and then closes and lowers the card. 

“I, uh…” He puffs out a breathy laugh, awkward and stilted. “...I don’t know what to say.”

…That’s really all he says. When maybe ten seconds pass, a tense laugh of your own tumbles out. Squeezing your hands together isn’t enough to stop them trembling anymore.

“...Well, you have to say something, Eds.”

He swallows. “This is, um… This is serious?” he asks, cautiously scanning your face. “You aren’t, like…pulling my leg here, right?”

“No,” you say, sharper than you mean to. You don’t know how he could even consider that after reading what you wrote.

He nods a couple times, like he knew the answer anyway. His eyes flicker around, anywhere but on you, undoubtedly trying to wrangle a thousand different thought fragments into something he can actually voice. 

Eddie licks his lips, and his brows pull together again as he lands back on your face. “Sweetheart, I…”

The tone of his voice alone makes your abdomen clench up. Your teeth grind together, your galloping heart drops into the well of your stomach with an icy splash. If he felt the same as you do, even if only slightly, it wouldn’t be this hard to admit it. 

“I’m…really fucking flattered,” he continues. “I mean, shit, I— I don’t think anyone’s ever written something this…sweet for me, or—about me. I mean it. But…I think we should stay friends.”

You blink at him for a while, eyes flickering over his face while you process. Mind whirling, heart sinking even lower. Eddie’s brow furrows tighter. 

“...Why?” It sounds like a child’s voice, humiliatingly small. You only barely prevent it from getting distorted by your constricting throat.

Eddie takes a deep breath in and lets out a sigh. He transfers your gifts into one hand so the other can gently take up one of yours, his thumb rubbing over your knuckles.

“I don’t think…” He tilts his head as he thinks about it, sticks his tongue in his cheek, changes his mind. “I just…don’t wanna change anything. You’re my best friend and I…fucking love you, you know that, but…that’s exactly why I don’t want to risk it by trying to be anything…more than that, I guess. …Well, not more, but…you know what I mean. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

There’s nothing you can say to that. Every inch of you seems to be quaking, mortified and erupting with it, and you just hope it isn’t as obvious as it feels. 

Eddie stoops down again, trying to catch your downcast gaze. “...S’that okay?”

If you stop biting down on your lip, you’re probably going to cry. You nod, or at least you try to.

Eddie makes a low, sympathetic little noise that nearly pushes you over the edge, your brow wrinkling pitifully. “Can I give you a hug?”

Another nod, and Eddie holds you. Never completely still, he sways you lightly side to side, his free hand rubbing strong over your back. This close, he sort of smells like he needs a shower, and for some reason, a zap of guilt passes through you just for having noticed. When you sniffle, he crushes you in even tighter, almost bruising in strength, before pushing you back far enough to see your face.

“You alright?” he checks with a diagnostic look. “Still wanna hang out?”

“...Yeah,” you manage, thick and teary. It’s hard to look him in the face. “...Could you tell?”

His eyes flare wider in shock. “No,” he assures you. “...God, no, I…really had no idea.”

You believe him. Eddie’s cautious expression shifts into a quiet smile, and he gives your arm a consoling squeeze.

“...Now,” he begins, holding up the envelope, “I’m gonna put this away for safekeeping, and as soon as I get back, we’re gonna get baked out of our fucking minds, put on The Dark Crystal, and see which one of us shits our pants first, okay?”

Eddie gets what he wants—a soggy, feeble little laugh from you—and smiles even wider. As he turns and makes his way back to his room, you clear your throat, fighting to get some volume to your voice.

“Don’t lose it, Eddie.”

“I won’t, I swear,” he calls back. “Jeez. When have I ever lost something?”

He does a three-sixty just to show you his goofy smile. Once he disappears behind the door, it’s the loneliest you’ve ever felt inside the walls of the Munson trailer.

A question leaps gracelessly off of your tongue as he returns to the living room, weed paraphernalia in hand.

“Are you busy on Tuesday night?” you mutter as he goes to place it on the coffee table. “Just to— I thought we could hang out.”

Eddie freezes for a moment, caught between two expressions. “...Uh, shit. I…kinda have plans already.”

“...Okay.”

He scratches the back of his neck. “How about Wednesday or Thursday?”

“Aren’t you working?”

“Well—yeah, but you can still hang out.”

“...It’s okay,” you sigh, rubbing at your sinuses. “...Next weekend, then, for the show.”

He gives you a frown. “You sure?”

You are.

A couple hours later, you start to think it might be alright. That you haven’t changed anything for the worse, that your relationship is too deep-rooted to be thrown out of whack by the weight of your lopsided feelings. Eddie touches and teases and bothers you with typical shamelessness, says your name and all its stand-ins without unease or hesitation. He’s exactly the same as he always is.

…Well, mostly. Even spread loose and stoned, when you lean into his side to rest your head on his shoulder like you’ve done countless times before, you can’t shake the feeling that he’s gone stiff as a board beneath you.

…

On Valentine’s Day, you work from ten to six, and spend almost every moment of it trying not to feel sorry for yourself. 

You shouldn't have gotten your hopes up as much as you did, you know that. Dreaming for weeks about spending not just Sunday with him but today as well, and maybe a little bit of every other day leading up to the concert, changing what should change and leaving alone what shouldn’t, reteaching yourself how to love and hold each other. Kissing the rosy lips that have colored your daydreams for a decade. 

You spent most of your lunch break crying in the bathroom, quivering and choking and wishing you had never confessed to him at all, rather than feel like this, but you know that you’ll be alright. It could’ve gone much, much worse than it did, and you’ll only have to bear the brunt of this grief until Sunday. Then you’ll hit the road together, sing along to all his favorite tapes, and it’ll be like none of this ever happened. Maybe he’ll tease you for it once in a while, and maybe you’ll even be okay with that, but you’ve known each other for way too long for an embarrassing, unrequited confession to fuck things up between you. Even if you can’t have him the ways you’ve dreamt about, you’ll still have him the way you already do.

But in the meantime, no one can blame you for seeking out a little comfort. 

Harper’s Creamery in Downtown Hawkins is the best ice cream parlor for twenty miles. Its untouched 50’s decor and incurably jolly owner make it a reliably nostalgic comfort. Sometimes, as kids, you and Eddie would beg your mom with all you had to let you stop by after school before dropping him off at home, and more often than not, she would let you. Now, it’s more of a rare treat—a strategic consolation you deploy only for serious miseries, so as not to wear out its childhood magic.

All you can think about on the drive over is a hot fudge sundae with your name written all over it, but what you get when you arrive is an instant eyeful of your best friend in the world. 

Your heart stutters in your chest at first—a happy coincidence, maybe?—but swiftly freezes over as you realize that he isn’t alone. He’s sitting in a booth near the back, across from a girl. A blonde girl. 

You wish you could doubt that it’s really him, if only for one short moment of alleviating delusion, but you can’t. You’d recognize the back of his head from any distance, upside down and blindfolded. 

…At least he wasn’t lying when he said he had plans tonight.

You know what you’re seeing because you’re not an idiot, but you need to get a closer look anyway. To see who she is, to see the look on his face—if there’s even an ounce of shame in it. To make him look at yours. To show him that you know, and you doubt you’ll ever be able to forget it. 

Two days. Two short days, and you might as well not exist.

The bell chimes above your head as you open the door, but no one looks up. There’s already a pack of teens at the counter, excitedly relaying the most complicated and indulgent orders they can think of in a noisy clamor, so neither Harper himself nor the frantic teen on shift beside him have the wherewithal to notice your entrance. You drift by them all like a ghost.

About halfway to their booth, you recognize her, and your nails dig fiercely into your palms. Your heart starts pounding as you catch the sound of his voice, murmuring sweet and low for her ears only. The sight of his hand loosely holding hers over the table, fidgeting with her flamingo pink manicure, makes your body tense up almost painfully, everything inside you stretched beyond its limit. By the time you arrive, you feel like you’ve left yourself entirely—too battered and bloody to survive this awful moment, watching your vengeful, unwanted body confront them on its own.

“Hey, Eds,” you mutter as you come to a stop.

Eddie almost jumps out of his seat, and then freezes entirely as his wide eyes land on you properly. You might’ve found it cute if your heart hadn’t been punted to the next county.

Between them is a glass dish with a double serving of ice cream. Three heaping scoops of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, topped off with fudge, peanuts, whipped cream. About half of it, including the cherry on top, has already been eaten—a tongue-tied stem on the table between them, one of Eddie’s party tricks.

“Shit,” he breathes, trying to blink back his surprise, awkwardly retracting his hand from hers. “Uh, hi. What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?”

He blinks at you. You turn your head, shift your empty eyes to the girl.

“Who’s this?” you ask flatly.

“...Uh, this is Rachel,” Eddie explains stiffly. Rachel Webber. “...Y’know, from high school?”

Oh, you couldn’t forget her if you tried. Her and Eddie were lab partners in 10th grade Biology. She spent over a month pretending to be nice to him and eventually invited him to hang out at the bowling alley after school, just for the cruel pleasure of laughing at him with all of her friends when he was dumb enough to actually show up. She looks about half as alarmed as Eddie does, but twice as confused.

“It’s…good to see you again,” she says politely. Her pink lip gloss is worn out in the middle, swallowed down with spoonfuls of ice cream. Blonde hair cascading in perfect, artificial curls. She’s a thin little barbie doll with hazel eyes and a mole on her chin.

“Really?” you ask, falsely intrigued. “...What’s my name?”

She gapes at you, a pink-pleated deer in headlights, but Eddie calls it out immediately in her place, scolding and pleading all at once. It takes a long, resentful moment before you can flick your eyes back to him.

“Can we talk about this later, maybe?” he asks pointedly. One of his legs bounces like a jackhammer under the table. “Some other time?” 

“Talk?” You smile so hard your cheeks ache. “What’s there to talk about?”

His brow furrows at the look in your face, licking his lips like he’s about to say something else, but you aren’t done yet.

“I never would’ve guessed that this was your type,” you say, eyes dragging to the right again. You shake your head at her, your bitter smile going thin. “...I mean, wow, Eddie. Bitchy and boring. You sure know how to pick ‘em.”

Eddie spits your name again, this time in outrage. You’re still just looking at Rachel, scanning the face he apparently finds so preferable to your own. 

She looks straight back at you, so utterly, insultingly clueless that it makes you want to do something she probably doesn’t deserve. “What… What is this?” She looks to Eddie, and you roll your eyes to the stratosphere. “What’s going on?”

Eddie is standing now, tugging at your shoulder, turning you towards him until you’re forced to rip your eyes off of her.

“Hey,” he spits. You’ve never seen him this angry at you—not seriously. Lips pursed, face tense and turning red, brown eyes blazing like he doesn’t even recognize you. You aren’t completely sure who you’re looking at, either. “Are you out of your mind? Get pissed at me if you want, but she hasn’t done shit to you.” 

“No,” you agree sorely, “she’s done shit to you.”

He almost huffs; your grudge on his behalf evidently an inconvenience. “It was almost a fucking decade ago,” he whispers harshly, leaning further into your space. “People change, alright? I’m over it. So apologize.”

Your smile springs back in full force. “Apologize?” you cry out at full volume, making his face twitch.

“I’m serious,” he grits out. And then he stares at you, waiting, jaw clenched about as tight as your chest feels right now. You’ve had nightmares more rational and pleasant than this.

“...Sure, fine, I’ll apologize,” you relent, yanking your shoulder out of his grasp so you can turn back to the girl with a mockingly sympathetic look. “Rachel, I am…so sincerely sorry that your date tonight is a fucking jackass. I’d say you deserve better, but I’m not really sure if you do.”

Rachel purses her lips and gathers her things. “Okay, um—I think I should go.”

Eddie starts and pushes around you, trying to tend to her somehow—shield her from the vicious beast. “No, you don’t have to— Why don’t we both leave, yeah? We can go—”

“That’s alright, Eddie,” she says. Such a slap across the face that it turns your smile genuine. “...I’ll just…see you around, okay? Goodnight.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything as she turns and speeds away. He watches her go until the bell chimes and the door closes behind her (while everyone else in the parlor stares at the two of you) and then slowly turns back around to face you. 

Wide eyed and incredulous, he jerks his head in a shake, heaves his arms open; completely at a loss. “...What the hell is your problem?”

“What’s my problem?” You can’t even smile ironically anymore. It feels like a scene from a movie playing out in front of you, not your real life—not something that could ever happen to you, and definitely not because of Eddie. “I…spill my goddamn soul out to you, and in two fucking days, you’re on a date with some other girl?” 

His face scrunches up, irate and baffled. “What? It’s not my fault you decided to— I told you I had plans! And it wasn’t a date, we’re just…hanging out. We were.”

“Right,” you say. He must think you’re stupid. “You and Rachel fucking Webber. Just hanging out, sharing a sundae like friends do.”

“We have shared a million fucking sundaes,” he reminds you incredulously.

As if that isn’t half the insult. “On Valentine's Day.” 

Eddie shrugs, frustrated and overwrought. “She asked me,” he says. Like it’s really that simple.

“And you said yes.”

“Yeah, I said yes, Jesus Christ!” he hisses, dragging harsh fingers down his face, flaring his fiery eyes at you. “What, just because you have a crush on me, I’m not allowed to hang out with any girls that are prettier than you?”

It hits your crumbling remains at just the right angle to shatter every last part of you to dust. Eddie’s face tenses up belatedly, his brain, as always, moving slower than his tongue, and you can see the dread building up in his eyes, the angry blood draining from his face.

He’s already shaking his head before he opens his mouth again. “...No, shit, that’s not— I didn’t mean—”

“No, I got it,” you cut him off. Your voice is dim, quiet, trembling even worse than before you handed him your heart in a letter. “I know exactly what you mean, Eddie.”

When you turn to leave, he must panic—his hand wraps strong around your elbow, burning you like a brand.

“Let go,” you tell him. Your voice sounds thicker already, muffled by the grief in your throat. Everyone’s staring at you, you’re sure they are, but your vision has gone blurry from the water building up in your eyes.

“Wait a second,” he says, breathing your name like it finally matters to him again. “Let’s just— Can we talk? Please? Let’s just sit down, and—”

“Let go of me, Eddie!” you shout.

Eddie does what you ask, snatching his hand back out of shock more than anything. You can’t remember ever wanting him to take his hands off of you before; not even in school, when he’d tug on your braids to focus himself in class, pulling and twirling mindlessly until your scalp went sore. Even when it hurt, you could always take it, but you can’t take this.

You cut a path to the exit in long, sorrowful strides. Eddie calls your name weakly, somehow disbelieving. As if all he’d done was trample over your toes on the blacktop.

…

You’ve never been hurt like this before. It’s not a feeling you could ever have imagined without suffering it firsthand; a hollow, gushing, endless humiliation, bigger, wider, and nearer than the sky. Every piece of you is cold and petrified, failing to see the point in anything, the meaning in a present so cruel. The wild, vindictive fury of being doomed to such an unloveable form, and all your tender longing rendered less than useless because of it.

If Eddie can’t look past the surface to love you—Eddie, who knows you better and deeper than anyone on this planet—then who else ever could? And what does it even matter when it’s only him you’ve ever wanted, only his face you could picture clearly in the murky haze of your future?

Every thought and feeling you’ve ever had has been turned ruthlessly on its head. For years, for your entire goddamn life, Eddie was like a prince to you. Sweet and misunderstood, rough around the edges but kind to a fault, saving you from the sting of unwantedness. The restless and fidgety boy on the playground who would babble at you interminably during recess and make you laugh in the middle of class, the only other kid that ever truly wanted to be your friend, and was delighted that you wanted to be his, too. 

That boy would never have never treated you like this—lying to you, avoiding you, shouting at you for the crime of being too homely to dream of having him—so maybe you were wrong from the beginning. Maybe you’ve been looking at him with a child’s eyes all along, too enamored by having been chosen and kept all those years ago to ever notice what he really thought of you. Too perpetually lost in his sweet and gentle eyes to ever notice the revulsion just beneath the surface.

Every day, throughout the day, he tries calling, and each time, you throw out some excuse to whichever parent answered the phone—you aren’t home, you’re asleep, you don’t want to talk to him, stop fucking calling. 

On Friday night, he gets lucky. You hear the commotion just before it approaches your bedroom, and you open the door just in time for Eddie to nearly run into it, bewildered and heaving, his hair damp and frizzy with rainwater. As soon as he sees you, he goes stock still.

Your mother blazes a trail right behind him, quiet outrage all over her face—he must have pushed his way past her. 

“You want me to go get your father?” she calls bitterly around him. It’s unsettling as much as it is comforting. Just one week ago, she loved Eddie almost as much as you did. 

Eddie’s giant, heartwrenching eyes pull into a pleading look. You’re too exhausted to hold any expression on your face as you suffer it, nor as you flick your stare back to your mom.

“...It’s alright,” you decide, and Eddie deflates in relief. His expressiveness is more of an irritant than a charm right now.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” If he’s desperate enough to force his way into your home, he’d better have something to say worth hearing.

Your mom stomps off, undoubtedly to go inform your dad of the situation anyway and wait together on standby until it's time for Eddie to leave, so you drag your dead eyes back to him.

He glances behind you, into your room. “...Can I come in?”

The answer is no, but you step back to let him in anyway to prevent your parents from eavesdropping. Your lips pull into a sneer as you notice the muddy water he brings in with him, sullying the carpet under his boots.

“Don’t you have work?” you ask.

Eddie blinks at you, lightly disoriented, like that’s the furthest thing from his mind right now. “I called out.”

“How’s Rachel?”

Eddie’s face pulls taut, strained. “Can we please just talk about us?”

You don’t say anything. You could point out that you aren’t really sure what “us” means, if there really is an “us” and if there ever truly has been, but you’d rather he just spit out whatever it is he needs to say and then leave you alone.

“...I’m sorry,” he says. “I should never have said that to you, I can’t believe I would— I mean, fuck. That was…so shitty, and stupid, and I’m sorry. I wish I could take it back.”

You wish you were surprised that all he thinks he’s done wrong is call you unpretty. The only acknowledgement you give his apology is a shrug. “...Is that all?”

He purses his lips, dissatisfied. Then, he pulls something out of his coat and holds it up—a white envelope with a torn red heart in the middle. It feels like a curt strike against your cheek.

“...I still wanna go with you,” he says. “But if you don’t wanna take me anymore, I get it. You should have them, either way.”

As if you’d take anyone else but him. He tries to hold the envelope out to you, but all you do is stare at it. You want desperately to take it from him, to check to see if the letter you wrote is still in there, too, but if it is, you don’t think you’ll survive it. Your heart will probably fossilize in your chest.

“You want to go?” you ask.

He furrows his brow. “Of course I do.”

“Are you sure I’m not too hideous to be seen with you in public?”

It makes him cringe, but not as hard as you hoped. “I don't think you're ugly.”

“No, of course not,” you bite. “Just too ugly to date, right?”

He says your name, pleading; shrinking in the corner you’ve pushed him into. “That’s not— That isn’t what any of this is about.”

“What is it, Eds? Is it my nose?”

He recoils from the question. “What?”

“Or my chin? Maybe it’s just my whole face.”

“No, it’s not— Why are you—?”

“Am I too fat for you, then, is that it?” you ask even louder. “I didn’t think you were that shallow—”

He nearly yells your name, trying to make you stop, but you barrel right on through it.

“—but if you really do like little blonde bitches that you could snap like a fucking twig—”

“Stop it!” Eddie shouts, wide-eyed and agitated. His cold, wet hands land heavily on your shoulders and shake. “Jesus fucking Christ, what’s the matter with you? Why are you acting like this?”

The both of you heave a couple breaths to calm down, staring each other dead in the eye. Watching you warily, Eddie’s arms fall slowly back to his sides, one hand jumping back up to wrench through his wet hair in stress.

“...I just don’t understand what you see in her,” you mutter in a small voice, staring dimly at his mouth. “She’s so boring, I could puke. I figured you’d want someone who has more in common with you.”

His face settles, shoulders slumping. “You mean, you?”

Another red-hot pin through your ribcage. “...I don’t know. I just thought… I mean, we have…fucking everything in common, and—”

“Yeah, we do,” he says, a little harsher, “because you base your entire goddamn personality around me. Have you noticed that? Because I have.”

Your eyes whip back up to his, wide and unbelieving. A burst of frost ripples over your skin, raising hairs along your spine, down your arms. “...What?”

Eddie looks at you like your alarm must be fabricated. “Everything that I like, you like. You only ever wanna do what I wanna do, you act like— like a little kid, following me around. You barely even have any other friends. It’s not normal.”

You can hear it again, the blood rushing in your head, every other sound growing distant and unreal. “...I thought ‘not normal’ was kind of your whole thing.”

Eddie sighs. “It’s not healthy, I mean. It was fine when we were kids, maybe, but… Shit, you’re twenty-three years old, and it’s like you don’t even want to try to be your own person.”

You might be smiling, somehow—your face is numb. “I don’t know if you’ve ever…been in love with someone, Eddie, but…it sort of makes them your entire world.”

“Not like this, sweetheart.” That name makes you sick to your stomach. “...I’m not trying to be an asshole, alright? I’m saying this because I care about you.”

You blink and blink, waiting for the water that should surely be filling up your waterline to spill over, but it doesn’t come. You’ve been drained dry.

“...So, all this time,” you say, scratchy from the tightness of your throat, “you’ve thought I was…weird, and ‘unhealthy,’ and you wait until it gets between you and some other girl to say anything?” 

Eddie’s mouth drops open, stumbling over confused syllables. “...No, I mean, I was gonna—”

“It sounds like you were fine with me being…clingy, or obsessed with you before you found out why. When all it did was make you feel special and interesting, and didn’t cockblock you from girls that treated you like dirt in high school.” 

He hesitates—stunned, processing, just as insultingly clueless as Rachel had been at the creamery. Maybe vaguely offended.

You shake your head. “I don’t think you’d find it weird at all if I wasn’t ugly.”

Eddie snaps back into focus, groaning your name in desperation. “I don’t think you’re—!”

“Just grow up and be honest with me!” you shout over him. “Okay? Don’t fucking worry about…hurting my feelings, cause we’re well past that. Just tell me the truth, Eddie. Don’t I deserve that?”

He looks pained. Thoroughly, viscerally uncomfortable, reluctant down to his bones. “...I don’t think you’re ugly,” he repeats quietly. “...I promise you that I don’t, but… I just…don’t see you that way. I never really have, and I don’t think I ever will. I’m sorry. Is that what you wanna hear?”

It’s what you needed to hear. You nod to yourself, letting it wash over you and sink in; rewire your neurons towards a truth that repaints every scene in a friendship that has colored more than half of your life. As the pigment drains out, wrung dry by harsh reality, the lung-collapsing hurt in your chest slowly begins to numb.

“...I want you to leave,” you tell him.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything. You aren’t looking at the expression on his face.

“I don’t wanna talk to you anymore,” you repeat lowly. “…Keep the fucking tickets, take Rachel for all I care. I didn’t wait out there for nothing. Have a nice life, Eddie.”

He startles down to his boots. “...Have a nice life? Is that a joke?”

Still refusing to look at him, you step aside to pick up another envelope from on top of your dresser. You figured he’d stop by at some point, that you wouldn’t be able to ice him out for very long. You’ve had it prepared since Tuesday night. Eddie knows it must be something damning—he’s very reluctant to take it from you, even slower to open it.

“No,” he spits as soon as he recognizes what it is, shaking his head profusely, eyes caught between horror and fury. “No! What the fuck is this? What are you doing to me?”

His head jerks around, scanning your room, finally realizing what’s missing. Countless pictures and polaroids taken down from your walls, pulled out of frames, tear stained and hidden away, too risky to dwell on any longer. When his eyes land back on your face, he looks shaken to his core.

“...So that’s it? Fifteen fucking years, and we’re just done? You’re not even gonna try to fix this?”

You shake your head. In time—a lot of time—you probably could, for the most part. You’ve hardly ever been mad at him in the past, and even when you were, all he had to do was flash his puppy dog eyes at you, and you couldn’t forgive him fast enough. But you realize now that it’s not going to work. 

Even if you forgave him like always, even if you managed to regain some semblance of how things were, it won't last. You’re always going to want him, and he’s never going to want you in the same way. Trying to live with that will just make both of you miserable. The end of this road seemed impossible, unbearable to think of, but when it rose quietly on the horizon, simple and undemanding in the middle of the night, it was the only thing that’d made any sense to you all week.

“Seriously?” Eddie’s voice is starting to shake. “You’re just— You’re letting a girl get between us?”

You almost have it in you to laugh. “Oh, so now it’s her fault? Anyone’s fault but your own, right?”

“I’m not the one trying to throw it all away!” 

“You’ve made it more than clear what you really think of me, Eddie. If I’m such a goddamn nuisance to you, then I’m probably doing us both a favor.”

He scoffs at you, and you can see the turmoil churning in his mind as he tries to make sense of this, contrasting emotions fighting to breach the surface. “...This is ridiculous. You know this is ridiculous. We can’t even be friends anymore cause— cause I don’t wanna sleep with you?” 

Your eyes fling wide open, well past appalled. “Who the hell said anything about sleeping with me?”

“That’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it?” he spits with a bitter smile. “You want me to be attracted to you, and you’re ready to blow up our entire friendship because I’m not. It’s fucking immature.”

“What friendship, Eddie?” you spit right back. “What fucking friendship? I’d rather gouge my own eyes out than say to you even half of the shit you’ve said to me in the last week, and you don't even care!”

He digs a finger into his chest. “I came here to apologize!”

“You came here to make yourself feel better,” you jeer, unimpressed. “To prove to me that you’re right, and I’m wrong, and it’s all some big misunderstanding, so you can wrap me back around your fucking finger and drag me to that stupid fucking concert. Not because you realize what you’ve done. You fucking gutted me, Eddie. You still are.”

Finally, he’s at a loss. Brown eyes burning, flitting around your face; chest heaving in anxiety, hands twitching helplessly. He doesn’t know what to say.

“...I could learn to deal with you not being attracted to me,” you tell him. “But I can’t deal with you being a complete, self-centered fucking asshole about it.” 

Eddie rubs his shaky hands over his face, back and forth, again and again. By the time they fall, he’s wilted. Limp and tender like a dying flower.

“...What do you want me to do, then?” he asks, barely louder than a whisper. “What can I do? Huh? How can I fix this?”

“You can’t.”

“You want me to lie?” he says, taking a step closer. “To— to pretend? Because…I can do that, if you really want me to.”

Your face twists, baffled and repulsed. How pathetic does he think you are? “I don’t, Eddie. I want you to leave.” 

“I could kiss you,” he goes on as if he didn’t hear you; not a shred of respect for you or himself, just rubbing salt in both of your wounds. “I could kiss you, right now.”

He reaches out as if to cup your face, or pull you in, and you have to shove his arm away.

“Stop,” you hiss, and bat away another attempt to grab you. “Jesus, stop it! Are you fucking crazy?”

He says your name again, desperate, but you don’t wanna hear it. “Seriously, just tell me—”

“Get out of my room.”

“Please, I just— Can we talk about it? I—”

“I’m done talking to you, Eddie! Just leave.”

He’s dragging himself upsettingly close to tears. “...You said you loved me. You said you’ve never loved anyone the way that—”

“I know,” you drop sharply. “And I meant it when I wrote it. But I guess I never knew you as well as I thought I did.”

It crushes him. Bleary eyed, pitiful, he opens his mouth again, but it’s your voice that calls out.

“Dad!”

His time is up. Frantic now, he shakes his head, tries to keep begging, to hold you, even, but your parents are there just as fast, your father bursting into the room to wrap a tight hand around Eddie’s arm, pulling him away with a gruff “it’s time to go, son.”

All the way to the front door, you can hear Eddie still calling for you, trying to bargain, to apologize, to lie to you. In the struggle that is removing him from your house, one single picture falls out of the still-open envelope, carving a bowed line to the carpet. You pick it up, give it one last look—both of you together on the night of Eddie’s graduation. As soon as he noticed Gareth preparing to take a picture, he’d slung his arm around your neck and dragged his tongue up the side of your face, much to your cartoonish dismay. As gross as it was, the thought of it—the vulgarity of it—had you blushing for days, swooning beneath your bedsheets. You take a breath, and with steady hands, you rip the picture in half. Once, twice, three times.

Eddie Munson is the prettiest boy you’ve ever seen, but he was never going to be yours. And for the first time in your life, you think you might be better off for it.

-

You’re pressed into his side on the floor, legs tangled, sharing a bowl of popcorn that has been refilled more times than either of you are willing to admit. His knee bumps yours every time he laughs and you don’t move away. You never do. Max shoots you a look from the sofa, something knowing and sharp. El is perched beside her, crown of tinsel tangled into her hair. Nancy and Jonathan are in the kitchen, whispering like their relationship is somehow a secret. Steve is arguing with Lucas about the countdown song. Will is sketching something on a napkin, glancing up at the noise like he’s trying to memorise it.

It’s almost midnight. The weight of it sits in your chest, heavy and hopeful and stupid.

You slip away when no one’s looking, which is a lie. Robin clocks you immediately, eyes following as you pad into the kitchen. She raises an eyebrow. You pretend you don’t see it.

The grapes are on the counter in a chipped bowl, twelve of them picked out carefully earlier, washed and lined up like they matter. You feel ridiculous holding them in your hands, heart beating too fast for something so small. It’s an old superstition a girl in elementary school had whispered to you once, laughing as she did it. Twelve grapes at midnight, under the table, each one a wish for love to come in the new year.

Desperation, some say. You prefer the word ‘hopeful’.

You duck back into the living room and slide under the dining table, knees knocking wood, the music muffled instantly. Dust coats your palms. Someone’s shoes are right in front of your face. You pull your jumper down over your hands and breathe out a laugh you swallow quickly. If Eddie sees you, he’ll tease you for weeks.

The countdown starts, muffled and chaotic.

Ten. Someone whoops. Nine. Your fingers curl around the grapes. Eight. Your chest aches.

Seven. You think of Eddie without meaning to.

Six. His hands, always warm.

Five. His smile when it’s just for you.

Four. The way he looks at other people, careless.

Three. Your heart thuds. Two. You close your eyes. One.

The room explodes. Cheers, laughter, clinking bottles. You shove the first grape into your mouth, chewing quickly. Sweet. You keep going, one after the other, breath hitching, hands shaking. The table vibrates as people dance around it. A foot knocks your knee and you hiss quietly.

Halfway through, the noise above shifts. Someone crouches. Light floods in as a head appears upside down at the edge of the table.

Eddie.

He’s grinning, curls falling into his eyes, a party hat perched crooked on his head. His grin falters when he sees the grapes in your hands, your cheeks full, your wide eyes. For a second he just stares, like he’s stumbled into something sacred.

“What are you doing, sweetheart?” he asks, voice soft, pitched low.

You swallow, heat rushing to your face. “Nothing.”

He snorts quietly and ducks under the table with you, knees knocking yours, back pressed to the leg. The space is small, intimate in a way that makes your lungs forget how to work. His shoulder brushes yours and he doesn’t move away.

Robin’s voice cuts through from above, sharp and delighted. “Eddie, your soulmate is eating grapes under a table.”

You hear her laughter, the clink of her bottle as she taps it against Steve’s. Eddie goes still beside you. You risk a glance at him. His jaw is set, eyes flicking to your hands, the grapes, your face. Something unreadable moves there.

“It’s a thing,” you mumble. “You eat twelve grapes at midnight and you get love in the new year.”

“Yeah,” he says. His voice is rougher than usual. “I know.”

You blink at him, surprised. Eddie shrugs, a helpless little movement in the cramped space. “My cousin used to do it. Made us all do it. Thought it was bullshit.” He pauses. “Still kinda do.”

You nod, throat tight, and lift another grape. Your fingers tremble. Eddie reaches out without thinking, hand closing gently around your wrist. The contact sends a jolt through you, sharp and familiar and too much.

“You don’t need that,” he says quietly.

The words land wrong, heavy. Your chest tightens. “It’s just a superstition.”

His thumb presses into your pulse. He feels it jump. His eyes soften, something like fear creeping in. “I know. I just mean…”

You look at him then, really look. At the crease between his brows, the way his mouth pulls down when he’s trying not to say something. The music swells above you, distant and loud. Confetti drifts down through the crack at the edge of the table.

“Mean what?” you ask.

Eddie opens his mouth. Closes it. Lets out a breath that sounds like a laugh and not at all like one. “Mean I hate the idea of you thinking you have to wish for something that’s already right here.”

The grape slips from your fingers and rolls away, forgotten. Your heart stutters, trips over itself. Eddie’s hand is still on your wrist, warm and real.

“Eddie,” you say, and his name feels different now, heavier.

He looks at you like he’s bracing for impact. “I love you,” he says, rushing it like if he doesn’t it’ll disappear. “I’ve loved you for so long. Thought you knew. Thought you didn’t feel the same. Thought I was okay with that. Turns out I’m not.”

The world narrows to the space under the table, to the sound of your own breathing, to the way his eyes search your face like he’s looking for permission or mercy. Your chest aches, full to bursting.

You laugh, a soft, broken sound. “I’m literally eating grapes under a table because I want to be loved by you.”

He stares at you, stunned. Then he laughs too, disbelief and relief tangled together. “Oh,” he says. “Oh.”

Above you, the party roars on, oblivious. Under the table, Eddie squeezes your wrist, then your hand, fingers lacing with yours like it’s the most natural thing in the world. You squeeze back, heart hammering, hope blooming bright and reckless.

You forget the rest of the grapes.

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You took a sip from each cup, your laughter quickly morphing into a wince. You peered down into the cup, shaking your head.

“What?” Eddie’s gaze darkened slightly. He had just grabbed it from a random person—maybe something was wrong with it. Oh God, had he just accidentally drugged you? 

“What is it?” He crowded your face. “Does it taste funny?”

You swallowed deeply, eyebrows furrowed.

He called your name, putting his hands on your shoulders. “Hey, you there?”

You wrinkled your nose at him. “I think they mixed this with apple juice—you know I hate apple juice.”

Eddie exhaled deeply, shaking his head. “Christ, I thought you were, like, drugged or something.”

“I am. By the abomination they call apple juice.” You said that, yet took another gulp.

“Okay, then stop drinking it.”

“What?” You look like he’d asked you for your firstborn child. “No, I came here to get drunk, so that’s what I’m gonna do.”

He put his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay.”

For the next nearly two hours, Eddie watched you drink three of the mystery Solo Cup drinks—a frat concoction, surely. You had always been the more social one, so Eddie was more than fine with being your shadow for the night while you mingled.

“Oh, hey, Marley! How do you think you did on the final?” to some girl from your stats class.

“Jackson! Were you able to finish off the season? How’s your leg?” to some guy who you hadn't spoken to since the beginning of the semester.

Every person you spoke to, you made sure to introduce him. “This is my friend Eddie,” you’d say with a grip on his arm. And sure, you were tipsy, definitely heading towards drunk, but you still looked at him like you always did, like you were proud to be his friend.

You had looked at him like that for as long as he could remember. 

Even throughout high school when he was labeled “the freak” and simply being his friend would’ve been social suicide. 

Maybe that was why he looked at you like you hung the moon—at least, that’s what Wayne always said.

“I’ve been telling you since you were sixteen, son,” Wayne would tell him. “You need to tell her how you feel before someone else swoops in. It ain’t right to leave a girl waiting.”

Eddie wasn’t sure he’d call it ‘waiting.’ More so not utterly ruining everything—he knew he had a streak for doing that.

Honestly, Eddie didn’t mind standing behind you and letting you handle all the socializing; it was when he got roped into small talk that he started to mind.

The past few hours had gone something like this:

Hey, I’m so-and-so. It’s nice to meet you.

“Hey, nice to meet you.”

Do you go here? What’s your major?

“Yeah. Music education.”

Nice! What grade do you wanna teach?

“Middle school.”

Oh man, good luck with that.

“Thanks. What’s your major?”

Blah blah blah.

“Oh, cool.” Then the already miniscule momentum of the conversation would quickly begin to dwindle, and he’d start looking to you for help.

So to say that he was in need of a cigarette would be an understatement.

Not wanting to drag you out of the party and into the cold (even though he knew you’d insist you didn’t mind), he waited until you were sitting safely on the couch with three girls from your literature class.

Seemingly in a deep conversation—well, as deep as a conversation can be three drinks in at a frat party—Eddie simply flashed you the pack of cigarettes from his pocket and pointed to the door.

You immediately turned away from the girl, the conversation clearly not deep to you in the slightest. “You okay? You need me to come with you?” The concern in your voice was sweet, but he could tell by the slow drawl of your voice and slow blinks that you were feeling those drinks.

“Nah. I’m a big boy.” He grinned, and he could tell you were ready to protest, but the girl in front of you started speaking again. 

You glanced between her and him, and he could tell you were about to stand and follow him, but he quickly stopped you with a wave of his hand. You sighed, raising your eyebrows. He had known you long enough to know this was your ‘Are you sure?’ face. Giving you one final nod, he pushed his way through the crowd out the backdoor. 

He plucked a cigarette from the pack and placed it between his lips when he heard from the yard, “Munson? That you?” 

When he looked up, he saw Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley heading his way. 

“Man, I knew that was your mop of hair!” Steve exclaimed, throwing one arm around him.

“He’s lying,” Robin chimed in. “He can’t even see two feet in front of him. I’m the one who spotted you.”

Laughing with the two, before Eddie knew it, he had smoked three of his cigarettes. 

While Robin and Steve chattered away, he peered through the glass of the backdoor to check on you. When he spotted you throwing back a shot of clear liquid, he winced. You weren’t exactly a big drinker—the last time he’d seen you truly drunk was high school graduation. 

His unease must’ve been clear on his face because Steve said, “She seems to be having a good time.”

“Who?” Eddie asked, like it wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world.

“Who do you think, man?” Steve pointed into the house.

“Oh, yeah. Trying to chillax after finals and all, you know?”

“For sure,” Robin agreed.

Steve, however, was staring at Eddie like he’d grown a second head.

“What?” Eddie asked.

“Why are you being weird?” 

“Who’s being weird? I’m not being weird.”

“Okay, I will say,” Robin interrupted. “now you’re kind of being weird.”

“I’m not the one being weird. He’s the one being weird.” He pointed at Steve.

“Dude, when do you ever say ‘chillax’? That’s weird.”

Okay, well, he did have a point.

“I dunno, man, can’t I—I dunno—try something new?”

Steve didn’t look convinced. “Yeah, sure.” He looked at Robin, who looked back at Eddie before nodding.

“What?” Eddie exclaimed. “I hate when you two do this; it’s like you’re reading each other’s minds or something. It's freaky.”

Steve only shook his head. “Nothing, man.” He peered back into the house. “But I will say your friend there—” He said the word ‘friend’ like he was suspicious of it. “—Is taking more shots.”

Sure enough, when Eddie turned around, he watched you throw back another shot. 

“Christ,” he sighed. “Listen, it was nice catching up with you two, but I really should—”

“Go get your girl, man.” Steve was smirking and exchanging looks with Robin like they knew something he didn’t.

“She’s—” Eddie flung open the back door. “She’s not my girl. See you around, Buckley.” Without hanging around to see what other surely hilarious comments Steve or Robin would make, he made his way back into the living room, where you and the girls were now boisterously laughing.

“Eddie, you’re back!” The pure glee in your voice made Eddie fight back a grin. You scooted over and patted the spot next to you on the couch. “Come sit—you’ve gotta hear Kaylee tell you about her crazy roommate—hic!” The hiccup clearly surprised you, sending you and the other girls into another howl of loud laughter. 

“It’s getting kinda late; don’t you think we need to head out?” As he looked at the other girls you were sitting with, he noticed one was already practically passed out against another’s shoulder. The other girl didn’t seem too well off either.

“Say,” Eddie started, looking between the girls, “you guys have a ride home?” 

“I’m sober.” The girl being used as a pillow spoke up. “That’s really nice of you though.” She shot you a look, wiggling her eyebrows at you, sending you into a fit of giggles.

“That’s my Eddie.” You smiled, laying your head back against the couch. “He’s just so nice.” 

He tried to ignore the feeling in his chest that the simple inclusion of the word ‘my’ brought him. 

He gave you a small smile as he grabbed your arm and began to help you up from the couch. “I think it’s time to go home.”

“I’m not ready to leave!” You exclaimed in a borderline whine, yet still let him pull you up from your spot. “I’m—hic!—here with my friends!”

“Yep, I see that.” He ushered you toward the door.

He had you tucked into his side, his arm draped across your shoulders. At first, you only had a loose arm slung around him, but you suddenly clutched onto his shirt. Thinking you were about to fall, he shifted his grip, with his nose buried in the top of your head.

He could smell your shampoo—you’d been using the same one since high school. Shit, he had even used it before. Vanilla and coconut.

“You okay?” He said gently into your hair.

“Mmhm!” You nuzzled your face into his shirt. “You smell like cigarettes. But I like it.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I smoked a couple while you were with your friends back there.”

You hummed, breathing deeply into his shirt.

He tried not to be embarrassed at how close you were. Sure, you’d been friends for a while and shared a fair number of beds, but something about the way your nose was nudging his chest felt more intimate than simply sleeping in bed next to one another.

“Alright, you ready?” 

You only hummed again, cheek still pressed tightly against his shirt, your eyes shut.

“Hey, don’t fall asleep.” He jostled you slightly in an attempt to get you to support some of your own weight.

“‘M awake, ‘m awake.” You blinked and looked around the room.

He helped you out the front door and down the front steps of the house (which proved to be easier than he had anticipated).

What he hadn’t accounted for, however, was your sudden passionate interest in the trampoline in the front yard.

When you’d spotted it, your eyes widened. “Oh my God,” you said, your voice grave.

“What? Are you about to puke everywhere?”

“No—the trampoline.” You said it like it was the eighth wonder of the world. 

Ah yes, haven’t you heard? It’s right up there with Christ the Redeemer—the Frat House Trampoline.

“Oh. Oh, yeah. A trampoline.” He tried ushering you along further, but it was as if seeing the trampoline suddenly blessed you with the gift to walk again.

You broke from Eddie’s grasp and stumbled over to it. Despite it being early December, you pulled your shoes from your feet, leaving them across the lawn behind you, scattered like breadcrumbs.

If every other factor hadn’t made it obvious enough, he certainly knew you were drunk now. Never would you ever walk across cold, damp grass in your socks sober.

“It’s cold out here; you need to put on your shoes—”

“Help me!” You were leaning across the side of the trampoline, one leg slung over while the other kicked uselessly down near the ground.

“It’s been raining, sweetheart, you’re gonna freeze.” He wasn’t sure where the term of endearment had come from, but it felt right as it rolled gently from his lips.

You huffed, pushing up off the ground again, successfully giving you the momentum to roll atop the trampoline. Screeching, you rolled onto your back to peer up at the stars. 

The trampoline was wet, and Eddie could see wisps of your damp hair sticking to your face. You seemed so enthralled by stars; if not for the slow, dazed blink of your eyes, it would’ve been easy to assume you were just someone passionate about the stars, not drunk.

He watched as a water droplet raced down your temple and disappeared into the darkness of the nylon. The stars made your eyes practically sparkle, and if he could’ve eliminated the bustle of the frat house behind you, he would’ve thought you looked like a painting.

“Come on.” You were holding a hand out to him. 

At the angle you were lying, it would’ve been physically impossible for you to help him up, but the gesture was so sweet, he found himself smiling. But when he thought of the wet spots on your clothes and the cool chill in the air, his smile faltered.

“You come on.” He rested his chin in his hands against the side of the trampoline. “Your chariot awaits, m’lady, lest you desire a cold alongside your hangover on the morrow.” He put on what you called his ‘peasant voice’ in hopes that it would make him more agreeable.

No such luck.

You rolled over onto your stomach facing him, and you were so close he could smell the booze emanating from you (albeit that wasn’t saying much).

“Come on, Teddy. Come look at the—hic!—stars with me.” When you pulled out the nickname from when you were children, he knew he was a goner. It worked when you were seven on the playground trying to convince him to push you on the swings, it worked in high school when you asked if you could join the Hellfire Club, and it worked now.

Before you could utter another word, he was climbing over the side and flopping down next to you, sending water flying. You squealed, covering your face, as you slid to the middle. 

You laid on your back with your arms crossed across your stomach. He crawled next to you and laid next to you, your heads almost touching.

As he looked up to the stars, he understood why you had been so adamant about gazing at them. Despite the party going on not even fifteen feet away, it felt peaceful as he stared up at the night sky. He tried to locate the Big Dipper, but with the rolling clouds in the sky, it was impossible.

“Sydney thought you were cute.” You broke the serene silence.

“Who?” He turned on his side to rest his chin in his hand. 

“My friend—hic!—from inside.” You pointed vaguely in the direction of the house. “But can I tell you something?” You rolled over to face him, tugging on his shirt to bring your mouth near his ear. “I lied.” You were giggling. “I told her we were dating.” You burst into a fit of giggles, burying your face into his chest.

“What?” He swallowed deeply. “Hey, what are you talking about?” He gently tugged you away from his chest, as much as it pained him to do so, to peer into your eyes. 

You blinked at him, your eyebrows furrowed. It was wild how quickly your facial expression did a complete 180. “Are you mad?” Your chin started to wobble.

“No, no. Baby, no.” He didn’t have time to overthink his use of ‘baby.’ “Tell me what you’re talking about; I’m lost here.” 

You huffed, resting your chin back in your hand again. “Sydney from my literature class told me she thought that you were cute,” you reiterated, like that explained anything.

“Okay, and?”

You frowned at him. “Do you, like, like her or something?”

He frowned right back. “No! No. I’m just…you gotta give me something to work with here.”

You sighed. “Well, she said that to me, and I—” You broke eye contact, flopping back against the trampoline. “I didn’t like it, so I told her you were my boyfriend.”

He laughed a little. “Is she not good enough for me or something?”

You frowned, very serious again as you stared up at the stars. “No one’s good enough for you, Teddy.” 

It was so ridiculous, but you were so genuine it made his chest hurt.

“I can think of someone who is,” he said quietly, looking at the gentle curve of your nose, the slope of your lips.

You hummed thoughtfully. Not making eye contact, you added, “Me too.”

A flicker of hope sparked in Eddie’s chest, but he knew you were too drunk to have that conversation. So instead of shouting out, “I’ve been in love with you since we were teenagers,” instead of kissing you, he abruptly stood on the trampoline and began jumping.

You were rolling down near his feet, squealing, “Wait, wait, wait!”

“So get up and jump with me!”

“Stop, stop!” You were laughing so hard you were struggling to get your words out. “I’m gonna—I’m gonna pee!”

He stopped, leaning down to you. “Come on.” He held out his hand.

You took his hand and let him pull you to his chest, his nose buried in your hair. Just as you were beginning to get comfortable, truly comfortable, with a deep inhale of his shirt, he wrapped his arms tight around you and began to jump.

“What did I say?” You screeched, laughing as you latched onto him, your arms around his neck.

Inside the house, Robin and Steve peered out the window and watched the two out on the trampoline. 

“Dammit.” Steve shook his head.

Robin held out her hand. “Pay up.”

The pressure was never an overnight thing. It was a conglomeration you’d gathered, piece by piece, collecting little souvenirs of all the responsibilities you can’t currently remember if you’d ever agreed to along the way. It hadn’t been sudden, it hadn’t been with lack of adjusting, it hadn’t been a pressure suddenly unloaded upon you all at once – you’d done this, brick by brick, all with your own two hands. 

Keeping up with friends, keeping up with work, keeping up with expectations. Always trying to run ahead of the curve, always trying to be better. You should be fine. You shouldn’t even notice. You shouldn’t be sobbing on your bathroom floor, clutching the edge of your porcelain tub, every single breath a labor of survival. 

It feels like every bone in your body is splintering. It feels like the world has cracked open your ribs, one by one, just for show. You don’t feel poetic like the movies, you don’t feel like a valuable lesson learned in the books. You feel as though you’ve become nothing more than some crude display in a contemporary art gallery, and you were the one to hang yourself on the wall. 

Needles prickle across your skin with another heaving sob, as if you can feel the push pins you’ve used to spread yourself out for consumption. 

We still on for tonight? 

The text from Eddie glares at you from your phone discarded on the floor mere inches away. You’re lucky the screen hadn’t broken when you’d thrown it down on the ground on your way to the toilet, dry heaving through all your tears. 

He wasn’t a part of the issue. If anything, he was part of the solution. 

A shining clean slate, pristine whites and a scratch-free surface for you to press your cheek to when it all got a bit much. An abyss of freedom and openness for when the world was all a bit smothering. An anchor to cling to, a rope to tie around your wrists to keep from floating too far. The willow tree in a graveyard to rest your back against, the caress of a warm sun even if only momentarily as you stared out across headstones of all the pieces of you that you can never get back. Every version of you that has long since buried, a few even with newly churned dirt resting upon them. Something soft, something sacred, to rest your hands upon. 

Why does he still let you rest your bloodied and dirtied palms on his shoulders? Did he ever agree to that to begin with? 

You can’t remember. Or maybe your brain is simply refusing to recall. 

I hate to cancel, but I’m sick. I don’t think I can come out tonight :-( 

What? Is everything okay? Are you okay? Do I need to bring you anything? 

Please don’t.

The please is what gives you away. You should have forgone it, should have offered him a lighthearted response instead. 

But there is a pit in the bottom of your stomach, and seeing all the question marks across his text only made it more terminal. Only gave it more reason to swallow you whole. Only gave it more reason to grow and to tangle up and to restrict each stuttering breath of yours that you can’t seem to steady. 

Another buzz comes from your phone, but you don’t look to read it. You resort to resting your forehead against the lip of your toilet, all attempts at a deep breath futile as you finally taste the salt across your lips. 

Were you too much? Were you not enough? Was it possible to be an odd juxtaposition of both? 

A harrowing thought crosses your mind, and you know if Eddie could read minds across the intricate webbing that connects cell phones, he’d grab you by your shoulders. Maybe shake you until you see sense, or maybe cling to you until the thought has faded into nothingness. As if he could squeeze you hard enough to press together all the splinters that are left of your bones, forming a new body – a better body. One that can handle the pressure. One that isn’t imploding upon itself. A more durable mind, a more capable suit of skin to occupy. 

Does it even matter anymore? Would it even matter if I simply vanished? 

Would it be so bad to let the pit finally consume you? To just give in, to let it erase you from existence. To finally wave your white flag and let the awfulness inside of you finally win the battle, erasing you from existence and leaving behind an empty space in the world that could be filled with someone better.

Someone who could be a better friend. Someone who could be a harder worker. Someone who wasn’t choked up on their bathroom floor, beginning to contemplate if the painful gasps were even worth it. 

Were you worth it? Were you worth the air in your lungs? Or could it better serve someone who could handle all the pressure? 

And it wasn’t even that much pressure to begin with, if you pick it apart thread by thread. It was the natural weight of the human experience, and you were still crumbling. 

There was a full bottle of ibuprofen in the cabinet. There was a busy street not far from your home. There was a bathtub that could easily be filled with water – you’d never been good at holding your breath, unless someone counted the last few months, in which that seemed to be all you were good at. 

There was even a bridge, 5.27 miles away from your house exactly. You could already envision the patch of grass you could park your car at, feel the drop in temperature as you stood and overlooked the tame waves of a man-made lake.

Maybe your feet didn’t even have to leave the pavement. Maybe it would be enough to just stand in the silence and see the jump with your own two eyes. 

You felt like nothing more than a ghost of yourself, yes, but maybe. Maybe, just maybe, there would still be a broken shard within you that could stir awake at it all. Maybe if you got up off the bathroom floor and set yourself into motion, it would open its eyes just in time to scream no. 

Ghosts don’t just appear. They were a vibrant soul once – they were somebody once. 

But it’s hard to imagine that you ever were. When it gets like this, it’s hard to push through all the tumultuous thoughts and loathly emotions to remember that. A version of you vibrant, a version of you that might have been worthy, if only for a moment. 

A version of you that wasn’t insulting to compare to others. That was capable of progress, of earning your blip of existence. 

You don’t want the bottle of ibuprofen. You don’t want the busy street. You don’t want the overflowing tub. You don’t even want the calm of the bridge. You just want it to stop. 

There’s a knock on your front door that echoes through the entire apartment. You dread that you already know who it is, but you can’t get up to answer. 

You can’t move from this very spot. You’re terrified of what will happen when you do. 

Will your bones collapse into ash upon the floor? Will you make one wrong move, and in a fit of pressure, make a terribly permanent decision for what feels like a terribly permanent feeling? 

Maybe you were born with the pit in your stomach. Maybe you were born with that black hole inside of you. Cursed to always be yearning, always be a juxtaposition, always be a ghost of what could have become. 

You think you hear the click of your front door opening. You think you hear heavy footsteps across the hardwood floors. You think, you think, you think. That’s the issue. 

The tears are still coming and going in erratic tides. The salt is drying out your lips, your cheeks, the corners of your eyes. You’d thought you’d been incapable of any more emotions like this, but your tear ducts have managed to prove you wrong. 

Does it even matter anymore?

You’d left the bathroom door wide open. 

Were you worth it?

You’d been home alone – past tense.

A more durable mind, a more capable suit of skin to occupy.

A soft gasp of your name has you microscopically lifting your head from the toilet seat. You know what the scene looks like; it looks like nothing more than the excuse you’d used. You look as though you’re ill, like you’ve been spilling your guts across the bathroom floor all night. 

If you had been, would it all feel a little less heavy? 

“Hey, Eds.” 

You’re tired. You’re exhausted. Your voice is nothing more than a drag of a whisper as you look up at your anchor standing in the doorway, his face painted with concern. 

Maybe you were an anchor – maybe being an anchor wasn’t a good thing. After all, what use does an anchor have beyond weighing down the ship? 

“Jesus,” he mutters as he rushes to your side, falling to his knees carelessly as his hand flies out to brush back tendrils of your hair, “You look like shit.”

You felt like shit. 

Selfishly, you lean into his touch, desperate for comfort. Desperate for those caring palms to soothe the ache you’d carried since birth. Desperate to hear him tell you that you’re wrong – hands to promise you that you’re worthy, fingers to wrap around your bones rather than these burning ropes. You’re bloodied and raw, fully on display, and you just want to be okay. 

You don’t want the bridge. You want Eddie. You want him to magically make it okay, and that’s unfair. 

You’re not his weight to carry, not his burden to shoulder. 

After far too long of a silence, one in which he sits patiently in with you, all you can really reply is a broken, “Yeah.” 

Immediately, he knows something is wrong. Because of course he does. 

Because he’s a good friend. He’s a good person. He has the right words more often than not, and his hands were always formed to heal rather than injure. Create rather than destroy. Those warm palms are made to hold the space he’s earned in the grand scheme of the Universe, and it almost makes you nauseous as the jealousy spreads. 

He’s good. 

And you’re simply rotten.

You used to lie to yourself and say it was simply one rotted bit amongst plenty of good, but tonight, it all seemingly comes to clarity. You can’t dig out the bad, cleanse yourself of the rot, because it’s all decay. 

You don’t have to let the pit consume you – it already has. You were born with it, and it had swallowed you whole from the first cry that had ever left your lips. 

He makes himself a bit more comfortable, and you almost feel bad for reducing him to nothing more than the bathroom floor, “You wanna talk about what’s really wrong?” 

“I’m sick.” 

“This isn’t just some stomach bug.”

Your throat begins to tighten again, and suddenly, his gentle touch across the crown of your head burns. Your eyes water ferociously, and your chest caves into itself.

You can’t make a better body or a more sound mind out of the mess you’ve become. You can’t pull gold from tarnished rubble. 

Confessing to him will only be handing over something heavy, something terrible, that he shouldn’t have to struggle with as well. But not offering him a sliver of the truth almost feels more dishonoring. 

“Do you ever feel like a waste of space?” you croak, leaning back, finally accepting that the small space of the toilet that had been cooling your face has gone warm. Another thing you’ve ruined, in hindsight, “Like, this world is filled with great people, and I just… I just, I’m taking up the space- I’m wasting the space-” 

You can’t get out the proper words. You don’t know how.

How do you say you want to cease to exist when you’re not really sure if that’s the truth? You’re miserable, and you’re selfish, and you’re not entirely sure your feet would have ever left the pavement if you had driven yourself to the bridge. You’d be too scared to do it.  

Too scared to miss the day that science announces it’s found a cure to all your rot, a miracle drug to erase the pit, a way to reverse all the damage you’ve been comprised of your whole life. 

His brows furrow and his hand stops all the calming movements, “What? Are you- are you saying you feel like a waste of space?”

It feels silly to admit it to other people. To try and describe how it all feels. Like a child trying to convince their parents the Boogeyman is real, you have to make him see that you’re right. You have evidence, you have proof, and it’s not just a feeling. 

“I don’t feel like I’m a waste of space,” you finally correct, both yourself and him, “I know I’m a waste of space.” 

“Bullshit.”

“Eddie, don’t-”

“No,” he cuts you off. And somehow, in only a way that he’s capable of, it’s not offensive, “You’re not. I’m not going to sit here and listen to my favorite person claim they’re wasting space-”

“I am!” It’s your turn in the cycle of interruption. You pull away from him entirely, chest heaving with the weight presenting itself once more, tears starting to fall all over again. You can’t even distinguish where the old tears stop and the new ones begin, “I really am. All I seem to do lately is just exist. And that’s such a- such a- that’s such a waste. I can’t read any of the things I should enjoy these days, I can’t even write. All of the words feel like they just come out wrong. I’m letting everyone down left and right, I’m never living up to whatever pedestal you’ve put me on. I don’t even know what I’m doing with my life. I don’t even know where I’ll be in a year from now – I can’t even see that far in the future.”

Heaves become sobs, and the crumbling has begun once more. A cycle of breaking, a cycle of demolition. Even leaving behind the rubble feels like a crime. A waste of space. 

“I don’t think I’m a good person,” you manage to spit out between all your visceral reactions, “Every year, I tell myself the same thing – I’ll be better, I’ll be kinder, I’ll be worth it. And every year, I fail.” 

Can he see it? All the fractures and splinters and pits and metaphors? 

Can he smell it? All the rot and the destruction and hopelessness?

Can he feel it? All the pressure? 

Through your sniffles, you press your back to the tub, knees to your chin as you wrap your arms around your legs, desperately trying to shrivel up. To take up less space. To waste less space.

“I used to think I could make up for it,” you whisper, “I could offer people things that made them forget I’m… so useless. But I don’t think I’m even capable of that anymore.”

If he’s about to respond, it’s drowned out by your cries. You press your eyes hard into your kneecaps, until you see stars, and you try to swallow down all the embarrassment. Try to stop all the hurt from spilling out, to stop all your guts from painting the bathroom walls. 

He could simply sit there, let you wallow in your misery alone. Sit and stare as the artwork finally serves its purpose to the visitors of the gallery. Maybe jot down some commentary on how with your bones all spread out like this, the point the artist was attempting to make becomes oh so clear. 

And yet, he doesn’t. 

You know it’s his arms that are wrapping around you, pulling you from the chill of the tub and into the warmth of his chest.  And you let yourself smother within the fabric of his shirt the same exact way in which you’ve convinced yourself you smother everyone around you, let yourself breathe in drugstore cologne and his last cigarette rather than think about all the thoughts that had been spiraling you into dismay over the last twenty four hours – over the last twenty four years. 

He’d probably been smoking while waiting on your call tonight. Probably riddled with anxiety, if the shake of his hands pressing into your back are anything to go off of. An anxiety and waiting game that wouldn’t have to exist if you didn’t exist.

The thought makes you cry harder. 

If a ghost dies, can it even still return back as itself? Can it still find it within itself to haunt empty hallways, and watch the ones it once loved find peace?

“You’re not useless,” it sounds as though Eddie might be crying as well, if not just a little choked up, “You’re not- I swear- You’re not useless, okay? Never have been, never will be.”

His murmured words are nice, but they fuel an unimaginable guilt. It was supposed to be a nice night. A night of movie marathons and midnight coffee, of trying to remind yourself why you still stick around. A moment of incomparable joy and sweet reprieve as your stomach ached from laughter, your cheeks swelling with an infallible grin that Eddie always seems to pull out of you.

There’s no smiling, no giggling, right now. Just his favorite band shirt from the show you two had attended a few years before, soaking with a fast-growing stain from all your tears. 

When you don’t answer him, only manage to wrap your selfish arms around his waist, he continues, “How long have you felt this way, sweetheart?”

And if you hadn’t already been shattered previously, that would have finally broken you. 

You can’t pinpoint when it started. You can’t clear the smoke of memories and find an exact moment that you can point to and say, there. That’s where the hurt starts — that’s where the rot starts. 

“I don’t know.”

In your mind, it’s a wail. Loud and ferocious, efforts of all it has taken to withstand the pressure of your undoing screamed out loud. 

But on this quiet bathroom floor, it can’t even be considered a whisper. Nothing more than the spoken words lingering from a ghost who can’t give up the haunt. An echo of a memory, an echo of the piece in you that can’t let go, not yet.

Not of existing, and not of him. Your fists hold him so firmly against you, you’re scared that you’re going to bruise him. Hurt him just from the sheer effort of trying to show that you love him. 

The only way you know how to love – a violent dog who will always bite the kindest hands. Leaving behind bloodied knuckles even if you hadn’t so much as snipped this time. 

You take a sharp breath, aware of the levity of the words you’re about to say, “I don’t want to exist anymore, but I wouldn’t even make it off the bridge if I tried.”

It’s not about the bridge anymore. In all likelihood, it wouldn’t be the bridge you turn to. There’s a grand metaphor somewhere in the admittance, but your mind is just too tired to try and paint a prettier picture of it for him. 

Because exist is just a placeholder. And there’s a bigger, scarier word that should stand in its place. 

He starts to break the hold, and you nearly sob out again just at that. Losing the warmth of his chest and arms strike pain somewhere deep within you, just north of the pit that’s devoured all that’s left of you. 

“Bridge?” Phrased as a clarifying question, but when you see his face, it’s clear he knows. There are no good words left to say about it, “Sweetheart, no.”

There are worse reactions to be had. More scenarios that end in slamming doors or deafening silent treatments. Realizations that you’re right and it’s not worth it – defense mechanisms that involve them leaving first. 

“I couldn’t do it, even if I want-” 

Even if I wanted to. The words you can’t speak, dying on your tongue. 

Do you want to? Where does the pain begin? And where could it end?

“You really don’t see it, do you?” he laughs humorlessly, his hands still gripping your biceps in a death hold, “You… you just…” 

He doesn’t know what to say, and you don’t blame him. You knew this was heavy; you knew this isn’t the type of bomb to drop on someone you love. 

But if you didn’t, where would the bomb have gone? You’re not equipped to detonate it. You’re not equipped to survive the explosion. You wouldn’t want to survive that explosion. 

“I’m sorry,” your words pour out, beginning to shake beneath his palms, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 

Dry, cracked lips feel as though they nearly split from the apologies. More violence, more devastation, more of what you always knew you were. You can see it in his eyes – you’re dragging him down with you, right down to the bottom of the ocean. You’re being an anchor. 

He’s all stutters and harsh breaths, panic filling the space with your own as his eyes search yours, “Don’t apologize. You don’t have to apologize. Just-”

He cuts off and is pulling you close again. Slamming your bones into his, wrapping up around you as if he might be able to keep you safe from the world. From your own mind. 

“I don’t need apologies,” another squeeze of your closer to him, another attempt to pull you away from the dangers that lie within, “I don’t- I just… Can I help? How do I make it better? Just say the word. I’ll do it.” 

It’s not your job. That’s not your job. 

You don’t realize you’ve said the words out loud until he’s squeezing you so tightly that you now can’t breathe. Until all you are is him. All his old t-shirts he’s lent to you that hang in your closet, all the nights spent with tangled legs as you sit across from each other on your couch, all the phone calls in which he refused to be the first one to hang up. Cologne that is too cheap to be able to cling so ferociously as it does to all your surroundings, chain-smoked cigarettes you always chastise him for because they’re gonna kill you one day, the smoke of his latest blunt resting in an ashtray as his head finds home in your lap. 

All the inside jokes. All the hugs. All the simple texts, if for nothing more than to just check in on each other. The broken reminders of having someone out there that cares. That loves you. 

How can such rotten hands pull such love from others? How have you yet to infect him? 

“I know it’s not my job,” he finally says, and you know for a fact he’s crying along with you before the first of his tears have wet the crown of your head, “It’s never been a job. You’re not a job. Okay? Get that through your head. There’s- Fuck, there’s plenty of things I wanna drill in that pretty little head of yours right now, but I know I can’t, so just get that.”

He’s trying. A little trill of his tongue that falls a bit flat when he refers to your pretty little head, a brief squeeze of your shoulders as he tries to relax a little. He wants to make you feel better. He wants to make it better. 

But he’s still holding you like he’s terrified. You did that – you instilled that fear. 

“I’m a mess,” you whisper in bitter realization, ash on your tongue as you process what you’ve done. You’ve already apologized, but you’re seconds away from doing so again, “I’m- I’m a mess, and I’m dragging you into it, and I’m sor-”

“Stop being sorry.” Definitive words, no room for argument. The smallest of shifts as things click into place. He isn’t budging – he isn’t letting go, “Do you remember when I first met you?” 

You can’t tell if the question is meant to have a point, or if it’s meant to be a distraction. You let it grow into the latter.

“Yeah,” you breathe out against him, melting into his chest, trying to focus on his voice rather than the ones in your head, “But tell me about it anyway?” 

“Two years ago. Technically, two years and seven months,” he starts in the same voice he used to take on during Hellfire sessions, before the members had scattered from coast to coast and his D&D club only became a rarity when the stars aligned. There’s still a crack to his voice from his tears, but that doesn’t stop him, “We were in some cursed fucking diner we don’t even go to anymore, in the dead of the night, and all the servers knew your name and order,” he paints the picture with a humor that should feel out of place, but it settles some of your breathing. Omitting all the vivid details, opting for triggering the memory with words you’d just get. You can feel the stick of the plastic beneath your thighs, you can smell the grease of the kitchen. You can see the cloudy night out of the oversized windows. He’s a natural born storyteller in the most subtle of ways, always knowing his audience, “You were sitting all alone in that booth, and all of Hellfire had just left. Gareth had just told us how he was going to college in California – did you know that?” 

“I didn’t.” 

“Well, he did,” his chin presses against the top of your head, a huff of a laugh escaping him, “Dropped the bomb it was our last summer as a club probably. We were happy for him, though. Real fucking happy. Got milkshakes to celebrate and made plans to get drunk off our asses the next night to keep the party going. It was dumb, and I’m getting off track, but…” 

Baited breath, you’re waiting for him to continue. No thoughts of the bridge. No thoughts of your failures. Living in a small memory with him on the floor of your bathroom. 

“Anyways, you were sitting there all alone, with a plate of fries and ranch.” 

“Oh, God,” your nose scrunches and you try to pull away, suddenly remembering how embarrassing this memory ends for you. It suddenly didn’t seem like the best way for him to make you feel better by any means, “No, I remember how this story ends, and-”

“I’m not done,” he locks his arms around you, and you can feel the whisper of a smile as it brushes against your temple, “Obviously you know where I’m going with this, but I’m not done, sweetheart. Because all the other guys had just left, and I’m sitting there, realizing the only other customer was some random person over across the diner, scribbling away in some notebook. Thought you looked cute when you were all focused like that, y’know? But then you were so focused that it became distracted, and you spilled that ranch all over yours-” 

“Please, stop.”

You’re laughing through the words, weakly, the air of desperation in the word please being far different from earlier in the night. No bridges, no failures. 

“I was probably being a weirdo, trying to run over and help you or whatever the fuck I was trying to do. I probably made it worse, right?” 

You’re there, remembering a version of Eddie that was a stranger, taking napkins to the knees of your jeans and smearing the ranch rather than really helping you clean it up. “Yeah, just a little bit.” 

“Sorry for that, by the way,” he airily apologizes before continuing, “But I just remember thinking about how focused you were on that notebook. And how you laughed with the waiter. And how you were just… lost in your own little world. And how you were so cute. You were so nice. The type of person I wanted in my life. Took one look at you with that ranch all over your lap and thought, huh. I want to get to know that person.” 

“Nice? I was not nice, I was-” you cut off, heart all but stopping as you recognize the point of it all. It wasn’t meant to just be a distraction. He was making a point. “I was a… a mess that day.” 

“Exactly.”

He pulls away again, and this time, it’s a little easier. The world has put a pause on its ending and you can handle the weight of his arms lightening for a few seconds, just so he can get a good look at your face. 

“You were a mess the day that I met you, and I still wanted you in my life,” he says each word deliberately, not breaking eye contact. Fear has broken through to determination. “And even if you’re still a mess today, I still want you. Nothing changes. You get that?” 

No bridges.

No failures.

The weight of it all had been heavy. The type of sorrow you thought was never meant to be carried by more than your own two hands. But he had taken it in his palms, lifted it from you entirely, even if it would only be temporary. One day you’d have to endure the pain again, get to the root of the problem. Figure out if all your ailments had been something wired into you since birth, or things you’d picked up along your way. But for now, you could breathe again. You could hear the drumming of your heart in your ears, and you could hear every single one of both yours and Eddie’s breaths in the silence, and that was enough. 

“I don’t want to die,” you finally quietly admit. Saying one of the bigger, scarier words. The thing you’d been too afraid to let slip off your tongue originally. “I just- sometimes it all gets a bit loud, you know? And I know you said don’t apologize, but I am sorry that I scared you. And I’m sorry that you have to take the bad to also get that little bit of the good with me.” 

His hand leaves one of your arms for the first time since he’d first wrapped you up, and it finds its way to cradle the side of your head. Holding you as if you’re porcelain still. You know that won’t go away, not tonight. “I’d rather have your bad days than have nothing at all,” he chokes up once more, and you can see tears threatening to welt in his eyes, “You get that, too. Alright? You’re worth it. Bad, good, funny, sad – give it to me. I’m asking for it. Just don’t… don’t leave me with the nothing.”

You’re worth it. 

He’s found a worth in you attached to nothing at all. He’s sitting here with you, on the bathroom floor, and his perception of you has nothing to do with what you can only offer. 

It just has to do with you. He sees you, and he’s decided you’re worth it. Even now.

He smiles softly, as if he can see the realization dawning upon you, “You wanna get up off the floor now? We can go sit on your couch or bed or something.” 

You’re quick to shake your head. Your knees are partially digging into his thighs, your breaths are matching his. 

“Okay,” his face falls slightly, but not entirely. Not entirely, “That’s okay. Do you want me…. Do you want me to go?” 

Another shake of your head. But this time, you need to offer more than just the motion of your head, especially when you can feel tears returning as your throat tightens up, “No. No, just- Stay with me? Please?” 

Your hands reach out without you even processing it, gripping his wrists, desperate and clinging and still verging on the edge of violent. The thought of being alone is terrifying, but the thought of having to watch him walk out of this room is even more petrifying. 

He doesn’t even flinch as you sink your claws in. His smile only returns, and he shuffles to pull you both to hold your backs up against the wall across from the toilet, “Of course. I’ll stay, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere – wouldn’t even dream of it.” 

His words shake just a little less than they had when he’d first entered the room. 

He can’t fix it all magically. That isn’t his job, isn’t his role, isn’t his choice. But he can sit here with you, on the floor of the bathroom, endlessly patient and tragically caring as he urges you to lay down. He stretches his legs out and pats his lap once before hovering his hands over your shoulder, guiding you until your temple is flush with his thigh. 

He can choose to not hesitate as his fingers immediately push through the baby hairs by your temple, a soft hum in the back of his throat that sounds exactly as you feel.

Hesitantly content. Just for now. It’s enough. 

The storm is receding. As hours pass by, and noises of uncertainty become more confident hums of a song you faintly recognize, it all settles. He stays. You stay. The storm passes for the time being, and the hole tempers itself for just the night. 

It’s enough for now. You’ll worry more tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. You’ll talk more about why you feel this way, and he’ll offer better solutions. The weight won’t simply be passed into his waiting hands and forgotten – one day, you’ll find a way to lighten it through dissipation rather than through catastrophe. 

One day, the seas will calm, and you’ll find yourself the ship rather than the anchor. 

You, on the other hand, were sweaty, tired, messy, and your arms hurt. None of which was Eddie's fault, so he truly didn't deserve any of the rancor that you were sending his way. But it wasn't like he was helping you at all; he was just getting in your way.

This all started because your nemesis of a coworker had signed up for the Annual Hawkins Christmas Cookie Walk, and of course she was running her big mouth about it.

"It's for charity." "What better way to get into the spirit of the holiday than with a few cookies?" "I'm pretty sure I'll get the crowd favorite ribbon this year with my grandma's shortbread recipe."

After a week of her blathering on and on about how saintly and culinarily talented she was, you'd had enough. Out of spite, you marched right down to city hall and signed up for the Cookie Walk yourself.

You had a grandma whose recipes were passed down to you! You could bake cookies! You were charitable! Fuck Cheryl and her stupid shortbread!

Come Monday, when she started talking about her expensive European butter, you announced that you'd signed up as well. Scratch the aforementioned look you'd given Eddie; Cheryl had sent the most scathing look your way, before plastering her typical bright and chipper smile on.

"Then we're in it together, hon! For charity. Oh, but don't wear yourself out. 250 cookies is nothing to blink at."

In your spite, you hadn't realized that you'd needed to bake 250 cookies. Lo and behold, checking the sheet that you'd taken after signing up, it was true.

Which was why you had forgone your typical Thursday night movie and takeout date with Eddie so you could bake instead. He still insisted on showing up with cartons of food and his usual perniciousness.

"You have five seconds to get out of this kitchen," you grumbled at him. "Or I'm shoving this cookie dough so far up your ass you'll taste it."

"I mean, I guess that means I have to stay, since you said I don't even get to sample said cookies until after the Cookie Walk."

"There's not going to be a cookie to spare," you explained for what felt like the millionth time. "Two hundred and fifty cookies. What was I thinking?"

"You were thinking that your coworker was a pretentious bitch and needed to get her comeuppance." Eddie nodded in understanding. "And I support that wholeheartedly. I really do."

You shot him a dead-eyed glare.

"I do, however, think that you should've chosen an easier recipe than this."

He was right, of course. You knew that as you glanced around the kitchen. Every surface was covered, the exhaust fan over your stove was making a chug-a-lug noise, and the walls were sweating. Your shoebox of an apartment was not meant for this.

Eddie got close, closer than he probably should have dared, and he wrapped his arms around your waist and pressed a kiss to the side of your head.

"You know, we can just take a drive to K-Mart and buy chocolate chip cookies," he suggested deviously. "Get some icees to cool us off. Call it a wash. That's what I would do if I was in your shoes. Hide the boxes under the table and put them out when no one's looking. They would never know."

"I would know," you insisted, and you went back to kneading. "I committed to this and I need to see it through." You paused for a beat and then looked at him. "Next year we'll get cookies from Kmart."

"Next year, huh?" You could hear the smile in his voice.

"Yeah." You nodded. "Next year."

"Alright, sweetheart." He released you from his hold and clapped his hands. "In the meantime, let me help you. The quicker you get this done, the quicker we can make out on your couch."

---

By Saturday evening, you had done it. 250 cookies laid out on various festive plates. You had even decorated your assigned folding table with little bits of garland and a few shiny ornaments. It didn't feel as big and flashy as some of the displays were, with their overflowing tiered trays of cookies and fake snow and christmas lights, but you were proud.

The one thing you were missing, though, was your boyfriend.

You thought Eddie would be here with bells on. Literally. He had been whining in your ear about trying the cookies and even told you that he'd see you at the cookie walk. It was still early, but he'd spent the morning with his bandmates; you thought that he would show up early to toss a fin into the donation box and get his fill of sweets.

"He'll show up later," you sighed to yourself, trying to hide your disappointment. You decided, to cheer yourself up a little, that you would take a spin around and look at the other tables.

The Cookie Walk was situated in and around the town square, right across from the library, and the event itself would coincide with the lighting of the town's Christmas tree. A transplant to Hawkins yourself, you'd never experienced this kind of eventful, small town charm. In your head, this was something out of a sitcom's Christmas special, and not a part of someone's regular life.

But there were friends and neighbors, familiar faces all around getting in on the holiday spirit. There were Robin and Steve, Eddie's friends from Family Video, bickering as they set up a giant carafe of what was most likely hot cocoa at the donation table; a woman who didn't look too unlike Steve pinched his cheek once they were all done. The middle school choir, ready for caroling, all stood around the big Christmas tree, with Joyce from Melvalds leading their warm-up. You couldn't even force yourself to sneer at the sight of Cheryl's table, or her and her husband in matching red onesie pajamas and reindeer antlers.

What you didn't expect, though, was a table that looked like a bastardized version of the north pole. With little orcs instead of reindeer, pulling a plastic sled full of cookies that looked like lumps of coal from a distance; a small, tabletop tree was spray-painted black; and a hand-painted sign was placed in front of the table saying "ask me about Santa's Naughty List."

Oh no. It couldn't be...it just couldn't.

You would've just walked away; out of sight, out of mind, or so it was said. But soon you heard the voices of your fellow bystanders.

"Oh god, they're back. Who keeps letting those boys sign up?"

"You know Martha will take as many volunteers as she gets. What an eyesore."

"It's a shame they make such good cookies."

Shortly after, he appeared.

Eddie, clad in a decidedly festive black santa hat, and his 3 idiot friends with fake elf ears. Or maybe they were vulcan ears; you'd gotten an earful the last time you made that mistake.

"Ho, ho, ho," he positively cackled at the passersby. "And a very Corroded Christmas to everyone." You felt your throat tighten, your eyebrows jump, and your hands clench into fists. As if by sensing your fury, Eddie's gaze turned and landed directly on you. He cackled again and held his arms out. "Oh, if it isn't the naughtiest elf of all."

You beelined for him and pushed an accusing finger right into the meat of his shoulder.

"What the..." You caught yourself before you swore in front of the wholesome families of Hawkins. "...heck...what the heck are you doing here?"

"We're participating in the Cookie walk," he said nonchalantly, gesturing at the table like it was a no-brainer. "Duh."

"No, I mean..." You struggled to find the words. "What are...how did...why?"

"We do it every year."

"You do?" you asked skeptically.

"Yeah," Jeff piped up from behind Eddie. "Ever since Harrington begged us to help his mom out. Turns out? It's pretty fun."

"Everyone else is holly jolly," Gareth supplied. "And we're all...guys, what's a festive word that rhymes with metal? Or badass?”

"This is why you don't write our songs," Dave grumbled.

"Why didn't you tell me?" You turned your attention back to Eddie. "You let me lose my mind making all of those cookies...and you didn't even mention that you were in the same boat." And then an epiphany hit you. "Unless you aren't in the same boat. Eddie, did you buy these cookies?"

He pressed a hand over his heart and made the most wounded sound. "Sweetheart, how could you accuse me of such a heinous crime?"

You tried to maneuver past him so you could inspect his treats, only for him to grab you by the middle and haul you back away from the table.

"Ah, ah, ah," he tsked. "You're not supposed to try the cookies until after the cookie walk."

"That's bullshit."

"That was your rule. And for once, I will abide." He winked. "Gareth's mom bakes them. But you know how nervous she is around a big crowd. So she lets us take the credit..."

"And we've won the crowd favorite ribbon every year. Which she hangs up in the kitchen," Gareth interjected. "She's really proud of them."

You felt yourself melting at the gesture; you knew that Eddie and the guys were big softies under their hard exteriors but it was really sweet of them to do that for her.

You were about to share that thought with them, only for the sound of your name being called to stop you.

"Oh, is this what you meant when you said you signed up, hon?" Cheryl questioned instead of a greeting. "Corroded Cookies has been a staple for the last few years. Truly a joy to have their creativity. You could've just said you were joining their team."

"Uh," you frowned and saw the way her glare was aimed right at Eddie. You were shocked that Eddie and his friends had your bitch of a coworker seething. "No. I, uh, have a table over there. This is my boyfriend."

Cheryl harrumphed judgmentally.

"So this is the infamous Cheryl?" Eddie muttered to you and unfortunately, she heard.

"Infamous?" she scoffed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

You stumbled over the response with a nervous laugh, "it's just...I just...you're one of my favorite people at the office. Of course he's heard about you." She shot the two of you a dead-eyed stare, not buying it one bit.

"What can I say?" Eddie grinned with an uncharacteristic bashfulness. "I want to know everything about where the love of my life works."

Jeff, Gareth, and Dave made gagging noises behind you.

"Well, good luck to both of you in the Cookie Walk, then." Cheryl shot you both the fakest smile. "I know Corroded Cookies has been pretty popular the last few years but I think I've got them beat with my shortbread. What have you boys got this time?"

She tried snooping, just as you had, but Eddie stopped her from getting closer with an arm held out.

"Oh, sorry." He smirked. "Cookies are only for people who donate. So unless you have a spare $10 in your butt flap, I'm gonna have to ask you to move along."

Cheryl's face practically turned purple with rage. She grumbled under her breath as she walked away.

Eddie leaned in and wrapped an arm around your shoulder as called after her to say you'd see her at the office on Monday. "I really fucking hate that lady. Somehow, I never put two and two together that my Cheryl and yours were the same person. Can't say I'm surprised, though."

"Hawkins isn't big enough for two insufferable assholes?" you questioned mirthfully.

When she sighed—quiet, involuntary—Eddie’s hand twitched like he wanted to help, to smooth the sound away with touch alone.

“C’mere,” he murmured, the words low and warm.

She didn’t protest when he gently guided her to shift, bringing her just a little closer, settling her more securely against him. His arm slid around her waist, and the second her body relaxed into him, something unspoken eased in his chest.

For a long moment, they simply breathed together, her back rising with his slow inhale, falling with his exhale. The kind of stillness that felt like being held without being asked to be okay.

Then Eddie moved—slow, deliberate—his fingers brushing lightly along her shoulder before traveling higher.

His hand slid up, hand gently stroked the back of her head. Slow at first, then in those long, steady strokes that always managed to distract her from the lingering cramps. 

Eddie felt the shift before she did.

Her breathing had evened out, her shoulders weren’t drawn up to her ears anymore, and the storm-cloud crankiness pulsing off her had thinned enough that he could finally exhale.

“You’re feeling a little better,” he murmured, surprise slipping into his voice like he didn’t trust it.

Her answer was muffled into his chest. “How could you tell? I didn’t say anything.”

“You don’t have to.” He brushed his thumb along the back of her head, fingertips moving through her hair like he’d been waiting for permission all morning. “You’re still grumpy, just… less ‘bite my head off’ grumpy.”

A quiet huff escaped her—barely a laugh.

It still made him brighten like she had given him a gift.

She closed her eyes. Not from fatigue—just because Eddie’s hands in her hair made it easy to melt.

His arm curled more securely around her waist, pulling her back against the solid warmth of him. Her gaze caught his again, and her breath hitched.

No expectations in his eyes.

Just warmth.

Just him.

And even though the cramps were still there, twisting and mean, something in her chest loosened a little.

One second she was curled against him, breathing in warm chocolate and cinnamon lingering on her own skin.

The next—something inside her just… melted. Even when she pretended not to notice.

But Eddie felt it anyway.

“What’s wrong?” he whispered, instantly concerned. “You hurting again?”

His arm tightened around her stomach, protective, instinctive.

She just felt… warm. Too warm.

Like something was blooming in her ribs, soft and  beautiful.

“No,” she whispered, voice unsteady in a way she hoped he wouldn’t notice. “Just… thinking.”

“About what?” he asked lightly, teasing. “How my hair looks extra good today?”

She rolled her eyes, Eddie had a way of lightening the mood, even when she doesn't ask for it.

Her heart picked up, thumping faster than the slow, sleepy rhythm of his. There’s a fluttering in her stomach, a feeling she wasn’t ready to label.

Hormones, she told herself.

Probably hormones.

Maybe hormones.

Or maybe it was the way Eddie held her—like she was something precious.

Maybe it was the steadiness of his breath against her neck.

Or the way his thumb brushed slow, absentminded, and comforting against her lower stomach.

It was impossible not to feel it. And she hadn’t even realized it was happening until the moment he looked at her like that.

Eddie blinked, something flickering through him—confusion, warmth, a tug of her affection echoing back into him. His hand stilled on her stomach, thumb barely grazing her skin.

She found herself fully turning in his arms, slowly, like she was afraid the movement would break the spell. Eddie froze the second she moved, his eyes searched hers for a reason for the sudden shift.

Her fingers lifted before her mind even caught up and they brushed his cheek.

He swallowed hard, pupils dilating as he soaked in the new rush of emotion rolling off her—soft, swelling, deep. His breath stuttered, chest rising sharply. 

They both felt it.

Something inside both of them held still, suspended in a fragile, electric pulse.

Her hand slid into his curls.

His waves curled around her fingers and Eddie made a sound—barely there, but real—a tiny inhale, like the touch knocked the air out of him.

“Eddie,” she whispered, though she wasn’t sure why.

Maybe to steady herself.

He looked at her like he was afraid to blink.

Afraid to breathe wrong and lose whatever this was.

And then—slowly, like gravity was deciding for her—she leaned in.

Their foreheads brushed first. 

Then their noses.

Then her lips pressed to his.

Soft.

Tender.

Barely-there.

But it cracked something open inside him.

A shock of heat and sweetness and disbelief surged through Eddie so strong he trembled. He didn’t kiss her back at first—not out of hesitation, but because he was stunned. Like someone had finally given him something he wasn’t allowed to want.

Then he exhaled—long, shuddering, surrendered—and kissed her back.

Gentle. Almost painfully careful.

His lips brushed hers like he was learning her lips through touch alone, committing her lips and softness to memory. His hand slid from her stomach to her waist, pulling her closer, not with hunger but with wonder.

Her fingers tightened in his hair, tugging lightly as she pressed closer, molding herself against him.

Eddie made a low sound in his throat—something warm, something that vibrated against her mouth. His other hand slid up her back, broad palm settling between her shoulder blades, holding her like he wanted to keep her there forever.

The kiss deepened only a breath.

Heated. Steady. Until she needed air.

She pulled back the slightest bit, breath mingling with his, her forehead resting against his. Eddie’s eyes were heavy-lidded, dark with something too tender to hide.

“You—” His voice caught. He swallowed and tried again, softer. “You feel… really good.”

Her lips curved. “You do too.” she whispered back, thumb brushing the line of his jaw. 

He just pulled her into his chest, his heartbeat thudding hard and uneven beneath her ear, and kissed her again—soft, brief, tender—like he couldn’t help himself.

The second kiss changed everything.

Maybe it was the feverish little exhale she brushed against his mouth.

Maybe it was the low groan that rumbled out of Eddie, unplanned, raw, pulled straight from somewhere deep inside him.

They both leaned in at the same time—no hesitation, no fear—like their bodies had been waiting for this exact moment to finally breathe.

Whatever it was, the moment shifted.

An electrifying current snapped taut between them—sharp, hot, magnetic.

Her fingers tightened in his hair as Eddie’s mouth found hers with more need this time, more certainty. He kissed her like he’d been holding his breath for days. 

Weeks. Months. 

His hand slid up the curve of her waist, tracing her spine, pulling her flush against him until there was no space left.

She gasped softly, the sound swallowed by his lips, and Eddie felt that spark inside her—bright, molten—slam right through him.

He shuddered.

“W-wait–” he whispered against her mouth, voice strained and low. 

Her voice came out hushed, tender. “What’s wrong?”

Eddie swallowed. Hard.

His hands were still roaming—slow, tender strokes along her waist, up the curve of her back, across the soft warmth of her shoulder like he couldn’t bear to lose contact with any part of her.

“I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never felt emotions the way other people do. Hell, I’ve never felt anything like this.”

His fingertips skimmed her ribs, trembling slightly.

“But with you… I feel everything.”

Her chest tightened at the honesty in his voice—raw, uncertain, full of wonder he didn’t know how to hide. She lifted a hand, cupping his cheek, her thumb brushing the faint stubble along his jaw.

“I thought demons couldn’t feel,” she whispered.

Eddie leaned into her touch like he’d been waiting his whole life for that softness. His eyes fluttered shut for a brief second before he opened them again, dark and warm and impossibly tender.

“I thought so too,” he murmured. “But you… you’re special. You’ve got magic or something—hell if I know.”

He turned his head and pressed a slow kiss into her palm, his lips lingering there like he didn’t want to let go of the taste of her skin.

She laughed softly, the sound like warm honey drizzling down his spine. “I think I’d know if I had magic.”

He shook his head, forehead sliding back to rest against hers. “Not the sparkly wand kind. Something else.”

His voice dropped, quieter, as if admitting a secret to himself.

“You make me feel… alive. More real.”

Her breath hitched, and her other hand came up to cradle his jaw, her fingers threading into his hair. The warmth between them thickened, not urgent now—just soft, glowing, unhurried.

“I don’t think that’s magic,” she whispered. “I think that’s just… us.”

A small, almost disbelieving smile tugged at Eddie’s lips. His thumb brushed along her hip, tracing absent circles like he was memorizing the shape of her.

“Us,” he repeated, tasting the word. Because she felt it too—this rush, this pull, this undeniable click like something in the universe had lined them up just right.

If the weather was warmer, you would’ve spent the day outside like you normally did. True that since Hawkins became haunted with the souls of the damned and deceased, you hadn’t ventured into the woods much anymore, but you did still like to go to the Eno River and the three lakes to go mudlarking and even magnet fishing sometimes. If you found anything good, you’d take it into town and trade with Mr. Horowitz at the antique shop. But with winter in full effect, you decided it was best to be near the water when it wasn’t freezing should you accidentally fall in. 

There were other things you could do: Homework, watch TV, or get your laundry started, but none of it sounded appealing. Even after eating the last stale bagel, you couldn’t bring yourself to do anything but lounge around the empty house and wait for the mailman to come by. 

You’d been waiting for months to hear whether or not you got into the University of Chicago. As February was already nearing its end, you hoped to have heard back about your early admissions application. Every day you sprinted home to see if the hefty welcome packet was waiting for you in the mailbox, and yet every day you were disappointed. You were accepted into Indiana State already, but you weren’t keen on it as your first choice. Too many Hawkins classmates were going to be there and the program you wanted wasn’t nearly as prestigious as Chicago’s. Not to mention Terre Haute was way too close to home and your parents. 

Your relationship wasn’t always this strained with them. You remembered a time when family dinners were a nightly occurrence made by a homemaking mother for your very business oriented father at the end of his work day. Where there would talk about your day and gossip about the neighbors. But those quit by the time you finished the fourth grade. Mom decided that being by dad’s side selling homes was where she belonged. She said he needed to have a closer eye on him. Later you realized that meant she didn’t trust him to stay within their marriage though you were never told exactly why she felt that way. You let your imagination run wild and it left a very bitter taste in your mouth towards him. He didn’t seem to notice.  

Even so, mom became obsessed with reputation. Upon her insistence, they created a tag team husband and wife realtor duo with the studious daughter who never got in trouble, and worked hard at selling their ’American Dream come true’ to young families looking for a place to reside within western Indiana. Nevermind the fact that the wallet size photo of their precious model daughter was used as a tool to sell houses while the living, breathing girl was mostly forgotten. Left alone in the house after school until the late evenings and on the weekends. For a while Sundays were when you saw them and got to spend time with them, but even that came to an end when they started branching out to show homes more than thirty miles from town. 

You felt like a piece of furniture in the background of their life. Like an ugly armchair with a poky spring that was too uncomfortable to sit on but remained within the house because it completed the living room decor. You tried to express your loneliness to them, but they just pushed you to have more slumber parties with Nancy and Barb, or even ask the Wheeler’s if you could stay for dinner at their home most nights. After Barb went missing and so many people died in the mall fire, the only thing they said was they hoped the term Haunted Hawkins wouldn’t stick and ruin marketability. 

So now, in your last semester of high school, you were beyond ready to leave. You didn’t want to be the ugly armchair in the corner anymore. You wanted to get out there! Chicago was the New York City of the Midwest. You couldn’t wait to explore it and live a life of your own. Try new foods, meet new people, make new friends! All without being told to stay and hold down the permanently empty fort that was once a home. Get to go out without being reminded that they were prominent community members and that anything you did reflected badly on them and their business. In a new town you could be someone else. Someone cool. The person you truly wanted to be. 

When the mailman came around ten o’clock, you sprinted out into the freezing and damp cold to greet him as you did every Saturday morning. The stack was thin, and all too soon you realized there was no correspondence from your dream school—only coupons for a pizza place and presumably bills addressed to your parents. Shoulders rounded in defeat, you went back inside. Perhaps doing some of your homework would show whatever ruling divinity that you were serious and really really wanted to go to Chicago in the fall. 

It wasn’t very stimulating work and you found it very difficult to focus for long periods of time. You tried changing subjects, taking brain breaks, and getting small snacks to keep your mind fueled, but nothing helped your thoughts remain on course. As much as you wanted to please your calculus teacher, you did not pass up the opportunity to abandon chapter fourteen’s review questions when the phone rang around one o’clock in the afternoon.

Perhaps it was Nancy wanting you to come over to hang out. Even if it was just to talk about Johnathan Byers, you’d jump on the opportunity to leave the house for some company. 

“Hello?” you answered hopefully.

The masculine voice flatly reciting your name on the other side of the line certainly did not belong to your childhood friend.

“This is her,” you replied, frown etching its way across your lips. There was only one person it could be. The same person you gave your number to the day before in class. The one you were paired with for a dreadful grade-defining project. But still, you asked the question anyway in hopes that literally anyone else would answer.  “Who’s this?”

“Munson,” the voice said. “ From Albrecht’s class?”

Pouting, you crossed your arms across your chest. “Yeah, okay.”

He scoffed at the lack of your enthusiasm. “Wanna meet up today and get this over with or what? Fine by me if you don’t.”

As awful as it sounded, further evaluation of the rubric determined you were going to need him, and were absolutely not going to deny his help if he was saving you the trouble of trying to bully it out of him. You cleared your throat and tried to be a little more forgiving in your tone towards him since he at least took the initiative to not be a total useless lump thus far. 

“That sounds fine, actually. Yeah," you agreed. “Did you have a place in mind?”

Munson inhaled deeply, probably smoking by the sharp sound of it, before answering. “How about The Standard on Franklin in a half hour?”

Wrinkling your nose, you questioned the location. “The gas station?”

“They’ve got heat, fifty-cent burritos, free bathrooms, and unlimited drip coffee. They know me there and they won’t kick us out. Name a better spot to hang--I dare you,” Munson challenged.

You could think of a hundred different places that were better than the greasy corner store adjacent to the gas station on Franklin street. The library, but it didn’t allow food or drinks. Burger Chef had food, but it certainly wasn’t as cheap as fifty-cents nor did they let customers stay for an undesignated amount of time. Robusta-Ina-Cuppa had coffee but--

“Got a problem with that?” he snapped.

“Geez! Would you just--!” you exclaimed in frustration with clenched fists. You glanced at the clock above the mantle and exhaled deeply. “Fine!”

“In a half hour,” he repeated firmly.

“I will be there when I get there!” you sneered, slamming the receiver onto the hook and huffing verbal annoyances to yourself as you dressed for the outdoors. 

Biking in the winter was less than ideal, but part of the deal with your parents allowing you to apply to schools out of state was to save money by not allowing you to own a car. You were licensed on your eighteenth birthday and reluctantly added to the insurance policy at your father’s dismay, but other than that you weren’t like the other kids at school who were offered a car. Instead, you agreed to let that money be put towards room and board for a school far away from home. It sounded like a dream come true at the time, but as you peddled and skidded the three miles towards the meeting spot with your backpack thrashing side to side, not opting for a car was a stupid choice. 

By the time you chained your bike to the frost covered rack outside of the corner store, you were both simultaneously freezing and sweating from the cold and exertion of the trek. No one seemed to be around except some guy pumping gas a few feet away. Unraveling the scarf from your neck and removing the gloves from your hands, you went inside the small store to see if Munson was already there. 

You scoffed when a quick sweep of the small, poorly lit interior alerted you that he wasn’t. 

The place reeked of smoke, oil, and burnt coffee grounds, and you tried to ignore the way you had to nearly rip your shoe from the clutches of the thick film that tried to anchor it to the floor as you made your way towards the two small booths that sat in front of the food display. With a wrinkled nose, you eyed the hot dogs as they rotated under the heat lamp--glistening with grease and blistered from being dried out. The fifty-cent burritos Munson mentioned were on the hot rack next to the offending hot dogs, and by comparison looked far more edible, though you weren’t eager to give either a taste test. Declining on the less grimy table, you set your backpack down and continued to remove the layers of winter clothing. 

“Can’t sit in here if you’re not gonna buy something,” a hoarse voice wheezed out. 

Looking towards the origin of the speaker, you found a severe looking woman in her later forties behind the counter staring at you--a lit cigarette pinched between her red nailed fingers. 

“Right,” you muttered to yourself. You kept glancing over your shoulder to see if Munson was pulling into the driveway, but even after you picked out a drink and something to snack on, paid, and resumed your seat, he was nowhere to be seen. 

What you did see, however, nearly made you slip under the table to hide. The sleek, black Jeep Cherokee parked crookedly as close to the front door as possible, and out poured five familiar face from the Hawkins High basketball team, including one that still ached to see.

In an effort to hide from Patrick McKinney, you quickly pulled out your portfolio and the other materials needed for Contemporary Living and quickly tried to shield yourself from view—leaning your forehead against your palm to hide your face and looking intensely interested in the rubric, occasionally jotting down cursive nonsense in your notebook while Jason, Andy, and Patrick noisily made their way through the shelves of the small store.

Each thump of your heart against your throat only slowed the agonizing passing of time. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. How long did it take to pick out snacks and leave? Forever, apparently. They were so loud, rowdy, and bickered about everything. What flavor chips to get, how many bags, which candy Chrissy Cunningham liked better. The more they moved through the store, the more assured you were that they weren’t paying any attention to the people around them. They didn’t seem to care who knew that there was going to be a party at Benny’s, or that they were trying cases of beer for it with Andy’s new fake ID. 

The mention of Benny’s Burgers made your shoulder slump with sorrow. The restaurant that had once been where you went with your friends on Wednesday night for dollar malt shakes and pinball was once Benny’s murder scene and has since been used as a den of degeneracy, or so you had heard from the grapevine at school. What a sad way to memorialize the place. Perhaps it wouldn’t sting so much if they at least took the sign down…

Barb. Benny. The restaurant. The mall. Haunted Hawkins indeed.

The raspy voice of the store clerk hollering pulled you from your sadness. 

“And what do you think you’re doing with that, young man?” she demanded waspishly, peering over the jeweled rim of her coke bottle glasses directly at Andy Dixon. 

He held up a wad of cash in the hand not holding a case of Budweiser and looked at her as innocently as he could muster. “I’m gonna pay for it.” 

The clerk chuckled as she stamped out her cigarette. “Seeing as you’re not 21, I don’t think so.”

Andy looked nervously to his ring leader, who immediately jumped into action. Jason, ever the charmer, put his hand across his heart and smiled just wide enough to allow a dimple to dent his cheek. “Ma’am, I think you might remember me? I’ve been here quite a few times since I am 21 and I’ve always had nothing but good things to say about this establishment—“

The clerk leaned across the counter, looking down at Jason like a judge would a guilty defendant, with a very unamused, flat face. 

“What kind of fool would I be if I sold beer to a bunch of kids wearing their high school lettermen jackets?” she asked cooly. Pointing at Andy, she demanded he put the case of beer back immediately. 

You, Jason, and everyone else looked at the team and sure enough, each of them were wearing signature greens and white leather to show their accomplishment on the basketball court. The high school court, to be exact, with Hawkins High School Tigers etched in loopy cursive down the sleeve. 

There was no stopping the chortle that erupted in the back of your throat or the eyeroll that went along with it. What absolute fools. Unfortunately for you, the mocking scoff alerted the dunderheaded jocks to your presence, and though you tried to keep your focus on the work in front of you as a way to maintain your innocence, Jason Carver wasn’t going to let being laughed at go. 

From your peripheral vision, you saw him saunter over to you and brace his wrists on the table. 

“Is something funny?” he sneered. 

Continuing to avoid his gaze, you shrugged. “You could say that.”

Jason looked down at what could be holding your attention instead of him and chuckled. “Albrecht, huh? Chrissy and I were paired together. No surprise there, we’re gonna be together forever—“

It took an extreme effort to hold back a second snort at his cliche proclamation. Jason Carver and Chrissy Cunningham absolutely would be the high school couple that got married young and ended up being community staples with enough kids to roster their own basketball team with substitutes that never left Hawkins except the summer vacation to the cabin two hours north. Jason’s life dream was your personal nightmare. 

“—but I wonder who you got paired with? I know it wasn’t who you wanted it to be,” Jason smirked. 

Your eyes briefly flitted over to Patrick, who stood by silently with his back turned pretending not to hear what was going on as he looked at the nutritional information on a stick of beef jerky. Typical. He didn’t stand up to Jason back then, so there was no reason to expect he’d do so now. Especially no on your behalf if history had anything to show for it.  

Cheeks stinging with embarrassment and irritation, you stared into the crystal blue eyes of your tormentor. “Weren’t you just leaving?”

Jason shook his head. “During our pleasant conversation? Not a chance! C’mon, who’d you get partnered with if not my dashing friend over there?” 

Fate was a cruel thing. The frizzy haired freak could have shown up ten minutes earlier or even ten seconds later, but instead he came bursting through the corner store door like a bull in a china stop. He stopped when he saw you being crowded by Jason, a look of pure disgust and fury wrinkling his features. “I knew you’d ask for a new partner,” he accused viciously. 

You hoped Jason would be stop on the uptake, but you weren’t that lucky. Roaring with laughter Jason said, “Munson!? Now that’s funny!” 

Mortification and rage pulsed through veins as you clenched your fists on the tabletop. If the ground could just open up and swallow you whole, you’d let it in an instant as the rest of Jason’s cronies joined him in snickering at your misery. It was hard enough being estranged from your once good friend, but to be lumped into the same loser caliber as Eddie Munson on top of it was downright insulting. 

Munson, however, smiled smugly as he stepped closer to the booth. “Jealous I’m already taken, Carver?”

Jason’s laughter ceased immediately and the grin slid from his face. Even you were shocked as Munson winked and picked his lips to send a kiss to the stunned jock. 

With his pale face reddening, Jason barked, "Let's get away from this freak,” to his friends before marching towards the door. 

“See ya, toots,” Munson sniggered, watching Jason practically break out into a run towards his Jeep with his minions sprinting behind him to keep up. 

You eyed Munson curiously as he roamed through the isles, loudly shouting towards the clerk behind the counter as he grabbed copious amounts of snacks, a burrito, and a coffee. He seemed to know the woman he called Jeanine well, daring to ask about her weekend plans and teasing her about her red nails. She didn’t seem amused by him at all. In fact, she chastised him for his flirtatious behavior towards the other boy, advising him that even in jest he should never suggest such a thing. A part of you wondered if he was just joking at all. It would certainly explain a thing or two about him if he wasn’t kidding.  

Munson waved her off dismissively. “Got rid of him, didn’t I?” 

Jeanine grunted in reluctant agreement, her thin red lips pursed in disapproval as she rang him up and slid his purchased goods across the counter. “I’m trying to get rid of you, too. Get on and tell your uncle I said he needs to come see me more often.” 

Munson let out an indignant huff as he ripped a massive bite from the greasy burrito and made his way back towards where you sat. You noticed again that he didn’t have a backpack or…anything with him at all related to school work when he slid into the booth across from you. 

Cheeks bulging from the giant bit he took of his lunch, Munson raised his brow at your furrowed one. “You look pretty pissed. What did dear ol’ Jason Carver want with you? Hopefully he wasn’t hitting on you.”

Mortified, you gagged. “Never, and I mean ever would I even consider—! He’s a pig!”

Munson waved his hand dismissively, wincing. “Jesus, okay! No need to get so shrill. I’ve got sensitive ears.” 

Irritation reaching its near peak, you had to resist the urge to jump over the table and throttle him by his stupid neck. “Where’s your stuff?”

“What stuff?” he asked with faux innocence, taking another mouth full of food. 

“Your portfolio?” you huffed. “Your backpack? A pencil? Literally anything to help with this project!”

He shrugged. “Don’t need it. Besides, you seem prepared enough for the both of us.”

“No, oh no you don’t!” you snapped. “I told you I wasn’t going to do this by myself! You’ve taken this class how many times? You don’t have any notes from last year?”

Munson scoffed before swallowing roughly. “What kind of person saves their homework from last freakin school year?”

When you didn’t dignify his inquiry with an answer or waspish retort, Munson rolled his eyes. 

“Who said you were gonna do it by yourself? I said I didn’t need a portfolio and I don’t!” he replied sharply. “Occupaiton, Hawkins power plant employee. Education needed, High school diploma. Annual income, $18,000. What else do you need to know?”

“Eighteen--Powerplant?” you blubbered. “Of all the things you could have picked, you went with the powerplant down the street?”

He sucked the greasy remnants from the finished burrito from his fingertips before wiping his hands on his jeans. “You were there when Albrecht said I couldn’t pick rockstar.”

“Yeah, but you still could have done something with more money,” you argued. “18,000 is barely above the poverty line. You would know that if you did the worksheet--”

Munson cut you off sharply, a violent sneer twisting his features. “Believe me, I do know that.” 

Shifting uncomfortably beneath the weight of his gaze, you still pressed on. “So, why not something else?”

He shrugged. “What’s the point? I’m familiar with the requirements for the powerplant. Less research to do on my end.”

Rubbing your temple with your thumb to prevent the headache he was brewing up for you, you decided not to grill him anymore on his career choice or how he knew all of those specifics. Perhaps his dad worked there and gave him the information. It didn’t really matter anyway. You filled out his portion of the household income worksheet and sighed heavily. This was going to be a lot of work. 

“According to the rubric, we have to come up with a budget so we can start looking for a house and a car by the first of march,” you informed him. “I’ve got some ideas for categories that don’t include the mortgage, gas, car insurance, and maintenance. What do you think?”

He shrugged haphazardly, looking incredibly disinterested. 

“Fine,” you muttered beneath your breath. “Our total monthly income, which I found by adding our two annual incomes and dividing by twelve--”

Munson sat quietly as you broke down the finances and listed the categories of the budget. It wasn’t until you started to fill in the blanks on the projected budget did he show signs that he was actually paying attention. 

“Why the hell would we need that much for a phone bill?” he questioned. “My phone bill is twelve bucks a month, not twenty.”

“I’m just estimating--”

He pulled the binder away from you and turned it around so he could see. “Sixty bucks for electricity? Are you leaving the lights on all day and night? No way, thirty bucks, max.”

God, he was annoying! Offended at your hard work being picked apart, you snatched the binder back. “And how would you know? You don’t live on your own!” Suddenly, you weren’t so sure. “Do you?”

Munson scoffed. “Might as well be. I pay half the bills at my house and maintain my own vehicle. I know a thing or two about budgeting, sweetheart and this--” he said aggressively tapping his finger on the worksheet. “--shows that you don’t. How did you even come up with these numbers?”

You slapped his hand away from your work, embarrassment--and for some reason--shame, heating up your face. “I looked at the bills from my house last month.”

He barked out a mocking laugh. “That explains it. You’re looking at numbers for a 3,000 square foot house that mommy and daddy pay for, right?”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing!”  you added defensively. 

The smirk plastered across his dumbface was infuriating. “Right. I’ll show you some real bills. Let’s go to my house.”

You watched him slide from the booth in disbelief. “What, now?!”

“Yeah?” he replied as if you were stupid while he stuffed his remaining snacks into his denim jacket pockets. “I don’t keep bills on me and I have brownies in the oven.”

You stared at him incredulously. “You were late because you were making brownies?”

Munson let out a genuine laugh and shook his head. You tried not to notice that he had dimples in his cheeks. “No. That’s not what I--nevermind. I just need to get home.”

Looking at the sad bicycle that was chained to the rack outside, you frowned. You didn’t want to ride even further away from home in the freezing cold, nor did you want to ride back in the dark. You did, however, want to get as much of this done today and you hated being wrong or worse, look stupid. And Eddie Munson’s critique of your proposed budget left you feeling a bit of both. 

He paused at the door and followed your line of sight when you didn’t move to join him. “That's your bike?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you sighed. “How far is your house? It’ll take me some time to get there.”

Munson left out a PFFT and rolled his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. I’m not a piece of shit.”

You weren’t sure what he meant by that, but you were fuming at being called stupid. Angrily tossing your notes together and shoving them into your backpack while Munson exited the building with a curt goodbye to the clerk. You were putting your layers back on when you noticed him pull loose the chain that secured your bike to the post.

“Hey!” you shouted, paying no mind that there was a glass window between you. “How did you--That was locked!”

He either didn’t hear you or was purposely ignoring you as he walked the bike towards the only vehicle in the parking lot--a large van. Realization suddenly dawned upon you while you watched him open the double doors of the back. 

He intended to give you a ride.

Going in Eddie Munson’s van to Eddie Munson’s lair sounded like the beginning of a slasher horror film, and you’d be lying if you said your chest didn’t constrict with a bit of fear at the thought. But you weren’t in a position to refuse. No one sane would turn down a warm car ride in the dead of winter to trek in the freezing sleet miles back home with a soon to be setting sun. 

Awkwardly, you walked towards the passenger side of the van and climbed inside. It reeked of weed and cigarettes and had scraps of paper and food wrappers everywhere, but it was still better than being outside. You just hoped you could wash the smell from your hair before your parents caught a whiff of it.

“Thanks,” you said quietly when Munson clambered in beside you. 

“Uh, yeah? Like I said, I’m not a piece of shit,” he retorted. “Can’t believe you biked here to begin with. It’s as cold as a witch’s tit outside.”

You didn’t have time to contemplate the euphemism before the stereo came on and blasted a shriek so loud it made your skull vibrate. 

Munson made no effort to lower the volume as he screamed along to the high pitched falsetto as he smashed his foot on the gas to throw the van into a harsh reverse. 

“Good god!” you hollered, instantly grabbing onto the handle atop of the ceiling and putting your other hand across your chest to keep your heart within its designated cavity when he kicked the van into drive and thrusting you full force back into the seat. “TURN IT DOWN!” 

Either he didn’t hear your command or just didn’t care as Munson paid you no mind. It wasn’t until a very crude shrill of a much too long guitar solo came to an abrupt end that he stopped the tape and ejected it. His lips were moving, but you couldn’t make out what he was saying—your ears ringing and fuzzy from the cacophonous noise. Judging by the tape and pencil he tossed it into your lap, you gathered that he wanted you to rewind the offensive material.

“I most certainly will not!” you protested loudly. “I can’t hear myself think, much less speak!”

Munson rolled his eyes and said something in reply, but you couldn’t make out the muffled mess. You told him you’d appreciate some silence until your hearing returned. Luckily for you, it only took a few minutes of clasping your palms against your ears to cure. Munson scoffed at you and punched to power off, muttering something about being dramatic.

“Buying a house will be the easiest part of the project,” you informed him—your voice a little too loud still from your recovering hearing. “My parents can help with that.”

Munson waved at you dismissively. “We don’t need a house.”

“Oh yeah? Are we living in a box under a bridge?”

“Just get a trailer,” Munson shrugged. 

Your face morphed in disgust. “I’m not living in a trailer.“

“Why not? Are you too good for that kind of thing?” he challenged. 

“Sorry for not wanting to live in a shack,” you quipped. “Having standards  isn’t exactly a bad thing.”

“Standards,” he repeated. 

“They’re way too small. You shouldn’t be able to hook your house up to a truck and drive off with it.” you continued. “I want a real home.”

Munson looked almost amused as the corner of his lips ticked upward. In fact, it looked as if he was fighting the urge to laugh as he bit his lips. It wasn’t until a few moments later when he turned down a terribly bumpy and unpaved road that you realized exactly what he found so funny. 

Much to your horror, the van passed one—two—trailers, an RV, and a few broken coiled playground horses, and approached a very small, grimy, blue and white trailer. Munson engaged the parking brake and turned off the vehicle.

“My shack awaits,” he said with a frightening faux sweetness and bright smile. 

All the air in your lungs rushed out in a mortified, defeated sigh. How was it possible that this day could get worse? How many times were you going to be embarrassed beyond the will to live? Face scalding from the humiliation of having shoved a metaphorical foot in your mouth, you slowly turned towards your classmate.  

All the mirth that was spread across his face evaporated in an instant. He was no longer grinning—lips now pressed firmly in a flat line. His eyes were just as dark and unforgiving as they were the day before when he snapped at you in class. The revulsion radiating from was almost palpable. 

It was futile, but you tried to issue damage control anyway. “I didn’t mean—“

The way his lip curled made you fall silent. “Don’t,” he hissed. “We both know what you meant.” 

You didn’t make another attempt to apologize or correct him. Instead, you flinched at the harsh way he slammed the door when he made his exit. Head ducked in shame, you followed behind him with as much enthusiasm as a guilty man walked towards the hangman’s noose. 

————————————————————

Part 3: Due 12/6/25

July 1992

Eddie Munson was arrested this morning on suspicion of domestic violence against his girlfriend Hazel Heart. According to our sources, Munson was seen fleeing from his home in Indianapolis, Indiana covered in blood. Police caught up with him at an undisclosed apartment where they arrested him without resistance.

- Pebble Magazine

“What do you mean Eddie’s got himself arrested?!” Gareth’s voice booms through your apartment.

The only person you could reach at this hour in the morning just happened to be Gareth, who was staying with his dad on the other side of town. Time-zones kept him awake, after touring half the damn States. His brain is scrambled. And now this?!

“I don’t know!” You yell back at him. “The cops just came and - and -.”

“And?!”

“Gareth,” you hound. “I’m scared too! Okay?! He came here late last night all bruised up.”

Gareth curses, “fucking shit! I knew they were fighting again!”

“Again?!”

“Don’t start with me,” he points an angry finger your way, “we have to meet him at the jail. Come on!”

-> <-

October 1992

A new development in court today for Eddie Munson. Sources claim that the case has been thrown out. Where will this lead our rockstar next?

- Pebble Magazine

The steps down the courtroom are much more difficult to get across with a thousand screaming fans supporting Eddie. Your voice is lost in the noise with a couple of people throwing glares your way, accusing you of being much more special than the rest of them.

Reporters gather at the front flashing photos of the rockstar leaving the courtroom that afternoon. A new development in his case has completely flipped the claims upside down, and the charges were dismissed.

Eddie hangs his head as he lowers himself enjoy to get in the back of a black van driven by someone on his team. You watch from afar as they push through the crowd of people banging on the windows, and holding out their signs that they decorated the night before.

-> <-

January 1993

Corroded Coffin is set to go on tour without their frontman Eddie Munson, as the singer seeks treatment for his addiction to alcohol and drugs.

- Pebble Magazine

The facility is a lot less medical than Eddie expected. He thought there might be four walls towering over him and someone racing out the front door ready to lock him in a padded room. But, this place is like a really large house. Grassy fields surround him in nature. The air smells crisp, despite the chill of winter boxing him in.

“Are you ready?” Your voice is soft and careful.

Eddie trembles beside you in the car, “y-yeah.”

Truthfully, his last drink was a few hours ago, before you picked him up. That euphoric numb tingling in his body is already sweating from him. You pretend not to mind the smell, but Eddie knows how bad he’s gotten. That’s what got him here, didn’t it?

If it wasn’t for his bandmates, his uncle - shit, if not for you - Eddie holds the hand written notes close to his chest. They probably won’t let him take them with him, but maybe they’ll keep them safe.

“Everything is going to be okay,” you were the one Eddie asked to drop him off.

“R-right,” Eddie opens the passenger side door his sweat clings the cold to his body. “H-hey.”

You hum.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Eddie.”

-> <-

April 1993

Eddie Munson comes home from rehab today - see below for photographs.

- Pebble Magazine

“Eddie!”

“Hey, you!” Eddie picks you up into his arms and holds you tightly. You smell fresh like clean linen and sweet perfume. God, he has missed you.

Eddie puts you back on the ground again, so he can have a better look at you. Not much has changed in the past three months.

The same couldn’t be said for Eddie. A bit of weight around his middle and his face. He’s bulked up in his arms.

You blush for staring too long, “can I get you something to eat?”

“Please,” he pats his stomach, “the food here is so bland and so green.”

-> <-

June 1993

“My uncle’s moving in with Claudia,” Eddie chows down on the salad you put together. Something you never thought you would see from Eddie - eating healthy. Wild!

Claudia and his uncle have been seeing each other for years. You know you should visit more often, but it’s difficult getting a day away from work.

This, between you and Eddie, is new. In the evenings, Eddie would come over for dinner at least once a week. He’s lonely in his large estate trying to write new music to keep him occupied. The problem is that he has virtually no inspiration sitting at home in a house that’s far too large for just him and a few workers. Parts of the house are unvisited by him just because he can still hear the screaming and the arguments clinging to the walls. He should sell the property - he really should.

Finding yourself often alone with Robin slipping away for reasons she wouldn’t tell you, although you have a clue that she’s doing this on purpose knowing you’re spending time with any man outside of work, you always offer the food you make for yourself to your friend across town. Eddie’s never turned you down so far.

“I can’t believe it,” you sip your sparkling apple cider - Eddie’s brilliant suggestion. All the wine in your cabinets is hidden away from view. Something Eddie insists isn’t necessary, but you will still do it.

“Get a load of this,” he leans forward across the table, “he bought a ring already.”

“Shut up,” you clasp your hand over your mouth.

Eddie nods his head in response, and slices another piece of pork for himself to chew on.

-> <-

July 1993

“I like this more than this,” you hand Eddie his journal back.

After dinner tonight, you insisted that Eddie show you what he’s been working on lyrically. The music hasn’t flowed together yet. But what he has on paper is beautiful - romantic even. You’re not aware of anyone new in his life, but you’re sure he will tell you when he’s ready.

Eddie strums his guitar that he’s brought all the way from home to try to find a melody to play with the tune of his song. Sometimes you get caught up in the music like he’s performing your own personal concert.

“Like that?” Eddie hits a new chord, “er- maybe not like that.”

Shadows caress his face in the moonlight. A side table lamp illuminates just enough space that you can read his sheet music if you lean in closely. His cologne is spicy and hot. It sort of punches you in the nose.

A sharp hit - one, two, three, four - comes from your shared wall with a neighbor you haven’t formally met. He’s grumpy, and chasing death with one good eye.

“Turn that racket down!”

“Thin walls,” you explain.

-> <-

August 1993

“I’m thinking about putting in an offer for that place a couple blocks that way,” Eddie points in a general direction, as though you would know where he’s talking about. “It’ll be closer to the highway, so I can see my uncle easier. But, it’s pushed back from the street for more privacy.”

“Any offers on your place?” You dab your mouth with your napkin.

“Why? You looking to buy?” Eddie prods a tomato with his fork rolling it around in the homemade sauce.

You roll your eyes at his joke, “I wouldn’t even know what to do with all the money you make. Pay off school loans - pay your uncle back?”

“That money was a gift,” he reminds you.

“That money was for you,” you challenge.

“You needed it more,” he bites the tomato off his fork. “And, look where it got you.”

Eddie’s point is mute, as your neighbor flushes his toilet and the plumbing groans throughout your apartment. This is what you can afford for now, and you’re fine with that. You’re saving your money for later.

-> <-

October 1993

“Oh, my god!” You hide your head from the bloody massacre on your television, “how can you even watch this?”

“Come on!” Eddie scolds, “you used to love horror movies!”

“Used too,” you gag as someone loses their head, “it’s so realistic now!”

Halloween night in an apartment can be pretty quiet. No kids will come to your door, so you’re sat with a bowl of candy to yourself. That is until Eddie came by with a few rented movies, and some popcorn.

The popcorn and candy have been ransacked through. All the good candy has been devoured leaving the coconut and almond crap sitting sadly in the bottom of the bowl. When Robin comes back home, she’ll eat them.

You jump out of your seat when the killer finds the girl hiding in a rather stupid spot. Although, you’ve said that if you ever get trapped in a horror movie that you would give up right away. It’s too much work trying to hide from someone that’s just going to get you anyway.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” Eddie shields your eyes, as you scrunch closer into his side.

-> <-

December 1993

“I’d like to say,” Wayne holds up a toast at dinner, “I’m grateful to have you all here tonight. Thank you, everyone.”

Next to none of you might look alike, but you were all family. Claudia insisted that everyone come to her home for Christmas. They’ll make the room in her mid-size two bedroom house, just as long as everyone can be there together. The sewing room can be Eddie’s whenever he wants - that was the deal when Wayne moved in. And, you’re sleeping on the air mattress in the living room. You’ve slept on worse.

After dinner is over, Eddie taps you on your shoulder while everyone is distracted in conversation. He waves you over to follow him to the sewing room.

It’s about as small as a closet with enough room for Claudia to do some hemming here and there on her sewing machine that’s pushed into a corner. Eddie has Dustin’s old twin bed from when he was little (now has graduated to a queen, so his little girlfriend and him can have sleepovers). But, there isn’t much room for anything else.

“Merry Christmas,” Eddie holds out a terribly wrapped package. It’s tiny and square - you think.

You plop down next to him on the bed, “what’s this?”

Unwrapping the mound of paper that Eddie’s thrown onto the gift, you’re eventually left with a velvet bag tied tight with some string. You pry the opening apart, so you can see a shiny silver chain of a necklace.

“Oh, my God,” you coo at your initial hanging across the middle, “this is beautiful!”

“I got it for you when we were in high school, but er- didn’t know if it was appropriate since you were with Gareth and stuff,” he chews on his bottom lip.

What did he mean by that? You want to ask, but never got the chance because Dustin came barreling through the house like a tornado.

“My mom wants everyone in the living room for dessert,” he knocks on the shell of the door frame.

“Be right there,” Eddie answers for the two of you.

You ask before he leaves, “Will you help me put it on?”

-> <-

December 1993 - January 1994 (New Year’s Eve)

Music bumped through a stereo at a more reasonable volume after your neighbor complained. The next time she would call police, and you’re really not ready for that to happen again.

In true fashion, Robin forgot to mention a New Year’s Eve party until two days ago. Floods of her coworkers barreled through your front door in their eclectic and artistic style. They brought vegan and vegetarian bites to share with the other guests. And, non-alcoholic beer (because really what good is beer if it has any alcohol in it).

Jeff had the mind to bring a couple cases for anyone who indulges. After all, it is a party!

Eddie sticks close to you as midnight nears. The one person he knows who doesn’t have anyone to kiss at midnight, or he hopes you don’t.

“Is this alright for you?” You’ve asked him this twice now, but this time is different because you’re holding a glass of wine and he’s stuck to the sparkling apple juice that’s become a tradition for you to have around the house.

“Yeah, fine,” Eddie replies. Honestly, he’s not tempted by any of the liquor going around. What he wants won’t leave such a bitter aftertaste on his tongue.

What he doesn’t know is that you’ve applied an extra layer of lipgloss, before you left the bathroom a couple minutes ago. Your heart hammers in your chest, but you’ve decided that tonight has to be the night. It’s the perfect excuse because you can brush off a friendly kiss with Eddie if all goes horribly wrong. Something to do with someone you trust facing midnight on New Year’s Eve.

You hug your glass now, but you don’t take a single sip wanting nothing to go wrong. That was the plan until a party guest elbows your drink by mistake, and the wine spills across your chest.

“I’m so sorry,” he prefers the nickname ‘Ty’ to his given name Tyler, and he’s one of Robin’s favorite coworkers.

Your top is ruined, but what’s worse is the mess is already drying and sticking to your skin. The stench of alcohol burns your nose and the longer you wear the top, the more your skin soaks up like a sponge.

“It’s fine,” you know that he’s had a couple of non-alcoholic beers, so he mustn’t be thinking straight anymore. “I’ll be right back.”

Heading down the hallway to your bedroom, the party quiets a moment. You hadn’t noticed how loud the music was, or the voices. It’s nice to have some peace and quiet.

Your options are low. The laundry you should have done about a week ago laughs in your face. Going through your drawers, you find an old sweater. The fabric is stretched out, and the sleeves are unraveling bit by bit.

“Oh!” You groan when the shirt you have on sticks to your head just as it had to your chest. Ripping the damn thing off, your ear rings from the tight fit.

Shit. Your bra is soaked. The only other one you have is in the wash.

“10…”

And, so the countdown begins. You’re too late. Busy wrestling a sweater over your head that’s ready to be thrown away, you hear them yelling already.

Midnight struck, and you’re stuck only halfway into your sweater.

-> <-

May 1994

Two years ago, Eddie Munson was arrested under suspicion of domestic violence against his girlfriend at the time, Hazel Heart. Police were called after a woman [Heart] allegedly ran onto the streets crying and begging for help. She claimed her boyfriend [Munson] hit her over the head with a wine bottle. Munson was then arrested after fleeing to a friend’s house. Mid-way through the trial, however, a voice recording was apparently discovered of Heart screaming at Munson that she would “ruin his [redacted] career.” The charges were quickly dropped, and Munson left the court room quietly that same afternoon looking exhausted. Not much has been heard from the rockstar, until recently fans spotted him out with his old band members. Corroded Coffin is set to perform in New York City in July. Could we be seeing a familiar face show up there too?

-Pebble Magazine

“They’re so cute,” you wipe a tear out of your eye watching Wayne and Claudia dance together at their wedding.

The man that once gave up on love found in the center of the dance floor with his friends and his family cheering him on. Claudia is the better dancer of the two, but Wayne spends his time making sure everyone sees his beautiful bride and that they get a good laugh out of him looking silly, especially in that penguin suit.

“Dip her!”

One of Wayne’s coworker’s begins the chant that surfs through the crowd of onlookers. Wayne tips Claudia with the gentlest of hands, and smooches her with all the love in the world.

“Woo!” You cheer from the crowd.

Dustin yells out from behind you. All he wants is for his mother to continue her happiness until the day she leaves this earth - which, is never by the way. Wayne’s a solid dude. Hey! That means he and Eddie are like cousins - er, brothers? Whatever Eddie wanted to call it.

Where is Eddie?

Even on the other side of the room, Eddie’s eye is on you. Dustin’s surprised you can’t feel his ever looming presence. That soft puppy dog look. God, it’s astounding how you don’t see the way that Eddie looks at you. Dustin’s seen that same look upon his face when you were across the room in school too.

But, he swore not to meddle. He swore that he would leave this thing - this dance - you two do alone. That it was none of his business. You know what is his business? Getting a college degree. Technology really is changing the way the world views everything, despite his mom disagreeing with the field he’s chosen. Computers are going to take over, and when they do he’ll be prepared. Dustin will know the ins and the outs!

Anyway, you pay no attention to Eddie. That’s not until he turns his back anyway. You do that almost as if the whole thing is planned. Eddie looks away, and you look at Eddie and then you look away and so Eddie looks at you.

Did Dustin just make that noise out loud?

“That’ll be you someday,” you tease Dustin over your shoulder. The groaning? Oh, please! He’s a bit old to be grossed out by his mom kissing a guy - kissing her husband!

You share a table with the closest family, so Dustin and Eddie. In earshot, Gareth sits nearby with Jeff, his wife Kelly and their less than a year old son Kurt - imagine where he got the inspiration for that name.

Dustin folds his arms across his chest, “yeah? You first.”

This is not him instigating. He’s not instigating. Who would consider this instigating?!

“I’ll have to get a man interested in me first,” you are blinder than a bat. If Dustin were to say the words ‘Hey, check out Eddie because he’s drooling over you like a dog’ you wouldn’t know who he was talking about.

“I can think of one,” okay, so he was instigating. He can’t help it!

“Do tell,” you turn so intrigued.

Dustin doesn’t have to say anything because his eyes tell you all that you need to know. Lately, he has been insisting that you must go out with your best friend. That ship has sailed. You missed the boat last December, and you won’t open yourself up to what’s surely a disaster waiting to happen.

You love Eddie, you really do. But, being his friend is safe. And, maybe that’s all you were meant to be. There’s never a time where you two really meet in the middle. Not to mention your job is in Indianapolis. His job is all over the world. The distance is impossible.

“How many times have I told you-,”

“You’re just friends,” he finishes your sentence.

“That’s got to be her favorite sentence,” Jeff rocks his son in his lap to keep him from crying anymore.

Before you could throw your own opinion onto the table, the music finishes behind you and the crowd covers your voice as they cheer on the newly married couple. You turn around to join the celebration instead of focusing selfishly on your own problems. Problems that you didn’t have. That was everyone else’s problem.

Claudia floats out to the edge of the dance floor to invite Dustin to dance with her letting Wayne get off his feet for a moment to talk with some of his friends. As the music picks up again, guests grab their friends or a dance partner and boogie to the dance floor.

You nod your head to the beat, and reject Dustin’s robot as an invitation to slide onto the dance floor. Not so great on your feet, you’d like to do less embarrassing yourself tonight.

“Hey,” Eddie surprises you from behind, as he slides into Dustin’s warm chair.

“Hi,” you’re not used to seeing Eddie suited up all dapper, even if the top button to his shirt is undone and he’s got a tag sticking out from his jacket. “Congratulations on the new aunt and the cousin.”

“Thanks,” he laughs at the way Dustin dances with his mom. They’re two peas in a pod. “That little shit is more like a brother to me. Don’t tell him I said that. The ego on that kid.”

“No worse than yours,” you tease him.

“Oh, please!”

This is what you’ve missed most about Eddie. Laughing with him until your stomach hurts. You fall into a steady rhythm that you know so well. One that’s familiar and comfortable.

“I like the suit by the way,” you pinch a loose hair away from his jacket.

Eddie once swore up and down that he would look like a penguin got loose from the zoo if he ever submitted and wore a suit. Look at him now! It’s not really a suit, just the jacket and a top underneath with the top button missing. He wouldn’t be Eddie if he hadn’t smuggled in some dark denim jeans and boots. But, you like that he’s authentically him still.

“You look beautiful,” Eddie cranes his head from the dance floor to you.

There’s no punchline this time. He truly means what he’s saying to you. Not just tonight, but all the time. You’re the most dazzling in the room everywhere you go. This sort of sparkle you light up each room is inspiring.

Your scarf floats from your shoulder to the floor below you.

“Oh-.”

Eddie picks up your scarf from the floor, and delicately drapes it back over your shoulders.

“Would you like to dance?” Eddie hold out his hand for you to take.

“Yeah.”

As Eddie guides you out to the dance floor for some pretty piss poor dance moves, Jeff and his wife begin to bet how long it will be until you and Eddie’s wedding. Kurt lets out a wail, and Kelly takes this as her cue to check for a stinky diaper.

The lively jazzy music takes a turn to something much slower and smoother. People begin to pair off, as the kids leave the floor for the open buffet tables. You’re about to part from the floor, but Eddie stops you by taking your hand and placing a hold your waist.

“Is this okay?” Eddie begins to sway.

You hum, “perfect.”

-> <-

[to be continued]

July 1992

You’re half awake. Heart pounding against your ribcage. Beads of sweat decorate your forehead. A wave of nausea throws you off balance.

There it is again. You’re sure you hear knocking. But it’s - you check the alarm clock you’ve hidden beneath a pillow because the light is keeping you from a full rest - two in the morning? Who on earth would be waking you at this hour?

Steve.

You wrestle out of bed as the knocking persists. He better have a reason as to waking you up that isn’t about his wedding jitters. Steve’s thrilled to be getting married, but sometimes that boy is just that - a scared little boy.

Ready to rip his head off his body, you tear down the hallway and check the peephole expecting to see your neighbor half awake and bouncing on his toes.

It’s Eddie - and he’s - he’s bleeding?!

“Eddie?” You pull open your front door.

Dried blood stops at his chin that started at his nose. Eddie’s eyes are red, and sweating. Tears fall down his cheeks. He’s trembling in his stained pajamas with no shoes. You notice his hand second. He’s got his right hand wrapped in some sort of cloth that once was blue - now red with even more blood.

“Help me,” he sobs.

“Oh my god.”

There’s so much stuff in your bathroom. Toothbrushes next to the sink. A puddle of toothpaste dripping into the old standing sink. There’s soap with a cute little charm attached. Had you bought it like that? Your mirror has a cabinet built in, so you have more space to store stuff. Clearly, you need a few more drawers.

Even the shelves built over your toilet are home to a few too many plants. You’ve never been able to keep a plant alive, so Eddie must assume they’re Robin’s plants. Where is Robin? Surely she would have woken by all the noise you’re making banging around in cabinets.

The plush pink rug underneath Eddie’s feet makes him forget the pain he was in running to his car without shoes on. How could he have forgotten his shoes? These socks are ruined! At least he had socks.

Eddie assess your bathroom, and you beg for him to sit still once more.

“You should really get checked out by a hospital,” you’ve said this three times already.

“No,” Eddie has gone all nasally with tampons suck up his nose to stop the waterfall of blood that’s running down his face.

You’re not a nurse by any means, but the cuts on his hands are serious enough that he might want an extra opinion from a licensed doctor. This time when you see the bruises on his arm you don’t say anything. You don’t have too.

“Hazel just gets . . . over excited sometimes,” he winces when you slide a rather large bandage across the palm of his hand.

Eddie’s been a victim his whole life. Being bullied throughout school and up until now - this moment in his life. Someone he trusted, he truly trusted Hazel at some point, has broken all of that.

“You can’t go back to her-,”

“That’s not your decision,” Eddie defends harshly.

You put your hands up in surrender, “alright - just, stay here with me tonight? Come on - it’ll be like old times.”

Eddie runs his finger over the bandage across his hand. In that moment, he’s shattered into nothingness. That terribly sinking feeling that this isn’t going to be the end of things, or if he closes his eyes that he’s drunkenly dreamt up this whole scenario rattles his entire body. But he agrees on his own conditions,

“I’ll take your couch.”

“That couch is going to kill your back, and your neck by the morning. Take my bed, and I’ll sleep in Robin’s bed. She’s visiting her girlfriend in Hawkins,” you explain why Robin’s out like the dead - because she’s not even here.

“I’ve slept on worse,” Eddie gets off the lid of your toilet and brushes past you like he knows where he’s going. Then asks, “do you have any extra blankets?”

-> <-

Eddie wakes with a pounding headache, as light hits him right in the eyes through your cheap crappy blinds. When he blinks out the tired, you’re there in front of him asleep and curled up in the living room chair.

Last night, you paced your room just torn up about whatever Eddie was going through. Your friend, your best friend, so vulnerable and so childlike turning to you for help.

You couldn’t go to bed.

Tiptoeing into your living room space, you sat in your favorite chair. The chair you use when you need a bit of warmth to hit your face without going outside. It refreshes you and clears your mind.

Through the night, however, the night brought a calmness. A quietness crept through the house. Whispers of thought bubble inside your overworking mind. The air conditioning kicks on loudly, but doesn’t stir your snoring friend. In the moonlight you can see the edges of old scars, and bruises that haven’t quite heeled. You find yourself aching to hold him - to touch his burnt skin.

There are days you recall in childhood now - running and laughing. You were both so free and golden at the cusp of life. Now, dull and dreary - when did everything become so plain and every day.

Life mustn’t be so every day for him, he travels the world and plays music to sold out shows. Something that he doesn’t know, that you perhaps are a bit shy to admit, is that you’ve listened, you’ve watched, you’ve kept articles and cut outs from newspapers celebrating his success. Corroded Coffin’s success.

Do the other boys even know? They must be aware that Hazel has destroyed him. That she’s left him practically lifeless in a human suit.

You wish you could get him to stay - to hold him and never let go.

Before you succumb to your exhaustion, which it must have been well past five in the morning because the sunlight was already beginning to show herself, you felt a faint flutter. A stomach ache - if you weren’t paying attention. You were, however, paying attention. Enough attention that you chose to ignore it in that very moment, and you would continue to push the flutter away.

The funny thing about patience that good will nearly always be rewarded to those who wait. And, in this case . . .

-> <-

[to be continued -> 1994]

December 1986

A thin sheet of ice and slush covers the surface of Hawkins. You can see your breath as you shuffle towards the Munson’s trailer. Hugging yourself, you nearly trip and land face first onto the porch.

It’s early in the morning, just after your shift at the club. You don’t see Wayne’s truck, so you can assume he’s at work.

You hold into the key that used to be for emergencies. Lucky for you, the trailer is heated warmly or maybe the cold from outside doesn’t compare to the cold inside and you’re just happy to be away from the weather. You leave your boots out on the stoop, then shut the front door with you happy to be inside.

There’s a plate of food in the kitchen served up for you that has Wayne’s signature all over it. Though you’re grateful, you would much rather wrap yourself in blankets and sleep off the shivers.

Inside Eddie’s bedroom (which you’ve started to claim as yours, mostly by scent and not by the moving of any of his things), you strip your wet pants off and toss them over a chair to dry. Your jacket comes next. Finally, you’re ready to slip into bed-

“Ah!” You shriek.

Unbeknownst to you, Eddie Munson has come home to surprise his uncle for Christmas. When he saw no truck in the driveway, he let himself in to take a nap on his own bed. Only, Eddie discovers that the bed stinks of perfume. There’s deodorant on the side table that doesn’t belong to him, and the tampons are so not his!

Being as tired as he was from a long flight from Los Angeles to Hawkins, Eddie forgot about all that as soon as his head hit the pillow.

That was until you woke him.

Eddie shoots up, and yanks the light nearest his bed on. His heart hammers in his chest, and his eyes squint through the blind sleep he’s still wearing off.

“Eddie?!” Your hand comes to rest over your chest. “Oh, my God! What are you doing here!”

You nearly tackle the boy in a tight hug wrestling over him, as he lifts you onto his lap like a super hero with his super strength.

The man stinks like cigarettes and beer. When was the last time he washed out his hair? His hair that was even longer and curlier than the last time you saw him. And, he has a few more tattoos. You can’t make any of them out since his sleeves were covering up most of the length of his arms. But, nonetheless your Eddie was home.

“I missed you so much,” Eddie cheers at the familiarity of home.

There’s a pause between you too. Enough time to reflect on the closeness between you, and the fact you’re nearly straddling him without much to keep your dignity in tact. Sure, you’re used to this with the men in the club. He’s not just some guy. He’s Eddie!

You pluck at the end of your t-shirt in hopes that it will cover more of you. And, eventually, you slid into the open space on the bed next to him.

“I’ve missed you too,” you speak up.

Eddie then asks, “what are you doing here?”

“Oh,” you’ve forgotten that this isn’t your home, and technically you’re just a weirdo taking over his bedroom space. “I’ve been staying here ever since my mom died. Er- I hope that’s okay.”

Your mom died. Eddie knew all about that from Wayne, since you didn’t want to talk to any of the boys on the phone. Even Freak put the telephone to his ear, but the conversation didn’t spark between Wayne and him. Freak isn’t much of a talker.

“That’s why it stinks,” Eddie’s frail attempt to lighten the mood.

A dull sparkle glitters past your cold eye. You’re alive for the first time in months. All because he makes you laugh.

“I stink? You’re one to talk,” you bite back playfully.

Eddie sniffs his shirt and winces. Your right. Street rats would think that Eddie is their leader for how bad he smells. It’s the air travel. Things are stinker off the ground, and shoved into a tight box with wings.

“Alright,” he throws the blankets off of his body, and launches to his two feet. “I’m going to take a shower. And, you stay right here. We have some catching up to do.”

You snort at his theatrics.

Firstly, Eddie rummages through his clean laundry before settling on his comfier and warmer pajamas. The pajama bottoms that have the plaid pattern and the hole at the knee. Secondly, the madman hums to himself in a sort of way that would make opera singers cringe. And finally, the bathroom door opens and shuts.

A crank from the squeaky shower faucet and the water shoots on like a rocket. Eddie will be a while. Between the hair, and the California grime that is stuck to his body - yeah, he’ll be there a while.

The smile that’s was buried next to your mom that day sits on your face again. Something you don’t see. Something that you won’t notice for a really long time. A flutter presses against your ribcage, as though a butterfly spread her wings for the first time.

There comes a knock at the door that you couldn’t quite hear over the shower. The second time the person knocks, you’re yanking a pair of sweatpants on in a hurry. Quick stepping through the hallway, you take in a breath of air not to seem so rushed. The third knock comes a bit more desperately and you hesitate for a moment to answer. It is early. It could be a madman. Someone could have followed you from the club. That’s a real threat, you know? You decide against your worries, and pull open the front door to tell whoever it is that it’s six in the morning and they need to knock off all that noise.

That is until you swing open the door.

“Man, I know I just dropped you off, but have you seen my-,” Gareth stops fishing in his pockets to look up at Eddie, only you’re not Eddie.

A bit thinner in your jaw, a bit duller in your skin, and your eyes are more exhausted with a lack of sleep. There’s less life racing past those eyes of yours. But, underneath all that grief you’re still in there.

“Hi,” your voice betrays you, and cracks half of the way through.

“Hey,” Gareth’s breath is caught in the cold morning chill. “H-how are you? You look great- I mean- sorry, about your mom-.”

“Gareth,” his name melts against your tongue sweetly. Something you haven’t said in a long time. You miss the feeling for a fleeting moment. “I’m fine. Do you want to come in and wait for Eddie? He’s in the shower.”

Gareth’s brows furrow. In the shower? And you’re what? Wearing his clothes?

“Gareth,” you scold. “Stop thinking. Come in, please. It’s freezing.”

Despite the alarms telling him to run out the front door, Gareth does come into the trailer. It’s a bit warmer in here, and not nearly as messy as it usually is. After all these years, Eddie was the problem after all. That explains the mess of the hotels they stayed in. Christ.

Gareth makes himself as comfortable as possible on the loveseat inside the living room. There’s just enough room for you to sit next to him. On instinct, you take the seat only then understanding just how close you’ll really be. You adjust to avoid the warmth of his body temperature. Gareth has always been like a heater to you.

Gareth folds his hands awkwardly in his lap unsure how long it might be until Eddie made his way into the living room. There’s a palpable tension between you and he. Unspoken words that neither of you want to hear. You’re both willing to be the immature party, and stay silent.

That is until Gareth clears his throat.

“What?” You twist your head. He’s got a new ear piercing hidden under his thick locks of hair. The metal arrow at the tip of the jewelry swings gently.

“Nothing,” Gareth avoids your eyes.

You sigh, “listen, Gareth. When you told me about the deal I didn’t know how to react-,”

“You ran out of my house,” his tone turns to strike you like an arrow hitting the target dead center.

“Did you want me to run off to the city with you? I was graduating! I had plans for college!”

“I know,” Gareth rubs his temples, “I knew I couldn’t ask you to come with.”

“So, it’s done.”

“Yeah, it’s done.”

Gareth faces you - really faces you. It was as if nothing changed. For a moment, you’re back in his house with his mom right around the corner. He’s snuck you off to kiss your lips and to hold you and to promise you that he’ll never let go. But, now you’re flying on your own. You’re solo.

“So,” he asks earnestly. “How is college?”

The truth is that you never got to college. Between funeral costs, your mom’s debts and the obvious fact that college is terribly expensive, you never left Hawkins after the boys had left for California. You’re extremely jealous, although that part you won’t admit too. Each morning you wake up and you wonder if things would have been different if you just went with them.

Staring at the ground, you’re searching the fibers of the carpet for something to tell Gareth. Something that doesn’t end with you crying about your dead mom. The strength to tell Gareth that you’re fine living here in a mundane life without seeing the rest of what life should be. You could have sworn it could be like the movies, but now you know those are all just fictional tales. Hardly anyone leaves Hawkins. The town is a black hole, and you’re sucked right in.

In the midst of your brain fog, you miss out when Eddie switches the shower’s water off. The bathroom door swings open and you return to planet earth. With a towel sunk deep around his hips, you’re left to wonder what all of his new tattoos meant. You could tell which of the tattoos he got first because you were there for those. Some sketchy guy with a tattoo gun repaid Eddie for the weed that he sold him by giving him a couple of free tattoos. The man insisted Eddie would look “smokin” after all was done, and that the ladies would love him.

Those earlier tattoos are deep wounds inked in permanently to his skin. They’re nothing compared to the straight lines of the compass nestled neatly across the majority of his left peck. The tattoo across his ribs probably scored him the most pain, although you recall him saying ‘I enjoy pain’ a lot in the past with that signature Eddie grin that always appears to admit cockiness and hides the real fear behind his eyes.

Eddie does get scared from tins to time. There’s a lot of times that he came to you about money or his uncle’s health. He’s even told you how terrified he was as the days grew closer to his father’s release date in prison. Al, Eddie’s father, doesn’t call or send him letters. But, Eddie still wonders if Al would ever just show up. That’s not something he’s ready for.

“Hey, man,”

Gareth excuses himself from your conversation to speak to Eddie about something that he’s lost. They exchange, and before you would know it, Gareth leaves out the front door. You’re practically forgotten about on the couch.

Until Eddie suggests, “I didn’t take that shower or change these sheets for nothing!”

You fall in routine, and too quickly you stand to find yourself in his room. Eddie’s already on his back in bed with enough space for you to squeeze in. You’re more comfortable on your stomach, and Eddie tosses the blankets over you while you get comfortable.

“It’s nice to have you home,” you admit to him.

Eddie reaches around you to flick off the light. His skin is still damp from his shower, and the warm spice of his deodorant stains your memories. You’ve always felt comfortable like this. There was never an argument about who gets the bed during your slumber parties. You share everything, and you practically mold into each other now.

You tuck your chin under the blankets, and sleep soundly for the first time in months.

-> <-

The club is dimly lit and perfect for illegitimate activities. Some poor old sack is probably getting off in the back by one of the ladies willing to do an extra service for cash.

Eddie struts into the new strip club that he’s never seen before. The last time he saw Hawkins a few months back, the club was a laundromat. Hard to imagine anyone washing their clothes in here now.

Behind him, Gareth hides his head. His girlfriend - or whatever they are - wouldn’t approve of such a place. Lily and Gareth are on rocky terms right now, especially since he decided to come home and to visit his family for the holidays. Lily’s first question was “Will she be there?” Any girl that gives Gareth even a glance, Lily is dangling the noose around his neck tighter and tighter. She’s really becoming a hassle to deal with.

Jeff made sure to stuff his pockets with one dollar bills. These are hard working ladies that deserve an extra tip or two. It’s not every day that a band rolls through with cash to spare. Although, Eddie disapproves Jeff’s spending. He’s going to be broke before the end of the year if their album dropping doesn’t sell well. Their label is already on their ass to create a new one, even though the first one hasn’t dropped and it’s not fully ready for listening ears.

Finally, Freak. He still doesn’t say much - or spend much. Actually, he keeps to himself after the hours of recording are over with. He enjoys a peaceful evening amongst the chaos and the noise that the boys put out with their instruments and their singing.

There’s a row of seats laced in plush fabric calling their name. They are offered a bar menu by a busty waitress with her eye on Jeff, almost as soon as they sit down. When she sways away from the group, Gareth says,

“Does this place have to be so sexual?”

As if going to a strip joint was anything like a holy Sunday in a pew reading scripture with the Big Man, who knew a strip joint was sexual? Gareth isn’t much for brains, Eddie imagines all the weed and the booze is going straight up there and filling out the files instead of crafting real thoughts.

“It’s a strip joint,” Eddie adjusts himself so that he has a better view of the center stage, “get a Jack and Coke and enjoy the view.”

The dancer on stage clacks her heels together catching the audience before they stray away from her. She drops from the bar and lands in a split causing the audience to cheer for her grand finale. Tips fly across the stage one by one. She gathers what she can, and disappears into the audience.

Gareth unbelievably and rudely yawns. This is nothing against the club or the dancers, but the travel has worn Gareth out. He thought he would spend a night in if not for Jeff’s bright idea, which Eddie of course leapt at. If not for Freak also agreeing to go, Gareth might have just gone too bed. Despite Eddie’s protest that at the time, which included that the time was only eight thirty.

The center stage lights shine against the stage letting on a glittery effect against the floor. Another girl was taking center stage.

“Get ready to be dazzled,” the club host announces through a microphone, “this is our very own, the gorgeous, Crystal!”

“Crystal” enters through the side of the stage with her back to the audience. Her cue is the music’s beginning note, and she begins to swirl and swing around. Her rear end is mostly the show. The men in the front howl and whistle. Some beg for her to let them see her face. She must be the girl.

Eddie could agree. With a body like that, how could her face be bad? He could bite his tongue right then and there because as soon as Crystal winks over her shoulder his jaw hits the floor. You’re Crystal? Crystal is you?

Gareth now understands why Lily might be worried. This should be his cue to sneak out, but his feet betray him. They stay glued to the floor.

You grasp the pole like a professional, as though you’ve done this for a while. This is why you hadn’t told Gareth, or anyone for that matter. The judgement and the stares. Your life is spiraling, and the one way to make a check is by spinning on a pole. So, what?

The show finishes when the lights dim, and you make your way off the stage with the money stuffed into your thong and your bra. You’re not vein enough to count the cash until you know for certain it’s yours.

Backstage, the girls are abuzz. Star just saw a celebrity in the audience. Big head of empty air that one. You’re sure that no celebrity will ever step into a nothing town like Hawkins, unless -

“Star,” your voice shocks the other girls. Most of the time you’re sitting at a locker by yourself. They’re all wondering how you know anyone’s name. “Who did you see?”

“Corroded Coffin,” she sighs dreamily, “they’re even hotter in person!”

“Who the hell is Corroded Coffin?” One of the newer girls, Sapphire, interjects. Their conversation shifts to explain to Sapphire just exactly who the boys were. They only had one song out. How big was that hit?

“How do you all know about them?” You interrupt their squawking once more.

Star scoffs, “how does anyone know anything about anything? I listen to the radio.”

Star’s been dancing the longest, and it shows. Her collection of sparkle and sass drives the men into barking dogs. The same sass spills over into an egotistical black hole of obnoxious chatter. She’s one of the worst to work with, but she’ll train you into a performer the men want to see if she likes you well-enough. You’ve yet to make the list.

Now, they’re fighting for who gets to give them a private showing. They want the cash flow, but you doubt the boys have even made that much yet. Right? Anyway, that doesn’t matter. You’re much more worried if the boys were in the club tonight. Had they seen you? They must have! Oh, how could you explain this? In fact, you don’t have too. You’re a grown adult!

Or, maybe you’ll just stay backstage for a while and you will hope that the boys leave without saying anything to you and that this will never be brought up in a conversation.

That did not, in fact, happen. When you do leave the club, Eddie’s old van sits waiting in the parking lot. The boys hang out of every door. Smoke leaving their lips like they are all fire breathing dragons.

You breathe deeply, and face your awaiting fate.

The first to see you is Jeff, who waves you over. Clearly, he’s been enjoying the drinks coming from the bar. Missy, who is the bartender, hangs off of Jeff’s arm with sex glossing over her eyes. She knows what she signed up for, and she’s ready to leave. There’s no doubt she can’t believe she has to wait for this intervention.

Eddie’s already made arrangements to shove them in the back, so they can all safely get home and pretend to not hear their lips smacking against each other.

“Hey, girl,” Jeff invites you into their little after party.

You catch the stink of Eddie’s joint hanging between his lips, and hold out your hand by means of asking for a smoke. He takes the hint, and passes on the unlit end to you after blowing a gigantic cloud towards the stars in the sky.

“When did you start dancing?” Eddie doesn’t sugar coat what they’re all wondering.

Gareth is hiding in the van, but he listens with an open ear. Curiosity has the better of him. His ex-girlfriend is a stripper for Christ sake, and you look hot! Even he would admit that. Boy, he’s going to have to explain himself to Lily when he gets back to California.

You exhale the smoke from your lungs. That familiar tingling is reaching all of the muscles of your body.

“After my mom died,” you shrug your shoulders. “I couldn’t pay the bills anymore.”

“And Wayne?”

“Either he doesn’t know, or he doesn’t care to ask. It’s just a way for me to make a living, Eddie,” you’re exhausted from their judgment already.

“As long as you’re safe,” Eddie looks down to you. You hate when he does that.

You half joke, “you’re one to talk.”

“Me?!” Eddie throws his hand over his chest. “Worry about Jeff!”

Jeff is already in the back with his girl of the night, and yes, Eddie is quite jealous. Jealous of the fact that he can just pick up a woman like that and have no thoughts behind it. All while Eddie is more worried about you, and what you might think of him. He’s really got to get over that.

California was good for that for a while. The partying, the smoking, the drinking and the women that lined themselves up to hook up with the next greatest thing. Yeah, Eddie could get used to that lifestyle.

“You got a ride, or?”

Gareth sits up now because he knows if you get in the van, you’ll be riding next to Eddie. That leaves Gareth in the back with the make out party. If any clothes come off, he’s opening the door and rolling out of the moving van!

“I brought my car,” you jab your thumb in the direction of your rust bucket of shit. Previously, your mom’s rust bucket of shit.

“I’ll see you later at the house,” Eddie already knows you’ll be there snuggled up in far too many blankets, and drooling all over his pillow.

“Bye, Eddie. Bye, boys.”

-> <-

[to be continued]

July 1986

Corroded Coffin: Live from the Tomb

Los Angeles is about to get louder! Straight from Indiana, Corroded Coffin, a metal band, is breaking records with their new single Master of Death breaking records as the song inches it's way to the 20s spot in the Top 100. A first for any metal band. Tonight, we sat down with leading man Eddie Munson, who says they've just gotten started. Be ready, Los Angeles, these boys are here to stay.

-Pebble Magazine

"Can you at least tell her I called?" Gareth clutches the telephone in his fist and lays flatly on top of his motel bed.

Jeff passes an edition of Pebble Magazine off to Freak, who's hugging a bowl of m&m's. A quirk of the boy's mouth means he's satisfied.

Meanwhile, Eddie plops down to Gareth and makes grabby hands at the phone like a toddler. Gareth holds his hand out, hopeful to catch your voice in the background and not just speak to Eddie's uncle Wayne.

It's not as though Wayne isn't pleasant to talk too, but Gareth can't help himself. Not only does he miss you, but he also has heard from Wayne the terrible news about your mom.

"Her mom died," Gareth whispers over to Eddie.

Eddie frowns. Died?

Wayne speaks softly into the phone, so as not to stir you from your slumber. You've been staying in Eddie's room, and refusing to go over to your trailer for any reason. In fact, you haven't left his room unless you absolutely have too.

The funeral was fast. There weren't many attendees. A few of the trailer park neighbors that felt obligated to go since she was their neighbor sometimes. Your face was stone cold as they stare at you with pulled lips and hugged you like they spent any time with you, other than the occasional wave or noise complaint that had to do with your mother's partying. You don't like when people feel sorry for you. They have no idea what it's like to grieve twice.

The fact is that your mother died years ago. What was left is the shell she rode in on this earth in. She wasn't the same woman you loved as a girl, but rather the woman that abandoned you. And she abandoned you again.

You're awake in Eddie's room, and you overhear Wayne on the telephone. It has to be one of the boys. You had to beg Wayne not to call them when your mom had died. Bothering them with stuff back home isn't on your list of reports you want to give to them. You fear they would want to come home, and you just can't live with yourself if you distract them from their dreams. You've heard their new song. It's really good, and totally screams rockstar!

As much as you want to pull open that bedroom door and to talk to whoever is on the other line, you can't get your legs to work anymore. You're glued to Eddie's bed. The sheets still smell like the last time he laid his head down here. You inhale that cheap woodsy scent, and shut your eyes one more time.

-> <-

August 1986

"Gareth, you have got to get over this woman!" Jeff shouts over the music that just might be loud enough to shatter the glass windows of this place.

Their shuffled in nearly elbow to elbow with groupies and inspiring artists at an after party celebrating their first chart topping single. Not to mention, the boys of Corroded Coffin are on a high (both literally and figuratively) after their concert that they performed earlier that evening.

Eddie takes a drag from a joint, then passes it off to a woman who's taken an interest in his rugged charm. She leans forward nearly spilling her chest out of her low cut top. Eddie takes notice, and furthers himself from Jeff and Gareth's conversation.

Gareth takes a hit out of turn from the joint, but he hardly thinks the other two in the circle mind. It's Jeff that grunts out displeasure.

"What woman?" Lily sits at attention.

Lily Lolli is an aspiring actress. Although, she's only gotten a few crappy commercial jobs and she spends more time following bands around for attention. Her hair is too wild, and her hips are too wide for mainstream television. That's not to say she wasn't beautiful, but societies standards suck. And, Lily Lolli is getting laughed at as soon as she leaves the auditions.

"Gareth's girlfriend back home," Jeff's mouth gets him in trouble after two beers. But, he's also been smoking. He's a real loose cannon now.

Lily raises a thin eyebrow. "You have a girlfriend?"

"Had," Gareth corrects her, and Jeff too for that matter. "We broke up."

"Actually, you never had that conversation," Eddie interjects, although partially distracted by the leach of a woman hanging off his neck.

"She doesn't want to talk to me," Gareth rests against the couch that's shared between him and Lily. "She didn't even talk to me when we left."

"Sounds like you don't have a girlfriend to me," Lily coos.

"I don't," Gareth says less flirtatious, and more as a matter of fact.

Jeff puts his beer to his lips, but stalls when he can see what Lily is insinuating and Gareth cannot because he's blinded by his emotions from a woman that's halfway across the states. That was his cue to exit the circle because Eddie is nearly being sucked off right in front of him and Gareth is about to get in line. Jeff does not want a ticket to that show.

-> <-

"Hey, baby. How much do I get for this?" A geriatric piss head flashes you twenty dollars. It's enough for a dance, but you really should charge him extra for already having a tent in his pants.

You bat your eyelashes at him as though the comment makes you hot, lean forward over him to take the last sip of his whiskey for liquid courage (hopefully your boss didn't catch that) and spin around slowly so that the curve of your ass brushes close to his crotch. Swaying your hips in his direction, your face now falls into a tired frown. You don't have to look pleased when he can't see you. Despite the large flashing neon sign that warns customers 'Don't Touch the Dancers," his slimy mitts reach around your middle. The twenty slides into the strap of your underwear.

"There's more of that if you're a good girl."

Slime ball.

This is a better night. The club is livelier on the weekends. Despite the town being so small, you haven't run into anyone you know yet. Especially people like, Wayne or anyone from high school. You can't bare to face anyone you know in your underwear and towering high heels.

Your night ends quickly after that last dance is done, and you've racked up quite a check despite the manager of this place taking most of your earnings. It's a shithole, but you're making some money.

Turns out, if you get really depressed because your mom shot herself, and you don't go to work they fire you. Who knew?

The club opened up about a month ago, and they needed dancers. You're one of the few people that aren't outside the doors protesting because you need extra money to pay off your mom's debts. You've already sorted out a few yesterday, and you only have a few grand to go.

Still you reside in the Munson's trailer. You bravely collected a few of your items from your trailer and moved them into Eddie's room. Being in that trailer alone was haunting. The image of your mom laid out still shakes you, and you'd rather not think about that.

Wayne has no idea what you do during the night time, but that's because he also works through the night most times. You can assume the nights he does stay in he has a clue when you leave so late in the evening and return so early in the morning, but that's something you don't share with each other.

You cross the threshold into the trailer, and your met with a cold meal wrapped in plastic wrap on the stove. A note left by Wayne just says, 'Eat Me' in scraggly handwriting. Wayne has never been much of a poet, but he's got a terribly soft center for you.

-> <-

[to be continued]

You called back to the girl that her table’s drinks were coming up after a few orders of wine, as you poured them. Steve came dashing by to collect the stemmed glasses you'd arranged on a tray barely big enough for the array of drinks. He was a pro, the glasses hardly budged on his swift mission to serve them. 

Nancy complained about table ten while you whipped up their martinis; and the woman at your bar top kept getting louder to remind you she'd just asked for another very complicated drink. 

It was a hectic Friday, not unexpected. But for you, this was an easy enough shift. You'd been doing this job a long time. Well, mixing drinks anyhow. You'd only just started at Gino's. All thanks to Nancy.

"Here you go, dear." You helped Nancy set up her tray with drinks and gave her a wink that promised your plans for dinner were still on, once this shift was over. 

"I can't believe it's been just a month. You do this like you've been here forever." Nancy thanked you and hurried off; into the flood of table chatter and Italian jazz that crackled too loudly from the speakers in every corner. 

"I want my gin and f-"

"And after I make it, you're closing out your tab." You spun with a finger in the angry customer's direction, losing patience. That shut her up. Finally, there was a pause in the frenzy. No servers pestering you, no customers demanding. There was a moment while you worked, to think of what kind of pizza you'd order later. But then your bar was missing a key ingredient. And the rush hit you once more.

"I've got to go get some more lemons." You announced, only to reason with the woman who was watching your every move as you'd been mixing her drink. She hummed with squinted eyes while you huffed toward the kitchen.

The server line was a mess of workers and spilled seasoning and crumbled up tickets. There was some Ozzy song blasting from the kitchen, and you heard one of the grill guys curse about the flames being too high. 

As you hurried toward the stock room, the commotion from that end of the kitchen droned quieter, while some other rang louder, near the backdoors.

"Don't make me beg, Murray." A voice called, while you recognized the manager's scoffs. They were getting closer to where you were turning toward it seemed. You weren't one to stop everything to eaves drop, but you couldn't help but overhear the conversation that kept getting closer. 

"You don't understand man, I really need my job back." The voice called. You quirked an eyebrow as you found the box of lemons.

"I understand perfectly well." Murray seemed to lace his words with some vitriol. Just then he rounded the corner you stood near with a roll of his eyes, clipboard in hand. The wild haired manager was clearly busy, and in a hurry to shake whoever you heard following him. 

"Come on, wait up!" The voice called. 

Just as you'd filled your bar's container with all the fruit that would fill it, the stranger appeared around the corner. And he wasn't a stranger at all. 

Eddie Munson stopped in his tracks, deep brown eyes paused to find you frozen in place before him all the same. He was grown up. Hair still a tangled mess, longer than you'd ever known. His figure covered by a ripped up motorcycle tee and some ancient leather. 

"What-" He shook his head, big eyes blinking as you decided very quickly this had to wait. Or better yet, never be addressed properly at all. Before Eddie could finish asking whatever it was, you spun on your heels to follow Murray in your flee from the kid. Not like he was some monster to escape from. But the lady at your bar was probably fuming. And you really didn't have time to unpack a dozen things concerning Eddie Munson.

///

Your shift ended with the closing servers crowding your bar top. Every worker was allotted a complimentary drink at the end of each shift, yourself included. You chose wine tonight, setting your glass aside as you made Dustin a flavored lemonade. The high school kid always tried to get you to sneak a little vodka in when Murray wasn't looking. 

The manager was sauntering toward the gathering, gesturing for his normal shot; while Steve and Nancy shifted from their slouch at the opposite end of your bar top.

"Yo Murray," Steve sat up, leaning closer to catch the boss's attention. "Did Munson come in today?"

Murray let out a heavy sigh as you handed him the swallow of gin. Before he could respond properly, Steve was talking again.

"I know he's like your number one enemy, but he was our best guy, man, you gotta let him come back." Steve pushed. Everyone locked their gaze on the manager as he drank, then waved for another shot.

"Don't push it tonight, Harrington. I'll..... think about it." Murray grumbled through a warning glance. The manager left his shot glass in your care as you felt your heart rise to your throat. Eddie worked here before? What if he did come back? What were you going to do?

As you washed the shot glass and tried to stop your thoughts from spiraling, Steve waved you closer to fill you in.

"Murray and Munson are mortal enemies. Eddie quit one day. No two weeks. Just, left a tray full of food abandoned and his apron on the floor. It felt kind of inevitable. Eddie was going through... well, a lot back then." Steve's countenance withdrew ever so slightly. He hadn't realized you knew more than you let on. And that was good.  "But despite his and Murray's thing, he was our best server. We actually struggled when he left. Murray would be a fool not to have a worker like that back." Steve smirked as he sipped his drink. "Plus all the girls have a crush on that sorry sucker. Everybody'll win."

///

"Look I don't know." You sighed, crossing your legs on Nancy's plush carpet, reaching for the pizza on her coffee table. She settled before you with drinks in hand, taking her turn playing bar tender. You'd been talking about moving back.

"I moved away from here to escape from all my baggage. And I know I overcompensated in California by going wild." You tried to explain. You had a goal to change your life for the better. But your efforts failed, your hard work crumbled, what little money you'd saved was wasted away. "I recognize that I tried to bury my pain with pleasure. But I only moved back because it was easy. I still don't think I'm ready to face everything."

"No, I understand. I mean…" Nancy spun the beer bottle in her hand, resting a finger on the rim as the bottom swiveled on its coaster. 

You and Nancy hadn't been particularly close, growing up. But she used to be great fun to work with in group projects. In school, Nancy was the perfect lunch table guest. She never asked the gruesome details about your past or your present. She never indulged in that gossip every other kid passed around about you. Even now. Nancy never asked. She just knew things had been bad for you, and that you'd escaped it. And that you were becoming real pals since you started at Gino's. Pal's that window shopped and made dinner plans and laughed about boys.

"I can't pretend I relate." Nancy hummed. "But I can understand.  You came back home to start over. Not to make amends." 

///

All of high school, you saved every penny from the bus floor and every dollar from old coat pockets. And you got pretty good at spotting the shine of a nickel across asphalt and hallways. Four years of street coins and loose fives added up to nearly two thousand odd dollars- much to a weary bank teller's dismay. You had plans to put the money to use getting yourself out of Indiana for good.

And then, like fate, by the grace and terror of God or the universe, she died. Your mother died the very day before you planned to run from her. Your bus ticket was already purchased. Your freedom was set in stone. 

California started well. You bought a car. You started bartending. You found a roommate. The roommate found a boyfriend. And the three of you would spend nights and days off running wild. Nothing was off limits. Especially to you, the world was your oyster. California was sunny and warm and perfect and happy. Until it wasn't. Until you started staying out too late, and missing work. Until you started sleeping with the wrong people and ending up in the worst places. Until you spent too much money in night clubs and forgot to save enough for gas. Until your roommate's boyfriend stole your car. He said he was gonna take it to pick up some smokes to bring back. But neither him or your car ever returned.

Your roommate blamed you. And she showed up at your bar one day and started a fight bad enough to get you fired. You'd been on thin ice there anyway. It all came to a head. Your roommate had all of your stuff outside when you returned to the flat. It wasn't much. One box of films, one bag of clothes. No hope or money left.

Your mother always said "There's nothing you can't move on from. Just don't stop moving, that's what'll getcha."  You thought it was sound advice, for a while. But it was advice you started to resent now, after working so hard to move forward and losing everything.

Her voice in your head kept that phrase on repeat all your life. But especially then, when it was all for nothing. And just to spite her mortal coil, you thought of slowing down. You thought of turning around. You decided to do just that. 

The last of your money was spent on a plane ride back to the Midwest. And a down-payment to your old landlord. Same complex. New apartment. He'd always been kind to you. Even now. You tried to pretend like his offer to cut the price was too generous to accept. But both he and you shared a look of disgruntled agreement. Even that little was still too much, with everything you'd saved wasted. Right back where you'd begun. Right back where you planned so long to flee.

On your second day back in Indiana, your landlord was generous enough to loan you a new bed and frame, and put in a good word for you at the antique place at the edge of town. they gave you a couch, a table, and two chairs for a price so low you almost felt offended. But you didn't have the funds to let that feeling matter. 

On your third day in Indiana, you ran into Nancy at the market. She beamed to see you back in town, asking if you moved for family or for work. "I moved for me. No family. No work either, if you hear anything...."

She was quick to write a phone number for a new local restaurant on the back of her receipt. 

"It's an Italian place, surprisingly decent for this backwoods town. In that building that used to be the biker bar? They don't hire very often but I'll put in the best word for you." Nancy smiled, a genuine grin. You noticed there was no pity there, no grace for your circumstances. There was only zeal in her happiness to see you and a hope she may again. That's what you'd always liked about Nancy. She never babied you. She never protected you. She never pried. Like everyone else. She was only almost a friend. And that was the best thing almost anyone had ever been on your behalf. 

So, you moved back home to spite your dead mother. But maybe actually starting over wouldn't hurt. You slowed life down out of malice, but you kept steady out of a realized necessity. Your whole life you'd been running. Because your mother said so. Because you wanted nothing to do with her. Because you wanted nothing to do with her name attached to yours. Nothing to do with yourself. 

But the first time you stopped to evaluate who you'd become since her reign of terror over your life had ended, you came up short. So back to the drawing board felt right, vengeful too, but right.

Facing the old grey town was almost too difficult, on your first week back. You felt hate for the cold wind in place of the sunshine you'd become accustomed to. You felt sick to settle back into these old apartments. You felt sad to walk past the landmarks where memories felt more like hauntings. But the more you accepted that, the easier they became to face.

And thank God for Nancy. She encouraged you to ramble when you got drunk enough to, about what you were willing to open up with. But she never looked at you knowingly. And that's why you hurried away from Eddie. 

His eyes were still so big and so affected. His eyes looked into yours that night with a billion different questions and answers and apologies. And that was something you just weren't expecting to have to be confronted by. 

///

Murray was scribbling the floor plan at the host desk as you yawned into the black tiled restaurant. The iron chairs hadn't yet been turned down from the tables, and the sun shone brightly past half drawn red velvet curtains. 

"You sure you're ready for this brunch shift new girl?" Murray called from the host stand as you glided across the dining area to the raised bar. Three marbled steps led to your domain. A wide bar top held a dozen stools. Beyond there, a half wall of booths shrouded your risen bar off from the lower dining area. 

"Yeah yeah, half off mimosas and prosecco," You answered. 

"Our food runner called off!" Murray rang with a sorry hand thrown in the air, as he turned toward the kitchen. That meant a little extra work for you and that damn tiny staircase. But you crossed your fingers that your customers would tip you better if they saw you busting ass on their behalf. 

Nancy and Steve showed up just before the first guests arrived. They were the only guests in Nancy's section for so long, that Steve took to sitting at your bar top with his head in his hand, quizzing you about what grapes made what wine. 

You had to chuckle. You'd never dared cross his path in high school. Steve held too much attention, whether he chose to or not. On sports teams, at the best lunch table. You were not so privy beyond the shadows you admittedly chose to stick closer too, growing up. 

"Oh my God someone's here." Steve shot up from his slump to find a single customer walking in. Brunch was normally busy. It was almost eerie to stand around with nothing better to do than to keep Steve Harrington amused. 

Soon as you started thinking so, the doors flooded with guests and the last of your coworkers showed up. You were ready for battle, notepad in hand. You slung a billion mimosas and kept your heart rate elevated, running up and down from the bar to the kitchen to deliver salads and pasta. This job kept your time filled. And your mind occupied. And money in your pockets. That's why it was easy to ignore the irate customers. Easy to block out the tension in the kitchen when the cooks ran out of shit. Sure, the job was stressful. But for you, it was a blessed necessity. You'd handled much worse.

In the middle of balancing a tray of lasagna and pointing a lost woman in the direction of the restrooms, there was a commotion near the host stand. You could see the area clearly from your raised bar section. A mess of waiting customers were shifting from their crowd near the host desk. 

Eddie Munson was storming in, yanking a knot into the apron at his waist and winking at guests as he mumbled something about being late. There you were, with your heart in your throat again, eye fixed on the man you'd now become a coworker with. Funnily, you'd never really pictured Eddie working... well, anywhere. Let alone such a fast-paced personable environment. In a millisecond you remembered every class Eddie strolled in fifteen minutes past the bell, to every field trip he'd defied the teacher's boundaries of. And you laughed to yourself now, seeing as he clearly mismanaged his time, still. As the guy disappeared into the kitchen, you realized you'd been stalling to finish refilling a couple's water.

Like some kind of punishment, Murray made Eddie an everyman. He ran food. He took tables in overflowed sections. He helped you find a case of beer and unloaded it in your bar while you took some orders. And every time Eddie helped buss one of your tables or delivered a refill, his eyes looked into yours with that dreaded knowing you hated so much. That damn look reminded you where you came from. Where he came from. Not that you'd wanted to completely forget. But you just hated that damn look.

That day never let up. There were one too many mishaps from the kitchen, several issues with the cash register, and one order that Steve forgot to put in for so long, his table threw their empty appetizer basket at his head.

Your shift ended with the last brunch guests being escorted out by a police officer who was originally there picking up his lunch to go. You'd cut them off from too many mimosa pitchers and they were starting to go from unreasonably rowdy to making threats you hadn't expected to be given so seriously over a drink in a shitty Italian place.

"No more half off mimosa's!" Murray yelled before slamming his office door shut.

///

"Let's go kids, I'm not even joking if you guys don't get in my car it will be my last straw." Steve was slinging his suede jacket on and ripping his stained server apron off. 

"Steve, if you had such a bad shift you wanna go drinking, why are you designating yourself as driver? And why do you want everyone who just worked with you and pissed you off to join?" You chuckled, reaching in your own locker for your purse. 

"Nancy can drive us back!" Steve waved, as he took off the back door. "And it's called a trauma bond, keep up, new girl!"

"You guys have fun, I dunno-"

"Awe, no please come on. I know you have tomorrow off. We can really go all out! I'll call Mike to come drive us back. He has his license now. And he owes me!" Nancy whined, stalling on her exit, ignoring Steve's call from outside for everyone to hurry up and come on. 

"Well... who is all going?"

"Us, Johnathan, probably Robin, Eddie."

"You know I'm not great in groups." You feigned shyness and tried to shrug off the buzz in your chest at the mention of Eddie's name. 

"Come on, we can seal off a little two top and talk."

Nancy linked her arm through yours, and you couldn't help but smile. You made enough money for rent, this week, and extra to add to your thrifted drink pitcher with a sticky note on it that wrote "CAR."

///

The bar was a buzz. A woman with a guitar sat on a stool in front of a mixed audience. A couple of friends were hogging the pool table. The bar tenders had enough time to sit between customers. 

Your group dispersed among a back section of empty two tops, trading places to tell different stories. Steve and Robin kicked the others out from the pool table. Johnathan sat alone, enjoying whatever spiked soda he ordered. You and Nancy leaned in to gossip two seats away. Your group clapped for each song the woman performed in between venting about the brunch shift from hell. 

You sipped a beer with ease, watching one performer leave, a host announcing the jukebox was free game for the rest of the night. 

And then he showed up. But this time you’d been prepared to land your gaze on Eddie. Your eyes had been scanning the room, landing on the door, almost willing the guy through it. And when he finally shouldered into the room, the rings on his every other finger glimmered from afar like the lost pennies you used to find. Your gaze fixed on his saunter toward the bar. You watched him exchange a smile and some cash for a bottle. You watched him notice you, and walk closer. 

Nancy turned to find your sights stuck on Eddie. She whipped her head back to lean in and ask if you ever hung around the kid back in the day. Your pause in answer was ignored as Nancy rambled about not really knowing who Eddie was, in school. 

She waved you even closer after her tipsy recall. "But, when he went missing? We sorrrttaa helped him out." Nancy whispered. You'd been gone a year and some months. You knew you'd miss out on changes to store fronts and deaths and weddings. But you hadn't heard many updates until you landed back in town. And this bit of information was really off your radar.

"Missing?" You gaped, unaware of this story in its entirety. 

"Oh, maybe you had already moved, I guess, who knows, he's back now anyway. Just like you!" Nancy was going from tipsy to beyond as her story progressed. And just as you nodded at her ramble, he was headed right your way. Eddie didn't stop until he was sitting at your table, pulling up a chair from another and resting his bottle between yours and Nancy's.

"Is this my welcome back party? Or Steve's farewell?" Eddie joked. You were inebriated enough to chuckle without nerves clogging up your throat.

"He gets so flustered." Nancy hummed, eyes growing wide with commiseration for Steve. He really had the worst shift today. "But he never slows down enough to avoid these situations. Lost orders. Mismatched drinks. He's much better on a slow day." Nancy laughed despite her empathy, and Eddie did too. He hadn't looked right at you yet, not since he sat. 

But as the hour went on, and your drinks started disappearing, you and Eddie and Nancy talked easily about work. About Murray, his silly temper. Eddie's feud with the manager. 

"Murray's not even Italian! His spaghetti recipe is from his Russian grandma or some shit!" Eddie spat, disconcerted, buzzed enough to grin at the absurdity of the sentence he just spoke. It was so easy to look at him at that point. To laugh with him. But when you started to look too long, the memories fizzled closer to your focus. His laugh sounded a little too familiar at one particular point. Despite the alcohol, your nervous system stuttered to a halt all too quickly. This was too weird. 

Without too much suspicion, you feigned a yawn. Timed out a couple of stretches. And waited just long enough to call it a night. Nancy begged for your mind to change. Saying something about calling Mike for a ride. 

"It's okay. I'll see you in two days." You smiled, letting the expression meant for Nancy stay on your face as you turned past Eddie to leave. His deep brown eyes were shifting, looking for something in yours. It was majorly time to leave. 

The night was chilly. You hurried out of the bar and around the corner to a fierce wind that made you curse the town and its location. California's sun was never missed more than now.

The roads were empty, the town was shut in. There was just you and blinking stop lights and too much wind. It whipped with a roar so intense you almost hadn't heard some car pulling toward the cross walk until you stepped right out in front of it. 

"What the fuck are you doing?" The driver's breaks squeaked. It wasn't a car, it was a van. It wasn't just a driver, it was Eddie. Jesus, you couldn’t get away from this dude.

"I'm so sorry, I promise I'm not suicidal, just stupid." You shouted back, wrapping your jacket around your waist as you moved against the weather to hurry forward. 

"Where are you going? It's crazy out there!" Eddie called, rolling his window down even further, the wind passing through his wild hair. 

"No where!" You turned back, only so he could hear you.

"Get in the car," Eddie pleaded your name like an impatient parent.

"You don't have to do that." You yelled back, pausing in place. Part of you froze out of anxiety. The other part of you froze out of consideration. Then the wind nearly blew your bag from your arms. 

"Okay fine."  You decided with a grumble. Your place was still several blocks away, and you were already starting to freeze. As you opened Eddie's passenger door and climbed in, he turned down his radio. "Same building as before."

"Got it." Eddie nodded, watching you settle in before taking off down the road with a little more caution. The van was warm. The radio crackled some Police song that kept getting drowned out from the wind, even beyond the full closed windows. You'd actually never been in his car before. 

The ride stayed quiet for a couple of turns, while you sat picking at your nails. 

"So... when did you get back?" Eddie decided to choose his words slowly, keeping his eyes on the road. 

"Two months ago."

"I see."

Maybe... you were making it weird. Maybe on your mission to avoid awkward conversation you'd made everything far too weird. Maybe you were still buzzed enough to finally say something. 

"How have you been?" You asked with caution. It was a loaded question. But you knew he wouldn't bullshit his answer.

"I've been good. Like... actually. Finally good." Eddie said, pulling into the lot of your complex.

"Good." You nodded and you meant it. As you started to gather your purse and apron from the van's floor, he hesitated to speak. But you could tell he was about to, as you reached for the door handle.

"Do you need-"

"No, thank you though." You hurried, finding solid ground and feigning a too intense smile. "Ya know, for the ride and... everything. Thank you." With a thud, you shut the passenger door and hurried to the doors of your apartment complex. His van lingered until you passed through the halls and waited a safe enough distance to look back.

///

She'd left town again, for a month, maybe two. You were old enough to know why. The drugs or a man, or another addiction of the hour. You were old enough to know better than to tell anyone. You hated the cops making a big show of everything. You hated being pawned off to one of those families, just to be ripped away from them, too.

Your landlord knew better than to ask why your mother never answered the door. He'd stop by pretending she called him to turn the water back on. Or to pretend he bought too many extra groceries. He'd ask you to store some. Told you to help yourself. 

You knew better than to let on that she'd gone. You kept your appointments with your cps provided counselor and promised them everything was fine. Promised you were simply busy with school. You'd seen Eddie there, in the waiting room. You made sure he didn't see you walk home alone.

Eddie was always around. In the same offices and bus stops. Sometimes neither of you said a word to each other. But sometimes Eddie would share his gas station snacks or tell you the vhs in your hand seemed cool. He’d let you ramble about the plot sometimes. Sometimes you and Eddie would miss the early bus to sneak around the city park when the weather was nice enough to put your feet in the pond. He was the closest thing to a friend you had. But in your world there wasn’t much time for such frivolity. And sometimes, you intentionally snuck out of those waiting rooms without catching his eye.

Then, afterwhile, she came back. Better than ever. Had the house all cleaned up one day after school. She greeted you by screaming that you'd left the place a mess, this whole time. You never asked where she went. She never asked how you were. She stayed okay like that for a while. Her silence, that was as good as it ever got.

///

"It's not good, new girl!" 

Murray was in shambles at the cash register, slamming the wall phone back into place. 

"Alexi cut his hand, he's not coming back for a couple days. It's just Argyle and Hardgrove back there. And they're already fighting. Robin and Maxine called off. Steve went home sick this morning." Murray shot you a look over his glasses as you adjusted the apron at your waist. "It's going to just be you and Eddie out here tonight. And he's late."

"It's what?" You begged him to start from the top; sure you heard him wrong. Sure this was some kind of stress induced fever dream. 

"Twenty reservations. Four party tables. Just- I don't know, take your time? Dustin will be your host. Don't kill him." Murray pointed, stepping away and hurrying off toward his name being yelled from the kitchen. It sounded like Argyle was having trouble with the microwave again. 

"Pray for us new girl!"

As you processed this new information you noticed Johnathan bussing off the last of his lunch tables. You hurried over to help, not out of total kindness, but hoping he'd listen to your plea. 

"Any chance you want to work a double tonight?" You grinned, stacking cups and plates. 

"Ah, Murray already asked. I've got to take Will across town later. I'm sorry." Johnathan seemed at least actually regretful to be unable to help fill space. He wished you and Eddie luck with the busy night of reservations. There were usually at least seven servers on, during a night like this. It was sure to result in utter chaos. But the chaos wasn't your sole worry.

Things started easily. Reservations trickled in. You were up to six full tables by the time Eddie rushed in. But after Eddie disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, he came zooming out more hurriedly than before, speeding your way.

"I'm so sorry I'm late. I just heard the plan. Are you okay? Should we like, figure out how to handle this?" The guy was holding his hands out, ready to take whatever you gave him. Ready to help. 

"It's okay." You had to chuckle. It was about to get pretty stressful, but it wasn't set in yet. You had a minute to game plan. 

You'd already decided cocktails were off menu. You couldn't wait on half the massive dining room AND play bartender with all the heavily mixed drinks your menu had to offer. Eddie scrawled a message on the chalkboard at the front, something about only featuring beer and wine tonight. Then you each held Dustin hostage, demanding the poor kid ask before sitting any tables. The only way this could work was if you knew how to handle each worst-case scenario beforehand. There wasn't going to be time to stop to resolve anything. 

Murray even submerged from behind his usually locked office door to help in the kitchen. That's how you knew it was about to be bad.

Guests trickled in. Walk in's and reservations alike. Poor Dustin was already running back and fourth, pulling at Eddie's shirt sleeves and blocking your turn into doorways, asking if you were ready for more guests, asking how long to hold people at the door. Telling Eddie he had several requests. Some of the customers who'd wanted Eddie ended up in your section. Weather they conceded or Dustin fucked up, you'd never know. 

Before you knew it, Gino's was full. Every ten top. Every bar seat. Every round booth and checker clothed table. Murray evolved into a food runner. A damn food runner. You'd never seen Murray run besides away from Eddie. Argyle only yelled. At Billy to shut up. At you to wait for him to finish cooking. At Eddie for yelling at him because he was yelling at you. 

"You can't call Nancy? You can't call fucking...who else works here?" You begged Murray, balancing a tray with five different orders meant for tables strewn across the restaurant. 

"I did! I did! You think I fucking didn't?" Murray panicked, reaching for a shaker of parmesan Eddie slid him across the heated opening. Murray was in such a hurry he burnt his hand moving out of the hot window. 

"Murray we better never have a shift like this again I swear to God." Eddie was cursing, impatiently tapping his foot as enough coffee brewed to fill up a mug he held under the machine. 

"Or what? You'll quit?" Murray mocked. He burnt his hand again. 

"And all these regulars you lost when I quit the first time will never come back! And you'll be praying for a day as busy as now! And who will show up?"

"Shut the fuck up! Just shut up! It's too busy to bicker!" You shouted, finally lifting the tray of a dozen plates in your grasp. You glanced out into the dining area abuzz with customers. "Uh, Murray." You spoke, "The lady from table four is looming outside the server door and I think she might kill me once I pass through it. Could you, ya know, manage?"

Murray threw down whatever plate he was arranging and stormed out into the server line, mumbling something about management and what a stupid idea it was to ever open the restaurant in the first place. 

You followed behind, on a mission to drop a plate of hot food. Some tables were yours. Some were not. Some guests thanked you for delivering their dinner. Some asked why Eddie wasn't doing it. Some shoved extra tips in your apron, understanding you were in the trenches. Some didn't tip you at all.

You'd greeted most of your tables tonight with a warning. And most of them understood. Most of them practiced patience. But some guests grumbled when you failed to refill their soda they sucked down in ten second's time. They didn't like when you told them they'd have to wait. 

You'd usually not been too flustered in times like now. You'd usually take your time during a rush, and been good at assessing what to do first when you had a billion duties to fulfil. But tonight was different. Tonight, you were being pushed to limits you hadn't realized you had, as a worker. 

And what really started to get under your skin, was how easy Eddie seemed to be handling things. He was laughing with his guests, he was everywhere all at once, not a long, beautiful hair out of place. He was putting a stop to upset guests' outrage before they even began. But you were starting to talk back. You were starting to lose your cool. And there were still two more hours before close. 

"I didn't order this!" An older man shook his receipt in your face, insisting the words printed there were wrong. "I wanted the lunch portion of pasta!"

"Right." You started. "And when you asked for that, I told you ALL we had available was the dinner portion. And that's the meal you continued to order."

"Right." The man mocked. "I ordered the dinner, but I want lunch price." He spat, frown growing deeper, face growing red. 

"Sir, do you think I'm stupid? Or are you actually that stupid?" You couldn't take it anymore. There was too much happening. There were too many tables whose appetizers were going cold in the window. There were too many plates to bus.

"Excuse me?" The man squinted his eyes, moving closer to the edge of the booth like he was about to stand from it. "Do you talk to your mother with that mouth?" 

That was it. You bent at the knees letting your hands rest just above there, lowering yourself to his level.

"My mother is fucking dead." You spoke slow and dark and almost let a smile creep into your features as you watch the angry customer accept the shock that washed over him. And then he was standing, and he towered over you, pointing with a finger, veins popping out as a yell bubbled into his throat. Just before anything could get any worse, Eddie was there. 

"Okay, hello. Sir you'll have to wait at the cash register to resolve whatever you think the issue is. You're done here." Your coworker grabbed your shoulders and began to march you back toward the kitchen. As you let Eddie lead you into the space, he was calling for Murry to get his ass out here. The manager came rushing from the grill, covered in flour, glasses cockeyed, hair a mess. 

"Murray, we're closing."

"But we still have an hour and ha-"

"We're closing!" Eddie let go of his hold on you, nudging you a little to his side as he went on making decisions. "You're gonna go out into that dining room and announce that we're done for the night. Whoever is sat can stay. Whoever is at the door has to go."

"Munson-"

"If you don't go do it, I will." 

Murray decidedly grumbled out into the dining room again. With a look, you and Eddie hurried to the window full of food, deciding which trays to garnish and which to run. You heard Murry make a very professional announcement from the third step of the risen bar and chuckled about what a mess he looked. 

The last hour was actually a breeze. Customers were kind. Tips were big. Food was perfect. Argyle even stopped screaming. And soon as it had spun into anarchy, it was silent. You turned off that loud ass Italian jazz that would forever haunt your nightmares, the front doors were locked. There was nothing left to do but clean. Murray helped the boys in the kitchen. Dustin helped you and Eddie.

When it was all said and done, the three of you fled to the comfort of your usual post close bar. You mixed Dustin his favorite flavored lemonade. You gave Eddie a beer. And you took a shot, dreaming of crashing into your bed. The three of you sat in silence, too exhausted to do anything but stare at the wall. When Murray eventually dragged himself toward the bar. He waved at you to stay sitting. He grabbed the entire bottle of gin from your shelf and said he'd be in his office, not to bother him till tomorrow. 

"That was so crazy I could have cried from the stress." You admittedly piped up, still slumped over in a state of fatigue. 

"Oh, I did." Dustin turned to look at you, eyes wide. Mouth stained blue from his drink. You burst out a laugh, and the kid started to giggle along with you. Eddie started too, and that's how your shift ended. 

As you grabbed your things from your locker that night, Eddie waited near the back door, insisting he give you a ride. "I'm already taking the kid home. Don't argue." 

"Okay." You looked at Eddie with a smile.

///

That shift from hell resulted in enough money to start car hunting. You didn't quiet have enough yet. But you could start looking at prices to shoot for. 

You made enough to save up for the next rent and get some nicer pillows, a tea kettle, and a couple new outfits. Things were looking up. Things were really happening for you. You could do this.

You said a prayer before your next shift. Because even though the money was good last time, you weren't sure if you could handle the chaos again so soon.

Nancy and Steve were lingering on the server line, helping some of the younger kids tidy the place. They both got along so well with everyone. Like they'd all been buddies long before this job. Even with you.

"Hey new girl." Steve spoke to you as you walked in but kept his eye on the freezer full of dessert, filling it for the night.

"You've known her name since preschool, Steve." Nancy swatted at her man, and rolled her eyes at you, taking a stick of gum in her pocket, unveiling one for herself, and one for you.

"S'okay, we never really crossed paths back then." You shrugged to Nancy. 

"Yeah well-" 

Just then, Eddie burst into the server line. Thirty. Minutes. Early. 

It was a shock. It was a twisted miracle. The kids stopped stocking straws and cups and stood in wonder as Eddie raced up to Steve. Even Murray popped his head from his office with his mouth hung open, unable to believe his eyes. 

"Guy's, come here, come over here." Eddie was trying to get Steve and Nancy to meet him in a quieter corner. And as you watched them confusedly follow, you noticed Eddie was waving at you, too. Your heart leapt to your throat once more, as it often did when Eddie's eyes locked on yours. But you had to swallow it, and join the group. 

"Guys." Eddie started, looking between the three of you. "Our bassist is finally out of jail. We got a gig. You have to come."

"Hell yeah, man!" Steve grinned, excited from the jump. 

"Where is it? When?" Nancy quizzed. 

"It's at the bar near my place. The good bar, not the shitty one. You know the one. Tomorrow night." 

"Your place..." You asked, looking at Eddie as he nodded. You were sure the others hadn't seen his smile falter just so. You were sure the others hadn't seen the way you and Eddie looked at each other for a millisecond. You were both good at hiding it when necessary. 

"We'll be there!" Steve snapped, sauntering away, decidedly having heard all he needed to. 

"I don't know, it's on the other side of town, like thirty minutes-"

"Don't be silly, you know we'll be your ride." Nancy insisted. She asked Eddie what time to be there, and then turned to tell you what time to be ready. 

"If you're not outside by 7:30 I will drag you out." Your friend pointed before she turned to leave. You and Eddie stood in silence, sharing that same look once more. His big brown eyes full of that expression that made you sick to your stomach. His hands wringing together.

"Look I know that maybe it's weird but-" Eddie started to speak. The first real address about before. But before he could go on, Dustin was yelling that you had a table waiting. Just in time.

///

Your heart beat fiercely as you raced out to Steve and Nancy in your car park. They were both none the wiser; dressed cool like the group of you were on your way to some place more renowned than the good pub on the far side of this very sleepy town. 

Small talk was a bandaid over your anxiety, as you asked about your friends' days their yammering responses gave you enough of a distraction from your own spiral of thoughts.

It was a thirty minute ride, across the railroad tracks and just past a crooked river. The sights of a few evergreens and farm fields were pretty at this golden hour, the sun's rays cutting through clouds. But the same old bridge that had gotten dozens of generations across one side of town to the other was looking a little worse for wear.

"What's going on with this bridge?" You asked your driver and his girl. It was all torn up, half assed panels drilled into odd spots. 

"It got fucked a couple months back. Kids on mopeds or something. They're supposed to actually fix it soon." Steve responded in a tone that made you realize it for some reason may not have been the city’s number one priority.

And all of a sudden the car was parked and your feet were carrying you into the pub and Nancy’s arm was linked around yours. All of a sudden you were ordering a beer and finding refuge on a leather stool, close to a wall you could camouflage yourself into if need be.

“Too bad we couldn’t get Dustin in. It’s gonna be centuries before he’s of age.” Steve whined, sipping from his own bottle while Nancy laughed. But all you were really focused on was Eddie. He was helping his bassist lug an amp onto a barely elevated stage in the opposite corner of the dark room. He was in a jacket a size too small, the leather flaking off at the sleeves. He was lifting a set of fingers to wave at you.

Four beers in, and seven songs. You remembered Eddie being good at this. But his music had gotten a lot better over the time you hadn’t heard it. You and Steve and Nancy watched as the band played with intention, cheering after every outro. The pub had garnered a decent sized crowd, enough for a few patrons to be left standing, every seat filled. Eddie looked happy. And you realized you hadn’t seen that too often. You hadn’t ever seen his smile linger so long in a night. 

Even when the show was over, and the encore had ended, and the applause fizzled out- Eddie was still smiling. You watched as he helped his bandmates roll up cords and click cases shut. You watched as he bounced from the stage, straight into Steve’s open armed embrace. 

“Dude, that set was so worth waiting on your bassist to get out of jail!” 

Everyone laughed. 

Eddie’s band mates packed up and headed home, but your group of friends were only just now settling into enjoying the night together. The round table you shared was filled up with empty bottles and glasses. Steve and Nancy decidedly headed to the bartop to add another round of something new to everyone’s tab. While you and Eddie sat alone.

“You’re really very good. Better than I remember. And I always remembered you were good.” You remarked, watching the way the long haired man leaned against the grain of the table. His smile had settled into a smirk and his eyes flashed with a hint of mischief before his ringed hand waved away the moment. 

“I was gonna make a lame joke, but…”

“But what? Not funny?” You chuckled, on the edge of wonder at what he was decidedly not sharing. 

“I dunno, I just- I am really glad you came. That you’re here.” His voice had softened but his eyes held that gleam of a secret you’d thought was only a held back joke. But with the way he hadn’t really blinked or turned away made you wonder what he was really thinking. You hadn’t really seen this look from him before, let alone knew what it meant. But when you realized you’d nearly been holding your breath you figured it was time to lay off the booze.

Luckily as you sucked in some air and liquor, the room was clamoring with a new energy. A big biker man, dressed in a vest and dirty jeans, found his way to the microphone. 

“Yall, listen up!” He boomed, brows risen, grey hair dripping wet. “It’s pouring rain, and the bridge is fucked.” 

You hadn’t even heard the weather inside the good pub on the far side of town. Not over the music. Not over Eddie. But now all you heard was the chatter among patrons as the big biker guy went on telling his story.

“We were crossing when we watched lightning hit. It’s mostly burnt up but between the wind and everything a couple of those loose panels fell right to the river. The police have it blocked off now. We're just trying to go around and warn everyone. There's no other way back to the other side of town tonight."

The crowd that had once cheered and clapped along to tonight's music were now worrying over tonight's news. People shouted about their jobs in the morning, how they'd get home to their kids tonight.There was only one hotel on this side of town. 

"You guys can stay at mine. My air mattress is still shit but," Eddie said. 

"It's better than nothing." Steve shrugged. Nancy nodded. You felt your stomach open wide. Eddie wasn’t looking at you anymore.

///

The car ride to Eddie’s was quiet. Steve and Nancy both lulled in the front half of the car on the three minute drive that felt like three hours. Eddie was pulling into the lot of his trailer as Steve turned the engine off to his car. On the steps to the front door, in the steady rain, Eddie held his finger to his lips. "Don't wake up my uncle."

And once you’d found shelter in the low lit home, the rain had turned into a full blown storm.

Lightning crashed three times, each strike closer than the last. Though inside, the home was deafeningly quiet. Eddie was quick to rifle through his drawers, finding old shorts and shirts for everyone to wear for the evening. Too small for Steve. Too big on you. You took a shower. You dared not think. You laughed as Nancy brushed her teeth and waited to trade spaces with you, glad for her company here. But when it was her turn to clean up and you were faced with finding your way down the hall, it was hard not to think.

"You can take my room, I can sleep on the couch." Eddie stopped you, turning the corner as if he’d been waiting to meet you on the spot. Over his shoulder you saw Steve setting up a halfway deflated air mattress beyond the coffee table. And then there was Eddie, with a quiet suggestion, as if to make up for something, as if he needed too. You watched the guy bring a hand around the back of his neck, his eyes fixated on yours with some kind of wonder.

"Don't worry about that." You assured as soundly as possible, equally as quiet as not to alert anyone else to this trade in words. You left it at that, nodding as you spun toward the living area. 

Steve and Nancy became well adjusted on the broken down air mattress, a billion blankets on top to soften the sinking, eyes closed. They'd had plenty to drink, too. On the sofa, a green muslin blanket you recognized, and a pillow for one. You flicked the lights off, and settled on the furniture, trying to ignore the rattle of rain at the window above your makeshift bed.

You tried with all your might to keep your mind empty of thought. Your body numb to feeling. But the wind grew more wicked, and the lightning flashed your eyes to open. And the green muslin blanket felt tangled like a trap around you. 

You hadn't expected the weather to jar you so bad. Storms like this always used too. But since California you'd forgotten how bad the storms could get here.

And despite your might, you started to remember the last time. You remembered this blanket and the scratch of this sofa below you. And the smoke from Eddie's room. And the pelting of the rain. How it was so similar. And how you hated that. Being confronted by memories like that. Not that you couldn't face them. But just the way scenarios would pop up at any present moment and transport you back in time, back in feeling. Back.

///

The courthouse floor was cold and hard. There were officers chattering to each other and pointing in your direction. You were too old for this. 

"Hey guys, I'll let her crash at mine tonight. I'll bring her back in the morning for the paperwork and shit." Wayne Munson sauntered toward the officers, talking about you. Keeping his gestures to himself. You couldn't be sure where he came from.

"No need to find one of those lists of families for a night or two right?" Wayne shot the cops a knowing glance and changed his gate toward you, holding out a hand for you to grab. He helped you stand from the floor and said you were stopping for fast food on the way home. 

"You really didn't have to do this." You shrugged toward Wayne, unsure how to thank him. Unsure how to deal with the rest of your feelings entirely. 

"Yeah well, I know how it goes. Less paperwork for them. Less stress on you." 

Even though he lived on the far end of town. Even though this wasn't the usual process. Even though you were too old for all of this. It was different, being rescued from your home life as a child. You were helpless. You needed cared for. 

Now, just near graduation, you felt embarrassment in place of stress. Now, at this age, you felt unwelcome in place of unsure. Wayne was too nice. He went too far out of his way. 

He set you up on the couch and knocked on Eddies door, saying something about having company. And that was it. You all ate your fast food at the kitchen table between talk about the rain getting heavy. Then it was off to everyone's separate quarters. No one asked you what happened this time. No one asked if you were okay. They just gave you a couple blankets and a some food and let you alone as the trailer started to shake from the wind outside. You were too old to be rescued. And you were too old to be so nervous about the weather. But there you were, choking back tears of anger and anxiety as you thought of your mother's recent rampage and felt the thunder rattled your nerves. Eventually, you fell asleep for an hour or two. And Eventually, Eddie crept out. He said he couldn’t sleep. He offered you a joint and put on a Kubrick film and sat on the opposite end of the sofa watching along until Wayne took you back in the morning. 

But upon arrival, the police let you know you were to be removed from your home indefinitely. Wayne stayed there with you trying to make sense of the law being enforced and the timelines of everything. 

"Just put her in jail like last time. I'll stay with my landlord. Like last time." You implored.

"Last time, she didn't assault you. This time is different. It's for your own good." The officers reasoned.

"What? So just because this is the first time she leaves a mark you guys act like it's something new? I'm not going into another one of those places you people think is so much safer." You were old enough to have self respect. 

"Do you want to stay with us?" Wayne asked, really giving you a choice. And somehow, you knew even if there were a billion hoops to jump through, Wayne would make it happen. Even if all he had to offer was the couch, it came with a blanket. Even if Eddie was around, he'd share his weed.

"Sir, we can't-" 

"I suggest you wait for her answer." Wayne held a hand out to the officer who tried to interrupt your thought process. Wayne was giving you a choice. Wayne was giving you a chance to speak for yourself. He'd fed you and housed you and didn't make a fuss. 

"Yes." You admitted, feeling a nervous pit open in your gut at the thought of being placed anywhere else. 

"Go wait in the truck. I'll work everything out." 

As you sucked in a deep breath and hurried to do what Wayne said, you heard the officers argue that this wasn't how anything worked. Then you heard Wayne insist on finding a way to make it work, because there wasn't going to be another option for you.

He managed something. He never said what. You never asked. You stayed with Wayne and Eddie for two and a half weeks. There wasn't much discussed between the three of you. Eddie would share his weed. You would do some of his homework. Wayne would bring home dinner. He wouldn't make you go to school if you didn’t want. He did drive you to graduation, though. And he sat in the bleachers and waved when you walked across the stage. 

Then one day, you figured you could just run for it. You could just bolt. You woke up that morning with the idea fully formed in your head, unsure of the time, but certain of the plan. And when you stretched from the sofa with purpose, you found Wayne alone at the table with a coffee mug in his grasp. 

And somehow, it was like you knew exactly what he was about to say. It was the same feeling as finding a dime in the parking lot. There was that shine in Wayne’s eye that gave it away, still you waited for his voice to confirm. He watched you pull out a seat at the table. And when you sat down, he said...

"Your mother died." 

That afternoon, you started getting everything ready. Your money. Your bus ticket. Wayne none the wiser, at work. Eddie off God knows where. You paced through their trailer with conflict guiding every footstep. Something in your spirit felt so unsettled. ‘That's just the voices telling you to run.' You thought. No, 'That's your wisdom imploring you to stay.' What could possibly be out there for you? You knew what games to play here. You knew how to survive. But was it so crazy to dream of finally living? She was finally really gone. And that was long awaited. It was also somehow, surprisingly, really scary.

A sickening sadness took a hold of you when the sun disappeared. For all you ever hoped life could be. And for all the ways it never was. A freezing fear sat you down in front of the nightly news, where you waited to make up your mind.

That's when Eddie came home, shrugging off his jacket and giving you a small acknowledgment. He ducked toward the hall then, like he was trying not to disturb you. Like this wasn't his very own home. It was probably best if you up and ran right then. But as you stood, your feet still stalled for the door. Your pace started up again, indecision and something else. An unexpected grief. 

Your feet began to move again, but your mind tried to stall them. You had no business creeping toward the hall. You really shouldn't have been inching closer to Eddie's bedroom door. It was open, just barely, the glow from the television flickering. Smoke fluttering. You bit your tongue and felt your heart hammer through to your feet. Still, you moved closer, till your shoulder was nudging his door further open.

"Eddie?"

He was on his bed. Pointing his remote at the television, his eyes, so big and brown, looked up to focus on yours. Despite how timid you felt, something more desperate moved you to keep your eyes on his too. Eddie moved his gaze from yours, to the way you kept your arms wrapped tight around you. Then he looked back up to you again and nodded for you to come in. 

But as you willed your feet to move they stayed heavy in place. And as you slacked your jaw to explain yourself, no words came through. All too suddenly, with the way he was looking at you, it felt so wrong to be in his space, to be in his life at all. And when the alarm in your nervous system dared you to turn and leave, your feet were still heavy against your will.

And then the wave came. There was no stopping it or slowing its rush. All you had time to do in preparation was duck your chin and curse as the tears rolled in. 

Past your sniffles you heard Eddie get up and shuffle close. He reached to shut his bedroom door all the way with a click, and then he reached for you. Your gut reaction when his hands landed feather soft on your shoulders was to shrug them away, to put distance between your spiral and Eddie’s innocence. But he wouldn’t let you. He only drew you closer as your cries croaked harder. All of this was wrong. You should have never have been here, or anywhere. You shouldn’t have come into his room or his life or-

“What’s wrong?” Eddie wondered in the softest voice you’d ever heard him use. You could only cry harder- for all the anger and confusion that had been plaguing you all day. For how embarrassed you were right now. But instead of pushing you, Eddie just held you tighter, his fingers pressing your head against his chest, his arm snug around your middle. And he let you cry and cry for hours it really felt like. 

When you could finally catch a half way proper breath and wiped the wetness from your face, you looked up to see Eddie’s own eyes welling too full to hide. “What’s wrong?” He implored more urgently, keeping his hands on the back of your arms. Your fingers couldn’t help the way they dug into the fabric of Eddie’s shirt. You were angry. You were sad. You just realized you were lonely. You were really fucking scared.

“I’m sorry.” You breathed, past the ache in your throat. Eddie was already shaking’s head like he knew your answer wasn’t going to be good enough. And you prepared yourself for his vexation, his lecture. But all Eddie said was “Come here.” And all Eddie did was move you to sit on his bed. He climbed in next to you and decidedly put on a movie. You let yourself sink into the pillows and the mess of blankets. You let Eddie sit up next to you running his fingers through your hair. You listened to Ron Howard’s voice crackle from the telly. You fell asleep.

Upon waking up, your slumber felt like more of a blacking out. It was a shock to find yourself in Eddie's room, at his still sleeping side. And then you knew it was time. Your time was up. You eased from his bed with a fervor, slow in your hurry as not to wake him. You found what was yours, and the bus ticket from earlier. There was still time to catch it.

You left Eddie alone in bed, and a pile of finished history tests on his desk. You left a thank you note for Wayne. You fucking left.

///

You were not about to cry. The wind was rattling the trailer. And you laid on that same couch with the same damn blanket you used all that time ago. But you were not about to fucking cry. You shot up, stepping over the couple asleep at your feet. Fuck them for being so at peace.

The light under the kitchen sink flickered and buzzed as you cracked each cabinet door in search of a glass. When you found one you filled it with water and leaned against the counter, ignoring the shake of the trailer. 

"You either huh?"

Eddie’s voice through the shadows made you jump and spin in place, trying to muffle a gasp. You were quick to give him a small glare when the long haired guy let out a dry chuckle at your alarm. Then he reached in the fridge for a drink in a to-go cup. 

"I was just lighting up.” Eddie explained, “I'd bring one out for you but Wayne has banned it from the living room. I fucked up the couch cushions." Eddie made a funny little wince. You started to grin despite everything. 

Then the lightning started again, striking too close for comfort, causing you to flinch despite yourself.

"Yeah, okay, let's go." 

Eddie breathed another laugh and gestured for you to take the lead. 

His room was an organized disaster. Records kept in a neat enough clutter, his guitar hung with care. Playboys scattered on a makeshift desk. Clothes and comics and guitar picks loose in every direction, yet the disarray was comforting. He lived here. He had things to mull through. He had a space to make his own. You dreamed of making enough money to spend wisely enough on posters and quilts and things. 

"I think Jaws is just starting." Eddie shrugged as he clicked his bedroom door shut, finding the remote on his bed and turning up the television volume as he sat. You were slow to assess just how exactly to place yourself, not too far back on the bed, not to close. 

Eddie was busy filtering through his night stand to find a little cigar box of treasures. You knew it was going to be the same old box before he even pulled it from the drawer.

"How much do I owe you for this? Still the best dealer on this side of the county?" You chuckled. 

"Nah, I stopped all that. Got too crazy." Eddie forced a small laugh, finding some already rolled joints, picking one before resting the box on his nightstand. 

"Oh..." You hummed. As he worked to light it, the wind outside slowed, and a cat came out from underneath the bed, squeaking a hello when it noticed you. The grey little thing hopped right up in your lap, a pet you didn't recall.

"That's Roxy, we found her a few months ago in our trash bin." Eddie reached over to scratch the cat's ear, taking a long hit.

You laughed, and held the thing happily as you sat, her purrs doing a magnificent number on your psyche. What an unexpected delight.

Eddie passed the joint to you, and moved again, adjusting the space. He tossed some pillows to the wall behind you and laid back against his own. The room wasn’t necessarily quiet. The television buzzed with noise from the film. The windows rattled from the rain. Your heart beat in your ears. And the cat in your lap purred with each pet. 

When Roxy jumped from your lap as you decidedly laid back, quiet somehow set in while Jaws unfolded. And you were almost smacked with a wave of nostalgia, the smell of Eddie's room, the way his arm flexed when he passed his joint to you. You didn’t know if it was okay to feel. You didn’t know if anything was particularly okay to say. And then Eddie just came right out with it.

"She died right? That night?" 

"She died that night." You slowly nodded. This was the part you hated. The sad looks. The long faces. Eddie began to nod. You braced, for the sorry or the whatever. But he only nodded before passing you the joint again. 

You took a big hit and accepted Roxy back at your side. 

Maybe you didn't have to be so weary of Eddies knowing you. Maybe, in some ways, it was better that he did. 

"And... yours?" You gained some supermassive balls to boldly ask. Maybe it was the weed. Or maybe it was the way he hadn't coddled you.

"Oh, who knows." Eddie spoke, plain, eyes fixed on the boat on the telly. The trailer started to rumble with thunder again. 

"Sometimes I wish my mom was dead. Not like cause I'm evil or whatever. Just.... the finality. The not having to worry if she will or won't show. Or see her. Or deal."

"Yeah. I gotta say. One of the best things that ever happened to me." You lulled your head in Eddie's direction, passing the joint back. "Not to brag." You drew out your words in an effort to get a smile out of the guy. In an effort to lighten the heavy subject matter.

"I thought she was dead for so long." Eddie seemed to recall something with a low chuckle, eye brows raising with realization. "I just remembered something so fucked up. Listen to this shit. I don't think I've ever told anyone this,"

"Oh, God okay."

"One summer I found a Ouija board in the closet, right between Scrabble and Sorry. I had seen other kids messing around with these things at the skate park but had never really tried it till this night. I was maybe ten?" Eddie shrugged, taking a hit before rambling on. "So I waited until late, I thought it had to be dark I guess. And I tried to find out if my ma was dead. No one ever dared tell me where she went or what happened so what else was I supposed to think ya know? Well anyway the board starts answering all my questions and I swore it was my dead mother like I just swore." 

"Jesus that's dark, Munson." You let out a small huff of a laugh, taking the joint again as he raised a finger and warned you the story got worse. "I ended up asking if she'd ever come back home. I don't know what I was thinking the answer to that kind of question would be. But the arrow thingy didn't move. So I decided to chalk the whole thing up to death, she couldn't come back and I just wanted that to be my closure ya know?" 

"Okaaaay." You nodded, realizing there was more. 

"Guess who knocked on my door the next day."

"You're fucking with me."

"Wayne wasn't home. And she was the most strung out I'd ever seen her. And I don't think I really understood that drugs could have that effect on people. I was too young. I honestly believed I brought her back from the dead." 

"Holy shit Eddie." 

"I slammed the door in her face because I thought she was a zombie. And the worst part was she started pounding to be let in cause she needed money or something. She didn't seem to have anything to say to me, her son."

"Yeah, that'll do it every time." You shrugged. "I remember realizing that the first time and being so hard on myself for being sad. Like I always knew she didn't care. But it's just hard for a child to depend on a parent that... isn't one."

"What was your realization?"

"Oh, same age probably, give or take? She passed out on the floor, and I was trying to wake her up. Shaking her shoulders, pulling her clothes. I think I set off the smoke alarm? Not sure what I thought would happen." You chuckled despite the topic. "She was out forever, we ran out of something or the other. And by the time she woke up I started to ask her for all kinds of stuff. And she was saying 'I need you more than you need me.' and praying to Jesus and grabbing at me. And her eyes were black. Just screaming, ‘God, please!’ And I remember being finally old enough to figure something out about everything. And I said 'I'm not God. I'm your daughter. You're supposed to take care of me.’

"Profound as fuck for a little girl." 

"That's why I did your homework." You quipped. "Anyway that was the first night I remember the police being called. My head hit the ground so hard the downstairs neighbors woke up. And I learned it didn't matter if I was right or hungry or anything, I couldn't express that to her." 

"And you scored us both consistent B+ despite getting your shit rocked." 

"That's damn right." You grinned passed the smoke you exhaled. It was easy to talk about all this shit with Eddie. He wasn't criticizing you or her. He wasn't horrified. He just got it. He just understood that these were no more than stories of the past and no longer circumstances of the present. Eddie finished the joint and asked if you wanted another. The tension you'd been feeling in his presence had seemed to fizzle away as you shared his weed and some truly fucked up stories.

"You're so fuckin’ funny man." Eddie chuckled. You rolled your eyes. "For real. You always have been. I remember in third grade you did that poster board about the jungle. You had a cassette of like birds or some shit too. You had everyone cracking up."

"You remember that?" You raised your brows in surprise. You'd nearly forgotten yourself. 

"'Course I do, it was one of the most iconic moments in elementary school history." 

It was nice to hear his only memories of you weren't hiding from life together in the city park tree house.

"Awe E.T. is on next." You pointed to his television. 

"Talk about childhood trauma. If that thing was in my closet..."

"No, he's just a baby alien!" 

"His head is too big man." Eddie joked but you could tell he was kind of serious too. Thunder cracked again and you tensed at the jolt, letting out a sigh of annoyance. 

"Guess I'm one to talk,"

"Yeah, sorry you're trapped in this tin box tonight."

Just then the power shut off as the storm raged, rocking the home, sending your nerves into a tail spin despite the weed. 

"Oh shit." Eddie rose from his slouch, mentioning something about a breaker and you sitting tight. 

Roxy climbed from your side to your lap as you closed your eyes to the lightning, feeling pissed that this was the fear you clung to after all the trauma you endured. It made you feel like such a baby.

You were not about to fucking cry. There was no way. Not in Eddie's room. You clung to his cat and focused on breathing and nothing more. Not your dumb ass past. Not your weird ass present. And not the future. Just the cat and your deep breaths. After what felt like forever you realized you should probably get the fuck out of Eddie's room, let him come back and rest. Just as you coaxed Roxy from your lap to the pillows, he was back with a candle. 

"Yeah, it's not gonna happen. I'm so sorry, I know the movies were helping."

You'd just been so at ease, so okay with talking to Eddie. So alright with the questions he asked. But then, as he sat, he gave you that look again. The one where his eyes burned into yours, like he saw everything you kept hidden away. And it made your chest burn with shame.

"Yeah, the weed too. You've been extremely generous. I should go back to the couch." Trying to hold onto your thanks for his kindness while failing at letting your own newly bloomed frustration take over.

"Are you gonna just sit in there awake and all scared? Cause that's depressing."

"So what's it to you, will my very silent worry to myself keep you awake in here?"

"Yes. Stay for one more joint? See if the storm passes so at least you can sleep?"

"Why are you being so incredibly fucking kind to me Eddie? Afraid I'm gonna run away again?" You joked, it was the only coping mechanism set in place in your mind that kept any other panic at bay.

"Maybe it's not about you at all. Maybe now I'm freaked out about E.T now, and I don't really want you to go. Ever think of anyone besides yourself?" The guy scoffed out a chuckle and decidedly passed you another joint. He made you laugh. And you weren't about to turn his offer away.

For another hour or so, you stayed sitting up with Eddie. While the power stayed out, your laughter rang too loud. He’d reminded you of the time the bus driver had forgotten the pair of you fell asleep in the back and you’d both woken up in some bus barn on the east side of town. You remembered the night Wayne tried to make a nice dinner but ended up almost burning the kitchen down. And eventually you both fell asleep. 

You only woke up when the power buzzed back to life; the light and noise from the television and the heat from the vent blasting you into consciousness. There was no sound of wind or crash of rain. There was just the buzz of the room, just the feeling of Eddie shifting sleepily at your side. Close enough to feel his breath against the back of your neck, his legs brushed against yours.  You were too exhausted to be bothered by the etiquette of sleeping beside Eddie. You were exhausted enough to feel comforted by his company. Just as your eyes grew heavy once more and your mind started to numb, the storm blasted back with vengeance. The thunder was the loudest you'd ever heard, the lightning that went alongside it was so bright it may as well have been in the damn room. 

You tensed with shock, cursing a whisper, feeling Eddie stir at your side. He hummed something as he began to readjust from waking. 

"S'okay." His voice was a sleepy grumble. His arm lazily slinked over your side. If your heart rate hadn't already been enhanced by the weather, Eddie's closeness would have had you spiraling. But the weight of his arm was oddly grounding. And the steady rise and fall of his chest against your back was a nice distraction. You started to fall asleep there, despite everything.

///

Roxy was curled up at your head. A new blanket was draped across you. The room was otherwise empty and quiet. You sat up all of a sudden, realizing you were still in Eddie's room, listening for the others from beyond the crack in the closed door.

When you couldn't hear anything, you got up. The sun was bright in the hall, there was some clatter from the kitchen. The living room was empty of blankets and pillows. Only Eddie stood near the sink, fiddling with the coffee machine. He must've heard you walking closer, as he turned with two mugs in hand.

"Steve and Nancy left way earlier. I think the bridge is fixed. But she missed her opening shift. So we all know Murray is gonna be like a tyrant later." Eddie explained, resting the mugs on the table. He gestured to one, looking at you as if to suggest it was for you.

"Oh God, why didn't they wake me up to go? I'm so sorry I'm just like, stuck here now." You worried, crossing your arms over your chest and trying not to think too hard about how Eddie had kept a loose hold on you most of the evening.

"You really need to chill out, I can take you back." The long haired boy waved again at the spot at the table with a steaming mug meant for you. You decidedly crept closer, glad for the drink. "I'm closing. Even if I wasn't, please stop acting like I'm... like, doing shit for you. Friends don't freak out. Friends say thank you."

"Well, thanks, then... I guess." You sat in mild shock, trying to shake the memory of last night. Trying not to find meaning in it.

"I'll take it. Needs some work though." Eddie shrugged. He mentioned something about having cereal, and asked if you wanted to stop somewhere on the way for lunch instead. The clock on the wall read past noon. You really were up late, huh?

As Eddie sat and debated how hungry you each were between sips of coffee, the front door clattered open. And before anyone made an entrance, you already knew who to expect. 

Wayne eased into the home, looking down as he kicked the front door shut. But when the man looked up and saw you at the kitchen table, he stopped dead in his tracks. You looked to Wayne as he stood staring right at you, his eyes growing wide, his smile too. 

"What?" Wayne chuckled a laugh, dropping his jacket and keys near the door, holding out his arms. You'd be a fool not to stand and hug the guy. Wayne's embrace was warm and meaningful. And long. And you let it be, feeling your throat grow tight.

"You're back." He warbled in your ear. 

"Yeah." You said, decidedly hugging the guy back with a little more gusto. You hadn't expected anyone to be so happy to see you. It was nice. When Wayne pulled away his eyes were brimmed with tears he quickly ducked his head to sniff away. 

"I'm just glad you're both..." Wayne paused with a look between you and his nephew. "What a nice surprise." Eddie's uncle shook his head, daring a sniffle. He explained he was only here for a quick stop on his lunch hour. He wanted to know how long you planned to hang around. 

"Oh, don't worry. I've got a place on the other side of town. I'm just visiting." You hesitated near the end of your sentence, realizing you'd still been sporting one of Eddie's old t-shirts and boxers. 

"A place? How long have you been back?" Wayne boggled, shifting his weight near the kitchen counter, shifting his puzzled expression from you to his nephew. "You didn't think to tell me?" 

"It wasn't up to me was it," Eddie bantered back. 

"I haven't exactly been ready to face it all yet, I hope there are no hard feelings." You waved, shushing Eddie and reaching out for Wayne once more. Your hand found his forearm. He'd been so kind to you. He'd been a life saver. He was trying not to cry again.

"Well, don't be a stranger. Got it?" Wayne was in a sudden hurry, moving away from his shock and toward the fridge. He reached in for a paper bag and said some goodbyes.  "I'm late to work."  He'd only just got here, but Wayne grabbed his jacket and keys and was gone just like that. You looked to Eddie with a few various questions in your gaze.  

"I had an... incident a year ago. Left town for a while, too. He was pretty shaken up. I'm sorry if he-"

"No it was really sweet." You nodded, sitting back at the table.

"I just... didn't expect anyone to miss me."

Eddie nodded as if not only could he understand, but relate. You didn’t want to press about what happened to him. But maybe if you rose a brow, he could read the expression. And he’d spill. Hoping he knew you were ready to listen if he was ready to tell. But your coffee was shared in silence as you traded looks and bitten back expressions. 

That afternoon Eddie came into your apartment while you cleaned up, and waited to give you a ride to work. It was still pouring rain, so you had to oblige. If only that idiot valley dude hadn't stolen your car. He complimented how nice you’d made the space with the very little you had. A bed, a couch, and a box of movies next to your telly. You mentioned not being able to afford a VCR yet. Or a stand to display them on. But you were saving up a lot quickly. 

“It’ll be no time until my space is as cluttered as yours!” You joked from beyond the hall, hurrying into your server apron.

“Shut up!” Eddie called from way beyond.

///

Work was already hectic as the pair of you hurried in. Late by your standard. Early by Eddies. One minute behind. He already had tables waiting, unwilling to be served by any other staff.

"Eddie said you guys didn't sleep very much, so what's all that code for then huh?" Nancy pranced up, excitedly prodded you with whispers and pokes. You waved her away as you shoved your stuff into a locker. 

"It wasn't like that at all, Nancy. We just watched movies." You reported sternly, through gritted teeth. "And smoked way too much."

No one knew about before. You barely went to school when you stayed with Wayne. Nancy wouldn't have a clue about how things were with you and Eddie, or the fact there was a before with him.

She fawned away toward the server line with a sly grin. And you didn't bother trying to change whatever she was thinking. Steve popped around then, reading his girlfriend's expression with ease. That prompted the guy to address you, in return.

"It's the way of the restaurant." Steve joked, sauntering in to lean against the counter, ready to clock in. "You too, one day, will have a fated coworker romance."

"No offense yall but I do not want one." You laughed. "I love love as much as the next guy, but I've always sworn off the whole coworker idea."

"Awe but what if there was real potential for something with one of them?" Nancy tried to remain indifferent in her reference, but she really wasn't.

"I just don't assume there would be. This is such a fast paced environment. A job most people use for transition. I can't imagine I'd find anyone serious in a place like this. No offense, really. You two seem stable. I just... yeah."

"I get it." Nancy shrugged. "There are plenty of people who've never hooked up here. You're not fated to become a stereotype." Nancy spoke as if to apologize,

"Like who?" You wondered, fully inclined to the gossip of the conversation now.

"Brooke, the host. A food runner from a few years ago. And... Eddie. But I've never seen him date anyone." Nancy started fumbling with the coffee machine then, looking for something to do as she spoke

"Oh, wait what? Didn't he have a high school girlfriend?" You pushed your brows together.

"Yeah, but that was high school." Nancy flipped her hand out as if to prove a point.

"Hey!" Steve whined. You chuckled.

"Steve Harrington you can't tell me you took our high school relationship as seriously as our adult relationship." Nancy crossed her arms. A couple younger servers started trickling in, tossing bags in lockers and tying their hair back.

"I haven't seen him date anyone in years." Nancy went on. "There have been plenty of girls here who tried to ask him out but he always lets em down easy." She seemed to glance at a couple of the servers standing along the aisle now, suggesting they were the workers in question. And then Nancy seemed to consider something more, casting a befuddled glance to the floor before looking back up to you and Steve.

"Do you think he's like... asexual? Or-"

"Eddie definitely likes girls." Steve held out a hand to stop Nancy's thought process in its tracks. "He's been in love with Carrie Fisher forever. And he has, like, stacks of Playboy magazines in his room."

Nancy rolled her eyes as some of the girls who'd been eavesdropping let their giggles slip.

"That's true. I saw them." You shrugged, just as a host popped her head around the corner to announce she'd sat a table in your section. The girls who'd been listening stopped their giggles and Nancy gave you a look you couldn't quite read and didn't have time to read into as you shouldered out into the dining room.

///

A few nights later you’d found yourself in the pub afterwork, the one with the jukebox and relaxed bartenders. Your coworkers were throwing a birthday party for Johnathan, buying him endless rounds of liquor and giving him small gifts in between drinks. 

Everyone was together. Everything was looking up. You had enough money to blow on getting drunk. You had enough courage to dare Nancy to a game of darts. She won the first two rounds. And then there was Eddie at the bar top, sharing his beers with you. Asking if you wanted to go to the movie theater in town next week. Challenging Steve to slam back shots. Laughing with everyone about Murray. 

It was all a very jolly affair. And on a break in the loo you caught yourself realizing you’d only ever once hoped life could be this fun. Now it was actually happening. You rounded the hall and tried to ignore the way you’d accidentally dampened your sleeves while washing your hands. Tonight was too good to be bothered. But that's when someone submerged from the shadows, bringing everything dark into the light. That guy she dated. She brought him home everyday for seven months and ten days… you’d counted. His teeth were still stained yellow and his greasy hair made you grimace. He flashed his plaque riddled smile your way and let a low hum stop you from going any further. And then he said,

“Ya look just like your mother.” 

And he smiled more sinister. And it was the worst thing you could have ever heard. And your heart burned and your stomach churned and your feet started stomping away so hard your knees hurt. 

And before you knew what you were doing, you were gone. You were escaping into the chilly evening, stomping seven blocks home. You left Nancy at the dart board and Eddie at the bar. There was no time, or reason to  explain it to anyone. You didn't even wanna get into it with yourself. You just had to go.

You found your feet blistered when you peeled your socks away. You found you’d forgotten to buy enough food to make a proper dinner. You found yourself alone in the same old building with the same old problems only now they were all your own fault and not anyone else's. And you sat alone in the deafening void of silence realizing you were going to have to work even harder than you thought, to be better. To get comfortable living. To get good at making adult check lists and going out with friends and accepting reality, and not running away. You sat realizing you were going to have to work harder and resented the fact that it had all been left up to you. 

Then there was a banging on your door that cut fiercely through your spiral into total depression. You sprung to stand and rushed to open the entry and cease the commotion.

Eddie looked mad. And before you could even assess the tension in his leather clad shoulders, he was stepping into your home and asking what the hell was wrong with you.

"You can't just disappear like that without telling someone! Nancy heard sirens and was convinced you got hit by a car or something."

"I'm fine. There's no reason to make a big deal out of it." You shrugged, trying not to look too pissed at his inquisition. But failing to hide your disgruntled brow, tucking your arms together, ready for this interaction to end.

"Okay so what happened, what's wrong?" Eddie quizzed, gesturing toward you as he decidedly swung your front door closed.

"Nothing! I just wasn't feeling it okay? You can go back, tell everyone I'm alive or whatever." You struggled not to sound curt, and struggled to face the long haired man fully. 

"Okay... well the fact that you're being so pissy makes me feel like something is definitely wrong." He took a couple steps closer as you took one back.

"So what if it is Eddie? I don’t need your help or your check in’s or whatever, I'm fine."

"Sorry I fucking care about you?" Eddie said but asked like a question, as if to wonder if he had anything to be sorry for. And he really didn’t. You watched from the corner of your eye as he shifted his weight near the entry of your apartment.

"Yeah me too, it's a waste of your time.”

Eddie made a face, scrunched his brows together, shaking his head, turning as if to leave. But then he stopped and pointed right at you.

"If you've had such a problem with me for so long then I deserve at least to know what the fuck my problem is, don't I?"

"There's no problem with you, Eddie. I'm the problem, obviously! I left for a reason!” You didn't exactly yell. But you let your words pour forth with vigor. 

"Well, I wish I had even the slightest inkling of a clue of what you're talking about. Because you’ve never been a problem to me! I wish you’d just fucking tell me what goes through your head sometimes! And I guess that's my problem. I’m stupidly and constantly desperate to figure out what is going on with you. Trying to figure out what happened. Way beyond tonight." Eddie matched your tone and let his speech shoot right through your heart.

"Sometimes- I guess… I don't." You stammered, undecided on which issue to bring to light, or how to express everything in a nice little packaged sentence. In a sure way that didn’t make your voice tremble with grief and defeat. But it wasn’t working

"No, don't cry. I didn't mean to make you cry. I'm sorry, please-" Eddie spoke your name as you turned to hide the fall of tears and the sniffles that failed to stop your sadness. This time your tears were hot and full. This time you managed to choke back sobs and blink until the world looked less blurry.

"You didn't make me cry. I'm just sad Eddie." 

And that was maybe the most honest and vulnerable you’d ever been.

Eddie hesitated once he’d stepped close enough to reach for you. You did a good enough job sucking down your emotion to turn toward him almost all the way. But you were still too vulnerable to let your arms fall from your sides. And you were still too vulnerable to meet his eye.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you. I was just... concerned. You don't have to tell me shit. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I'm sorry I took it too far."

You wanted to reach out and fling your arms around his neck and fall to pieces in his arms, like that one night. But one night was already too much. He didn’t deserve to put up with your bullshit, not like that. And you knew he would. Not just because he had before, but because you knew he really was just that good of a person. And you let knowing that fact be enough for you to force the world's smallest smile.

"Im sorry too. Thanks for caring. I'm sorry."

Eddie reached out then, letting his fingers trace down your arm until his hand was incircling your own. He silently held your hand in his for a moment, long enough for you to send your gaze straight into his. Long enough for you to recognize the hints of amber in his deep brown eyes. And as he watched you watching him he seemed to make a decision.

Eddie kept a hold of your hand as he moved toward your sofa. He gestured for you to sit, and you did. He grabbed your remote and turned on your television and settled at your side as some Hitchcock film played.

"Shouldn't you go back?" You asked him. Apparently all your friends were at the pub anxiously awaiting the news of your fate, and now probably Eddie’s too.

But the guy at your side just shook his head. He settled deeper into the sofa, his knees knocking against yours. His head threatening to land on your shoulder. And it was just like that one night all over again. The overwhelming sense of wanting- needing Eddie’s comfort. No one else's would’ve ever sufficed. And for once without spinning into a spiral of wondering if and why and how, you just curled up. You just brought your knees to your chest and eased into his side. Your head fell in his lap. His arm landed around the back of you. His opposite set of fingers carded through your hair. You didn’t need to look to realize neither of you were really watching whatever movie was on.

And you could’ve stayed just like that, quiet together. But after forever your legs were begging to stretch and your eyes were begging for a real night's slumber.

"It's late.” You sighed, reluctant to find yourself out of Eddie’s hold. “But, you can stay if you want. I have some old clothes." The words just came out of your mouth. You hadn’t even thought them before they were declared.

Eddie agreed without hesitation. 

He cleaned up in your bathroom, while you called Nancy to apologize. You made up some blankets on the sofa and wished Eddie sweet dreams after he thanked you for the accommodations. 

As you took your turn settling into the night, rain started pounding down. Damn Indiana spring. But it was just rain for a while. It was just rain as you eased into your bed. Nothing could keep your eyes from drifting shut once your head hit the pillow. But you must not’ve been asleep long when you shot up with the sound of thunder. At first the weather was all you knew, stirring you. But as you laid back and worked on easing your heart rate, something more electric buzzed inside you. 

You tossed and turned a dozen times, trying to shake the restlessness. But it was no use. You had to get up. Something deeper in you than you knew was there urged you from the room. You crept into the kitchen, eyes still adjusting to the darkened halls. When you finally turned the corner, you noticed your guest had found refuge in the low lit kitchen as well.

"Deja Vu." You pointed, watching Eddie shrug, the dim nightlight from the corner illuminating his wild curls and curves of his figure. "Can't sleep?"

"It's been quiet. I've been out here. Thinking of you, in there."

"Well... now I'm out here." You're not sure if you're ready to fall into his arms or shove him away. You're not sure which would end up hurting less. You were plagued all at once with clear realization that you'd always been drawn to Eddie. Always liked him. Always wondered what he'd ever thought of you. And it was too confusing to unpack all at once, too overwhelming to realize how you'd felt before was how you felt now. 

There was never time before, in your life, to think of anything more than getting through one day to the next. No time to worry about school dances or birthday presents or boys. But now that Eddie was leaning against the opposite kitchen counter, looming close enough to see his eyes through the shadows, you couldn't think of anything more than how beautiful they really were, and how you'd always thought so. 

Then he hung his head low, as if defeated. You watched and waited to ask what the matter was in case he’d come right out and say it. You knew what it was like to not be ready to say something. And just when you wondered if he was going to stay quiet forever, Eddie lifted his head of dark curls and pierced his eyes right into yours and struggled out a whispered question.

“Why’d you leave me?”

You always knew this was coming in a way. This intervention. The quiz of where you disappeared to after everything. But it was the last word of his question that shot your heart through the floor. You hadn’t realized you left him behind. 

“I always thought you’d be one of the ones who stuck around, like Wayne. And I didn’t even wanna talk about any of it, I just wanted us to have breakfast but-” Eddie poured fourth willingly but it looked as though every word bruised him on their way out’ve his mouth. “I woke up and you were gone.”

Every implication was a knife to your core. You knew he hadn’t meant to say this to hurt you. But it did. You realized you’d acted no better than the people who’d caused you both irreparable devastation.

“Eddie, I'm so sorry.” You tried to express every ounce of guilt right there in the low night light. 

“I know it’s not even about me, but I… I wanted there to be something about me, for you.” He was struggling to hide his emotion but blinked enough to calm the wave before it took him under, it seemed.

“The thing is, I think I’m just now realizing there always was. Please don’t think I’m just saying so either. I think… that's why I got up and came in here in the first place. For you.”

He watched you, maybe for what else you might say. He watched you make a decision.

You may have taken your subconscious consideration too far. Before you had control over your mind or movements, you realized you were moving close enough to kiss him. You realized his breath fanned over your lips before you couldn't wonder any longer. And just as soon as the gap closed between yourself and Eddie, you placed a hand on his chest to enforce a sudden distance. 

"Wait,"

"You kissed me-"

"I didn't think- I uh don't know if you-" You breathed in a hurry, unsure if you should apologize or do it again. Eddie looked just as shocked as you felt. But he wasn't pulling away. He wasn't telling you how crazy you were. He was looking between your bewildered eye and your lips that were just on his.

And then it was more mutual. You and Eddie met in the middle. One of his hands crept along your shoulder until his fingers curled around your neck. One of your palms stayed on his chest where you felt his heart start to hammer almost as fast as yours started to go. His lips pressed against yours with fervor and you nearly couldn't stop yourself from clinging to the man like a lifeline. And that freaked you out even more than you'd already been. Your breath caught in your throat and your chin ducked and the kiss ended.  

Eddie slid his hand away and turned to create a little more space between the two of you. He seemed to be waiting for some kind of announcement from you. Some kind of score or a decision.

"I'm so confused. I don't know... if I know what to say more than I already have. I want to..." You huffed, letting bravery lift your eyes to meet Eddies. His dark pair were waiting to search yours, as he shifted his weight away from you further. You watched the guy give a small nod, in agreement or understanding you didn't know. But you watched his mind whir behind his eyes. You watched his figure shift in the shadows. You didn't know how to feel. But you were feeling something for certain. 

"What if..." Eddie began to consider, letting his eyes really gleam into your own. "We didn't say anything?"

And that was enough for the both of you. The gap was closed again. His mouth opened against yours. Your fingers reached to yank Eddie closer and dug into his shoulders to keep him there. His palms guided your hips back against the counter before he let a hand glide along your thigh, daring to pull your knee to bend. The quiet of the evening remained, as echoes of your clamoring closer to each other filled the gaps.

You kissed Eddie with more ferocity as your arms slinked around his shoulders. Eddie kissed you back with as much force while he let his fingers ghost up and down your sides. There was no holding back now, and there seemed to be so much time to make up for. Not even just with Eddie, but for yourself. For the nights like these you'd missed out on all your life. For all of Eddie you missed out on before. There was a desperation to speed things along, and you were sure Eddie was on the same page. 

When you let a hand slink down his chest, toward his stomach and land somewhere lower, Eddie wasted no time hooking a finger around your underwear, still hesitant at first to pull them aside. But your assured assistance in removing his seemed to be all the green light Eddie needed to move his kisses to your neck and his hips into yours.

Eddie pressed the heels of his hands onto the countertop, one of your legs was left draped over his forearm. Eddie had never been closer, his middle meeting yours, your arm snug around his neck as your bodies rolled together in the kitchen. Eddie's sighs in your ear made every thought leave your mind. One of his arms slinked across the middle of your back to assure security, as he rocked more fiercely into you every second. And every minute felt like an hour until eternity started to come to a devastating halt, when his hips stuttered. Eddie cursed as he finished and kept a steady hold on you for a moment, as if to stay grounded himself.  And when he moved away and your mind almost started to whir with even more questions, Eddie looked to you with a glint still in his eye, and a shake of his head. 

"No talking, remember." Eddie breathed, halting your open mouth from forming a word. In the next blink of your eye, his hands had found your hips again, keeping them pinned against the counter all the while. He fell to his knees and wasted no time giving you a turn at finding the finish line. He wasn't rushing his effort, he knew exactly how to move his mouth at your core. He knew just when to release his grasp to caress your skin. He didn't have to for long, but he knew just how long to wait- until your fingers untangled from his curls, until your breathing steadied. 

Eddie pressed his forehead to your stomach in the quiet kitchen as you stood there reeling, brushing back the wild mane he'd always pulled off so well. Neither of you moved for a moment. But when Eddie stood, and when you both found the few of your missing clothes, the quiet still stayed. Without asking, you grabbed Eddie's hand. And without wondering, he let you guide him down the hall. 

Neither of you spoke as you clamored into bed. Eddie simply pulled you closer, brushing his fingers through your hair as his eyes fluttered shut. He just held you there. And you didn't talk about it. Not even in the morning, when he woke up after you made coffee. You only traded chatter about the work week. And then he drove home.

///

You’d only been at work one hour, and you’d already met your goal. There was a car in a lot across town with your name on it, and you’d just made the last what you needed to afford it. The rest of the tips you’d make today would go to groceries and rent. Things were looking up. 

By the time  Nancy got there, you were all giggles and movie plans and coworker drama. Steve was out sick again. And Eddie was late. 

But when the hour mark passed and no one had heard from him, you started to worry. Oh God. You hadn’t seen him since the morning after you crossed a line together. You knew things would be different but what if they were worse than you were ready to accept? What if Eddie was totally ashamed and regretful? And avoiding you? Had you read the tone of that night completely wrong? 

By hour three you were convinced he was avoiding you and would forever, your chipper mood shifting quickly. 

"Where is my refill?" A man in your section held his glass up high, shaking the left over ice in your face. From across the bar top you struggled not to roll your eyes in his direction. You usually let the bustle of this job take over your mind and odd worries. So what if you forgot to put in an order? You could fix it. So what if you got a shitty tip? You could pick up another table.

The way of the restaurant was a comfort to you, the way there was always a new drink to mix, a new face to greet. There was every chance to move on. To make up. But today, as you worried over Eddie, it was becoming increasingly hard to give a shit about your bar top's appetizers, or who would sit down next.

By hour four, your shift was ending and Eddie was still missing in action. Murray had tried to call his house. Dustin had tried to call a friend. Nothing.

Your worries had drifted from his anger to his death. He had to be bloody in a ditch somewhere. Why else would nobody be able to get ahold of him after a whole day had passed? You'd managed to keep these fears at bay in your mind for a while. Wearing the perfect poker face, letting the hot plates of pasta burn your fingers as a distraction.

But then you heard Dustin corner Nancy and ask “You don’t think this is like last time, with Eddie?” The girl was quick to calm the kid and you still didn’t even know what that meant. You had no idea where he went, or what happened while you were in California. You had no way of knowing if now was like last time. You had no way of knowing if the last time you did see Eddie had anything to do with this, or not. You were starting to feel sick with agitation. And Nancy noticed of course.

She asked if you were feeling well as you clocked out and hurried to grab your things from your locker. 

“It was just a long shift. Gonna go crash now.” You feigned, rushing out as if rest was your mission. But you just knew you’d be safe at home to have a total fucking break down in isolation, if need be. 

When you did make it home, the shower became your sanctuary until every ounce of hot water had gone. You tried not to let worry consume you. You tried to go about your evening. But as you eased onto the sofa and considered calling Eddie’s house, you felt sick again. If he answered you’d ask what was wrong. But what if you didn’t like his answer? If you called and he didn’t answer you weren’t sure you could handle not knowing why.

Then there was a knock.

Eddie was all of a sudden at your door, a cardboard box under his arm. Wearing a smile that was a relief to see. 

“What the fuck? Where have you been? Dustin thinks you're dead! I don’t even want to hear it, get in here and call the boy before anything.”

Eddie clamored in, his grin faltering as you reprimanded him. He abandoned his mystery box on your coffee table and slumped toward the wall phone. He proceeded to call Dustin to apologize for causing worry, he explained he’d only been thinking of purposefully pissing Murray off, not showing. He said he made last minute plans. As he explained himself to the kid on the phone, Eddie looked at you, as if to extend his apologies. And when he hung up, you still had a million questions.

“Why was Dustin so distraught today? What happened to you before? What happened today?” You dared to quiz Eddie. You were calculated to keep your tone more inquisitive than demanding. If he wasn’t ready, he wasn’t ready. 

“I’ll tell you about before one day, I really will. But there are more important things to uncover right now.”

You watched the glow come back into Eddie's gaze, his sorry having been dealt with. You watched as he moved to plop down on your sofa, before extending his arms toward the box on your coffee table. His grand gesture and his coy smile holding your full attention. 

“Come open your present!” He made a face as if to suggest you hurry up about it. 

“What is going on?” You let out a breath of a laugh, fully confounded by the events of the day. You’d been maybe just as upset as Dustin just hours ago, of course not daring to let it show. And now you were being presented a mystery box by the guy you couldn’t get a handle on. Oh God, you thought, was this how Eddie felt when you'd up and disappeared? Is that how bad of a person you'd been?

You shrugged away a shudder, and moved to sit at Eddie’s side. He watched you with his teeth dug into his bottom lip. You watched him from the corner of your eye as you ripped the tape from the top of the cardboard. Leaning forward to open the flaps, you reached into the box to feel something cold, grabbing the object to reveal it.

“It’s a VCR!” Eddie chimed, like he’d just received it happily himself. “You can’t just sit in here all quiet with a box full of movies and no way to watch them.”

“Eddie.”

“I know you’ve been saving, but I got a 200 dollar tip from that wedding reservation last week and, I already was planning on doing something nice for you. But the Radio Shack in town didn’t have any in stock so I had to go all the way over to Mooresville and I wasn’t even thinking of work today-”

You were sitting in mild shock, until the wave came. Your eyes sprang with tears and your arms flung themselves around Eddie’s shoulders. His sentence was halted as you threw your weight into the embrace. His arms were quick to incircle your figure, and your tears only lasted until they fell. All that either of you could seem to do was sit there in that hug for a while. There was so much you wanted to say all at once. But you hoped Eddie realized that you holding him so close for so long was getting your point across for now. You sort of thought he was communicating in the same way. With how his face nuzzled into the bend of your neck. With how his fingers pressed into you, to press you closer to him. It was just a VCR. But it wasn’t. It was everything.

“You’re the only person who’s ever really taken care of me.” You realized aloud in a stuttered breath. Suddenly everything that had become clear to you had to be said. Your arms came away from his shoulders. And you kept talking as you wiped the dampness from your eyes.  “Wayne gave me clothes, food and security. The police would make sure I had shelter. But you’ve always given me time. And space. And comfort. And it used to scare me so bad.” 

Eddie sat, watching you speak. Waiting to listen longer. Quirking his brow probably in wonder what you meant about that last thing…

“I left because I thought I was moving on from it all but I was just running away. ” You spoke meekly, shame and guilt at the understanding of your weakness felt all encompassing. But you hoped that the man you were speaking to would forgive you. “I always hated how you would look at me. Like you knew what I had been through. Like my life was a big dirty secret and you knew all about it. But I was just making that shit up in my own stupid head. The tension between us has always been about what we wanted to know more about each other. Not what happened to us. I’m so sorry I got it wrong until now, Eddie. I’m sorry I was never as good at taking care of you.” 

You could feel tears threatening to bubble up again but you shook your head to rattle the emotion away. The release of honesty was good enough for now. 

“You were.” Eddie implored, furrowing his brow as if he were angry he had to justify this. “You skipped the bus with me. You gave me time to just be a kid. Not to mention I probably wouldn’t have graduated without your intervention. And you never made fun of me for not understanding. You just helped. That’s why it hurt so bad to wake up and find you gone. That's why I…” Eddie paused his speech, like a word got stuck in his throat. He seemed frustrated that he couldn’t get it free. 

"I wanna tell you so much more… but I’m scared too. Scared you won’t believe me, about where I went or why. Scared you’ll change your mind about me. So I think I understand where you’re coming from." His eyes drifted away from yours as his shame took a small spotlight.  "The short answer is… I ran from my problems, just like you."

"Can't escape em." You shrugged, and couldn’t help but offer a small smile of understanding. Eddie was slow to turn his eyes back to you, letting his gaze rake up your frame before looking right into yours. 

“We should really talk about… what happened the other night. Right?”

Somehow you were more nervous now than ever. If you said the wrong thing about what you'd done together, your devastation would be incomparable.

"I don't know. I moved back almost on a whim, in a way. And I wasn't expecting to see you. I don't know. I just..."

Eddie studied you, reaching a finger to move a strand of your hair. 

“I can tell you how I feel. But not unless…”

“I know this may be selfish but… can we just have tonight without talking about everything? Can we just be together without anything to worry about? And in a day or two, we can figure out the very last of our shit. Can we?” You asked longingly like a kid in a store. Eddie seemed to smile without being able to help it. And then he nodded and got up from the sofa. 

“We’re gonna watch some movies.” 

Without asking Eddie set up the VCR he’d bought you. Without a word, Eddie helped you make a sensible dinner from the bits and bobs in your cupboards. Without talking about anything of note, the two of you settled back into the sofa with hot food to share and one of your favorite VHS’s playing. Things were really looking up.

///

“This place is way out of both of our budgets combined.” 

“I’m wasting my credit card on us both tonight, you know this.” Nancy swatted, hurrying you along into the amber glow of some posh french eatery. The walls were made of marble and the drive here was two hours. Nancy needed a pretend vacation. She said a trip two towns over would do for now. And only girls were allowed.

You were seated near a window that overlooked the same river that flowed through your town and ran right through this one. You were offered the fanciest wines and let Nancy decide which bottle to buy. Nancy complained about Steve. Nancy said she knew her whining was annoying but that she was glad you sat and listened anyway. Then it was time to order. The waiter was suave, calling you each miss, shooting flirty smiles. 

“He’s cute. You should leave your number on the receipt." Nancy winked. You knew she was half joking. But you also knew her incessant insistence that you find love was out of the fact that she just wanted to see you happy. And while your waiter was charming, there was really only one boy on your mind. In fact, there always had been. 

After sipping your drink, you sat considering exactly how to put it.

“So, Eddie and I…”

“I KNEW IT.”  Nancy nearly shouted loud enough to garner attention from nearby tables. With a regretful hand to her lip, she cast sorry eyes to the older couple closest and shot a grin back your way.

“You don’t know! In fact I’m about to tell you more than anyone has ever known!”

“I know enough! I know that I was right! And you and Eddie…” She spoke with the smallest shake of her head as if she were trying to decide how you might’ve finished the sentence you’d spoken just before. “What? Did he kiss you?” 

“Well, he did a whole lot more than that.” You admitted lowly, sipping your wine to hide the blush that came along with your admission.

“Oh my G-” Nancy was almost yelling again, but she caught herself and raised a sorry hand to the couple still glaring your way. “Oh my God.” She whispered again. 

“I feel scandalous having this conversation in this fancy ass restaurant." 

“Oh, no, it’s even better. All the best old timey dramas have the juiciest scandals involved in those old castles and villas. Ya know, cause there were so many rules to break back then.”

And then you realized why you’d been so scared of honesty. Of asking for help. Of admitting your feelings. Those were all your own rules to be broken. You’d never been allowed such freedom or care. You’d never been given much at all. You’d broken a lot of rules this year. And it felt more than scandalous. It felt good. 

So over posh dinner, you told Nancy everything. You told her how Eddie was always around. And how you hated it. And how you’d missed it when you were away but hadn’t even understood that to be true. How he was almost right here all along waiting for you. Then you got into the whole Wayne thing, and what happened the night you ran away. And then you told Nancy about the night Eddie slept over. And why he missed work. 

“And now you know everything.”

“Well, not really!” Nancy guffawed. “Are you two official? What happens now?” 

“I don’t know that much! So, you know everything.” 

You and Eddie hadn’t talked about it the last night you saw him. You had to open at work the next morning. And he had to close. And tonight was dinner with Nancy. Tomorrow everyone worked together. And you hoped Eddie would ask to come over after. You hoped there was in fact more to figure out.

///

You were just ringing in an order when Eddie came full blown running in. 

“This is not a drill!” He shouted, grabbing Dustin by the sleeve and pulling him along until the pair of them were face to face with you and Steve and Nancy. 

"I have guests at the host stand, Edward!" Dustin shrieked a laugh as he went along with being dragged by the long haired server.

“It all happened so fast, we almost missed auditions," Eddie was rambling as the group of you stopped bickering with the cooks and gathered to listened. "But we made it. Battle of the bands, tomorrow night. The winner gets a free studio session and a residency at the fancy theater the rest of the year.”

Murray was breezing by just in time to hear the good news, or in his opinion, bad. 

“And if you and this gaggle all take tomorrow off last minute, who do you expect to cover?” Murray waved his hand in a huff, his glasses sliding down his nose. 

“I dunno dude, she and I already worked a two man shift. Another pair of your lackeys will have to suffer for the night.” Eddie pointed to you and with a shudder you recalled the shift that should have never been. 

“Or better yet, boss man, shut down and join us! You can stay open for breakfast and leave flyers up so everyone shows up to battle of the bands in support. Everyone wins.” Steve suggested. The cook's who'd been eavesdropping shouted a "Yeah!" from beyond the grill. But you thought maybe he was more-so excited at the proposition of the place being closed for the night.

“I don’t like you thinkin ' and makin’ plans, Harrington.” Murray frowned. 

“Murray, I'd be honored if you came to my show. I’ll reserve a seat just for you.” Eddie remarked, and you could tell beneath his cheeky tone, he really meant that.

///

The car was bright blue and leather lined and all yours. You drove it across town, early. When the chill of the morning had barely gone away. The gravel under the tires you sped up was music to your ears.

The trailer gleamed in the sunlight, and you parked with enough space for Eddie to pull in later. When Wayne opened the door to you his smile was brighter than the sun.

“Well, hello.” Wayne beamed for a moment before his brows rose to say, “I gotta tell ya, Eddie ain’t home yet.” 

“Oh I know. I’m here to see you.”

It could’ve made you chuckle the way Wayne struggled to hide his flashes of emotion. He’d suck any waver of his lip right back up like it was all pretend. But you always caught those particular turns in his brow. You always recognized what had mattered to him. Especially the times he’d make it clear. 

“Last time you said not to be a stranger. So,” You pointed, stepping inside the home as the man gestured for you to enter. 

Wayne was quick to insist on sharing a cup of coffee. That little grey cat came chattering into the room as if to greet you all the same. The morning found the pair of you sat at the kitchen table, the cat at your feet. You and Wayne shared coffee, and small talk about the city. What had changed since you’d left. What would likely stay the same long after you were both far gone. 

“Well, I’m glad you’re still the same.” You implied a heavier, gratitude filled meaning in between every word you spoke. Because you didn’t wanna overwhelm the stoic man with too many emotions. But you knew you wanted him to understand them all the same. One thing couldn’t go implied any longer though. “I hope my leaving didn’t make you think I was ungrateful.”

“No, no.” Wayne shook his head, raising his brows, seemingly sure that he hadn’t thought that for a second. “No, I knew you had to figure things out the way you thought was best. I didn’t hold you or Eddie’s leavin’ over your heads. I just prayed whatever it was you both went lookin’ for didn’t hurt worse than what you’d already been through.”

You took in his words, settling your gaze on the mug in your hand and nodding that you understood his sentiment. 

“Was it?” You asked. “Worse for Eddie, I mean.”

The look on Wayne's face almost alarmed you. There was something worse than sadness in his eyes as he seemed to remember. A fear of sorts flashed in his expression before the man swallowed it away and spoke up again.

“You don’t know?" 

“Should I not want to?” 

“You... should give him grace, regardless. But I don’t even think you need to hear that. You two have always looked out for each other.” 

It was then that the door clattered open. Eddie’s breakfast shift had officially come to an end. His eyes gleamed at the sight of you and his uncle sharing the morning together. But there was a suspicion in his gaze all the same. “Is this an intervention?” He joked, but was quick to swat away his remark and roll his eyes as if he already knew it was a dumb jest before making it. 

“Nah, the real question is, you finally bought that big beautiful car?” Eddie quizzed past a grin. He had to have seen it in the lot across from where he parked. How else would you have been here today?

“The car is all mine! I can go where I please!” 

“And to think ya came here.”

Things were looking up. Eddie changed from his work clothes and slipped into the third chair at the table and complained about his shift- stealing sips from your mug without asking. He said there was a new girl today. He said Steve was in such a fluster trying to train her, that he tripped on the stairs on the bar and lost his tray of spaghetti in the process. Steve's dropped food landed all down the front of the new girl. Eddie laughed about how he wouldn't be surprised if she never came back. You had to ask if Steve was alright, but couldn't help but laugh between words.

Wayne eventually got up and headed out, mentioning something about getting his laundry done in town for Eddie’s big show tonight. Mentioning something about bringing back lunch for three.

“Well, you’re a bit early for the battle of my band against all the others.” Eddie grinned, leading you down the hall to his room that was surprisingly a little cleaner than the last time you’d seen it. He’d mentioned wanting to run the set list ideas by you, needing to find whatever notebook he’d scrawled in over the night.

“Yeah, I was hoping we’d have some time to kill.” 

He rose a brow, turning to ask what exactly you meant by that. But he didn’t have time to get the question out before you were throwing yourself into his arms, pressing your lips against his. Eddie managed to hold you close, kiss you back, and shut the door all the same. 

His arms flexed to circle around your back as you yanked him to fall against the bed. You fell on your sides, one of your knees bending to hook around Eddie’s hip. His fingers pressed into your thigh. His mouth opened against yours. Your fingers raked through his hair. You had him right where you wanted him. But then he broke your kiss with a disgruntled sigh.

“We should talk. We haven’t.” Eddie remarked this as if he knew it was the right thing to do before going any further or longer. But he was looking at you with his teeth pressed into his lip, like he was holding himself back from taking a bite out of you. 

Still, you propped yourself up on an elbow and peered down at Eddie. 

“We haven’t talked but I don’t know how much we need too. Because I know we both feel the same. And I know you’ll say yes if I ask to stay the night. And I know that I’ve always loved you. And I know I wanna say it all the time now. Because I’ve wasted too much of both of our time. And you deserve better.” 

Eddie’s beautiful brown eyes flashed with emotion in a way he tried to blink clear like his uncle would do.

“And I love you. Now kiss me again damn it.” Eddie reached a hand toward the back of your head to pull you close. But just before his lips met yours, a scratch at the door was followed by a sad sad meow. Roxy had been left in the hall. 

“Awe we should let her in.” You frowned through a smile. 

“No, no. She’s too innocent to see what’s about to happen here.” Eddie grinned, shifting to move you from above, to beneath him. With hopeful calculation you tried to predict how long Wayne would be gone, and how long you could make this moment last. Eddie was good at taking his time, but focusing on the task at hand. You were good at making him lose that focus. You could’ve let hours pass alone in Eddie’s room. You could’ve asked a million questions about the scar on his side. But you couldn’t forget about Eddie’s show later. There wasn’t too much more time to waste. 

There was just enough, though, to enjoy Wayne's lunch delivery at the table, like before. Except now there wasn't that big dark wave of sadness and uncertainty looming above your heads. Now you all laughed and ate and shot up to head out into the evening together.

You all drove separately. Eddie, cause his amps were in the back of his van. Wayne, because he wanted to get home to bed at a sensible time, assuming Eddie would be out till the odd hours. And you, because you finally had a car all your own and a good place to drive it.

You were early. Just in time for sound check. But after Eddie’s band had set up, there was an hour and a half before doors opened, and his scheduled debut. An hour and a half before Murray would close  Gino’s early and drive the underaged workers to the far side of town for Eddie’s show. Eddie reserved a seat for Murray right between Steve and Nancy just to cause everyone a moment of chaos and disbelief.

While the sun dipped lower in the sky, Eddie and you waited on the boot of your car, admiring the way it was all yours. Admiring what this meant for your future.

“What about you though? If you win this thing and you make a record, are you gonna run off to Hollywood?” 

“Oh no, this is all just for fun.” Eddie looked up to you, squinting in the sun. He was laid back on your car with his arms behind his head of curls.

“I thought your big dream was to play music all around the world?” You quizzed, turning to meet his gaze from where you sat cross legged. When you were kids, kicking your feet in the pond, Eddie would always say how he thought playing big concerts every night would be the best life ever.

“Yeah. But growing up I felt so guilty at the thought of leaving Wayne behind. And then when I did end up ditching town, I just really missed the world I’d cultivated myself back home."

"Shitty restaurant job included?" You let a laugh slip through your question.

"Yeah, actually." Eddie grinned. "I mean I know I quit before in a moment of ultimate stress but..." Your man took a deep breath and furrowed his brow before continuing. "All my friends work there. You know how nice it is to see people you care about every day? To help them handle a rush? That's the new dream I have for myself. Is to be the person in other peoples lives that I always wished I had. I realized this life, this town, is my world and all my dreams are happening here. Or that they could happen here. All except one… till now.”

Eddie smiled and moved to sit up. Eddie held your head in his hands and pressed his lips against yours right there in the car park in the golden hour. Even with all the questions you still had for each other, nothing seemed so scary anymore. Things had really been looking up.

When it was time to start queuing backstage and telling Eddie not to be nervous, you sent him into the final spotlight with good luck wishes. 

“I hope you win.” You brushed a strand of loose hair from his eyes as his band was being welcomed to the stage. 

“I already have, remember?” Eddie smiled at you and left his hand lingering in yours before he couldn’t wait to rush out any longer.

You’d moved back to town a few months ago. But only now did you finally feel at home.

“I've got laundry. Vacuuming. Changing my sheets. Cleaning the bathroom. Mopping the floors. You wanna hang around for that?”

Eddie was on his feet before she could stop him, stretching with exaggerated laziness.

“Sounds like a thrilling day. Lead the way, General.”

“I wasn’t asking you to—”

“Oh, I know.” He followed her toward the hallway with a grin. “That’s the best part. Watching you try to pretend you don’t enjoy my company.”

She scoffed. “I don’t.”

“Then why are you smiling?”

She wiped the smile off her face like it offended her. “That was a grimace.”

They reached the laundry room, and she bent down to start sorting a basket full of clothes. Eddie leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching her.

“Your laundry system is chaos,” he observed. “You’re just throwing things around. Pretty sure you’re supposed to separate those.”

“It’s not my first time doing laundry, I think I know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t think you do.”

She tossed a sock at his face. He caught it midair and sniffed it with a scandalized gasp.

“Rude, I’m just trying to help.”

“You’re so lucky I can’t banish you with sage.”

She started a load and headed to the bathroom next. Eddie followed without hesitation, trailing behind her like a pet with too many opinions.

Every task turned into commentary. 

Vacuuming? 

“You missed a spot.” 

Folding laundry? 

“You’re not folding it correctly, you’re rolling it up.” 

Wiping the bathroom counter down? 

“You missed a piece of hair.”

At one point, she caught him spinning slowly in her swivel computer chair, legs crossed and perched on top of her desk and a bored expression on his face.

“I thought you were going back to your dark void.”

He shrugged, still spinning. “Boring there. Smells like wet wood and despair.”

“You like being annoying, don’t you?”

“Immensely.” He grinned. “But only to you.”

She rolled her eyes again, but this time, she trying hard to hide the smile that followed.

He trailed her like a stray dog, hands stuffed in his pockets, leaning against the doorframe while she organized objects and when she mopped the floors. 

“You missed a spot,” he said for the fourth time, nudging a damp corner with his toe. 

She responded by nearly mopping over his foot. His commentary was infuriating—but it was... strangely nice. After weeks of silence and foggy exhaustion, it felt like she had a pulse again.

Later that night, after all the chores were done, she finally had a nice and steamy shower. She curled up on the couch, her phone buzzed. A message from her friend lit up the screen.

[Clubbing tonight. 9 PM. You in?]

She stared at the screen for a beat. Normally, she would ignore it. Politely decline. With the usual excuse, fatigue. But tonight, her limbs didn’t feel heavy. Her chest wasn’t weighed down. For the first time in weeks, she felt… awake. Charged.

Her thumbs tapped quickly.

[Yeah. I’m in.]

She stood up, stretching slightly before heading toward her room, already sifting through outfit possibilities in her head. Eddie, who was also sprawled across the couch like a bored cat watching TV, lifted his head with squinted eyes trailing after her.

When she didn’t come back, he got up and padded after her, curiosity piqued.

He leaned in the doorway, arms crossed as he watched her dig through her closet—skirts tossed onto the bed, tops held up and scrutinized in the mirror before being discarded again. His gaze narrowed at the glint of something metallic in her hand.

“What are you doing?” he asked, voice laced with suspicion.

“Looking for an outfit,” she said, matter-of-fact, holding up a shimmery top to her chest in the mirror. “I’m going out.”

“Out where?” he asked, eyes trailing the short hem of a skirt she had tossed aside. 

“Clubbing with friends. It’s been a while.” She replied, eyes focused on the outfit she held up to her body.

His mouth fell open slightly, as if scandalized. “Clubbing?” He said it like she’d just told him she was joining a cult. “What, with other people? In the dark? With music?”

“Not a new concept…” She dryly said.

“You’re gonna leave me all alone?”

She gave him a look over her shoulder. “You’ll survive a few hours without me.”

He stepped fully into the room, brows furrowed and eyes sharp with mock betrayal. “So you're abandoning me for cheap drinks?”

“I’m not abandoning you,” she said, turning back to the mirror to try on earrings. “I’m reclaiming my social life.”

Eddie gave a long, dramatic sigh and flopped face-first onto her bed, arms stretched wide like a Victorian widow. “Just know—if I waste away and turn to ash while you’re gone, it’s on your conscience.”

She didn’t even look up. “You’re literally a demon. You’ll be fine. It’s not like you could leave the house.”

“Makes it worse,” he mumbled into the blanket. “Abandoned in my own prison.”

She rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the small smirk tugging at her lips.

She turned her back to him, fingers slipping under the hem of her oversized tee. “You’ve seen worse,” she said casually, already tugging it over her head.

Eddie spun around like he’d been caught doing something indecent. “Okay—first of all—you could warn me,” he said, one hand shielding his face. “Second of all, am I not a man?”

“You don’t even blink when I see you shirtless,” she pointed out, stepping into her skirt.

“Yeah, because I’m a work of art. You’re… distracting,” he muttered, still facing the wall, every muscle in his body held tight like a rubber band about to snap.

She finished zipping herself up and turned toward the mirror, adjusting the hem and smoothing the fabric along her waist. “You can look now.”

He hesitated, then slowly turned around.

The sight of her knocked the breath from his lungs.

For once, Eddie didn’t immediately grin or whistle or throw out some clever innuendo. He just stood there, quiet and still, his eyes tracing her from head to toe—long, slow passes that lingered too long.

The outfit clung in all the right places, sparkling just enough to catch the light. Her skin glowed. Her legs looked endless. And when she tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear and turned slightly in the mirror, he caught the barest curve of her smile.

Something tugged inside him. Deep, low, and unfamiliar. Like an ache—no, a spark. Flickering behind his ribs and catching fire before he could shove it out.

He crossed his arms tightly across his chest, jaw flexing. “You’ll… definitely make an impression,” he said, voice just a touch hoarse.

She didn’t seem to notice, already pulling open her makeup drawer. She sat at her vanity and began her routine—eyeliner, mascara, blush. He watched her as if in a trance, leaning casually against the doorframe but barely breathing.

Then came the lip gloss.

His eyes tracked the motion with unblinking focus. The soft puckering of her lips as she smoothed the shimmer over her mouth. The slow press and smack that followed.

He swallowed, hard.

But even as she stood to gather her things, Eddie stayed right where he was—watching. Feeling something stir in the depths of him again. Something indescribable. Something not even centuries of nightmares had prepared him for.

He stuffed it down, like always.