allergic reaction to the universe

Eddie answered a ‘housemate wanted’ notice he found on the pinboard at the first public library he visited. The rent was cheap, and the guy spent almost all his time between his classes and his bartending job somewhere in Pilsen. The room was in Little Italy, which seemed fine. It worked out well.

After that win, he thought finding a job would be easy. It took him a little over a month, forcing him to live off his meagre savings while he looked. Maybe it would have happened faster if he’d widened the field of consideration. No, though. Eddie wouldn’t consider anything he thought to be soul-sucking.

No, he wouldn’t apply to McDonald's. No, he wouldn’t stand in a factory line. No, he wouldn’t take the graveyard shift at a 7-11. No, Eddie wouldn’t compromise.

His stubbornness paid off. One day, while killing time in Wicker Park, between the aisles of Raconteur Records, his favourite music store, he noticed a new flyer in the window. They were advertising for staff. Eddie showed up with bells on. He sat opposite the manager and word vomited his musical knowledge at her.

Freya listened, amused, vaguely impressed, then looked down at the one-page handwritten resume Eddie had presented.

“Where’s Hawkins?”

“About eighty miles that way,” Eddie said, pointing.

“And your work history…”

“Yeah, I worked on guitars a bit for the music shop there. Not like, officially, but on the side. Freelance, if you will.” He was sweating bullets.

“You wrote ‘small business owner’ as well?”

Eddie nodded, immediately regretting the decision to write that. Of course they were going to ask about it. How were they not going to ask about it?

“Do you want to elaborate on that?”

Fuck.

He hesitated. In the few seconds he spent scouring his brain for something to say, he came to the realisation that his best bet was probably the truth.

Eddie rubbed his face in his hands, then slumped back in the chair dramatically. He looked at Freya, tried to get a read on her. Nothing.

“Okay, look, I really wanna work here. I’ll sell the shit out of the records. I know my way around most instruments. I’ll show up on time. I promise. And I get it. On paper, I look like shit. And maybe in Hawkins I was. Took me a couple tries to graduate. Sold weed to rich kids. But that’s not what I wanna be here. Gimme a shot, please. I won’t fuck it up. I won’t.”

Freya had been waiting all day for someone to say something interesting. Raconteur wasn’t in the business of employing beige people. She made him suffer for a few beats, watching those big brown eyes hold steady on her expressionless face. Then she said something that caught Eddie off guard.

“You judge other people for their taste in music?”

“Absolutely,” he answered truthfully.

Freya snorted and couldn’t hold back a smile. “Can you rein that in? Whitney Houston was the bestselling artist last year, and Living on a Prayer is number one on the charts,”

“I can totally act. I was actually in the drama club, before, you know, they kicked me out,”

“For what?”

“Uh, not… showing up… for drama club.”

Freya smiled again. There was no denying Eddie’s charisma. Somehow, despite the actual words he was saying, he was doing a solid job at selling himself.

“One week. I’ll give you a trial run for a week. You’ll be sweeping. Doing coffee runs. Get no say in the shop music. Minimum wage. Take it or-”

“I’ll take it.”

Two years later, when Freya left to move to Texas, Eddie became manager. A year after that, he ushered in the new decade by hiring Robin to work full time. She was insanely capable and had a knack for convincing customers to try new bands. The only downside of Robin was that she came as a matching set with Steve.

Steve, who would want to play King of Wishful Thinking multiple times per shift, even if it meant the entire store had to listen to the Pretty Woman film soundtrack on repeat. Steve, who would convince mothers to buy their kids Hall & Oats over Metallica, just to piss Eddie off. Steve, who barely avoided getting fired by playing Sunglasses at Night, because even Eddie could admit the song was aging well.

Robin more than made up for it. She was the only staff member who knew anything about classical music. She liked almost every genre, only drawing the line at the heavy stuff. She was smart, welcoming, and kept the counter and back room organised.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” Eddie had told her a couple of weeks into her starting.

“Yeah, I know, but it was freaking me out how it was,”

“By genre and artist? And now it’s… what?” He looked around and tried to work out what her system was.

“No, no, it’s better. See, it’s by subgenre and influences. Like here. Rick James and Neil Young need to be grouped, why, you may ask?”

“I ask,” Eddie agreed.

“The Mynah Birds!” she said like Eddie should know who that was. “Mother Love Bone need to predate Pearl Jam. The Beatles have to be here, after Little Richard, because without him, well, you know,”

“Sureeeeeeeee,”

“And here. Your guys. You’ve got Ozzy’s stuff, then Black Sabbath, then Dio, and then Elf, then Rainbow, and then Heaven & Hell.”

Eddie was lost. But Robin was at the shop 40 hours a week. “Looks good!”

By ’91, Eddie, Robin, and Steve had established a routine that was working for them. Mostly. They did try to have some casuals on the roster to help out when it was busy or someone got sick, but it always seemed to end badly.

Zac told a customer that heavy metal wasn’t real music and subsequently was yelled at and fired by Eddie. “THIS. IS. MUSIC!”

Nicky gave themselves five-finger discounts on the cassettes when they thought nobody was watching and was subsequently fired by Steve. “Come on, man… Didn’t even think to take the shitty ones?! There’s like, twenty copies of Milli Vanilli right there!”

Matilda showed up to every shift half an hour late and asked questions like, “Who’s Phil Collins?” “Are Vanilla Ice and Ice Cube in the same band?” and “How come we don’t have more songs from The Simpsons if Do the Bart Man is on the charts?”  without a hint of irony, and was subsequently fired by Robin. “No… This isn’t because you tried to do shots with Steve in the back room…”

The trio had all but resigned to nine-hour shifts and disgusting instant coffee when their knight in shining armour moved into the neighbourhood. Joyce Byers was the coolest woman they had ever met. She already owned most of the vinyl Raconteur sold, could probably take both Steve and Eddie in a fight, and made the best coffee they had ever tasted. The day she opened Coffee Clash across the street from them, they were indebted to her forever.

Coffee Clash was quite literally a hole in the wall; there was no inside, just a window to order at and a couple of chairs out front. Joyce worked there most days with Nancy, her new hire who was studying her Master's at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern.

Joyce and Nancy alternated between taking orders and making coffee in the small space. A selection of freshly baked artisan pastries was available too, and if you asked their favourite, they’d recommend the raspberry croissant.

Along with Joyce, Nancy, and a close supply of sublime caffeine came Jonathan. Joyce’s oldest son had just graduated from NYU and had come back to Chicago to help her set up Clash. He was working as a freelance photographer for the papers and a few art houses when Robin and Steve cornered him in the new wave section of Raconteur.

Robin shoved Hounds of Love by Kate Bush into his face, quizzing, “Where do we put this? Art pop?”

“Experimental pop?!” Steve yelled.

“Baroque pop?!” from Robin.

“Do you know what baroque pop is?!” Steve asked. “Because I didn’t!”

Before Jonathan could answer, Steve had the next record ready. “Look at this hideous thing!”

“Frizzle Fry by Primus. What genre? Go!”

It went on like that until Jonathan relented, somehow bamboozled into answering their unhinged questions and agreeing to some casual work.

The peace lasted until the end of the following year.

At the end of ’92, as Killing in the Name Of played daily in store, Malcolm X screened in theatres across the city, and the waitlist for copies of The Bodyguard soundtrack hit four pages long, the owner of Raconteur sat Eddie down.

“I don’t like the look on your face, man,”

“You’re gonna like what I’ve got to tell you even less,” Joe replied.

It wasn’t that the business was failing. In fact, every year since Eddie became the manager business had improved. People came to the store to find new music, local bands, and hard-to-find vinyl. It was entry-level enough that people walking by saw it as approachable, but well-stocked enough that it was a destination store.

“This city was great when I was younger. But I got the kids now. Carol’s always on me about getting somewhere with a bigger yard, but they just keep building those fuckin’ sky highs. We wanna move out somewhere warmer.”

Eddie felt like everything was going to slip away in mere seconds. “Yeah, yeah, I get you. But how come you gotta sell the place? Can’t you keep doing what you’re doing now?”

Joe popped into the store every fortnight to see if Eddie needed anything, to double check the books, and do anything else required. Other than that, he was a passive owner. He worked 30 hours at a publishing house doing something Eddie didn’t really understand.

“Selling means we got more money to put down on a bigger house. Between here and the apartment, we can get something real nice in California,”

“California?!”

“Yeah. That’s the other thing, Ed, be real hard to oversee this while I’m on the other side of the fuckin’ country. I trust ya and everything, but… I gotta do what’s best for my family.”

Deflated but putting on a brave face, Eddie nodded and smiled. “Totally. Totally…”

“I just wanted to give you the heads up. Don’t tell ketchup and mustard out there, alright? Keep it between us until it goes on the market.”

Eddie shook Joe’s hand and walked him out the store. As soon as Joe was out of sight, Eddie turned around. “All clear.”

Robin and Steve popped up from the medieval folk rock and new jack swing sections respectively.

“How much of that did you hear?”

“All of it. Am I ketchup or mustard?” Robin replied.

“We’re fucked. Even if someone buys it, what if they’re like, not cool? What if they want to change everything?” Steve mourned, arms waving through the air for emphasis.

“No, it’s fine. Totally fine. Eddie’s got this,”

“I do?”

“Yeah… I mean, unless you’re hiding an expensive drug habit or harbouring a fine art collection, you’ve gotta have some savings, right? You’ve been here for, what, six years. Full time. Overtime. Never gone on a holiday. Still haven’t traded in that janky van. It’s like you were preparing for this!”

Robin and Steve suddenly looked like a pair of wolves, stalking their prey. They both nodded, wide-eyed and grinning. He took a step back.

“Jesus, you can drop The Shining twins act. I’ll think about it… Now go do something useful,”

“I’ll go sort the-” Robin started.

“No!” Eddie yelled. “Please. No more new systems… Can you call back that kid that came in? The skater girl. See if she wants some weekend work or whatever?”

The truth was, Eddie had been thinking about. Since 1987. He’d dreamed about what it would be like to own a record store. How it would prove so many people back in Hawkins wrong. How it would make Wayne proud. A proper businessman. A proper adult. A valid person.

Robin, as per usual, was right. Eddie had a savings account that would be enough to secure the store in his name. He’d be making commercial mortgage repayments for the foreseeable future, but he could make it work.

When the ball dropped, closing out 1992, Eddie was the proud owner of Raconteur Records.

Songs of Faith and Devotion by Depeche Mode was released on the 23rd of March that next year. It was a Tuesday, usually quiet, but made busy by a line of black-clad kids waiting to buy the record. Robin was at the register while Steve unpacked stock, hardly getting it on the shelves before it sold through again.

It was well managed chaos.

Eddie was sitting behind the counter, keeping an eye on things while working on some ideas he had for the place. He had just agreed to play the record over the store’s speaker system when he saw Jonathan come through the door.

He skipped the line and came to greet Eddie. “Hey man, told you to order that extra stack,”

“Yeah, yeah. Yours is out back,” Eddie replied.

“I’ll just be a second,” Jonathan said to the girl behind him – to you.

Eddie hadn’t noticed you until then. You’d trailed along behind Jonathan like a shadow. But when he saw you, he could feel his stomach flip and his extremities grow hot. It was a reaction he’d never had before, not in his 27 years of living.

You appeared so out of place. Not in the way that you didn’t look like a Depeche Mode fan or that you didn’t belong in a record store. Because either could be true. You just looked so lost and simultaneously unconcerned about it. Kind of spaced out.

When your gaze fell on Robin, your face lit up, and Eddie almost smiled in response to yours.

“Hey, Babychino,” Robin greeted. “How’s my line looking? Not still around the block?”

“Nope. I think you’ve almost got everyone in.”

The sounds of the store melted away. Eddie could hear the music. He could hear the words.

This is the morning of our love.

It’s just the dawning of our love.

Jonathan returned, getting Robin to ring him up with a staff discount. The customers in line all rolled their eyes and gave each other looks. Eddie didn’t care.

Where angels sing,

And spread their wings.

Jonathan turned back to Eddie and said something. He didn’t notice.

My love’s on high.

You take me home,

To glory’s throne.

“Eddie!”

It pulled him out. “Fuck. What?”

He looked at Jonathan, who was looking back at him confused. Robin glanced over and snorted. Eddie had been staring at you, totally in a world of his own. Or your own. It was hard to say if you’d noticed.

“I said, you guys have met before, right?”

You shook your head no. Eddie stayed a deer in the headlights.

“Really? Huh.” Jonathan said your name, told Eddie you worked over at Coffee Clash, been there since December. You’d been just over the road for four months and Eddie had no idea. Albeit, he’d been a bit busy buying a record store, but still. “Mom wanted to spend less time at the store, so Cheenz joined the family,”

“Cheenz,” Eddie repeated, almost whispered.

Jonathan took it as a question. “Babychino. Cheenz,” he explained with a shrug. “I guess because you’re the baby?” he turned to you.

“That and the cappuccinos,” you nodded.  

“Baby?” Eddie asked, still not actually greeting you.

“Yeah, she’s like, 12,”

“I’m 24,”

“Barely.”

Robin chimed in, “Jon is just jealous that she was born interesting and he has to work so, so hard at it,”

“A cool birthday. That’s what constitutes being interesting now?” Jonathan shot back.

“Cool birthday,” Eddie repeated, still being bizarre as fuck.

“Halloween,” Jonathan said in a mock-ghost voice. OhhhOOoOOhhhh. He twinkled his fingers and everything. “Anyway. This is Eddie,”

“Hi,” you said, small smile and what Eddie believed to be sunbeams emanating from you, while butterflies danced above your head.

“Hey,” he managed to croak out. He knew it sounded odd; your smile fell and your expression morphed into confusion.

Jonathan waved goodbyes to Steve and Robin, then took you somewhere beyond the limits of Eddie’s field of vision, and for that, he would never forgive Jonathan.

“Ohhhhhhh captain, my captain… Hey, dingus… Eddie…? EDDIE!”

“What?!”

Robin laughed. “I said – do you know when we’re getting more in?”

“More what?”

“More what?! Jesus… More Depeche. We’re out, but I can make another waitlist if it’s coming in soon.”

Eddie looked up over the counter. Suddenly, the store was empty, save for a small line of people awaiting his response. Where did all the people go? How long had he been daydreaming for?

“Ah, yeah, yeah. Take names and numbers, and I’ll call my guy and find out.”

Robin just nodded, smirking, and shooting Steve a look that said I’ll tell you later.

“She hates it when he calls her Cheenz,” she told Eddie as he stood up. He looked at her like he had no idea why she’d be offering that information. “Prefers Babychino. She’s kind of everyone’s favourite weirdo… Easy to see why, huh?”

Eddie opted not to dignify her with a response. Instead, he disappeared into his office, then said your name out loud a few times. Babychino, he agreed, was a good nickname. And Halloween. A Halloween birthday. Perfect. So perfect. Fuck.

Eddie thought about the first impression he had just made. It wasn’t great. You probably thought he was standoffish and a bit of a freak. He’d have to fix that. He didn’t know how.

Eddie had never really done the whole… girlfriend thing. In Hawkins, he hadn’t really even had a crush on someone. As far as his experience with girls went, it was limited to a few terrible make out sessions with people he’d met at gigs.

When he moved to Chicago, it all seemed a lot easier. Girls liked him more. A lot more actually, but he refused to acknowledge that. He tried his hand at romance, yet it always fizzled out within months. Eddie just… didn’t really like them that much. He felt shit for it; he always broke it off before feelings could get hurt.

He’d realised that all he needed was no strings hook ups and a good group of friends. It had been working for him for years now. Eddie had come to believe he wasn’t capable of romance. Maybe it was all the meanness of Hawkins or the jokes played on him by cheerleaders. Maybe it was childhood trauma reaching into his adult years and fucking around with his head. Maybe he was just born like it. He didn’t really care. He’d accepted it.

But then, you.

You, walking into his safe place with goddamn Depeche fucking Mode playing like a wedding waltz. You, with your lost lamb vibe and beautiful face. With your Halloween birthday. Your Tremors t-shirt. That film is criminally underrated, he thought.

Eddie didn’t want to hurt you. He knew when the rose-coloured tint wore away that he’d be left feeling empty. He’d fuck up the good thing he had going with Coffee Clash. He’d piss Robin and Nancy off. Joyce would probably have a thing or two to say. No, it was better to wait for… whatever this was… to fade. Surely, it wouldn’t take long.

End Note I have been writing this story for over a goddamn year! It's over 40,000 words, and almost complete at the time of posting Chapter I. I'm not going to pretend I don't want reblogs and comments. Of course, I do! xo Rhi

Taglist (all)  @ruinedbythehobbit  @sweetpeapod  @thorfemmes   @corrodedhawkins @grungegrrrl @lilzabob  @averagemisfit03 @ches-86 @ilovecupcakesandtea @hazydespair @mel-the-fangirl @eddies-hid3out @siren-lungs  @aheadfullofsteverogers  @hiscrimsonangel  @cultish-corner  @mrsjellymunson  @munson-blurbs @solomons-finest-rum

Although, he hadn’t expected to be here with you, at all, as a matter of fact. 

Not in the woods behind the school.

And definitely not alone. 

It’s unnatural.

You, laid out on top of the picnic table. Him, hunched on the seat below, straddling the old plank of wood. Too close. 

Closer than he’s ever been. 

It’s aberrant, really.

But maybe, just for today, everything is topsy-turvy. 

Maybe it will go back to normal soon. You in your bubble, him in his. Two separate worlds. Two separate planets orbiting the same rust-bucket town. The same miserable high school. At least for a few more months. 

Then he’ll get the hell out of this place. Just drive and drive and drive until the scent of manure no longer singes his nose hairs. Until the cornfields turn into beaches. Or mountains. Or shit, even swamp lands. He’s not picky. 

And you’ll be off at some college, probably. 

Find a braincell-deficient jock and pop out a couple of kids. He’s picturing a picket fence somewhere there, too. Possibly a station wagon with that dumb wooden interior. He hates that wooden interior. 

And you’ll forget he ever existed. 

And he’ll—

“So pretty.” 

It’s lower this time. A whisper. Like it was only meant to stay inside your head. Like you weren’t even aware you said it. 

And maybe you aren’t aware. Maybe the weed is hitting you hard. Too hard. It’s only your first time. 

So maybe he should pretend like he didn’t hear. Just continue to act like the metal box in front of him needs reorganizing. 

Re-reorganizing, even. 

Whatever it takes to not notice the way your pleated skirt has ridden up, bunched at the tops of your thighs. 

Because he hasn’t noticed. 

No, he’s not aware of how smooth your skin looks, or how the cherry blossom scent of your lotion seems to intoxicate him more than the shared joint, now forgotten, smoldering between your fingers. 

He has no idea what color panties you’re wearing, and absolutely no clue what powder blue fabric looks like when it darkens. 

Baggies to the left. Try to prop them up against each other. Bottles to the right. Line them up. Shit, the baggies won’t sit upright. Maybe lay them flat? Then, if he moves the tin—

“Do you think I’m pretty, too?” 

Fuck. 

Your heavy-lidded gaze is directed at him now, and he finally feels the high. Or maybe it’s just your effect; the kind of haze that leaves him wondering what new strain has him seeing a real life angel. The kind of feeling that sends his heart away at a dead sprint and his mind swimming in a tank of molasses.

Everything is muffled. And there’s only you. And those eyes. Waiting.

“Y-Yeah,” he chokes, hoping you don’t see the heat blooming beneath his cheeks. “You’re pretty. ‘S kinda your thing.” He shrugs. “Popular and pretty.”

It’s a deflection. It’s bitter. It’s crashing through the bubble with an unceremonious pop. 

Because yes, you’re pretty. Everyone knows it. Everyone.

Him noticing isn’t any different. 

You blink. “But do you think I’m pretty? Just pretty.”

He pauses, wondering, for only a split second, if this was all some kind of elaborate rouse to incriminate him. If, any minute now, Andy and Jason are going to step out from behind one of these trees, itching for a fight. Because Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson is tainting the precious queen of Hawkins High. His no-good, low-life, burn-out presence might as well stain your skin like black tar.

But he nods, nonetheless. A calculated risk; it’s shaky, not insincere. 

And that seems to be enough because your painted lips twitch into a small smile. It’s a breath of fresh air. If only his heart would stop pounding against his ribs like it’s trying to get out. To get to you.

“I told my friends, once, and they didn’t talk to me for a day and a half.”

Your smile is gone now. And your gaze is empty as you turn back to the tree tops. 

Eddie shifts in his seat, feeling more and more like he’s fallen through the looking glass. 

“T-Told them what?” 

He’s not sure he wants the clarification. Not sure he wants to understand. Because it doesn’t seem like it’ll work. Like he’ll never truly understand if you say what he—

“That I think you’re pretty,” you mutter, turning to him again, a simple pout weighing your features down.

Fuck.

“We were talking about crushes, and they said theirs. And they were so…excited…. And Heather was trying to convince Jackie S. to tell Patrick how she felt. And I wanted to feel it too.”

He can barely breathe, so he stays silent, just letting you speak to no one in particular. Because he’s not here. 

Not now. 

Not on this planet. 

Not in the same reality as the girl he’s pretended not to watch since the middle school talent show. The girl whose perfume somehow lives in his mind, though he’s never bathed in it longer than a shoulder brush through the halls. Not that girl, not in this reality. 

Not you. Telling him he’s pretty. No way—

“—wanted to hear what they’d say. Like if they would tell me we’d look cute together, or they’d say they’ve seen you looking at me, or something, and maybe there’s a chance.” 

Fuck, he’s low on E. 

And these damn baggies don’t organize well—he should really label them. And Reefer Rick has probably laced this new, stupid supply with something because there’s simply no conceivable way—

“But they just looked at me like I said something insane. Asked me if I was joking. They didn’t believe me at first—” 

He snorts, twisting the skull ring around his finger until the skin underneath starts to heat. You’re silent now, and he almost doesn’t want to look. But he has to. So he does.

Your polished nails, the lipstick stained joint, thousands of wool fibers bending and yielding to the curves of your body. Then that pout, your eyes. A frown.

The baggies of pills, the weathered wood; carved initials giving way to new grain.

“You don’t believe me, either?”

It’s so broken sounding, he has half a mind to lie and say of course he does. Of course he believes you, resident queen of Hawkins High—the girl who prances through school with five guys, minimum, trailing after her, lovesick and delusionally hormonal—are telling the God’s-honest truth. That you have somehow taken a liking to the town pariah. 

The people’s princess has woken up this day and decided she’d like to bestow upon him, of all people, the greatest charity he could never repay, nor even begin to deserve. 

And you’d say this exact thing stone-cold sober. Sure.

He could say that. 

“Um—” he clears his throat, repeatedly dragging a dirty Reebok on the ground until a pile of curled leaves starts to grow, “I believe…uh, we’ve probably had enough.”

Before you can make a move to stop him, he plucks the joint from between your fingers, ignoring the shock of your touch. 

The faint sizzle of embers being extinguished on old wood is the only sound that fills the air. That, and the rustle of wind through the trees. 

He can feel your eyes on him as he licks his fingers and pinches the end of the roll. It may very well be laced, but he’s not the wasteful type. 

And anyway, he’s got plans later. A date with his right hand and the well-loved porno mag he’s made some…changes…to. All while he pretends not to remember how your lips wrapped around the very same joint he hopes will last him long enough. 

You sit up suddenly, swinging your legs over the edge of the picnic table. He nearly knocks his metal lunchbox off the seat, scrambling to avoid the brush of your skin. 

“Do you not like me?” 

The words are filled with accusation, woven by insecurity, and Eddie feels insane. Clinically. Terminally, even. That’s not a thing, but given his luck, he could be the first man, ever, to die from a hot chick coming onto him. 

Because what the actual fuck? You’re looking at him like his very existence is a puzzle to you. As if you can’t imagine why in the world he’d be second-guessing your confession. 

He clears his throat, again, but chokes on his breath the second you slide down next to him, your skirt creeping impossibly higher before settling properly. And he’s up in a flash, like only the heat of you near him is all it takes to burn. And God, does it burn.

“N-No! No, I, um, I—I just don’t know you.” He shrugs, scratching the back of his neck. “Basically just met you today, really.”

He could almost kick himself, the way his voice jumps an octave he’s certain only liars can reach. And you seem to hold the same belief, your eyes all but say as much as you stand to follow him. 

Leaves crunch under his shuffling footsteps, and you pause, as if realizing the space between is carefully set. 

It’s a choice he’s fighting to make, just as he’s fighting not to look at you. Though, one is admittedly easier than the other.

“I mean, not really. We’ve been going to the same school since, like, sixth grade—”

He shakes his head, correcting, “Your sixth; my eighth.”

Bewilderment overtakes your frown, and he understands the semantics appear meaningless to you, but they keep him up at night. When the hours tick by and delusion creeps into the edges of his foggy mind, thoughts of fate start to sound more and more sane. 

 “My mom even made you that casserole when your uncle was sick.”

Oh, yeah. 

That. 

He remembers that day. Thinks about it when the delusion turns sour and his conscience wants to remind him what an embarrassment he is. 

He remembers perfectly how he heard your heels clicking from down the hall. How he took one look through the small hospital window, saw you in your Sunday best and booked it to the en suite bathroom. 

How he left Wayne to fend for himself in a state of utter confusion, never having seen his nephew move so fast. How he hid in the small space, surrounded by porcelain and that chemical smell that still makes his skin crawl. Just so he wouldn’t have to face you. 

So he wouldn’t have to watch you charm his uncle, lift his spirits like you do everyone. 

No, he only had to listen and imagine what shade of lipstick you chose to match with your outfit. Because that was way easier than seeing the cruel fluorescent lights fail to hollow you out like it did everyone who entered that godforsaken room. 

Yeah, hearing the raspy laugh of his uncle, followed by your airy giggles through the surprisingly thin walls was a cakewalk compared to what it would have been had he been forced to smile and nod along. 

Act as if you and he lived the same kind of life. As if one wasn’t a plunder and the other a jaunt through the daisies.

Eddie paces, unable to let his twitching muscles rest. “Yeah, but what does it really mean to know someone, you know? Uh oh! I’m gettin’ philosophical now!” He chuckles, but it’s strained, and your frown comes back, unmovable this time. “Probably the weed.”

His words are stilted, and you seem too aware of this performance, but he will press on with forced amusement until you believe him. Or at least until you let him be; go on back to your bubble. Leave him to suffocate in his. 

“Are you high? I’m high. I think we’re both really high. It’s so funny, it’s like I don’t even know what I’m saying— Blah!” He flails about, already planning on checking himself into Pennhurst after this. “This is so crazy! We probably make no sense right now.”

You cross your arms, trudging back to the picnic table. The breeze lifts your skirt as you plop down, and Eddie turns away. Because he has to.

“I’m not that high and neither are you.”

 It’s that damn pout that’s going to do him in. 

Curls twist around his fingers as he tries to hide behind his hair. “No…no, I’m pretty high.” He nods. “‘Miss Hawkins 1982’ is sitting here, tellin’ me she’s got, like, what—a crush on me?”

“‘S more than a crush,” you mumble petulantly, but for his sanity, he elects to ignore it. 

“I mean, shit! I didn’t think weed had hallucinogenic properties, but you know.” His shoulders shrug in defeat, and he still can’t look at you. “Learn somethin’ new every day!”

Your head cocks to the side. “So you don’t believe me?”

Eyes wide as saucers, he wonders if this is what it would feel like to explain the sky to a mole. 

“Of course I don’t believe you! You sound crazy! I mean you’re…” He searches for the words, but how does one sum up almost a decade of watching? Of wanting— “You. …And I’m me.”

It’s softer. Lower. Just where he should be. Because really, you’re the sky. And he’s just a burrower. Too afraid to leave the caverns he’s carved in his mind, even for warmth. For light. For a smile that doesn’t shine—

“Right…” Your mouth pulls, dim, and the huff of breath sounds derisive, like you can’t possibly pass it for a laugh, but still, you try. “You’re you, and I’m me—”

He nods along, internalizing the sound of his own words on your lips. If you believe it, that will be enough. It will be enough.

“Just boring…me—”

The sentence drips with resignation. As if it’s a truth you’ve cuddled up to long enough for the feelings to subside. Roommates with your own distaste. A years-long relationship molded into resentment. He feels sick.

“What?”

You resituate yourself, pulling inward, and if you could transform the atoms in the air, Eddie thinks there’d be a wall already reaching above the highest branches. 

“No, I just— It makes sense.” You tug at your sweater until your hands are almost hidden, and regret nips at his bare skin, colder than the breeze. “It’s totally true; you’re so cool—”

He swallows the words, but they catch in his throat. Unusual and untrue. And despite his quiet, “Cool?” that slips out, coated in disbelief, you carry on, adding brick after brick.

“You’ve got your band, and that game you love to play—”

Now that’s just strange. 

“D&D?” he mutters, blanching at the sentiment. Because, yeah, he thinks it’s cool. But he can count on one hand how many other Hawkins residents think the same. 

You perk up a bit, and he feasts on the split-second of sunlight. “Yeah! That’s the one. And you literally run a club for it. That’s, like, the definition of cool.” 

It’s the high. It’s the marijauna in your system. Either that, or you and he have vastly different definitions of cool—

“And your music taste! I hear you drive up to school all the time; you’re always blasting that metal stuff! It’s so…” your eyes wander, as if searching for the right word and his mind fills in the usual blanks: loud, shitty, annoying, satanic. “unique!”

You’re too good. He’s decided it. Not because of the popularity, like he had chalked it up to before. This is different. It’s pure. 

And he’s tar. 

“You know, if I had a nickel for every time someone told me my music taste was…unique, I’d be broke,” he huffs, crossing his arms like the act will protect against your budding smile, growing back like the first bloom of May flowers.

“Well, I’m sure they just haven’t tried it yet.” And you’re so sure. He can hear the optimism in your voice and it’s deafening. 

But then, it’s like time reverses, and in comes the April shower to drown the delicate bud; you retreat into yourself, again. Smile fading, insecurity rearing. 

“I’ve never… I mean— I’ve never really tried it before, either.” 

Now you won’t look at him, and the insinuation of your words alone is enough to haunt him. 

With a sigh, he closes the distance, sitting beside you on the bench. For a moment, he only listens to his own pulse. The rushing in his ears. He waits for the confidence to speak, unaware it’s a bus that will never come. 

But impatience gets the best of him, and he decides to walk it.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel— It’s just— I just—” He groans, watching the thoughts pass him by while he fails to hang onto even one. His skin feels too tight and he’s certain the only solution is to peel it off his miserable bones. “I don’t know why I am the way that I am.”

The admission rings out like a shot in the autumn air, and the silence that follows lands like an atom bomb, breaking the sound barrier in a mushroom cloud of mortifying truth.

He doesn’t know why he said it. 

Why he thought cutting himself down while you’re bleeding makes some sort of difference. How it could possibly count as some kind of balm to your wounds. 

But you wear your wounds well. And truth leaks from you without loss. It pools without inhibition. Not yielding, but seeping. Filling the cracks in him—the tunnels that quake—with something malleable and pure. Not viscous and sticky. Not like tar. 

His head hangs low, eyes following the way your thumb smooths over your wool skirt. Then his gaze tracks downward, and he wishes it wouldn’t. But your skin looks so soft, and he traces the curving terrain until he sees your pearly-white Keds digging into the dirt. 

You could probably make it to China before he finds the right words to fix this.

“You know, I’ve never had to convince a girl not to like me.” The quirk of his lips doesn’t change the tone, despite his best efforts. 

You cross your ankles, old wood creaking under you. “No?”

It’s simple. Gentle. You’re humoring him. And it’s a kindness he can’t afford, but you give it to him anyway, charity case that he is.

“No.” He huffs, something like a snicker but without the joke. “Usually, it’s the opposite.”

More atomic silence. And he starts to wonder if he ever actually learned how to behave properly. If he fundamentally misunderstands how to have a conversation. 

Or maybe he was just swapped at birth with an alien whose sole purpose is to elicit discomfort. And maybe there’s a human version of him out there, travelling among the stars, charming and suave, dripping with bravado. Yeah, that’s probably it. That’s what he’ll—

“What’s the argument then?”

His brows furrow, and he swings his head to look at you. But the second his eyes meet yours, he has to force himself not to flee. Not to make a coward’s retreat. 

“What?”

“The argument,” you respond coolly. “How are you gonna persuade me not to like you?”

God, he wishes you’d stop saying it. Maybe it’d be easier to hear if it didn’t sound so earnest. If it didn’t sound like it came from a well of truth.

His foot taps on the ground as he thinks, hands flexing restlessly. “Well…I guess I kind of thought the everything about me was argument enough.”

You stare silently, and his flesh might as well be made of a cellophane the way your gaze seems to expertly track the gears turning in his mind. 

“But clearly not,” he murmurs.

Your lips quirk. “Nope.” 

The glint in your eyes should scare him. Should shake him to his core. Because there’s something about this particular glimmer… 

With the determination of a predator poised to attack, or a vulture itching to pick him apart, you watch. Quietly. Waiting. It’s the kind of look only the helpless are on the other side of. He should be terrified. 

But he’s not. His hands aren’t shaking out of fear, and his stomach doesn’t flip out of nerves. 

No, it’s something else entirely.

Your chin tips, and your smile curls around the words. “To ensure a fair hearing, the court must consider all evidence; Mr. Munson, you may proceed.” 

His grin stretches, and he turns his body the slightest bit towards you. 

“Okay,” he nods, pondering the laundry list of reasons he has locked and loaded, ready to go. Who’s the lucky winner? What’s the bare minimum he can share without mortally wounding his pride—well, more than it already is. “Alright, well, sometimes I forget to wear deodorant, and I end up smelling really bad.” 

Before he has a chance to regret his choice, your laugh drowns out every doubt. It cracks through him with an unbearable weight, leaving behind splintered shards of bone instead of prison bars. His heartbeat sounds louder now.

And for a moment—only a moment—he forgets why he said anything at all. He forgets the point. He forgets that the melody floating from your lips doesn’t belong in his dysfunctional orchestra. 

But the urge is there. To hear it again. To be the cause. 

Your eyes squint from the size of your smile. “Shut up.” 

Locked in your gravitational pull, he moves closer—minutely, and he wouldn’t if he could help it. 

“No, I’m serious! It’s bad! That’s why I gotta leave school early sometimes, I start to smell like vegetable soup by 2 p.m.”

His grin is stuck as he watches your head fall back, the melody growing stronger, lodging somewhere deep in his brain. Between cobwebs and old, out-of-tune earworms. He imagines bottling the sound and building a shelf just to hold it.

“You’re an idiot,” you huff breathlessly, the word not carrying the same sting it usually would if it came from anyone else. Because there’s no bite to it. No teeth, even.

He leans in before he can stop himself. “Ah, see, that’s a good one, too! I’m an idiot!”

But the melody quiets, and the violins screech a nasty response as your smile starts to fall.

“No, you’re not.”

It’s firm and final, like you truly believed it even before it slipped from your lips.

“Yes, I am,” he says, soft yet steadfast. “I’m a three-time super senior army crawling my way to a ‘D’ in Mrs. O’Donnell’s class. And I’ve had two full tries at it.” 

You cock your head, eyeing him closely. Then—

“Well, practice makes perfect. Plus, I think it’s totally your year.”

Your smile is back and so is the warmth in Eddie’s body. If he had any sense, he’d steer the conversation elsewhere, because somehow, you’ve managed to flirt with him over his tragic academic history. You’re too powerful. You and your honeyed words, so sweet and thick, he could choke if he’s not careful.

He shifts, but can’t bring himself to move away. “Okay…what about this—I wanna do music.”

Your brows raise and he can tell you see through his pitiful attempt. 

“Well…you’re in a band,” you shrug. “I kind of already knew that—”

“No, like, professionally. That’s what I wanna do. I wanna go to L.A. and, I don’t know, like, get a record deal and shit, and just make music.” The light still shines in your eyes and he knows you’re not getting it. “No college for me, no office job, no suburbs—no picket fence kind of life.”

Your gaze never strays from his. “Eddie, that’s not a bad thing. That’s—that’s inspiring.”

God, you’re making this hard. Especially when you look at him like that—like he’s something to be enamored by. Something worth looking at. Something pretty… 

“No,” he shakes his head, clinging to the reality where you aren’t leaning closer to him, where your soft, perfumed skin doesn’t brush against his rough, bargain-bin jeans. “No, it’s a pipedream. It’s basically me begging to live in a van for the rest of my life because you and I both know it will never—”

“Eddie,” you cut in, grabbing his hand, “let me save you the energy. There’s nothing you can say that will stop how I feel. This isn’t a new thing. I’m not going through a phase. It’s not just a blip or a crush— I like you, Eddie Munson.”

His heartbeat slows, skipping every third thud like an old record, and he now knows the weight of your hand in his. 

And for the first time since his fingers brushed yours while passing the joint, he can’t look away. No amount of self-control or misplaced willpower can drag him up from the depths of your imploring gaze. 

“I like you a lot. You’re sweet,” and his face must’ve twitched because you grin and add, “When you’re not trying to act all tough and broody.”

Cellophane. He’s complete cellophane around you. Weak and pliant and see-through. His posturing means nothing, and he wonders if you always knew that. 

If every snide comment to the jocks came with a footnote in the smallest print only you could read: I’m jealous they get your time. They don’t deserve it. 

If every breezy look elsewhere gave him away as you’d walk past his table in the lunchroom, swaying skirt billowing in the winds of his repression.

“—and you make me laugh, and you’re honest.” Your hand squeezes his and he can’t quite bring himself to hold it yet. To open up. To keel over and admit defeat. “I just feel like everyone here…pretends to live the life they think they should live. But you don’t do that. You just live. And I think that’s beautiful.” 

Your chin tips low and he has a near physical reaction from losing the heat of your attention. 

“I think you’re beautiful.”

His mind whirs, sirens blare, but they’re silent. Unhelpful. Useless. Exactly what he feels like in the wake of your confession. And the only thought he can hold onto long enough to realize it’s just as useless is: he should buy a lottery ticket, or something. 

“I—” 

He watches you shift, doesn’t hear you breathe. 

“I…think you stole my line…”

The pitiful excuse for a chuckle comes too late. Too weak to sound genuine, but just strong enough to deflect. Because that’s what he’s good at, right? Deflecting? Distracting? 

Rejecting, apparently. At least that’s how you seem to take it, the way your hand slips from his so easily. The way your shoulders hunch and your legs squeeze together. 

Small. You’re making yourself small for him. 

And he’s just too unsteady. He’s not firing on all cylinders, not since you clipped his wires a ways back. Somewhere around you’re pretty and I like you. Just left of I told my friends and down the street from you’re cool. 

“Sorry. That was…a lot. God.” Your frown is back and you turn to say something, then give up before you even start. A beat. Then, “I—I’m sorry if I scared you off with all of that.”

You say it as if the moment’s done. As if he’s not still clinging to your words with a white-knuckled grip. 

And you retreat. 

Not in any real way. 

No, you’re still sitting next to him, still closer than ever before, but now, chipping away at your nail polish seems to be far more interesting than anything he could offer. 

“Well…I’m still here…” he tries, unsure.

“Yeah…. You’re still here,” you echo quietly.  

Showing mercy to your manicure, you shove your hands into your lap, twisting your fingers up. He recognizes the movement. The attempt to banish the need. The need to touch. He’s felt it too. Feels it now. 

The bricks stack higher as your wall grows; a structure never meant to be scaled. 

But he’s a burrower. 

“You know…” he ponders, forcing the humor from his tone. “I’m starting to think maybe it’s not the weed…”

That gets you. 

He hears the melody again, sees your wry smile.

“Shut up,” you whine, shoving his chest.

He moves fast and with grace as he traps your hand with his, holding your palm just over where your first laugh torpedoed his ribcage. Where the prisoner waits. 

“Your heart’s beating so fast,” you whisper, voice full of awe—the kind that quickly begins to carve away at his weakened flesh. 

He huffs, low and earnest. “Yeah…. The prettiest girl in Hawkins just told me she likes me and there’s nothing I can do about it. You’re lucky I haven’t gone into cardiac arrest over this.”

You smirk, and he thinks it might just kill him. Like actually. 

“Hm, well, now I feel like I’m kind of missing out on that…”

He snorts, his grin stretching wide. “Oh, yeah? You want me to keel over right here, right now?”

Your smile turns demure and he knows it’s a lie. Then, you give an innocent shrug that can’t even fool him. 

“I mean, I’m not saying I wouldn’t be extremely flattered—”

He jolts suddenly, grunting and groaning, curling his fingers tighter around your hand as he falls back against the edge of the wooden picnic top. 

You gasp, turning to prop a knee on the bench as you lean over his stiff body. “Oh my God, medic!” Your empty call echoes in the air, amusement bubbling just beneath the surface. Then, your voice falls to a low mutter. “Ohh, what do I do, what do I do? Damnit, I should’ve paid more attention in First Aid.”

Eddie convulses some, really driving the near Oscar-worthy performance home. Then he peeks an eye open, choking out, “M-Mmm-mouth.”

Your mask slips as you smirk, leaning closer. “Sorry, what was that? I didn’t quite catch it over all the dying.”

He slumps even more, the table digging beneath his shoulderblades as he sputters, “Mmm-mouth-to-mouth—”

You sit back, chewing the inside of your cheek and leveling him with an assessing stare as he twitches. “No…that can’t be it…”

Both eyes open as he brokenly utters, “No, it definitely is— With tongue! The tongue helps—” 

You snicker, “Oh, yeah? It’s a necessity?”

He squeezes your hand. “Yeah, big—big necessity.”

You lean in, so close, and his mind turns to static as your perfume invades his senses. 

This is it. It’s going to happen. Almost a decade of dreams that left him waking up in sticky discomfort, and he’s going to know the taste of—

“See, I just don’t remember that in the course,” you shrug, pulling away abruptly. “Mouth-to-mouth, sure, but adding tongue?”

One last shot, he reaches into the sky dramatically, convulses, then slackens in a lifeless heap, accented by his best death rattle.

He hears you call out, some half-assed plea that wouldn’t convince a soul, but then everything stops. Your lips slot against his, soft and plush and timid, and you might as well have used the paddles, the way his system shocks into action.

His hand finally releases yours, but you don’t move it, and he settles a gentle grip on the back of your head. Heavy enough to beg for more, soft enough to leave room for an escape, if you so choose. 

But you don’t. Instead, your tongue glides along his top lip—a teasing kind of sweetness he accepts gladly, thankfully. He responds in kind—in hunger.

He can taste your cherry lip gloss, hear your surprised hum. It’s a tiny sort of sound he swallows with a groan of his own. 

Then the pressure is gone. The taste, the noises—all gone. The music has stopped and the dizzying dance comes to an end with a blinding grin.

“Oh my God, it’s a miracle,” you pant, smoothing your palm up his chest until you reach skin.

He sits up, dazed, and you don’t move away, just letting him hover close like the proximity isn’t debilitating.

His next words slur out before he has a chance to think of a smoother line— “Have you ever considered becoming a doctor?”

And you laugh. And he’s learning that maybe you don’t want smooth. Because if you did, he certainly wouldn’t be your first call, and you wouldn’t be so quick to serenade every dumb comment of his.

So he thanks whoever rents the big house in the sky that you have a thing for burnouts and tries not to choke as you slide onto his lap, your pretty skirt splaying out across worn fabric. 

Your lips find his again, your fingers get lost in his hair, you don’t bother hovering, and he starts writing a mental Last Will and Testament. 

Jeff will get his Sweetheart, Mike will get his D&D manuals, Dustin will get his cassette tapes, and Gareth will finally get those twenty bucks he’s been whining about since last summer. He’ll leave it to Grant to dispose of his stash, and in payment, he can have the stack of porno mags under his bed. 

Though, he might just give them away whether he dies or not, because he’s pretty sure, with the way you’re pressing down on him, they’ll soon be rendered useless. 

Goosebumps rise along heated skin and something prickles up his spine as your nails rake through his curls. His mouth works against yours, a mind of its own as its aim widens, and he’s suddenly nipping down your jaw, tasting the tang of perfume on your neck. 

Your chest racks with heavy, panting breaths and noises that sound like earnest attempts at his name. It’s intoxicating. His lips swell from struggling to keep up with his greed, but he can’t stop. There’s a burning kind of ache deep within him, and it’s growing. 

His hands find their way to your hips, and he can’t tell if it’s you who moves freely, grinding down like you’re searching for something, or if it’s him and the ravenous need he’s not certain can be controlled. 

“Fuck—”

“Eddie,” you call, tightening the grip on his hair until he groans. His cock flexes, straining against the oppressive zipper of his jeans and missing a kind of warmth he’s itching to know.

“Hm?” he grunts into your neck, barely aware. He’s pretty sure he could devour you whole. But then again, he’d much rather savor you, pick you apart and feast on your supple flesh for ages. The smallest little bites until your sweet noises grow louder and louder; scratchy and desperate like the mindless roll of your hips against denim.

“E-Eddie—”

Your voice pitches up, his name breaking on the crest of your movements, and you hunch toward him like the pleasure is a weight your shoulders can’t possibly bear. 

And something twists in his gut then, something raw and hungry. 

He wants to hear that again. Hear his name shatter on your tongue as his hands explore beneath your dainty skirt. He wants to feel the vibrations of your moans as he kisses every inch of you. 

“Mm, yeah, baby?”

“I want— Want you,” you grit out, like the words take effort you can barely muster. 

“Fuck— I know, I wan’ you, too. So bad. So fuckin’ bad.” 

If it were any other time, he might feign control. Might deepen his voice with a confidence he doesn’t have. But this is not just any other time. It’s you, in his lap, whispering needy little pleas into the air like it’s obvious. Simple necessity. Like he’s not just a warm body and you’re not picturing someone else. 

His fingers curl into the waistband of your skirt, and it’s as if you remembered there was more to be said because your hips stall and you press against his chest. 

He swallows the disgruntled whine, and accepts your direction. Doubt creeps into the fog of his mind, but you don’t leave him time to get lost when your thumbs smooth over the stubble on his jaw, the worry in your eyes outweighing his.

“Eddie, I, um, I want—you,” you finish stiltedly, looking at him like you’re waiting for the penny to drop. “But, I, uh, I’ve ne—” It spins. “I don’t really—” And spins. “I mean, not that I’m, like—” And spins. “I’ve just never really—”

It drops, a metallic clang bouncing off the walls of his skull, and suddenly he feels like he shouldn’t touch you at all. His hands hover over your hips and the something-molten deep in his gut turns out to be much more familiar than he thought. Hot, bubbling, careless and incessant in its need to stain. To contaminate. 

“Never?” His brows furrow, trying to decipher the discomfort on your face. If it’s him—if it’s the tar—he might just leave town now. Screw graduation. Screw a diploma— “Like never ever?”

Stupid question. At this rate, he should look into surgically removing his foot from his mouth before he tries to speak next—

“Guess I was just…waiting,” you shrug, thumbing the hem of his shirt. Then your movements become less innocent as your nails trail against his skin. So light, if he weren’t acutely aware of everything you do, if his stomach didn’t twitch in time with his restless cock, he wouldn’t have caught it. 

“Sweetheart,” he almost warns, feeling like he misconstrued this moment for something serious, when clearly, you’re toying with him, spreading your palms along his waistband like you can’t see him shiver. Like you can’t feel his length straining beneath you, flexing against its jean prison, reaching for the warmth of your core. 

“S-Sweetheart,” he repeats, the endearment sounding more and more like a plea as you rake your nails through the wiry curls just below his navel. 

You go on, apparently undeterred by his fraying control. “I’ve been on dates—” 

He doesn’t care. His eyes track yours and the glide of your tongue along kiss-bitten lips. 

“Guys have tried—”

Okay, he cares. What? 

“I’ve just never really—wanted to.”

Fuck. 

You grind down, passing the motion off as adjusting your position, but Eddie doesn’t trust that gleam in your eyes. And you confirm it in the way your palms smooth down his arms until you press his hands to your hips. Making him touch you. Contaminate you. You encourage it, even. Wrapping your grip around his wrists as you guide his hands beneath your wool top. 

“But it’s different with you.”

He shudders. 

“Sweetheart.” 

It’s certainly a plea, now. A cry for mercy as your fingers return to the sensitive skin just above his waistband, travelling up, up, up until he’s entirely covered in goosebumps, and he worries you can feel the pitiful call of the convict in his chest. 

“I don’t want to. That’s not what it feels like—”

God damnit, he’s so confused and all the blood rushed from his brain long ago. There’s nothing up there anymore.

“‘S not like that. ‘S like,” you lean in close, letting him feel the words against his lips before he ever hears them, “a need. Like there’s something missing right now.” You roll your hips and he chokes on the breath he was holding. “And I think— No, I know, if I could just—feel you…inside me—I would be okay again. Better.”

“Oh, f-fuck,” he groans, thrusting up with the coordination of a muscle spasm. He lets his forehead fall against yours in an attempt to gather control. “You—you can’t just say shit like that.”

You peck his lips and he chases the small affection. “But it’s true. I don’t wan’ anyone else. Just want you. Inside me.”

“Jesus Christ,” he grits out, trapping you in a kiss that borders on consumption more than anything sweet. 

He can feel you everywhere: on top of him, in his hair, under his shirt, sinking claws into his sides; your touch is kindling to the fire raging low inside him. 

Suddenly, he’s reminded of the foiled condom he removed from his wallet just the other day. The old thing was practically useless, worn down and crumpled from years of sitting idle in between the folds of cracked leather. But something is better than nothing, and now he’s cursing his past-self for his terminal case of realism. 

The clink of metal draws his attention back, and he hadn’t noticed your lips leave his or how your hands have grown eager, already past his belt and now fiddling with the button on his jeans. 

“Wanna feel you, Eddie. I need to,” your honeyed whines wash over his body, sending a buzz through his veins. But then the purring sound of his zipper sliding open reminds him—

“Shit,” his hand wraps around your wrist. “Wait, I don’t— I don’t have anything,” he admits lowly, miserably. 

You smile, kissing around his mouth like you’re drawing the shame out, and him in. “It’s okay…. I just want you,” you repeat, firmer this time. “All of you.”

And something inside him rumbles, something sick and starving. Once-weak, but now growing in strength. It’s mean and sharp, with teeth that can cut through steel and an appetite that can devour innocence whole.

It’s not unfamiliar, this beast. He’s known it for ages. It’s an old friend. A confidant. Something to speak to in the darkest moments, but never to trust. Something to surrender to during the sweatiest nights, when his hand cramps but the need still aches. Still hungers. 

It’s got an imagination, too. Twisted as can be, it preens at the thought of possession, of staying. Of skin stretching and bones shifting, of curly-haired children that have your eyes and his smile. Soccer practice between label meetings, the sun beating down on hot sand as little feet kick at his back. A ring with weight and a necklace to match.

It’s like a plague on his thoughts. But it’s not. Not really. Because he doesn’t have to fear the lies anymore. The want. The bubbles are melding, his world is clashing with yours. And the beast tells the truth, now.

“You’re gonna be the death of me,” he mutters against your lips, the words sounding more like a warning than anything.

“Mmm,” you hum, trailing your affection down his neck. “Been there, done that. I’d rather keep you alive for this.”

And you’ve crossed his wires so expertly, he’s practically sparking beneath your touch. 

Imbued with a new kind of power, he slides you from his lap before shucking his leather jacket off and swinging it onto the table’s surface. His shirt follows with, finding a strategic home among the layers. 

You seem to catch on because you climb onto the table, laying yourself out just like before. He grins, helping you out of your top, only to fold it up and leave it where your head can rest. 

Both of you pause, taking just a moment to stare. Openly. 

He tracks your gaze as it trails across his chest, noting each tattoo. Then his eyes widen as you distractedly remove your bra like it’s nothing, like he hasn’t fucked his fist to the thought of this very moment. 

The material slides down your arms and you settle back, pretty as a picture, laid out all for him. 

“Jesus…Christ, sweetheart, fuck.” 

You smirk, and there’s that gleam again. Evil and conniving and he’s a willing victim, first in line, and hopefully last.

“See anything you like?”

He gulps, kneeling on the bench below, itching to touch you, but holding onto manners with a white-knuckled grip. “Yeah. See a whole lot.” 

“Then what are you waiting for?” You grab his hand, guiding it to your breast with a squeeze. “This isn’t a museum, you can touch.” 

“Oh, s-shit,” he stutters, losing all decorum as his other hand joins in, kneading the supple skin. Your sighs possess him, and before he can overthink it, his mouth closes around your nipple, tongue circling and laving at the tightening peak. 

“E-Eddie!” Your hand flies to his curls and he groans, parting his lips wider, needing to feel more of you in his mouth. 

You writhe beneath him, a victim of a fiendish kind of gluttony as he moves to your other breast, tweaking the wet peak he left behind. 

He explores your body zealously, taking his time tasting and nipping every bit he can reach until you start tugging at the roots of his hair, forcing him up. 

“Need you,” you huff breathlessly, yanking at his jeans. “Now.”

“W-Wait—” his hands land on yours, slowing your movements.

Your mouth parts as you look up at him, wide-eyed and completely desperate, and he feels his control unspooling like flimsy yarn. 

“No, Eddie, I already told you—”

“It’s not that,” he shakes his head, kissing you quiet. “I just— We can’t just…”

You watch him patiently, clinging onto every half-thought he struggles to produce. 

“I gotta— No, I—want to make this good for you…obviously,” he grunts, cringing at the lack of suavity. “And to do that, um, we can’t just…”

You nod, encouraging him as his face grows hot. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell he’ll be able to explain the concept of foreplay to you right now. Not when you’re looking at him like that, bare and ready for him.

So he sighs and kisses you once more, this time slow and careful. Full of things he can’t quite say, but he hopes you understand. 

“You trust me, right?” 

“Of course,” you respond instantly, eyes shining so bright.

He swallows, rubbing a thumb along your cheek. “And you’ll let me take care o’ you?”

You lean into his touch, almost shy as you nod. “Yeah. Yes…please.”

And a piece of him breaks off, then. 

Splintered by your soft words, the plea that landed like a hammer on his scuffed lacquer.

One single chip in the barrier, and the beast rises in a crashing escape. 

His lips find yours—messy, needy. 

Wanton greed curls around every cracked rib, reaching out like smoke unfurling. Searching for something to envelop, to take. To take and take and take. Your breath, your taste, you. It wants it all. 

He wants it all. 

The words tumble out too easily. “Such pretty manners, huh?” 

You shudder, hiding your face in the curve of his jaw. 

“Pretty manners in a pretty girl,” he practically purrs, letting his hands slip down your body until his fingers invade the waistband of your pleated skirt. “Gonna let me take care o’ you, hm? Gonna let me get you all nice and ready?”

Your breathy sigh warms his neck as he shimmies the fabric down your legs, laying you back, gently. 

You squirm beneath his gaze, squeezing your thighs together. “Eddie…”

“Shh, patience, pretty,” he murmurs, trailing a finger along your curving terrain until he’s toying with the powder blue fabric. “Gotta be good for me. Think you can do that?”

“Mhm,” you hum, choking on the note as he softly pushes your legs apart. 

“Ohh, look at you…” His eyes darken and he thinks he could get used to this. To seeing you all laid out for him like a meal. A feast that could last him forty days and forty nights. 

You shift, almost imperceptibly, as he drags your panties down, but he noticed. He always does with you. “Be good,” he warns lowly.

“I’m trying.”

Your whine falls to static as he watches a single string of arousal cling to the blue gusset with a fragile strength he aches to snap. 

The trees rustle overhead and the sun peeks through, lending a perfect spotlight to your wet folds, and he groans, pocketing your underwear with little consideration. 

“Fuck, you’re so god damn gorgeous, baby, think I’m losin’ my mind,” he mutters, kneading the fat of your thighs. 

“Eddie,” you call, wiggling into his grip, and he’s never been more certain that you’re a temptress put on this earth to destroy him and everything that he tries to be. Controlled. Polite. Genetlemanly. 

Every stuttering breath, every twitch of your hips, every slow blink—you’re chiseling away at the lacquer, unaware of all that lies beneath.

“Eddie, pl—ease!” 

His middle and ring fingers glide through your folds while his opposite hand holds your hips down as you try to grind onto him. 

“Knew you’d make the prettiest sounds. …Pretty sounds, pretty manners, pretty girl,” he chants the words like a mantra, entranced as he raises his fingers up to watch your arousal glisten in the evening light. “Pretty.”

You whimper, and suddenly it feels like he’s been pulled from the depths as he stares down at your face, pinched in pleasure. You’re waiting as patiently as you can and he has to reward that.

He spreads your folds once more, listening intently as he slips a finger inside. Your broken moan speaks almost directly to his cock, and he can feel a stream of precum soaking his boxers.

You call his name again, your chest moving in perfect time with the pulse of your warm walls. He responds to your plea for more with a second finger, and your nails sink into his wrist. 

“Doin’ so good for me, baby. So good,” he utters restlessly, leaning closer to your soaked cunt. He glances up, notes your closed eyes, and decides to feed the beast. 

With one stolen moment, he breathes deep, cataloguing the scent. Your perfume, your cherry lotion, and now you. The most intimate of all. And he can’t stop now. 

He knows your touch, your heady scent; he wants to know your taste, too. The real thing. Not just your lip gloss or your languid tongue in his mouth. He needs to know you deeply, fervently.

His fingers drag inside you, a slight curl every time you buck your hips. He hears your whines, sees you dripping down his hand, shimmery and inviting. 

Then he pulls out, much to your loud chagrin. And before he can scrounge up any last attempt at control, his fingers are in his mouth and he’s groaning at the taste—so sweet, he could choke. 

“Oh, fuck,” he grumbles, mouth full as you stare at him. He almost feels the need to apologize. He robbed you of the friction you were so desperately seeking just so he could be selfish. Though, he feels like he might never stop being selfish around you, so maybe he’ll allow the precedent.

He’ll blame the beast. It’s not really him. 

It’s not him who wants to drown in you, force you to ride his face until he passes out. It’s not him who wants to leave bite marks along your quivering thighs until salt coats your cheeks and you beg him just to fuck you. 

It’s not him who wants to live in your sweltering heat, carve out a place for himself. Make your walls know the shape of his cock, feel you milk him dry until something takes and you’re his and a part of him is yours.

It’s not him, it’s the rotted want. 

The need that grows hot, like a wound that has festered long enough. A gash you cut into him sometime ago. 

Bleeding for years and he never even knew it. 

The infection has driven him mad. 

But he’s beginning to think maybe you’re suffering just the same. Fevered skin and heavy limbs, weak from the wait. Like him. Withered and hungry. So long watching the have’s, resolved to be a have not— 

“Eddie, please, I need you.” Your hips search for him, for pleasure, for friction, and he drops lower, his breath spreading over your fluttering folds.

“I know, sweets, I know. But I gotta get you all ready, gotta make it good for you,” he whispers, staring as fresh arousal glints in the golden rays. It’s like you’re trying to entice, to coax. 

“‘S already good,” you slur, and it sounds like the words are burning to ash on your tongue. He can feel you overheating. “‘S so good, please, just—”

“Said you trust me, right?” He smooths a hand up your body until he finds your breast, kneading it some more. 

“Yes,” you huff, scooting closer to him. 

He licks his lips, and the lie comes quicker than he’d like. “Just a little bit more. Wanna make sure you’re all re—”

His voice becomes muffled as he presses his face against your cunt like a starved, rabid thing. Your fingers thread deep through his curls—a knee-jerk reaction—and he laps at you with open-mouthed kisses and agonizingly precise flicks of his tongue. 

You squeal and your thighs threaten to close around his head, but his fingers sink into the supple flesh, prying you open as his tongue breaches your slit with pointed thrusts. 

Your back bows, arching high off the table and he pulls you closer to him, finally satisfying what has felt like an insatiable ache. 

Because it’s different with you. He’s never felt this…full. Every pulse, every lewd slurp, fills him; he gorges himself on you. On your taste, on the way your moans crash over themselves like waves trying to drag you both under. 

His fingers slip in once more and your body goes rigid—the perfect picture of marbleized ecstasy. His tongue circles your clit and pleasure carves into your every curve, sculpting a release that courses through you like rolling thunder.

His name dies a thousand times on your parted lips, and your hips begin to flee. 

“O-Oh, God!”

He slows to a stop, smoothing a thumb over your twitching muscles. “Fuck, you taste so good— Knew you would,” he pants, sucking his fingers clean. He settles over you, whispering against your mouth. “Knew you would—”

“Tell me I’m yours.”

It’s sudden. An order.

Every syllable hammers into him, shattering something fragile. Shards of control—of disbelief, of belonging—bite at his skin. He’s paralyzed by it, a nerve punctured somewhere deep inside.

And you look worried, like that simple sentence wasn’t meant to land so heavy, but you don’t take it back. Instead, “Tell me I can be yours.”

He swallows hard, nearly choking on nothing.

He has wanted. Longer than you, he thinks.

But it’s all been in vain. 

Then you show up, move mountains and shift worlds with only your audacious honesty and a quarter of a joint for courage. He could really learn a thing or two from you—

“Yeah,” he whispers, staring into eyes he never thought he’d see this close. “You’re mine.” 

With a shuddering breath and a kiss so gentle, he’s almost certain reality falls away, his mind latches onto the moment your hands blindly find his jeans, urging the material down his thighs. 

He helps you, watching intently as you take him in—all of him—his cock weeping and flexing, reaching for something he never imagined asking for. 

You don’t speak, but he sees a reflection in the shine of your iris. It’s familiar. It commands. It guides as you drag your fingers along corded muscle with a level of reverence that leaves him dizzy. 

Peering down, he holds back every sound, his chest heaving from the marathon of your touch. 

You’re pacing yourself. Exploring—testing, in a way, like you’re figuring out what makes him tick. 

Confidently kneading here, a delicate brush there. 

Sinew twitching, his length jumping, stomach flipping. 

Your nails rake through the dark curls at his navel and you follow the trail until it grows coarse, an observant hum at his body’s reaction. 

“Pretty,” you mutter lowly. 

His frame trembles, the single word falling from your lips like a ton of bricks. 

As your hands wander, you don’t bother with permission and that almost makes him double over. 

There’s no question of can I? There’s only the surety of being yours, like an apodictic artifact you’ve excavated from a shallow grave. 

Because he did lay it to rest. 

So many times. 

Every morning his head lifted from his pillow, he buried it again. Every time your skirt caressed his desk, he threw roses. Every laugh he never caused, he said a prayer. 

But he could not abide an eternity of peace. 

Darkness would fall and he’d dig and dig and dig, the dirt already loose and the trees whispering their greetings. He’d drag up old ghosts—truths only meant for the moon—and dance with them all night. 

Then, like clockwork, golden light would send him reaching for the shovel; the sun would rise and he was resolved to live without. 

Now it’s you who has disturbed the holy ground and it’s freeing. To be exposed. To be known.

Your gaze settles on his face, and he wishes he could understand the thoughts in your mind, the ramblings behind your eyes. 

For a second, he thinks he recognizes the quiet curve of your lips, but—

“So pretty.”

He chokes, his body jerking as your hand circles his cock, firm, yet gentle. Possessive. 

Your unwavering attention and innocent smile turns the blood in his veins molten. His hips buck into your grip, unintentionally coating your soft palm in the sticky precum dribbling from his tip.

“S-Shit, sweetheart—” 

He hunches over, weathered wood scratching against his knees as he tries to warn, to caution you on just how easy he is. How little effort it’d take him to lose it, to let himself fuck your hand like a poor, desperate slip of a thing. 

“I’m ready,” you say, leading him down. “Please.”

He allows your thighs to hitch onto his hips, allows you to hold him, and he allows himself to be this close. To find purchase between your legs, to indulge in the heat of your core. 

He memorizes your features—the determined furrow of your brow, the flutter of your lashes. The version of you before him. 

He so badly wants to tell you what he sees.  

“God, you’re— Fuck!”

Your breath hitches as you press his cock to your folds, and he tries for coherence, but it all falls away when he feels you. Soft and wet and so inviting; you’re killing him slowly. 

“Please, Eddie,” you huff, your hips rolling like you mean to catch him. “Need to feel you, I swear to—”

The sentence shatters on a sharp moan the moment he takes control, letting his length glide against your slit. He’s coated in no time, practically drowning in you, but he doesn’t stop. 

It’s like a trance, the way he moves, watching fresh drops of precum mix with your arousal. He wants to taste that, too. You and him, together. He wants to know. 

You don’t seem to notice his paralysis, instead focusing on bucking your hips just right, and when his tip catches on your entrance, something shocks him into motion. 

Your body wraps around him shallowly, sucking the blunt edge of him in. He doesn’t fight it, doesn’t ignore your babbled pleas for more. 

For once in his life, he allows himself to take. It’s not begrudging permission, not shameful resignation to his more selfish nature. It’s enthusiastic, it’s encouraged, it’s accepted.

He pushes into you slowly, meeting your parted lips with ragged breaths, and your walls cling to him in a joyous welcome. Your pulse drums against his length, squeezing him in a sudden clench; he thinks he mutters advice, something about relaxing, but he’s not sure. 

Reality is bending and he’s thought about this so much, imagined this very moment countless times, and yet, nothing could have prepared him for how your nails take a chunk out of him, how you’re trying with all your might to pull his hips closer, huffing in impatience and cracking under the need.

You’re just like him. 

He hadn’t realized it until now. 

He saw shadows, heard the strain of your voice. 

But he hadn’t looked in your eyes, hadn’t been near enough to hear the call. 

The call of the hungry and withered. Of the wanton and greedy. 

He hears it now. Loud and clear.

Responding in a bellowing groan, he sinks into you fully. His lips flutter over your face, savoring your once-delicate features as they warp in pleasure. 

“F-Fuck! Ed— Eddie, more,” you cry, squirming for friction. 

“More,” he echoes mindlessly, latching onto the order. A real kiss, sweet and loaded like a gun soon to go off, then, “More. The pretty girl wants more— Gets what she wants.”

The words fall from his tongue with little thought—little care. Static whirs in his brain, blocking out everything but you. 

Drawing back steadily, he steals one more glance at you—checking in—then drops down in a sudden snap, guided by your fingers digging into the taut muscle of his ass. 

Sweat beads at his spine as his skin sticks to yours on every impact. His arms hook under your knees, changing the angle just to hear that shrill whine he’s quickly growing addicted to. 

All you manage to say is his name, over and over again like his thrusts are evicting every syllable from your chest. 

The shadows rise, spreading rapidly, and it feels much like possession coursing through him. 

He shudders, his stuttered breaths syncopating with the pulse of your cunt, choking him on every shove in. Your eyes have rolled back now, and your body moves with him, pliant, as if his to mold—to inflict upon, however he sees fit. 

A malleable offering of sheer innocence, laid at his altar. 

And it was your idea. 

The lamb’s idea to come to slaughter. 

“F-Feels good, huh?” he grits, watching you surrender to him so beautifully. 

Your response catches, snagged halfway up your throat, clawed back by a resounding whimper as you nod. 

“Yeah, it feels good,” he parrots, fighting back the raging fire deep in his gut—the one that threatens to engulf you, too. Because he’s not done yet. Not nearly. 

His hips pound into you, cock dragging along your walls at a punishing pace. The beast hums and he smirks as you try to form sentences.

“S-So— Agh! I— Mmmph!”

He nods like he understands every unspoken word. “Now you see why I had to get you all ready? Hm? You were so cute, thinkin’ you could just take it. So brave, comin’ here, all sweet on the freak.”

“Eddie!” 

You have the audacity to paw at him, to pull, to try to meet his strokes in crumbling desperation. He drops your legs, shoving your hands above your head as he presses down onto you, pinning you against the picnic table, the structure rocking with the movement. 

His long, rhythmic thrusts dwindle to swift, sharp ruts, the action bordering on animalistic.

“But now look at you. All mine,” he huffs, dark eyes roving over your trembling body. Then his gaze travels lower, where his cock burrows into you—where you take him so easily, opening up like he said the magic word a thousand times over. “Practically made f’me, fuckin’ look at you. Stretched full and so damn pretty, too. We fit real nice together, don’t we, baby?”

You whine and he maneuvers your wrists into one hand, helping to prop your head up with the other. 

“Look at you,” he repeats, firmer this time. “So wet, you’re drownin’ me, sweetheart.”

Something splinters on your face and he follows your eyeline, notices it fixed on the milky ring that circles the base of his thick shaft and the matted down curls you couldn’t stop admiring earlier. 

“Oh,” he drawls, a wicked, wolfish grin stretching his lips. “You like that?”

You nod and he practically preens. You are just like him. 

“Like seein’ me covered in you? Marked?” 

Your response is nothing more than a brittle whimper and he can feel you clench around him, already so close to falling into the after—the space in time where you will know what it feels like to be thoroughly picked apart, to be undone. By him.

“You’re markin’ me,” he growls into your neck, leaving open mouthed kisses along your jugular, trying not to bite. “Think it’s only fair you let me do the same, hm? What do you say, pretty girl? Gonna let me really fill you up?”

“P-Please! Oh, God, please, Eddie—”

His thumb finds your clit, rubbing tight, practiced circles on the swollen bud and you freeze, arching into his chest, searing your sweat-soaked flesh to his. Your cries fall silent as you gape, convulsing at every third swipe he makes. 

Your walls trap him in a vice grip, fluttering and milking rope after rope of cum from his flexing length. He shivers uncontrollably, feeling his warm spend flood the tight space until it leaks, shoveled out by his now-pitiful ruts. 

He tries to prolong it. Tries to steal the moment from time itself and live in it; play house with the present. But then his body finally gives out, muscles slackening, and your arms are there to catch him, welcoming the iron hold he traps you in.

Raspy whispers are muttered into your neck, tattooed by the heat of his breath; quiet sentiments he’s not certain you hear over the noise of two settling souls. And maybe it’s better that way. Maybe they’re things to hoard—at least for a little while longer. 

He trails kisses up your jaw, blindly searching for your lips, only to find them unresponsive. Worry fills him immediately. 

Maybe he was too rough. He did notice the half-moon marks scattered along your thighs. 

Maybe he was too mouthy. He can never think straight when it comes to you.

Maybe he was just too much— 

“Eddie,” you call gently, pulling him from somewhere deep and dark.

He meets your eyes, surprised to see them wide and wanting, shining with that honest gleam that makes him feel so exposed.

“You are mine.”

So you heard.

He wasn’t cautious and he said the words meant for an empty bedroom out loud. And you heard. 

Your fingers thread through his curls, dragging his wavering attention back to you.

“You are mine,” you repeat, softer but no less confident. 

He wonders how something so delicate could detonate something so sturdy. Years and years of denial, blown to smithereens in three words. 

And you make it look easy. 

Make it sound plausible. 

That he could be yours, just as much as you want to be his.

He nods, hanging onto you like a lifesaver as debris from the wreckage floats by. He swallows and his voice barely forms around the letters, breaking under the weight of it all.

“O-Okay.”

And he surrenders. 

He believes you. 

A/N: For the love of god, please be sweet and talk to me about this fic. I think I looked at it for too long and now I don’t know if it’s maybe the worst thing I’ve ever written or if I’m just too close to it rn, I’m being so for real.

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As much as you tried to do other things on Sunday, your mind somehow drifted back to memories of spring break last year. How he had smiled and waved at you at the end of February--so bashful and shy. At first you couldn’t believe he was waving at you. You ignored him the first time, assuming it was someone behind you. But the second and third time couldn’t be a coincidence. You waved back with uncertainty, hoping you weren’t making a fool of yourself, and his smile grew--dimpling only one cheek. It was then that you noticed he was looking at you, and he was quite cute. 

Within a week he was asking to carry our books as he escorted you to class. He said you had caught his eye. That he knew it was probably out of the blue and weird, but he wanted to get to know you. How could you refuse? No one else had ever shown a romantic interest in you, especially not someone as good looking as him. Not to mention he was on the basketball team and had a lettermen jacket--the same one he draped over your shoulders about a week later. 

A date at the skating rink was something straight out of a movie. Lots of conversation, giggling, and sheepish handholding. He won you a handful of penny candy from one of the claw games and you let him give you a kiss on the cheek goodnight when he took you home. He never sat with you at lunch, saying he didn’t want to subject you to the locker room talk his friends took part in, but he did walk you home from school every day and called you every evening to talk about…everything. His favorite songs, the food he liked to eat, and eventually opened up about the rocky relationship with his parents. And sometimes you would talk about nothing at all. Just sit on the phone and do homework in silence together--enjoying the knowledge that someone else was there. That neither of you were truly alone. 

By the time spring break rolled around, all you wanted to do was be with your new boyfriend. Apparently he felt the same because you spent nearly all day and night together over break. You frequented the arcade, the mall the next town over, and everywhere in between. He was just so sweet. He really looked at you and talked to you. He told you things about himself that he never shared with anyone else. You just couldn’t believe how lucky you were to have the attention of such a great guy. He opened doors for you, let you wear his jacket, and every time he was near you couldn’t help but smile--your stomach as light as air and fluttering without fail. 

It wasn’t long before kisses on the cheek turned to kisses on the lips, and then other places. But he remained respectful when you let him know you weren’t ready for something. He admitted he was a virgin too, the last one on the team, and wanted to give himself to someone special. Someone he cared about. How romantic it was to have your first time ever, much less together, in a boathouse by Lover’s Lake after a moonlight picnic. 

Once wasn’t enough, though. It seemed like that’s all he wanted to do before the end of break. “Since we will only have after school and weekends to see each other. If I can get out of the house,” he had said. It’s not like you minded much. Each time became less uncomfortable and felt better. Besides, you liked being that close with someone. There really was nothing more intimate.

The phone call the night before returning to school was odd. Short, clipped, and distant, Patrick didn’t offer much to the conversation. When you asked him what was on his mind, he said that he was just worried about his midterm grade. His dad wouldn’t take it too kindly if he underperformed again. He hung up within a few minutes, saying he really needed to get some sleep. 

The next morning when you tried to greet him at his locker, he was once again curt. He didn’t escort you to your class or carry your books like he normally did. You assumed he was having an off day, but by lunch you were finding it hard to excuse his behavior. After school, you started walking towards him at his locker. Andy and Jason were with him, but when they saw you approach, a sick grin grew on Andy’s face. 

“Hey, Patch,” he said loudly, making direct eye contact with you. “What’s the difference between a washing machine and a virgin?”

You wrinkled your nose at the brash and inappropriate joke. If this was how his friends talked, no wonder he advised you to stay away during lunch. 

Patrick shrugged, removing the textbooks from his backpack and placing them in his tin cubby. 

Andy delivered the punchline. “A washing machine won’t follow you around for two weeks after you dump a load in!” Andy smacked Patrick and nodded towards you. “Here’s your follower now!”

Blood rushed to your face so quickly your knees wavered at being talked about like this. You hoped that with the announcement of your arrival, Patrick would at least have the decency to look embarrassed or make a show of telling Andy off, but he didn’t. He glanced at you for a second and turned his attention back to his books. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t defend you. He didn’t tell Andy to piss off at all!

You glared at the boy next to you, hoping that if looks could kill he would drop dead at any second. But nothing of the sort happened. Andy kept laughing.

You decided to rip Patrick a new one on the way home. That way you could talk to him without his idiot friends egging him on. Attempting to keep all anger from saturating your voice, you spoke evenly. “Ready to go?”

Andy and Jason couldn’t hold back their giggles--not that they even made an attempt to. Patrick cleared his throat and shrugged, not even giving you the courtesy of speaking directly to your face. “I think you should walk yourself home from now on,” he said. 

Chest tightening, you did your best to ignore the whispering from Patrcik’s two friends. “Any reason why?”

He did look at you then. Well, more like above your head instead of in your eyes. “We had our spring fling. But it’s over now, you know? No need to drag it out anymore.”

Head suddenly swirling, you had to focus on resisting the urge to vomit, swallowing down the burning vile posed at the back of your throat. You wanted to move. To scream and yell at him. To slap him as hard as your strength would allow. To turn and leave. To run as fast as you could and hide from the embarrassment of literally being laughed at to your face, but your legs were cemented in anvils, and your arms wouldn’t budge. 

Jason threw his arm over Patrick’s shoulder, turned him away from you, and led him down the hall. “Good for you. You let her down easy! There’s nothing to feel guilty about!”

You watched as the three sauntered down the hall, leaving you behind to shatter into pieces. Through the tears clouding your vision, you could’ve sworn Patrcik turned back to give you an apologetic look, but there was no way someone capable to use another person the way he did could feel  remorse. 

You cried to Nancy that night, determined to get revenge for making a fool out of you--to smack him on the head with a lunch tray and cause a scene, but Nancy talked you out of it. She reminded you of how things had turned for the worst when the whole thing with Steve Harrington happened. The rumors that still to this day followed her. How Steve and Tommy spraypainted the theater sign calling her a giant slut. She urged you to consider getting quiet revenge instead. You didn’t want to be further embarrassed by being called a crazy psycho slut.

You thought of what Barb might’ve said about the whole thing. She would’ve been so supportive and cheered you on for finally getting out there and she would certainly ask about every single detail of every date. But her outside perspective and protective nature would’ve alerted you to something amiss—something you were too blinded to see yourself. She also would’ve taken revenge with you. Something subtle and unable to be traced back to you—like mailing potatoes to him with no return address. Annoying, confusing, and downright odd. Yeah. That’s what Barb would do.

So you settled for giving his address and phone number to random newsletters, churches, and military recruiting offices that traveled to the school in hopes to ensnare the young men of America. Anytime a telemarketer called your home, you immediately redirected their efforts to the McKinney household. The minor annoyance he and his parents might have felt with Army recruiters and Mormons visiting was nothing compared to the pain and shame you felt for being used and discarded like a soiled rag.

It took a lot of self control on Monday when you saw Patrick in the cafeteria to not shred his face apart with your nails, but you made do. You filled Nancy in on what happened during lunch, trying hard not to send daggers at the back of Patrick’s head. Nancy’s solution was much the same. She advised that you forget about the whole thing and continue to ignore him. You were so close to going off to college and meeting new, better looking boys that in four months time, Patrick McKinney would be nothing but a footnote on the memories of high school. You knew if Barb were here she would say the same thing this time. You were all so close to a new adventure. What was the point of getting riled up over someone who wouldn’t matter in just a few months?

You begrudgingly agreed, but it did nothing to lighten your mood. The anger must’ve been written across your face because Munson gave you a reproachful look in class before taking his seat next to you. 

He held up a small stack of envelopes. “Bills. Curiosity of Albrecht.”

With a scowl still strong on your face from thinking of your ex, you glanced at Munson through your peripheral. 

A curious thought crossed your mind. You wondered if Munson would rough Patrick up a little. For a fee, of course. Or perhaps scare him a little with the witchcraft everyone accused Munson of doing. You could probably snag a hair or two off of Patrick’s shoulder in passing. Or better yet you could get one of Munson’s minions to do it to avoid suspicion—

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Munson asked cautiously. 

“Like what?” you snapped. 

Munson’s eyes narrowed. “Like you’ve got murder on the mind.”

The daydream of getting revenge dissipated like a popped soap bubble. “Not murder exactly. More like battery,” you grumbled, shifting uncomfortably in your seat. 

Munson’s lip curled into a snarl. “Whatever, dude. I haven’t done anything to you.” 

“What? No, not against you, stupid,” you attempted to clarify. 

His cheeks reddened. Voice low and full of venomous warning, he said, “Don’t call me that.”

Your own words thrown back at you stung like a slap across the face. You hadn’t meant that he was actually stupid. Well. Maybe you did. But it was just a slip of the lip. You didn’t mean it too maliciously. Even so, by the firm line his lips were pressed in and the color of his face deepening, you had clearly stepped in it with him again. 

You swallowed your pride and nodded. “Fine. But it wasn’t directed at you. I was just thinking you’d make a great weapon.”

What sounded like a compliment in your head only pissed Munson off further. He folded his arms over his chest and sunk into his desk. Once again no personal stationary in sight. “Whatever beef you have, leave me the hell out of it.”

You rolled your eyes and sighed, silently vowing to yourself to ignore him for the rest of class. Or even better: the rest of your life. 

Mr. Albrecht had given each household a couple of different bills. He went over how to properly balance a checkbook, reviewed how to write a check to mail into the respective companies, and then went on to the most nauseating part thus far of this section: banking. 

Your mind was spinning over the next forty minutes as you tried to comprehend the gobbledygook Mr. Albrecht was spewing. You’d gone over the chapter reading beforehand and wrote the definitions of words you were unfamiliar with, but it did not help your understanding when it came to Mr. Albrecht’s lecture. The smaller things you understood—loans, assets, liabilities, and interest rates—but the concepts of purchase APR, investing, 401k versus a 403b, and bonds was like trying to understand Chinese upside down and backwards. 

You weren’t the only one lost. Everyone seemed to have their palms against their temples in an effort to shove the information into their brain over the three days of information overload. Except for Munson, of course. He spent most of his time launching his pen towards the ceiling in an attempt to lodge it into the tiled fiberglass. 

Albrecht may have been able to ignore the loud thunk of the pen whacking the ceiling and the annoying clatter of the plastic hitting Munson’s desk, but you couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Would you knock it off?” you hissed. “It’s annoying!”

Munson let out an exaggerated groan and flopped his head atop his desk—his long frizzy hair sprawled all over like a mop. “It’s all bullshit anyway,” he sighed from beneath the wild brush. “Can’t trust the banks.”

“Why? Are they out to get you, too?” 

Munson slowly sat up, glaring at you as his hair fell away from his face to reveal it. Maintaining eye contact with you, he raised his hand. 

Albrecht paused his speech. “No, you may not go to the bathroom. Hand down.”

“I have a question,” he informed the teacher. 

“Ask your partner and try to listen. Anyway, usually after a three year period with certain companies, you’ll become what’s called ‘vested’—“

Munson blurted his question out anyway. “Is it true that during the depression people only got ten cents to every dollar they had in their account  because the banks were out of cash?”

Albrecht sighed with exasperation. “This isn’t history class, Munson.”

“How can you tell us to invest and whatever when millions of Americans were screwed out of their hard earned money by the banks? Not just investors but your everyday average joe, wasn’t it?”

“Wait, is that really what happened?” Winney piped up. 

“Banks can run out of money?” Andy Dixon questioned. 

An immediate flurry of questions started to spread across the class. Albrecht’s eye twitched in tune with the clench of his jaw. “What are you trying to do here?”

Munson shrugged. “I just don’t see how we can be expected to trust putting our money where we can’t see it. Banks. 401k. Seems pretty ridiculous.”

Nancy was the one to speak up. “Some of us have heard of the New Deal.”

“Yes, thank you Ms. Wheeler,” Albrecht said. “After the stock market crash of 1929–which Munson is referring to—by the way, a shame to see you awake for once. After the crash, the New Deal was put in place which put forth regulations to prevent another collapse from happening again.”

Albrecht went into an annoyingly detailed answer about the FDIC, the SEC, the emergency banking act of 1933, and a slew of other abbreviated names that put most of the class to sleep. You had stopped following along a while ago, sneering at Munson’s profile while he stared down Albrecht, seemingly hanging on to every word. When Albrecht finished his monologue, Munson simply hummed. 

“So you’re saying another crash like that—banks running out of money—it’s impossible? It’ll never happen again?”

“Never,” Albrecht answered firmly. “Next time try not to derail my class with this nonsense.” Albrecht resumed teaching while you lashed out at the annoyance next to you. 

“Do you ever get tired of being such a combative asshole?” you scoffed.

Munson smirked. “Nope. Say what you want about me but I’ll never be dumb enough to put my money in the bank.”

“Then I guess you’ll just be easier to rob,” you answered smartly. 

Munson did not acknowledge your existence for the rest of the day, or the day after that. In fact, when he decided to recognize your presence it turned out to be far more embarrassing than you anticipated. 

Instead of sitting beside you, Munson turned his desk to connect to yours at the side for the in-class assignment. You were supposed to create a paystub from your ‘job’ based on the example given in the textbook and the metrics for tax withholding and other deductions like health insurance on the board.

Munson leaned over, his long frizzy hair draping across the fake check you were trying to write. 

“Health insurance is a scam,” he announced.

As much as it went against every fiber of your being to just stay quiet, you did. You discovered quickly there was no use arguing with him about this class. It would only lead to long winded rambling that sounded like the manifesto of a state psychiatric patient.

You slapped the encroaching curtain of his hair from your field of vision. You were just about sick of him. “Yes, Munson. Health insurance. The banks. The moon landing. It’s all a big fat scam to get the million dollars that’s stuffed in your mattress,” you deadpanned. 

He sat back in seat. “If we really went to the moon how come no one else has done it? You’re telling me the Russians would pass up a chance to show us that they could do it? They just gave up and said ‘if we’re not number one we just won’t try’? And why haven’t we been back, huh? If America really went to the moon, we’d have a constant presence. Probably even military. No, definitely military. Not just the flag. Especially in damn near twenty years? It’s fake. We never went.”

You already heard his opinion on the matter at lunch today, much against your will. Once again his shrill voice was ringing through the cafeteria as he debated Dustin Henderson about the validity of the 1969 moon landing. Dustin Henderson was on the side of science, technology, and the desire to make Star Trek a reality while Munson was spewing—as usual—conspiracy and government cover up.

You hummed a sarcastic “mhm” and kept working on your paystub. You suggested Munson do the same since he was worth fifty percent credit. He signed heavily and quickly began scribbling with more noise than you thought possible to come from a standard number two pencil. Why was everything he did so freaking loud? 

He slammed his pencil down within a few minutes and clasped his hands behind his head. Doubting that he was done already, you took a peak at his barely legible chicken scratch. 

“You didn’t put any kind of deductions on here,” you frowned. 

“Why would I? You’re the one that’s gonna pay for insurance.”

You scoffed. “Oh, is that so?”

Munson gaped at you as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. “Uh, yeah? You’re the one making all the big bucks. You have the funds to put me on your insurance if you insist. I’m fine without it.”

It was like he was purposely trying to irritate you, but you were adamant that you wouldn’t bicker with him (at least not a lot) today. So you just mumbled an annoyed ‘fine’ and left it at that. So long as he had something to turn in, whatever. You could notate his insistence to Albrecht. Unfortunately it did make sense since you made twice his annual salary. 

Seemingly bored with your lack of reaction to him, he pressed onward. “What job do you have that rakes in that much money anyway?”

What a jerk. He hadn’t even asked until now what your portion of the project was about. You wanted to tell him the worry about his own portion and bring at least a notebook to class once in a while, but you held strong. “Lawyer,” you answered calmly.

Munson’s grimace deepened. “I suppose it’d be too good to be true to guess you were a public defender.”

“You would be correct. I am not interested in criminal law.”

“Oh god. It’s not something boring like tax law, is it?” 

Even the hairs on your arms were starting to prickle with irritation. “No, not tax law.”

Munson waited for you to continue, but you pretended to not notice and calculated the unfortunate reality that to provide yourself and a spouse on health insurance with Albrecht’s metric, you would be spending a theoretical $120 a month, not including vision or dental. That was the most expensive bill to date since you hadn’t bought a house yet. 

“Well don’t keep me in suspense, Princess. What kind of law are we talking about?” Munson pressed. 

God he was irritating when you were trying to think. Trying to figure out what 7.5% of your bi-weekly earnings with him gabbing in your ear was a lot harder. So you gave up trying to punch numbers in your calculator and gave him just a fraction of your attention. 

“Wrongful death,” you answered flatly. “It’s a subspecialty within personal injury."

Munson’s brow lifted, his grimace morphing into an expression of intrigue. “Wow. Sounds fancy. So are you the one protecting these multimillion dollar companies that work their employees into the grave or are you seeking justice for the families?”

Your throat started to tighten at the thought of Mr. and Mrs. Holland. You wondered where they were now. After the lab took responsibility for Barb’s death, they sold their house and used their money to travel, leaving behind the memories that were too painful to face everyday. You didn’t blame them for leaving. It must’ve been hard to watch the people their daughter went to school with get older while their little girl remained forever sixteen. Sometimes it haunted you, too—when you caught yourself no longer able to associate her with a place immediately. It was like you were forgetting her, too. Just like everyone else did. Valentine’s Day made it clear just how much you had moved on without realizing it.  

Whether it be from being so angry over Patrick the last few days, irritated with the reality of the current project you were assigned, or the guilt of living your life without thinking of your late friend; tears started to blur your vision. 

You tried to gulp down the knot solidifying on your throat. “The families,” you managed to squeak out. “They’re the ones who need someone to help them.”

You didn’t like the way Munson was looking at you. His usual abrasive sneer or taunting smug smirk wasn’t there. Instead, he appeared quite quizzical. Scanning your face with his brown eyes narrowed in suspicion, head tilted slightly to the side. 

“Color me surprised,” he said. “I figured you’d be working for the man.”

You only had the will power to hold back one thing at a time: tears or a snarky reply. Nose stinging with unshed tears, the latter won. 

“That’s because you don’t know anything about me either!” you snapped. 

A few people nearby peered over their shoulder in your direction to find out the source of the noise, but once they realized it was an outburst aimed at the class irritant, they quickly abandoned interest. 

Munson closed his eyes and sighed heavily. “I didn’t until now. But I just remembered who you are.”

Lancing the hurt with a vicious reply didn’t keep the teardrops from escaping the refuge of your eyes. You tried to wipe away the wetness from cheeks before they could roll any further, but it was too late—they’d already started, and the more you tried to hold them in, the faster they fell. In vain, you kept swiping them away. 

“I doubt that very much,” you said angrily. 

His eyes drooped with sadness. “She was your friend. The girl that was killed. The redhead.”

Agony whirled through your veins so fast—your stomach lurched like a punch landed right through it. You wanted to yell at him. To tell him to SHUT UP! He knew nothing about it! He didn’t even know her name! He called her the redhead. The girl that was killed. He didn’t remember her name. 

But you just couldn’t do it. Munson’s usual snarl was replaced with something else--something softer--and you couldn’t stand to see the pity. Instead of screaming at him and smacking his pale cheek with enough force to cut it open, you hid your face behind your hands in an attempt to conceal the ugly face you were surely making—snot nosed and twisted--and wept. You didn’t want to, but you couldn’t stop it. No matter how much air you tried to gulp to steady your breathing, no matter how hard you squeezed your eyes shut to stop the trail of tears, noisy sobs wracked through you in spite of every effort. 

“Damn it, Munson, another one?” Albrecht barked from across the room.

“Don’t look at me, I didn’t do it. Must be that time of the month,” Munson replied. “You know how they get.”

That got you to remove your hands from your face. “Oh, you are such a shit!” you yelled, hastily wiping the wetness from your nose and cheeks with your sleeve. If there wasn’t so much of it to get rid of, you probably would have clocked Munson across the face right then.

Albrecht winced at the sight of you. “Spare us the commentary and--I don’t know--take her to the nurse’s office or something.”

You didn’t care that everyone was staring at you or that Nancy was standing from her desk to get to you. She was the last person you wanted to talk to right now. You didn’t want to talk to anyone. Just get away. Far away. You crammed the things from your desk unceremoniously in your bag and sprinted out of the door, pencils and wrinkled paper dropping behind you as you took off.

You ignored the call of your name down the hallway until your backpack was almost ripped from your grasp. You yanked it away until you realized it was Munson. Then you thought it had better use as a weapon and slung it right at his head like a hammer.

“That time of the month?!” you shouted through sobs, angry that he blocked your clean head shot by grabbing the bag midair. 

“Hey—hey!” he yelled, pulling on the bag as you tried to yank it from him, but he was too strong and kept his grip firm. “I was trying to get us a cover. Nothing makes Albrecht squirm like women troubles. Relax, alright? Take a breath.”

The natural response to Munson telling you to do something was to do the exact opposite, but you were already struggling for air between the harsh hiccups and sniffling. So you did as he said and mimicked the deep breathing he modeled for you until the hiccups stopped. 

“Better.” He took the things you dropped on your way out from beneath his arm and stuffed them into your open bag before zipping it up. “Let’s get out of here.” 

You watched him through the blur of hot tears that still bloomed as he held the bag out to you. “And go where?” you whimpered pathetically. 

Munson scoffed as if you asked him something stupid. “Anywhere. We just scored the rest of the day off. Waste it if you want to, but I’m going home.”

Carefully, as if not to spook him, you took it and slipped your arms through the straps. “Thanks.”  

You went to the bathroom to wash your face and regain some dignity and composure. Of all people, you had to fall apart in front of Eddie Munson. But what was more surprising is that he wasn’t being a total dick about it. You would’ve thought he’d try to jar your tears and mock you the entire time. Everyone warned you about him—how he was dangerous and could hurt you—but you never expected him to be so…not an asshole when the opportunity presented itself. 

You weren’t sure what to do or where to go now. You could just ride your bike home and call it a day. Curl up in bed and let out all the anger and hurt you’d let fester for far too long. Maybe even get a fried pie from The Nut House on the way home to eat for recovery.

Munson had other ideas. You were surprised to see him still standing in the hall waiting for you. “Took you long enough,” he muttered. 

You tugged the hem of your shirt down uncomfortably. “I thought you left.”

The softness and pity had evaporated from Munson’s face without a trace. “I’m trying to. Let’s go.”

You wrinkled your nose in confusion. “You’re taking me home?”

He stared at you blankly. “Is that where you want to go?”

No. Not really. Sitting in a house alone with nothing but dust and guilt for company wasn’t very appealing. But neither was an afternoon with Munson if you were being honest. Patrick’s warning rang loud in your head—how Eddie could seriously hurt you—but as you looked into Munson’s bright, shiny umber eyes, there was no malice there. He looked as genuine as you’d ever seen. 

It could’ve been a ploy to get you to trust him. Still, he was company. Another living soul. A warm body to sit next to while you waited for school to officially let out. Patrick didn’t offer that, and you didn’t want to talk about Barb with Nancy. Resentment bubbled to the surface every time the subject was brought up and you’d rather avoid another fight. Munson was as good as it was gonna get for today. 

You shook your head no, you did not want to go home.  

He nodded firmly. “Thought not. You ride your bike here?”

You nodded, quietly thankful for the implied invitation. He motioned for you to head towards the exit and followed behind you. Fortunately he let you unlock the padlock with your key instead of picking it like last time, and wordlessly put it in the back of his van. 

It was difficult not to feel awkward. The vehicle was playing another song that sounded like it opened the portal of hell but this time at a tolerable volume. Neither of you spoke. Munson rapped his hands on the steering wheel to the cacophony of the radio while you rested your head against the window trying to claw your way out of the depth of sorrow. 

Hawkins could be pretty if one was only passing through. Tall trees surround the area in dense forests. Cute little homes sprinkled through the gaps in the brush. Main Street was quaint with the Ma & Pa stores kept in the family for generations. It probably looked like a nice, sweet little place to live for someone who wasn’t attuned to the darkness that lurked in the shadows. 

Munson pulled into The Standard parking lot. “My uncle usually sleeps until three o’clock so my place is kind of off limits right now. If you got any other ideas I’d love to hear them.”

There were some other places you could think of, but if you saw someone you weren’t supposed to while skipping class, your parents would surely find out. The curse of a small town was nosy, gossipy, neighbors always looking for someone or something to talk about. The last thing you wanted to do was give them ammunition to do so. 

“It’s fine,” you muttered. “Probably shouldn't sit right in front of the window.”

Munson held open the door for you—another weird and out of character action that earned a grimace of confusion from you—and asked at you wanted to eat and drink. You told him you weren’t really in the mood for snacks and sat in the last booth before the deli. It gave you a view out of the window, but no one could see you unless they walked in and looked right at you—the perfect vantage point. 

The clerk from last weekend was there, eyeing you over the rim of her beaded glasses perched atop her nose. Her nails were a vibrant magenta this time instead of red, pinching a cigarette between them.

”You know the rules,” she said sternly. “Buy or move on.”

Munson poked his head over one of the isles. “Don’t worry, Jeanine, I’m getting it.”

This seemed to pacify Jeanine, but only a little. Inhaling from the end of her cigarette, she let her narrow eyes roam over your face. You shifted uncomfortably under her judging gaze, not really sure why she was looking at you with such suspicion. The only thing that stopped her was Munson standing directly in her line of sight, his arms full of crinkling packaging. 

When he joined you, he laid down an array of food and tin cans in front of you. Chips, candy, bean dip, coffee, cola, and two hot pretzels from the rotating hot rack with packets of mustard and cheese sauce. He must’ve noticed your wide eyes and shrugged when he slid into the booth. 

“Didn’t know what you liked so I got a little of everything,” he answered, fishing for something in the breast pocket of his leather jacket. He peaked over his shoulder to make sure the store was empty before tossing a small stack of cards onto the table. 

Pull tabs.

You quickly covered them with your hand and slid them into your lap. “What do I owe you?”

Munson waved you off dismissively. “What kind of asshole would I be taking money from a crying chick?”

You gave him a sneer that was almost playful. “I’m not crying anymore.”

He hummed, rubbing the butt of a cigarette against his bottom lip before committing to light it. It really was unfair for him to have such nice, supple lips for a man. The sight of them moving pulled you from your thoughts.

”So you’re pursuing a career in wrongful death law to avenge your friend,” he began. “That’s pretty badass.”

You hadn’t thought of it as avenging Barb, more as doing it in her name—in her memory. You explained this to Munon, kind of unnerved at how his eyes bore into yours with such intensity as you spoke. You were used to him sneering, snoring, and scoffing—not so much having his interest and attention.

”Not just for her, but I watched what her parents went through,” you explained sadly. “They had so much hope she would be found and when Will Byers came back, it just solidified their wish. They spent so much money on private investigators, missing posters, gas driving all the way to Chicago and searching the highway fields in between.” The tip of your nose started to sting again, warning that tears were on their way again. “It was…awful. Awful watching them fret when the lab knew Barb was gone. They killed her, hid her body, and covered it up like spilled milk. They let her parents, her friends, me—they let all of us suffer every day with the unknown and false hope until those tapes came out. They only acknowledged it because they were caught. Not because it was the right thing to do.” 

You grabbed one of the napkins from the dispenser and held it against your closed eyes in an effort to absorb the overflow. “No one should be allowed to do that. To get away with such a thing. To make anyone live the rest of their lives without answers or closure. If I can save anyone from feeling like that ever again, I will.”

Sniffling and choking back the sadness, you cleared your throat and promised you weren’t going to break down again. It was just hard to talk about.

”They took me down to the station for that, you know?” Munson said, taking a quick puff. 

“They thought you did something to Barb?” you asked. “Why?”

Munson scoffed. “Cause of who I am. Who my dad is. I told them I didn’t even know her outside of an art class, but they were insistent that I had something to do with it. Held me at the station for hours. The only thing that got me out of that was my friend Barry getting film developed of us down at the quarry. They tried to say the time stamp was fake, but without any other evidence and with people corroborating my alibi, they had to let me go.”

Shoulders slumped in thought, you weren’t really sure what to say. You didn’t know they had suspects besides Steve and Tommy, who were let go almost immediately. Vandalism and arson was the only thing you knew Munson to be accused of, but those weren’t a pattern that could lead to something like kidnapping and/or murder. 

“Barb was with Nancy at Steve Harrington’s house when she went missing,” you recalled. “Why would you be anywhere near there?”

He chuckled, taping the ash of his shrinking cigarette against the glass ashtray. “Right? I was at the quarry throwing M80s off the cliff. I think the baby cops just wanted to seem like they were doing something. Hopper knew I hadn’t done it. He dismissed me as soon as he came into the station.”

Munson pulled his wallet from his pocket, the heavy chain clinking loudly against the resin of the booth. He pulled out a small wallet size photo and slid it across the table. It was of him and a few other guys looking in a different direction making faces. He pointed at the larger boy with thick curly black hair. “Do you remember him?”

You maybe had seen him once or twice in the hallway, but not in a long time. When you told Munson this, he sighed heavily and turned the photo back to face him, staring down at it with defeat written all over his face. 

“You could say that’s my Barb,” he said morosely. “Barry Berman. Died in the Starcourt Mall fire on Fourth of July.”

You inhaled a great breath, understanding finally clicking in place. By the look of their playfulness in the photo, Barry was a great friend. Come to think of it, wasn’t that the same guy that had obtained proof to get him out of jail for Barb’s disappearance? That’s why Munson was being so kind to you. He had lost someone, too. 

He sniffled, quickly placing the photo back into his wallet and shoving it into his pocket. “I thought they were gonna try and pin that on me, too, but I never got picked up for it. I didn’t, by the way—“ he added hastily, snubbing out his cigarette. “But I know for damn sure it wasn’t a fire that took Barry.”

You leaned forward with interest ”What makes you say that?”

“I was with him that night. We were all eating hotdogs and blowing stuff up in the field behind my place. Then all of the sudden he was gone,” Munson answered. “He just disappeared. We thought maybe he had a case of the runs and went home—too embarrassed to tell us or didn’t have time before he shit himself—but then it turns out he died in a mall fire a couple hours later? The mall was closed. What was he doing there? He was with us chowin down dogs and playin Roman Candle Dodgeball. He wasn’t at the fucking mall.”

The newscast had said that the mall was closed when it went up in flames, caused by an electrical conduit error, and that the thirty people inside who were killed were employees or first responders that were first on scene. Munson insisted that Barry had no business being there at all, much less after hours. 

That’s when people started moving. The lab leak and then the mall fire? Someone was cutting corners in Hawkins and they didn’t seem to care who they took out. Quite a few families weren’t keen on staying in a town who’s mayor let those kinds of things slide. 

”What do you think happened?” You questioned.

“Don’t know. But I would suspect another cover up. Another wrongful death. Thirty wrongful deaths.” Munson grabbed a pretzel and ripped it with his teeth—the frustration apparent as he chewed angrily, deep in thought. “None of it adds up.”

Normally you wouldn’t have put much stock into Munson’s theories, but he did have a point. If he was with his friend who suddenly disappeared only to be found in a closed facility where he didn’t work…well that didn’t make sense either.

Munson’s brow furrowed. “That's why I don’t let any of my friends walk alone anymore. I should’ve been there for him. I won’t let it happen again.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” you replied honestly. “Like you said, you thought it was an emergency bathroom trip.”

”My point is—,” he said through a mouthful of bread. “You're not the only one who’s lost a friend.”

He must’ve heard how rude his tone was or maybe it was the shock written across your face that had him backtracking. “No, not like that. I mean I know that it fuckin sucks. Some days are worse than others. But then some days aren’t bad at all, and that’s when you realize fuck. I forgot. Just for a second I was enjoying myself.”

Your posture straightened. “I know Barb wouldn’t have wanted me to just sulk and give up living my life, but I feel guilty when I do. As if I’m forgetting her—like you said—or disrespecting her somehow because I’m here and she’s not.”

A confession hurled it way from behind your lips. “I forgot to visit her grave for her birthday this year and I just—how could I do that? How could I forget her like that?” Damn those pesky teardrops forming. This was something you hoped to take to your own grave because you felt so terrible about it. But if anyone could understand, maybe it was Munson. “What was I doing instead of visiting her? It wasn’t important. But I forgot. Sometimes I feel as if I’m the only one who does remember her, so if I forget, then she really is gone. I can’t do that to her. She wouldn’t forget me.”

Munson nodded along, swallowing the chewed bit of pretzel. “I know exactly what you mean. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. If Barry saw me moping and wasting the life I have mourning the loss of his, he’d kick my ass. Tell me to quit being a pussy and go live life for him. And I try. But there are days where the guilt of being here without him…lets just say I didn’t know rock bottom had a trap door till he was gone.”

You rested your elbows on the table, placing your cheek against knuckles. That was the perfect way to describe it--the weight of one’s heart so heavy with despair it dragged it’s owner through depths previously unimaginable. “You really do get it,” you said softly. 

Munson lowered his head, hiding beneath the curtain of his hair. “I wish I didn’t.”

He sniffled loudly and quickly dropped his pretzel, saying he needed to go wash his hands really quick, but you knew that was just a ruse. He, like you, needed a minute to clean the leaking wound before patching it up again. So while he was gone, you let the sobs claim you once again.

Jeanine poked your shoulder sharply. Startled by her sudden presence, you wiped away the evidence of melancholy and snot before looking up at her. 

“Do I need to whack him upside the head?” She asked viciously, pointing towards the bathroom door Munson disappeared through. “Cause I will and I won’t feel a bit bad about it.”

”Wha—Oh—no,” you answered with a watery chuckle. “No, we were just talking about the mall fire and our friends that…passed.”

She hummed and let out a soft sigh. “I’m sorry to hear that, hun. Eat,” she picked up the untouched pretzel and held it in front of your nose. “Can’t cry while you’re chewing. They’re only good when they’re hot anyway.”

You doubted they were good at all with the sheen of grease glistening atop the shaped bread. Still, you were a little afraid of the woman, so you did as she said. Taking the pretzel from her grasp, you nibbled a small corner piece. It wasn’t bad. Actually, it was pretty good. Crispy on the outside from being in the rack too long, but soft and fluffy on the inside with large salt flecks on it. Without hesitating, you took a bigger bite, ignoring the grease smearing across your lips as you chewed the warm food.

Jenine patted your shoulder. “That’s it, sugar. Don’t forget to open your tabs. You’ll wanna turn them in if you won.”

With a half eaten pretzel in one hand, you halved the six cards to give three to Munson. He did pay for them after all and should get a chance to win something. He disagreed when he returned from the bathroom, but at your insistence he completed his share. He won a whole quarter back, while you were lucky enough to win three whole dollars. 

“How the hell do you do that?” He frowned. 

You shrugged, a small smile playing at the corner of your lips. “I don’t know. Beginners luck, I guess. I’ll take a dollar of my winnings and get us each a couple twenty-five cent tabs. You can try again.”

Munson smiled—the first smile you had seen that was genuine and made his eyes crinkle—no shadow of sarcasm or cruelty behind them for once. He even had dimples on both of his cheeks. He looked much nicer when he smiled.

“Yeah, alright. That sounds fine to me,” he said.

You approached Jenine and traded the paper for winnings and more tabs. Looking over your shoulder, you watched the back of Munson’s head as he cracked opened a can of coke. Maybe the people of Hawkins did have a reason to fear him—he was abrasive, belligerent, annoying, insane, and all around rude, but he was also hurting. He was missing someone who was gone too soon. Someone he should’ve been with when they disappeared. He, too, was haunted by someone he loved and missed. Eddie Munson, for all the unsavory things that he was, could understand you in a way that others couldn’t. 

Suddenly you weren’t alone in your grief and guilt, and for the first time in a long time, it felt great to not be alone. Munson wasn’t yet a friend, but he was no longer an adversary. He’d been promoted to a headache inducing acquaintance for now.

Jeanine counted your dollar bills aloud. You pushed two back towards her. “I’ll take four more quarter tabs, please. Oh, and can I get another pretzel?”

——

Part Five: Due ~1/3/25

If I missed tagging you, it’s not a slight! I just need a gentle reminder. 🫡

The basement was steamy, and not in a ‘oh it’s a little warm in here but more like, every single person is drunk off their ass and the walls are sweating’kind of way.

College was everything you’d hoped it to be and more.

Your roommate, Kenzie was the type of girl who had an ‘open closet’ policy letting you wear her clothes almost more than your own. You weren’t too keen on sharing a dorm room with a girl you’ve never met before, but thankfully—you had gotten lucky. 

You had heard the horror stories from your older sister about her terrible roommate freshman year and you worried for most of the summer that you’d strike the same type of fortune. It wasn’t until you got a friend request on Facebook and a cheery little message : 

[Kenzie Walmen 2:07 PM: heyyyy roomie (;] 

that you knew you had nothing to worry about. 

She was from the west coast in sunny California, that bright western sky seeped deep into her personality. Kenz was sun kissed and bright haired, pretty ocean dipped eyes to give her the All-American type of aesthetic that most girls wished for. And maybe it was her laid back disposition, or her thrill for living it up and every hour of the day— that landed you here tonight at Delta Kappa Sigma. 

It wasn’t your scene.

You weren’t shy or new to getting drunk, you had even been so brave to take the occasional hit from a homemade bong in your neighbors dorm a few times, but the frat parties were known for their out of control Project X style of getting shitfaced. 

And something about guys with too much testosterone and too much Adidas cologne made your skin crawl and not in a good way. 

“Prints always look weird on me,” you grumble into the mirror eyeing your curves in a leopard lace tank top and black skirt, “is it too much?” 

Kenzie adjusts her off-the-shoulder top, adding a bit of shimmer powder to her exposed shoulder, “absolutely not, if anything it’s not enough.” Neon feathers decorate her bouncy curled hair as she eyes you in the mirror, “add that silver chunky necklace, and you’ll look bomb.” 

She was right, the necklace really pulled the entire look together, and if it were Halloween weekend you could even pass as a Spice Girl or maybe Snookie. 

“Sooo, is Steve gonna be there tonight?” You ask elongating the vowels in the aforementioned name, followed by some kissy faces and porn worthy moans. 

Kenzie rolls her eyes, a dusting of pink warming her cheeks, “yeah… about that. He said he has a “surprise” for me when I get there, so if I disappear, I’m just with him, okay?” 

“Wait wait wait—” you protest, holding a death grip clutch on a bottle of UV blue. “We aren’t even at the party yet and you’re already planning on ditching me?” 

— 

And that’s what got you here, a little more than drunk, holding a piss warm Green apple flavored Four Loko to your mouth, leaning against the corner basement wall in hopes to maybe disappear, wishing you were anywhere but in this cesspool of basement. 

The “DJ” (a frat guy wearing neon glasses with bars across them, scrolling through an ipod and a playlist more than likely named ‘Get Crunk’) was playing Kid Cudi, again. Everyone was screaming along to the chorus like he personally wrote it for them and their experience at college. A headache was brewing behind your eyes as the beat thumped loudly into your chest and radiated to your temples. 

Kenzie left almost immediately upon arriving. Swooped up and tossed over the broad shoulder of Steve the minute he answered the door. You laughed and shook your head, imagining how she was probably face down in navy cum stained sheets by now. 

The hours she spent on her hair and makeup went to waste, only being seen by the dead catalog eyes of Playboy’s finest from their pinned positions on the walls of Steve’s shared bedroom. 

Another sip from the overly carbonated beverage has you shuddering, the fiery ripple of fruit flavored [vomit] alcohol scouring through you like lava, causing your face to screw into a disgusted look.

How can people drink this shit? 

Your bladder screams at you to break the seal, demanding to find relief, immediately. The black lights were zero help in disguising if there were any doors that might lead into a bathroom. Pushing from the wall and taking the last hot sip from your drink, you navigate your way to the stairs. 

A table holding lone solo cups in formation from a forgotten beer pong game is now the proud owner of your empty can.

Weaving through the jungle of fist pumping douchelords and tipsy sorority girls making out for risqué facebook pics labeled [*~Freshman Y3ar!~*] you finally emerge from the sweaty pits of fraternity hell and climb the beer stained steps to the main floor. 

The monotonous beat from the music thumped a little less loudly up here, as if the noise was absorbed by the maroon colored carpeting and the oak cabinets in the foyer. 

The house was dated, decorated with a clash of orangey dark wood mixed with emeralds, dark reds and gold. As if this house was based out of Tuscany instead of midwest nowhere— complete with the rubbery fake fruit and vines that stood solely to collect dust. 

You had never been here before and didn’t know where in the hell to start looking to find the bathroom, and like Alice, you figured you might as well try every door knob in this type of Wonderland. 

The first door you peeked into looked like it was a formal dining room, but instead sat a television on the great oval table blasting obnoxiously loud as a pornstar moaned ripples of “pleasure” through her pink pout. Above her was an extremely tanned guy rocking a set of hard abs, thrusting in a slow rhythm that didn’t match her orgasm. 

A snicker slips from your lips and you gently pull the door closed with a small click, loud whoops and whistling from what you could only assume were a couple of frat guys erupt behind the door.

Watching porn together. 

You’ll have to add that to your growing list of things you didn’t know about the brotherhood behind a fraternity. 

The second door looked more hopeful as it was adjacent to the kitchen area. Upon nearly peeing down your leg, you were shocked stupid when you yanked the door open to find a closet housed with cleaning supplies. 

What the fuck? 

How could a frat house not have a bathroom? 

Your bladder squeezed in on itself and you were certain you couldn’t hold it any longer. Just short of giving up on this quest of relief and going back to your dorm, a gaggle of girls run down the steps leading to the top floor, where you could only assume the bedrooms were. 

“…why are frat bathrooms always so fucking dirty?!” 

Bingo.

Hustling up the never ending carpeted stairs, your bladder was on the brink of exploding as you shoved past a wooden door with a paper sign that read, “no jerking off in the shower!! pipes are clogged!” 

Your sandals clapped along the sea foam tiles floors as you slipped into one of the many metal stall doors. With a swift hike of your skirt up to your middle and pull of your panties, you were finally able to pee. 

A choir of angels sang the HallelujahHallelejuah chorus as you went and you sighed in relief that you had made it. 

“..yeah yeah, okay asshole,” a loud voice sounded from just outside the bathroom door frame, “you still owe me from last time,” the voice now echoed as it hit against the tiles and cement block walls, “no, payment is cold hard cash buddy, I don’t care if you have to dip into your trust fund.”  

A pair of black docs stomp into the tiled bathroom, nearing the stall you were in. There's no way he’ll come to this stall. 

“Tell daddy that you need more money for polos or Jordan’s— I really don’t give a fuck, but you need to pay the fuck up.” 

But as fate would have it…and in your hurry to get to the toilet before pissing all over yourself… and forgetting to lock the door in your haste… the stall door swings wide open— revealing a very bottomless you, to a pair of very wide dark, deer-in-the-headlight eyes. 

A beat that feels like an eternity passes, his hand is choked against his belt in a yank to unthread it, his phone wedged between his shoulder and ear. Your hands fly to cover yourself the best you can, panties still at your ankles, skirt still around your midsection. 

It’s all yells and screams with this random guy stumbling over himself dropping his phone on the ground and spewing, “Shit! Sorry! Sorry!” and you yelling for him to shut the fucking door already. 

His apologies don’t stop as he pulls the door closed, and from the other side of it as you pull up your underwear and adjust your skirt. 

“I swear! I didn’t think anyone was in there! I promise!” 

Your face burns in embarrassment as you contemplate melting into the floor and becoming one with the poorly aimed piss stains and the dirty grout. As good as that sounds you still have to leave, you still have to pass the guy who just saw your bare vag and you still have to navigate your way out of here. 

His phone lays face down on the floor, and you pray it isn’t broken for his sake. You pick it up, flipping it over to see that it scathed by with just a fine crack from one corner to another. His screen saver is a picture of a group of guys in a skatepark in the dark, smoke billowing thickly to cover their faces as they stand on the boards, the one with dark longer hair is shirtless, and painted with tattoos. 

“Shit,” you breathe quietly, “your phone is cracked.” 

You can see the shadows of his feet pacing back and forth but when you speak they stop, “oh..,” he mumbles, clearing his throat a bit, “umm, yeah, no biggie it was broke like that already.” 

“You sure?” 

“Yeah— hey, if you wanna slide that under the door I can um, let you ..ahem.. finish up in there.” 

Shit. Duh he needed his phone, and you were just holding it hostage in here as your shame hung thickly in the air. God this might really couldn’t get any fucking worse.

A deep breath in through your nose, you fake a mask of confidence and open the stall door. 

You hadn’t gotten a good look at him when he barged in on you, but now in the fluorescent dust covered light you dared to look a little longer at him. 

Long locks of honeyed brown locks fell onto the tops of his shoulders, covered with a green plaid flannel that hung open showing his neck and a flick of dark lines from a tattoo hidden under a black band tank top. His eyes were just as brown, round and flocked with a grove of thick lashes. Clearly he was the shirtless one in his background picture. 

He smiled sheepishly, pulling his jaw taunt as he averted his gaze to the toe of his boots, noticing your hand stretched out before him to give him back his phone, he glanced at your face, skimming his hand over your palm.

“Thanks— uh…” he started, shifting his weight to lean back against the many rows of sinks, “sorry again, I promise I don’t normally walk in on ladies using the facilities.” 

His eyes met yours and you instantly felt a heat run to your throat, his lips were impossibly plump as he drew them into a tight smirk. 

Fuck are those dimples? Of course they were. God he’s so pretty. 

You smile, “normal people lock the stall, but I was in a hurry… well I was lost!” you exclaim in a huff, fully hands on hips annoyed, “why the fuck would the bathroom be on the top floor?” 

You asked him incredulously like he should know. But on second thought…

“uhh… I dunno,” he shrugs, sliding his phone into the front pocket of his light wash colored jeans, not even looking at the broken screen as he leaned back again, “I’m not exactly an architect.”  

“But you live here?” you question, turning on the sink to wet your hands, “haven’t they ever thought of putting even a half bath on the main floor?” 

He rumbles out a laugh that makes your cheeks tingle, your buzz still in full force, “nah, you got it all wrong, I’m not a member of the ‘fraternity brotherhood of Alpha Mega Steroid’”, he jokes with air quotes, smiling wide when your lips tick up at the ends. “But I am a frequent guest, of sorts…”

This guy seemed to be one of those people who can make a nun blush, witty and dripping with a sexual charm that radiated from him like a ray of fucking sunshine. And fuck that grin of his. You’re in trouble. 

“Ahh, okay,” you banter back easily, shaking your hands to dry them since there were no paper towels in sight, “which one is your boyfriend? Let’s see I know.. Kyle? I think is his name, reddish hair, kinda feminine hands, or are you fucking Steve because I gotta say, I think my roommate might be giving you a run for your money right now.” 

Eddie’s eyes light up, a quirk in his brow as he asks, “Blonde girl? Kinda naive, head over heels for that mop of perfectly styled hair? Shit, what’s her name…Kelly? Kitten? She’s your roommate?” 

Of course he would know her, Kenzie knows everyone, and seems to leave a kind of impression on people that you envied. As bright as she shined, you were the shadow behind her. 

“Yeah,” you say, not hiding your annoyance, remembering how you got into this predicament in the first place. 

Eddie looks just as pissed as you’re feeling, “Oh, Stevie boy and I will be having words later on his lack of tact. They’re the reason why I was out wondering the halls like a fuckin’ ghost in a haunted mansion.” 

He takes note that you’re in the same boat he’s in but in your case, it’s a little worse, being a girl alone in a frat house never ends well. 

“I’m Eddie, uhh…designated dealer,” he says in almost a whisper, “for the deep pocketed asshoels full of daddy’s money.”

You connect a few dots, realization hitting hard in your frontal lobe from conversations you’ve kind of listened to from Kenzie about Steve. 

“Ahh, okay… now that you mention it, Kenz has talked about you before. You’re Steve’s old friend, Munson? I thought she meant like a forty year old or something.”

He laughs, loud and belly rolling like, “nah, minus a twenty from that. Steve and I are just close friends ‘s all… and no, not boyfriends.” 

You laugh then, all bubbly and light hearted that has his own skipping beats. Saying your name, he repeats it, a little grin on his face that he tries to hide, “mm that’s cute.” 

“Cute?” you question, an eyebrow raised as you fold your arms in on themselves, poking a hip out. 

“Yeah… cute,” he says standing fully and peering down at you, “your name is very fitting for you.” 

You roll your eyes playfully at his flirty words. Even though your stomach is somersaulting at the way his eyes seem to drip from heaven when he looks at you, your cheeks heating beneath his gaze.

“Is this the part where we exchange our hometowns and majors, because I’d rather get run over than do that right now.” 

Eddie chuckles, “oh yeah, well I’m actually here on an athletic scholarship.” 

“Really?” you question, eyebrows cocked in disbelief. 

“Yes!” Eddie jokes back, trying to bite back a smile, “if you must know it’s for Tennis, but please don't bother me for an autograph. I'm just trying to be a normal guy tonight.” 

“Noted.” You giggle, admiring the way this banter is coming so easily, maybe it was the liquid courage taking over or the fact that he was actually fun to talk to— either way, this night is starting to take a turn for the better.

“So, what does a Tennis star/designated rich boy drug dealer usually do at these kinds of things besides bursting in on girls using the bathroom?” 

He smiles, dipping his chin and looking at you through those impossibly thick lashes. Pushing off the sink he asks, “Sell a little here and there, sometimes dip into my own stash…what do you usually do at these things?” 

“Well,” you tease, twisting on the ball of your foot and heading towards the door out to the hallway, “I’m not usually at these things.”

“Ohh my god,” Eddie preens in his best valley girl/ Kourtney Kardashian impression, “you’ve never been to frat party!?” 

You smile, at his stupid joke, “Noo, I haven’t actually. Kenzie drug me out for a little pick me up after we bombed our History midterm, to…y’know— live it up— YOLO, all that.”

“Okay okay, letting off some steam after the stress of class, I get it...school was never a cake walk for me either.” 

“Yeah! But then your friend snatched her up, and since I don’t know anyone here… I was doing a very impressive wall flower guise, until my bladder interrupted that… and then a guy barged in on me in the bathroom.” 

Eddie stalks towards you, his eyes roving over your body, “Well… now you know me, soo Miss Lady Wallflower,” he cracks, “shall we descend to the basement and keep this party going?” 

His infectious smile stretches wide, practically ear to ear and you find yourself grinning just as wide, trying to twist your lips to at least hide your enthusiasm a little bit but goddamn— something about the way those dimples compliment the fucking christmas twinkle in his eyes.. ugh. 

He was trouble. The kind you had always craved but never dabbled in. But when in Rome…

“Lead the way.”

—

Eddie had made a pit stop in the large kitchen before returning to the basement. 

“Now sweetheart,” he purred, fishing around the shelves, of a pantry, moving cans of food and bags of chips, “I didn’t plan on drinking more tonight, but I’m not gonna let you drink by your— aha!” 

Eddie stands upright, brandishing a large box of saltine crackers. Your eyebrows furrow in response and he bows low, puts his hand inside the box, “I present to you, Stevie’s not so secret hiding spot,” pulling out his hand, his fingers are wrapped around a bottle of Burnett’s Vodka.  

Your eyes widen with devilish glee as you smirk, “how did you know it’d be there?” 

Eddie unscrews the cap and puts it to his lips for a long six second pull. 

You weren’t watching the way his throat bobbed and gulped when he swallowed each burning swig. Nope, not at all. You definitely weren’t memorizing each valley of cords and muscles as a single drop fell to his sharp chin and jaw. Never, not you!

And you weren’t holding your breath right along with him only breathing when those fucking glorious thick lips popped clean from the mouth of that bottle… his lips shiny from the bitter alcohol like a gloss you desperately need to lick clean. Yeah… no. that was not you…

So it’s only fitting when he speaks hoarsely and clears his throat that you are snapped back to the moment, your core keeping its own pulse. 

“He’s been keeping vodka in the same box in a food pantry since we were in high school, guy is the most unoriginal bastard I know,” he shrugs, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, and you can’t help but almost pout in the wasted opportunity. 

His eyes meet yours and they look just as hungry as you were feeling. He smirks crookedly and you practically flatline from the depth those molasses colored eyes hold. He moved first, inching towards you like a wolf stalking its prey, your pretty chapstick smile daring him to come closer. 

But the fuse between you is snuffed out cold as a crying girl erupts from the basement steps, her gaggle of friends helping calm her down as they leave the house. 

Eddie shakes his head and clears his throat as if he was just as bothered by you as you were of him. Turning towards the fridge he asks, “I’m sure they’ve got some Sunny D you can chase this with if that’s cool?” 

—

The basement proved to be in the same situation you had left it in: hot, sweaty, sticky. 

“Fuck,” Eddie breathes hotly behind you, loud enough to hear him above the music, “it’s like a furnace down here, no wonder that girl was crying.”

You lead him to the corner you were tucked in before, your drink still sitting on the beer pong table. By the way he is standing you can tell that this really isn’t his scene either, but after a while of passing the vodka and orange juice back and forth between you, he seems to loosen up a bit. His shoulders relax as his back leans against the wall next to you. 

Eddie’s words slurring together as his stories became more and more animated, and you giggle along, never taking your eyes off of him. Completely enamored. 

Your stomach burned with a flurry of butterflies when a few of his clients came up to him to buy, each more nervous than the next. Eyeing you suspiciously, questioning if you were some sort of a narc. 

Eddie stepped ahead of you, his shoulders squared and chest out to casually announce that you were cool and were with him. 

You didn’t know that he was waiting for you to object to it, to shove away from him and call him a pig for even assuming that you’d ever be seen with the likes of him besides in the dark, but you never did. 

Hours pass and the music just gets worse. Wiz Khalifa starts singing about colors and Eddie looks at the crowd of people grinding and rolls his eyes. 

The alcohol has you feeling tingly, a buzzing of flirtation sparks your blood and you are closer to Eddie than ever, the smell of his musky cologne and laundry detergent invade you.

Like any drunk girl, you start getting antsy, a little more touchy, and a lot more feely. Standing around isn’t cutting it anymore and you want to move, toss your hair back to some cheesy song, want to feel those hands you’ve been staring at all night run along your body as your hips move against him. 

Running your forefinger along the inside seam of Eddie’s flannel shirt, you look up at him through your lashes. 

“I’m assuming you’re not one to dance to a club remix?” 

Eddie watches your finger stroke up and down, your knuckles barely grazing his abdomen, but the small touch sending electricity to his spine. 

He leans into you, following your lead and pinching the hem of your skirt between his large fingers “you’d assume correct, the music I listen to is a little more head bangy than this.” 

“So,” you say coyly, pulling him towards you just a fraction more, “what you’re really saying is that you can’t dance.” 

Eddie scoffs, throwing his head back, his throat sticky with sweat and the hair by his ears wet and curling into ringlets, “oh I can dance my ass off honey, taught Channing Tatum everything he knows.” 

His hands find your hips, and you almost lose the little bit of confidence you have gained when the warmth of them seeps through your shirt, his blunt nails skimming your skin in small strokes.

“Do these little white lies masked as dorky ass pickup lines work for you?” Your hands are on his chest now, the black light illuminating each letter of his Deftones shirt to sparkle like snow beneath your fingers. 

“I don’t know,” he whispers into your ear, pulling you tight against him so your chest is pressed into his, “you tell me.” 

The music changes and a throwback song  

comes on, one you haven’t heard in years. 

“Guess you’ll have to show me those moves, because in typical drunk girl fashion… this is my song!” 

You grab Eddie’s hand and stomp to the middle of the floor, pulling him along with you until you’re shoulder to shoulder with other drunk and sweaty college kids. 

“Get low?” Eddie asks from behind you, his mouth dangerously close to the shell of your ear as his hands land heavy on your hips, “seriously?” 

Leaning your head back so your lips could reach him you talk loud enough just so he can hear you, “stop talking and fucking dance with me already.” 

“Goddamn…” he groans when you finally push your body fully back into him. 

It’s sloppy and horribly uncoordinated the way your drunken hips move beneath his hands. You’re both swaying along with the music, trying like hell to match the rhythm of everyone else around you. But in the tiny square footage you have in this cluster fuck of a space, Eddie has all the right moves. 

His palms are pressing you tighter into him, making sure you can feel just how hard he is, how hard you are making him. 

Courage and a few prom night dances under your belt have you dropping low and coming up slow, your skirt fanning out the tiniest bit as your knees are bent to the ground.

And Eddie is practically thanking God himself when you run the fattest part of your ass up his body, on the bunched denim by his shins, skimming the barely there fabric of your skirt against the hole in his knee, and finally up where he desperately needs your body the most. 

When you come back up he moves your hair from the side of your neck, his lips puckering around your earlobe as he nibbles lightly, “spin around so I can see you.” 

He groans again when you shake your head and laugh at his dismay, as much as he is turned on and bothered you are too, but the power of keeping him like this, teasing him with your body— turned you on even more. 

You snake your hands upwards seductively, landing daintily at the nape of his neck, twirling the wet tendrils of curls round and round pulling gently. Eddie hisses through his teeth, his hands roaming freely from your hips to your ribcage running them along the length of your sides, bruisingly hard. 

One minute you’re facing away from him, eyes closed in pleasure as he roves over your body, his lips pressed to your neck, and in the next he’s spinning you around so that you’re face to face— eyes locked on eachother, the heat and the alcohol and the endorphins are too much to handle. 

Your once labored breathing snuffs out to nothing when he leans in with licked lips his eyes fixated on your mouth. Standing. Staring. Staring and standing. You’ve had enough of this cat and mouse game. 

“Fucking kiss me alrea—”

His mouth with its plush pillow lips slam into you. He tastes like tart orange juice and a bite of alcohol. Like the way a summer day would taste if it were bottled up. He licks into your mouth and you whine for more of him, clutching onto his neck and pulling him further into you. 

When you break for air it’s loud, smacking lips and lapping tongues, tilting your heads to line up perfectly. When you twist yours again, Eddie holds onto your neck angling it just so with a glint of trouble in those whiskey eyes as he dives into the supple skin at the column of your throat. 

Sucking, swirling— his tongue is hot against you and you’re clutching onto his shoulders, your nails digging into the pilling fabric like he was the only thing keeping you Earthbound. 

You wiggle in his arms, squealing and whining out but he’s holding you tightly against him, moaning words into your neck that you can’t hear above the music. Then he’s on your mouth again, working you into a fit. His big veiny hands move along your back, grabbing your ass softly, then work up to wrap in your hair or lightly scratch at the inch of skin between your skirt and your tank top. 

Doing your own little damage to him, his shirt is shoved up over his chest, your fingernails trailing down his tattooed skin. A rise of goosebumps following in their tracks, and he stops kissing you to suck in a breath, your smile on his lips as you laugh and he whispers a breathy ‘fuuuuck’. 

Your fingers trail down to his waist band, tickling his skin as you suggest an idea with your eyes, one that you’re certain he would understand.

“C’mon,” he mouths, gesturing his chin to the exit as he slowly begins to pull you from the dance floor, up the stairs and into the kitchen area.

Eddie knew what he wanted. Knew it the second you walked out of that stall with that sweet fucking smile on your lips, shy and coy when he called your name cute, like you weren’t at all used to the type of attention he was giving.

And maybe you didn’t want this with him. Maybe you were a: ‘fuck-me-in-the-dark-so-I-won’t-be-embarrassed-by-being-seen-with-you’ type of girl, but you did dance with him, you laughed at his stupid jokes, stuck by him almost all night, but still he needed to be sure. 

He thought maybe in the brighter light you’d change your mind about what you wanted, what you needed from him, but you surprise him when you cling to his side, going up the steps, and backing into a wall pulling him with you by his shirt needily when you reach the top.

“D’ you uh..wanna get outta here?” he slurs, almost sleepily, his bangs fucked up beyond belief, his hair drenched and sticky with sweat and humidity, lips swollen red.

“My dorm isn’t far,” you say, looking up at him through your lashes running your finger along the waist of his jeans, “across campus.” 

Eddie chuckles, “fuck…” he sweeps a thumb over your pouted lips, groaning as he bites his own. “I’d crawl to fuckin’ Alaska for these, honey.” 

Your cheeks burn sweetly from his inebriated compliments. And even though you’re tipsy and so is he, you feel an odd sort of comfort with him—one you haven’t experienced before. 

“Let’s go then,” you whisper into his ear, “I want you inside me.” 

That did it for him. 

Eddie was all but running with you across the campus green, but not before taking off his long sleeved shirt and placing it over your shoulders murmuring how it was freezing and you’d probably get sick. 

Your combined laughter ricocheted off concrete forums and neatly trimmed grass. Passing by the fancy Chemistry Lab building, the Art Museum, the Med School and finally to your painted black brick dorm building: “Wheeler Hall” 

“Here’s home,” you sing out, placing your key into the door and pulling on the steel handle. 

The Wheeler Dorms were the newest addition to the college town. Named after a family that was killed in an accident back in the 80’s or something… you didn’t really remember what happened. 

The side door you had come in through was closest to your room, 011, on the first floor, again, the universe being kind to you. 

“Never been here before,” Eddie said looking around with wide eyes, “any of the dorms actually.” 

You smiled upon unlocking your room and entering, hanging up your keys on the command strip hooks by the door. Whatever confidence he had back at the party is now deflated a bit once he realizes just how different the two of you are. What the hell was he doing here? You’re in college, he’s only here because he deals. 

“Uhh..?” he questions, eyeing the lofted bed, “you know I was joking about being an athlete, right?” 

You giggle and toss your purse onto the futon, “relax, that’s Kenzie’s bed, mine is the shorter one.” 

“Oh thank fuck,” he practically sings letting out an over exaggerated sigh as he plops down on your futon, eyeing the leopard throw blanket, “I may look like a suave Casanova but I’m about as agile as Mr. Bean.” 

Laughter fills the room and you click on a lamp throwing the room into a cozy ambience as you slip off your sandals and sit on your bed, leaning forward, “you’re way hotter than him.” 

Eddie blushes a bubble gum pink sheen, using his still damp and unruly hair to cover his face, “keep being sweet on me see where it gets you.” 

“Is that supposed to be a threat, or a promise?”

“Oh baby, I don’t make threats, not to a girl that’s like you.” 

“Like me?” 

“Yeah you,” he deadpans, standing up and waltzing towards your bed, crowding you in, “funny, sexy, and by some greater power— digs me… at least I hope.” 

“I’m not the type of girl to bring a guy back to my place, Eddie,” you nearly whisper, putting a finger into his dangling necklace and pulling him forward, “you’d be the first.” 

Eddie places his hands next you on the bed, “like your first? Or just here in college first, I’m cool with either I just— are you sure you want this? I can leave if y—”

Cutting him off you kiss him, but not like the heavy kisses earlier when you two were making out like you were each other's oxygen masks, this one is sweet, like melted  sugar on Eddie’s tongue. 

“You talk too much,” you say with a warm smile, wrapping a finger around his curled ends of hair, “no more of that, just kiss me.” 

“Yes ma’am.” 

Eddie wraps his arm around your waist and shifts you up further into the bed, laying your head on a pillow his body pressed into yours. He takes his time with you, kissing your lips then your jaw, working his way down your neck to where the bruises he’s already sucked into your skin were painted. 

Your moans and little breathy sighs have him hard against his zipper, his hips bucking into the tiny fabric of your panties that’s covering up that sweet pussy he got a glimpse of earlier. 

His shirt is somewhere on the floor, you had pried it off of him between locked lips and groans of having to move your lips from his that earned you a throaty laugh from him and the sexiest eyes that drove into you with an intense ferocity. 

He lowers further down your body, kissing every inch, moving your tank top out of the way to eye your orange bra, his mouth between your cleavage, moaning about how orange is now his favorite color. 

Eddie’s everywhere all at once, a hand traveling up and down your thigh, from the crux of your knee to the waistband of your skirt, the other hand is popping your tits out from that new found favorite colored bra of his —smiling wickedly at your peaked nipples. 

You moan lustful bliss as his tongue circles each one, giving equal attention to both, “you like that?” he asks.

“Feels so good,” you whine, “more, please.” 

Eddie smirks with your nipple between his teeth, “don’t have to ask me twice.” 

You weren’t a virgin, but holy shit you felt as if you had never had sex before, well never sex like this. Eddie teased you with his fingers, his thumb rubbing your clit while his fingers pumped inside of you, each curling inward towards a place nobody has reached before. 

He groaned with his bottom lip tucked between his sharp bite rubbing his achy cock through his jeans when you pushed your skirt down laying there in a matching orange lacey thong, bedazzled on the hips. 

“Would it be corny if I say you look like a Goddess?” he asks sheepishly, pinching the stretching fabric around your hips, “because… wow.” 

You bite your finger as if you were really thinking hard on this, hiding a smile, “you’re too much, Munson.”

“Too much?” he scoffs, pulling down your panties and settling himself between your legs, “you haven’t even seen my dick yet.”

You sit up, tits out and naked from the waist down, “well by all means, show me.”

“Greedy girl,” Eddie smirks, “did you bring me here just to get me naked? I’m appalled!” 

You move to your knees, sitting upright a bit so your face is level with his. You kiss him softly, moving to his neck and sucking just right to pull those deep moans from him that make your knees shake. 

Feather light touches skate along the expanse of his chest, working down down down until you’re undoing his belt, thumbing open the button on his jeans and yanking down his zipper.  

When your hand slides between him and his boxer briefs,  Eddie hisses, watching you pump him slow and tight. The feel of your smooth palm against his velvety shaft makes him almost cum right there and then, it’s been awhile since the last time. 

But you’re not hesitating or questioning yourself and he isn’t either. It’s almost fluid like a rocking wave the way Eddie lays you down, a team effort to swiftly shove down his jeans so you can finally feel eachother where the desperation is needed most. 

Legs hiked over his hips, he lines himself up with your gummy slicked entrance. It’s a deep and achy stretch for you, a vice grip for him. The lazy gasping moans you both emit are drawn out, yours practically breathless. 

“Holy fuck,” you breath into his mouth as he peppers you with kisses. He drags his hips out at a measured pace, pushing in just as unhurriedly, enjoying the way your body adjusts, cuffing him like a glove. 

Eddie breaks away from your lips to watch your bodies join together, moaning your name as he presses his forehead on yours collecting your mouth with his. 

“Shit…This okay?” he asks earnestly, nipping at your ear. 

You nod in gasping silence, your eyes rolling into the back of your head as he speeds up. Your hands are skimming down his bareback, pressing him further into you with every thrust, begging him for more. 

He snakes a hand between you, rubbing circles in your puffy clit as he thrusts harder, trying to get you there before he loses all control. “Want you to feel good sweetheart, fuck— keep making those pretty little noises, you’re squeezin’ the hell outta me.” 

And he does. You cum hard around him, your walls fluttering and pulsing so fast you practically black out from the mixed pleasure of his fingers rubbing your clit and his cock stuffed in deep. 

His name falls from your lips in tiny little whines and he bucks into you a hard and final time before he groans, holding onto your headboard for support as he’s bottoming out, stringing rope after rope of hot spend inside of you. 

“Baby,” he whispers, “God—” he stops cold, realizing what he just did and what he didn’t do. “Oh shit, fuck fuck fuck! I didn’t pull out, I'm sorry! I’m so fucking sorry!

You laugh wickedly, your body shaking beneath him at his worried panicked face. 

He’s a babbling, out-of-breath mess, “’s not funny! I just got caught up in the moment and you felt so fucking good and I’m still a little dru—”

“Eddie, it’s fine,” you say, holding his cheeks with both hands squishing them together so his lips pucker like a fish, “I’m on the pill.” 

His face is still squished together when he speaks, “oh, well… okay.” 

“You’re fine,” you coo, coaxing him down from the ledge of regret and self hatred, “I—” you lean up and kiss him square on the mouth, licking into it and sliding your tongue against his, “I liked it.” 

His eyebrows disappear into his bangs and before he can open his mouth to speak you’re pulling him onto you kissing him deep and needy. 

The two of you end the night that way, him holding you, your hands in his hair, kissing so much your lips are chapped— never getting enough. Legs entangled together like a weaved basket. You fall asleep before he does, your little huffed breathing making his skin damp as you curl further into his chest. 

Wonder if Verizon is open tomorrow? He thinks when he remembers that his phone is definitely broke from it landing on the bathroom floor—but he’d never tell you that. 

He also wouldn’t tell you how he was supposed to go back to Steve’s tonight because they were leaving to see another old friend in California for the weekend— or how they needed to be at the airport by 2 AM for a 4 AM flight.  — or that Eddie was Steve’s ride because he lost his license in July. 

Nope.

He wouldn’t tell you any of it. None of that seemed to matter when you were sleeping so cute on his chest like that. 

When late morning comes you’re at it again, this time you’re riding him on the futon, slow like a twangy country song his hands rocking your hips. When you both finish you drag him to the showers, pumping some expensive shampoo into his hair and giggling when you tell him to be quiet so you won’t get caught. 

Steve called Eddie’s phone all night, and all morning, sending duplicate texts of rage, wondering where the fuck he had gone. 

Eddie silences the last call from Steve as you’re getting dressed, wearing a black pair of yoga pants and a zip up hoodie. He smiles when you offer to comb his hair, grabbing your wrist to pull you onto his lap kissing behind your ear. 

His voice is low, soothingly sweet and minty from your toothpaste as he asks, “can I take you to breakfast?” 

The night air feels nearly as sticky as inside the house, the amount of bodies pressing together causing the temperature to skyrocket.

But the moment you see his lanky figure leaning against the side of Steve’s house and the burning cherry of his cigarette in the dark— you’re half tempted to turn around.

You were already having a terrible night to begin with but you weren’t about to let Eddie Munson make it any worse for you. Knowing this was partially his fault to begin with. 

“What‘s it to you, Munson?” you spit.

His answering chuckle has you gritting your teeth, tucking your skirt under yourself as you sit on the patio steps.

“Oh nothing…” he hums, taking another long drag from his cigarette. “It’s just hard not to notice how you’ve been throwing yourself at Steve all night.”

While you hate to admit it, and you wouldn’t out loud— Eddie was right.

You’d gone out of your way to pretty yourself up for him, wearing your lowest cut blouse and your shortest skirt in hopes of getting his attention. You stayed by his side, laughed at all his jokes. Despite all the effort you put in, Steve barely spared you a passing glance.

It was such a total switch from how he was acting towards you the previous weekend. Steve had barely got you in his bedroom before his hands were in your pants. But now he was too busy shoving his tongue down a pretty blonde’s throat to even notice your absence.

“I haven’t been throwing myself at anyone, dickhead,” you roll your eyes with a scoff.

Eddie just laughs again, leaning his head back against the siding. “I wouldn’t have assumed  Steve’s dick game was so good that you’d be crawling back for sloppy seconds.” 

And when you turn to glare at him, you can’t help but admire the way the smoke unfurls from his plump lips.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, prick.” 

“— Hey now,” he mocked you with a slight pout, “Don’t take your sexual frustration out on me, princess. I was just stating the obvious.”

You avert your eyes before he catches you staring, but that frustration mixed with unkindled desire continues to mount between you with each passing second. 

So when your eyes are drawn back to him, you aren’t entirely sure why. 

As annoying as Eddie could be, you can’t deny that he was attractive. And if his shitty attitude towards you wasn’t the reason that Steve kept blowing you off, maybe you’d actually like him. 

“Oh, fuck you.”

“— you’d like that wouldn’t you?” he teases.

While your face shows mock disgust, your body betrays you when you feel wetness beginning to pool in the fabric of your panties. 

“In your dreams, Munson.”

Eddie smirks a little, taking that as a challenge.

“What are you, scared?” 

Under normal circumstances, you’d tell him to fuck off and leave you alone. Perhaps it was your hormones getting the best of you. 

But there was something about the way the moonlight catches on his rings, and the pale glow that casts shadows over his handsome features— that’s making you think otherwise.

“I mean… I don’t see anyone else lining up to take that bratty ass of yours home.” Eddie takes one last, long drag but this time he notices the way your eyes linger on his lips.

You make it almost too easy.

“And it would be a damn shame to let all that hard work of yours go to waste, you know?” he continues casually while he snuffs out his cigarette. “Since Harrington, clearly isn’t appreciating it.” 

And you really can’t believe what you’re hearing.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Eddie closes the remaining distance between you, causing your head to tilt back as you look up at him in utter disbelief.

“Don’t act so coy, I saw how you were looking at me just now…”

Beneath his cocky demeanor, his heart is about to pound out of his chest. 

Because unbeknownst to you, the real reason Steve was avoiding you at every turn was entirely for Eddie's benefit. He was just trying to be a good friend.

Eddie holds up his hand before you can say anything else, his lips lifting in a shit eating grin.

“Besides, we both know that if it’s not for me, you’ll be going home with an empty cunt. And we can’t have that, can we?”

Your body flushes at the vulgarity of his words, but you mull them over nonetheless. 

While you didn’t like him, despised him in fact— this could be an opportunity to get some pent up frustration out of your system. Since it was clear Steve wasn’t up for the challenge. 

So you tuck your lower lip in between your teeth and you rise to your feet.

“Fine,” you hum and there’s a sudden flash of surprise in his eyes. Like he half expected you to tell him to go fuck himself and storm off, but it’s gone just as quickly. “On one condition.”

The patio steps put you an inch or so above him, so now he has to look up to meet your gaze.

“Oh, yeah? And what’s that, princess?” he smirks.

You grip the fabric of his t-shirt in your fists, urging him closer. You can feel the heat radiating from him, your breasts now flush against his chest.

“You keep that big mouth of yours shut.”

And you use the advantage of your slight height difference to press your lips to his before he has a chance to respond.

Eddie all but groans into your mouth as tugs you closer, hands gripping onto your hips before splaying over the curve of your ass. When he slips his tongue in your mouth, he tastes like a dizzying combination of nicotine and cheap beer.

But the taste somehow leaves you wanting more.

So when you start to grind yourself onto his jean-clad thigh, he sinks his teeth into your lower lip. The male fully enjoys the pitiful whimper it pulls from you.

“If you think I’m fucking you out here… you’re out of your goddamn mind,” he pants into your open mouth.

“Well if you had somewhere else in mind maybe you should try taking the reins, hotshot,” you fire back.

Eddie takes a single step up the stairs to place himself at eye level with you, as if to even the playing field. 

And you just stare at each other, both your eyes are ablaze with a mixture of annoyance and lust. It's Eddie who eventually breaks your gaze to brush past you and continue on towards the house.

He dares a glance over his shoulder once he reaches the patio door, a brow rising beneath his bangs as if to give you one final chance to back out. But you don’t want to give him that satisfaction.

No one spares either of you a second glance when he leads you up the stairs and pulls you into the first bedroom on the right. 

You know upon entering that this is Steve’s room, recognizing the checkered wallpaper from the weekend prior. But you don’t have much time to dwell on it before his lips are back on yours and he’s leading you towards his best friend’s bed.

“In here?” you say between heated kisses, earning you a deep hum when he pushes you down onto the mattress.

“What Steve doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?” he mused, dark eyes admiring the way your skirt has risen up your thighs. “Unless… you really wanna make him jealous.” 

Eddie crawls over you after shrugging off his leather jacket and you can already feel how hard he is through the rough denim. You tug harshly on his hair when his lips trail down across your neck, teeth scraping against the hollow of your throat.

But the ache between your thighs only becomes stronger with each press of his lips, and in turn causes your already thin patience to slip further.

“Get on with it already, I don’t have all damn night.”

You can feel his laughter vibrate against your sweaty skin but his hand dips between your thighs nonetheless. Eddie cups your clothed pussy in the palm of his hand, pulling a breathy whine from you when he presses the heel of it against your clit.

“Hmm, givin' an awful lot of attitude to someone who's just tryin’ to do you a favor, sweetheart.”

You merely roll your eyes in response, reaching between your bodies to palm over the bulge that’s straining against the fly of his jeans.

“Huh, seems to me that you like my little attitude, asshole.”

The male groans into your neck when you apply more pressure, his hand quickly gripping onto your wrist before he pins the both of them above your head.

“Ya’know I usually love a bit of a challenge, but you sweetheart, are a giant pain in the ass.”

You giggle mockingly, tilting your head at him with a slight pout, “Aww, Eddie— I didn’t know you thought so highly of me.”

If only you knew… 

That laughter morphs into a soft gasp when he yanks your panties down your thighs with his other hand. Those calloused fingers slipping between your slick folds to circle over your swollen bud.

His nose skims along the curve of your shoulder, greedily inhaling your perfume. Enjoying the way your body practically shudders beneath his own.

“So sensitive…” he coos mockingly, the tip of his middle finger brushing over your puckered hole. “And I’ve barely even touched you yet.”

Any snarky comment dies on your tongue when he slips the digit inside, his thumb pressing firmly on your clit. A small mewl gets caught in your throat when he slides another finger in and your body welcomes the stretch.

Eddie can only grin wider when you grind your hips down onto his fingers, his other hand releases your wrists to tug down the front of your blouse to free your breasts. He has to hold back a moan of his own when he realizes you aren’t wearing a bra, his lips latching around your nipple.

“Oh fuck,” you whine, your fingers tangling themselves in his wild mane while his curl up inside you.

“If only Steve could see how much of a fucking mess you’re making for me,” he taunts, leaning his mouth down to suck on the underside of your breast. “Bet he’d be so pissed that you’re ruining his expensive sheets, sweetheart.”

Your answering whimper has him chuckling, urging him to thrust his fingers even faster inside you. Ultimately proving his point as you can feel the wetness dripping down your ass and onto the sheets. But the noisy glide of his fingers are nearly as taunting as his words.

“E-Eddie— I…” your chest heaves as you trail off, feeling that rubber band in your middle about to snap with each pump of his fingers.

He knows what that blissful look on your face means and it brings him a little too much pleasure to see it crumble when he completely removes his fingers from inside you. Your cry of frustration has his cock practically throbbing in his jeans, sticky fingers hurrying to unbuckle his belt.

“Nah uh,” he tuts. “You don’t always get what you want, brat.”

Eddie pushes his jeans and boxers far enough down his thighs to free his cock, the sight of it momentarily distracting you.

He was big, much bigger than you anticipated.

Part of you was almost worried he wasn’t going to fit. Eddie must see the mixture of surprise and awe written across your features, as he leans forward to swipe his thumb along the corner of your mouth.

“Drooling already? You flatter me, sweetheart.”

He reaches over for a condom in Steve’s bedside drawer, ripping the packet open with his teeth. But Eddie can practically see the flash of disappointment in your eyes when he rolls the latex on, which only causes him to laugh harder.

“Oh how cute, you thought I was gonna fill you up, baby?” he all but sneers as he grabs your cheeks in his hand, squishing them together. “A slut like you has to earn that privilege.”

He lets go of your cheeks, ringed fingers spreading your thighs apart and pulling you down toward the edge of the mattress. Positioning you in just the right spot so he can tap the head of his cock against your clit.

The wet slapping noise it makes has him grinning even wider and it takes everything in you not to slap that look right off his face.

“Are you just gonna stand there or are you gonna actually fuck me?” you huff.

He tilts his head at you, a little surprised by your sudden outburst. And to think you were being so good just a minute ago.

“See, that’s not what we’re going to do, brat.” He clicks his tongue, his other hand gripping the meat of your thighs a little harder. “Keep giving me that attitude and I’ll have no issue walking out of here and burying my cock into someone else.”

You just glare at each other, in a silent struggle for power. But this time you are the first to crack when you cast your eyes downward. That uncomfortable silence stretches on for a moment too long, which he mistakes for regret. 

He’s about to tuck himself back into his jeans when you grip onto his wrist with a soft whine.

“N-No, shit— please don’t go.”

Eddie just raises an eyebrow at you, not impressed by that meek attempt at begging. So you blow out the breath you were holding, swallowing your pride when your eyes flick up to meet his.

“I want you to fuck me, Eddie. Please.”

You feel incredibly pathetic begging Eddie Munson of all people. But you also can’t deny the way your cunt practically throbs when you feel the thick head of his cock glide against your entrance.

“See? Now was that so hard?” he snickers, giving you no warning before he’s guiding the head inside your sopping cunt.

“Jesus— fuck, you’re tight,” he blurts, marveling as your pussy practically sucks him in. 

You let out a gasp when he bottoms out with a low hiss, his own head tipping backwards when you clench harder around him. But the male doesn’t move a muscle, his hands gripping onto your hips to keep you in place.

An act of mercy really— he doesn’t want to hurt you.

While you are grateful for the reprieve, that slight sting soon fades into a dull ache and you desperately need more.

When Eddie feels you start to squirm in his grasp, he groans low in his throat. His head tips back down to meet your half lidded gaze while he carefully guides his cock out before sliding it back in.

He works up a steady rhythm, but slow enough to keep you both teetering on the edge of desperation— until you can’t take it anymore.

“God— go faster,” your attempt at a direct order comes out as more a breathy plea instead.

But he doesn’t need to be told twice, his hands coaxing your trembling legs over his shoulders before slamming his hips back into yours. An elated moan leaves your lips, fingers gripping onto the sheets as you eagerly meet each hard thrust he gives you.

“It’s too bad Harrington’s missin’ out on all this,” he grunts, his eyes darkening as he watches that creamy ring around his cock expand with each snap of his hips. “But I can put in a really good word for ya, princess.”

And when your eyes roll back, it’s not from annoyance this time— as he hits your sweet spot dead on.

“I hate you,” you huff regardless, but your words don’t hold nearly as much malice. 

“You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.” 

You miss the smug look that crosses his features when your back arches up off the mattress and you cry out his name repeatedly.

“That’s it, brat— say my name louder. Let them know… let Steve know who’s making you feel this good.” 

Your nails dig into his forearms as he fucks you even faster, a low growl pushing past his lips with each hard thrust. The bed creaks harshly in protest but that doesn’t deter him in the slightest.

If anything— it encourages him to go harder, bucking into you like some wild animal. The little uh, uh uh’s that he pushes out of you are music to his ears, the sounds becoming higher in pitch the closer you get to the edge.

And when your eyes flutter shut, he only quickened his pace. The brunette practically bends you in half as he leans into you, this new angle forcing him even deeper.

“Look.” Grunt. “At.” Grunt. “Me.” Grunt.

In your blissed out state, you miss the hidden meaning behind his pointed words. 

When you manage to finally open them, he’s closer. A lot closer than you expected. So close you can see the flecks of gold in his eyes, and the sweat that dots his upper lip. 

Maybe you’ve never wanted to admit it to yourself before, but Eddie really was gorgeous. And from the way he’s gazing down at you, pupils blown out and glassy, you can only assume he feels the same about you. 

And that last bit of self control slips when you smash your lips together.

He kisses you back just as forcefully, effectively stealing the air from your lungs. Gasping for breath, your fingers begin to loosen their grip on his arm. Slipping them between your bodies to rub quick circles over your swollen bud. 

The sensation has your walls squeezing tighter around him, earning you another throaty moan. 

“See how much easier you are to deal with like this, baby?” He mumbles against your mouth, enjoying the small scowl that crosses over your features. “All cockdrunk and stupid… it suits you.” 

While you open your mouth to throw one last insult his way, a pointed thrust into your sweet spot has you trembling. A loud squeal leaving your lips instead when you tumble over the edge. 

And Eddie can’t take his eyes off you as you fall apart beneath him, memorizing each expression with the utmost sincerity. Even if you did hate him, he couldn’t help himself. 

“Oh, atta girl…” he praises, his hot breath fanning over your lips while he continues to bury himself inside you.

You feel the sudden snap of the latex before he does. The male blissfully unaware as he nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck and finishes with a deep groan, unintentionally filling you up in the process.

“Hm, guess I got what I wanted after all,” you laugh a little breathlessly. 

Eddie lifts his head in confusion, the realization finally dawns on him when he feels his warmth start to trickle down your thighs. 

“Shit, shit, shit.” He curses as he pulls out, making an even bigger mess of both you and the sheets in the process. 

“Stupid, fucking cheap ass condoms,” he huffs under his breath, chucking the broken rubber into the trash. 

Although his jaw is clenched in annoyance, his eyes are now transfixed on where his cum begins to leak out of your puffy pussy and onto the bedspread.

Unable to stop himself, Eddie reaches out a hand to graze along the underside of your ass. He collects some of the mess on his fingertips and guides them back inside you.

And despite the sensitivity, the possessiveness of his actions has your walls clenching around his dexterous fingers.

Everything comes to a sudden halt when the bedroom door swings open, knocking into the wall.

“Alright you horny shits, time to…” Steve trails off once he sees the two of you, honey hues widening in disbelief. “In my bed, Munson? Really?” 

Eddie doesn’t bat an eye, merely straightening up from where he was hovering over your half naked form whilst you quickly tug the sheets over yourself from sheer embarrassment.

Now all Eddie can see is the way you're looking at Steve. Something sour settles in his stomach, a tangle of jealousy and hurt. While his heart rate slows, his defenses go back up. 

That feeling prickles along his skin as he tucks himself back into his boxers and re-fastens the button on his jeans. 

"Was just warmin' her up for ya, man," Eddie says through his teeth. 

Steve's look of confusion deepens as he glances between the two of you, knowing that this is exactly what Eddie had wanted. 

But now Eddie won’t even look at you. 

He doesn't see the conflicted emotions swimming in your eyes when he speaks again. Throwing the words over his shoulder without a second glance as he grabs his jacket and turns to leave. 

"She's all yours, Harrington." 

That lie burns on his tongue like acid, but he doesn't look back.

~~~~ Two weeks after the gig, mid-October~~~~

  Dread. It’s an awfully terrible feeling; one that sits in the depths of your stomach and doesn’t hesitate to climb to the chasm of your throat at any chance it gets. Heavy in your soul, yet it keeps finding new ground to break through; Somehow, it digs deeper and deeper until your entire skeleton is painted in hefty lead. Your body droops, your smile hangs upside down eternally, and your consciousness seems so dense you can’t fathom having to tow it around behind you any longer.

It’s been a little over two weeks since the gig at the Stand Alone. Since the party. Since you made an absolute and utter asshole of yourself and somehow fell further down the rabbit hole of ruining your fucking life. 

If you ever felt far from the ones you were fortunate enough to love, now you were at a point of no return. So far out in the middle of the vast sea, lost by choice and now trapped in a monsoon of grief and sorrow that you single handedly crafted—oh so carefully.

The past two weeks had been some of the hardest days you’ve ever had to endure—only you barely remember them if you were being truthful. When things get bad, and you mean really, really bad—you’ve got a bad habit of dissociating and dodging everyone. You tell yourself: if all I can do today is get out of bed with a beating heart and air in my lungs, that’s enough for now.

The aged wood that you sit on is a little rough, even through your denim you feel the damp texture of the seat. It had rained earlier, but as soon as it stopped you took it upon yourself to ditch 4th period and flee to your safe haven—AKA the picnic table in the woods.

Pumpkin-colored leaves bare the leftovers of the morning’s shower; The drips caught in various spider webs and sliding intermittently from the treetops soothe your mind. A lame breath runs out your lips in a puff of steam as you sigh, with the October chill biting at the tip of your nose and the back of your neck. 

Grunting as you flip your sketchbook to a clean page, you rub at your eyes and sit up a little to stretch. You had come out here because you wanted to be alone and for your head to be empty, but of course you’ve got no such luck. Fat, pathetic gloops of saltwater gather at the rims of your eyes as you peer back down to the blank page. 

You were supposed to be working on drawings for Hellfire’s new campaign that Eddie had been working on for what seemed like months at this point; you’d promised him that you’d do all of the illustration he needed. Character sketches, posters, and even new tshirts if the boys could ever agree on a single design. He needed them by Friday, which was two days away. He could have easily done the majority of it on his own, being a pretty damn good artist himself, but you never stopped to think that long about why he insisted on you doing it. You were just happy to be involved. You’d finished the bulk of them a while ago, with only a few more sketches or fixes to make, but you were prolonging having to talk them over with Eddie.

       Eddie.

  Your sweet Eddie—almost too sweet for you. You didn’t deserve him in the slightest, and he didn’t deserve to have to be around you. 

Sometimes you wished that he’d never had to meet you at all. It wasn’t fair to him—how you’d been treating him for the past year at least. 

Blurry, dream-like visuals of the two of you basically naked and sat on the shower floor together flicker through your memory once more. It’d been happening every waking second since you’d woken up late that Sunday afternoon after the gig. 

You didn’t remember much after talking to Alexander, not really. Only bursts of imagery and hazy memories of your hands gripping Eddie’s flesh wherever they could land on it. 

How absolutely fucking embarassing.

You haven’t been able to look Eddie in the eyes without your face blooming into a fiery fuschia color ever since. And you can’t stop thinking about it—how you had unabashedly fondled him in the shower—

“God—” you gripe to the empty air, your palms coming up to smack into your expression once more, “What is wrong with me!?” 

You start your expedition into the depths of your bag to search for a lighter and your almost-empty box of cigarettes. After a few moments of unsuccessful shuffling, you give up and start to dump some of the contents out onto the table softly. Noises roll around on each other and then fall off, singing out in a symphony of clinks, clanks, and jingling as miscellaneous belongings pour out in front of you. 

Okay, so, maybe the night of the gig had clicked some essential  pieces together for you. Even though you were inebriated to the point of having no memory—you’d woken up sober, still craving him.

Obviously, you’d thought Eddie was the absolute shit since you’d met him—you were best friends, after all. And even though you’ve known since late middle school that you thought Eddie was very handsome, you had never let yourself look at him that way before. The thought of the two of you in a romantic concept brought up way too many ideas and qualms that you, quite frankly, would rather die than think about. 

Eddie had moved into the trailer park; You were born there. You were trailer trash: point, blank, period. You’d picked up on that as a young child from the way the other’s mothers eyed yours in the grocery store, your lack of a sufficient wardrobe that fit or was in good condition, and the way parents had tipped their noses up at your front porch when they’d arrived to your 9th birthday in the exact trailer that you lived in currently. If you hadn’t picked up on it—you were definitely reminded on a daily basis by strangers in town and your own peers in school. You are wrong, less than; you are a freak. 

Sure, Eddie got worse treatment than you did in consideration of the insults and assumptions about his character. But when it was spat out viciously about him, it wasn’t true. Eddie was the epitome of everything substantially good in the world. There’s a reason he’s your best friend, a type of soulmate that you’d never want to live without unless he wanted you to leave him be. 

Even if the other losers and sheep in Hawkins, Indiana didn’t see it, you did. You always had. And maybe you always knew deep down in every extensive blush he pulled from your cheeks, every shock that emitted from skin-to-skin contact, and the way that his eyes drilled profoundly into your own until he was communicating with something deeper inside yourself.

  Maybe you always knew that you were in love with Eddie Munson, and sequentially, absolutely fucked. 

  And even though Eddie has always been poor off financially as well—living in the same trailer park as you for most of your lives and understanding all of your struggles—you knew that he was destined for more. How could he not be? How would you give Eddie anything that he deserved after what the universe had put his undeniably kind soul through? Surely Eddie knew that one day, he’d escape, he’d live. 

Derrick was easy. Things with him were easy; it was easy to ignore everything about yourself that made you uncomfortable with him until he had backed you into the corner of your own relationship. Derrick wasn’t better off than you or Eddie socioeconomically by any reasonable amount, but you didn’t feel like he deserved any type of cosmic reparation for how life had treated him. And Derrick didn’t even touch a sliver of what Edward Munson brought into this world. 

It was easy to exist in complacency with Derrick. That’s what you did. That’s what you thought you deserved.

           And to be fair, you didn’t know how your brain and body would react to completely moving on from Derrick. As much as you were scared of him, as much as you wanted to hate him—part of you still felt the need to hang on until your very last breath. Broken pieces of your brain scream at you in protest to keep desperately clinging to the losing fight you had been in with Derrick’s respect for you for years. The part of you that never completely gave up—even when he had cheated—the part of you that thought you could somehow prove to Derrick that you’re the only person he really, truly, and solely wants argued with you endlessly. 

As bad as it had been lately, as unbearable as it became—you fear that your mind has been diligently working to bring your relationship back to the very start, years ago. When in reality, things were only good with Derrick for a few months before they turned sour; for years, now, Derrick’s presence rots and withers you away, smaller and smaller. 

            Yet, you still couldn’t ever get Eddie out of your brain, either. But the difference is that you couldn’t ever lose Eddie the way you lost Derrick—you wouldn’t survive it. Letting Eddie find out about any of your newly accepted revelations was something that you didn’t have the privilege to risk. 

You’ve got a cigarette pinched between your lips in a flicker of a second; the lighter clinks a flame alive under the end of it. Evaporated regret sucks into your lungs, only to be expelled back into your environment momentarily. You always desired for more of it. 

Eyes gripping onto your blank sketchbook once more, your dominant hand attempts a few pitiful pencil lines while the other flicks the filter of your smoke. God, you really couldn’t start on this particular character until you talked to Eddie about it—you’d been avoiding it. 

The universe—an ever-hilarious being—had heard you, and so of course you heard the unmistakable crunch as someone’s heavy footfalls carried through the nearby skeletons of leaves. You already knew it was Eddie, you knew how his gait sounded.  

Quickly flitting your cigarette, you resituate yourself on the bench for no particular reason out of nervousness. You can’t convince yourself to gaze any further upwards than the forest floor as he appears through the surrounding woods; His dirty, white tennis shoes crowd your eyesight like headlights on a dark road. 

“You’re really trying to repeat senior year again huh, l/n?” he wastes no time dropping his weight onto the opposite seat, “See, you’re always trying to copy me! Get your own excuse to be a failure.”

  He says it as a joke—lightly and with a gleaming smile—but, you always hear the underlying grief. You push air out of your nostrils,

“You’re not a failure, Eddie” you speak softly. It was seemingly unthinkable to have any kind of normal conversation with him after what had happened two weeks ago, but you’d be damned if you never combatted his self-doubts with a viscous consistency. Even if he’d recently seen your tits way too close for way too long. 

He makes an unintelligible noise in the back of his throat, leaning forward more onto his elbows,

“That for Hellfire?” he directs a nod at your book that lays flat in front of him. 

You stumble, wanting to die as a small pink surfaces to the planes of your cheeks all because he had connected his eyes to yours in question. Shooting your eyes back down, 

“Uh, yea—I can’t work on this little dude until I get some input from you, actually” pushing the book towards him lamely, “Could I get a rough sketch out of you or something?”

You’re trying with pure diligence to keep your voice at your normal, confident timbre, but your recent revelations have you second-guessing the thing that comes to you easiest—Eddie. 

In one swift motion, he first snatches the pencil from your hand, then the cigarette from your other. He puffs it once, fast and heavy, before tossing it into the nearby brush.

“Oh, fuck off, Munson!” you screech, reaching forward to knock your palm into the side of his head subtly. The charming laugh that falls from his lips almost cancels out your frustrations. He ducks away from you with ease and catches your wrist. The interaction wasn’t uncommon. 

Okay, something was definitely up with Eddie lately. You didn’t know what, exactly, but he was starting to piss you off with how frequently he seemed like a walking anti-smoking campaign that plays too often on the cheap television set in your living room.

You hesitate as he holds onto your wrist a beat too long, your brain completely dropping the subject of his recent tirades as you meet his eyes once more. Then you’re treading through the bottomless abyss of his mahogany irises; You’re grasping desperately at the occasional golden streaks and dangling over the pit precariously. 

“Sorry—” you mumble, like you had been the one to initiate his own actions. Your words and breath get stuck in your throat as his fingers stay clasped around your wrist.

“You gonna stop smoking, pretty girl, or are you gonna keep making me have to be the bad guy constantly?” he breathes the words with a sunny smile, his voice dropping softly lower, “Cuz, I kinda hate always having to be the bad guy.”

His eyes address you widely, like he knows something you don’t. His tone is airy and light, but the way he delivers it with the raise of an eyebrow lets you know he’s not above starting an argument. You want to brush him off and cuss him out like you’d normally do—you really do. But, the words echo around in the emptiness of your thoughts—pretty girl. 

Pretty girl.

Graphic illustrations of Eddie’s basically naked body paint themselves across your core; if you focus hard enough you can almost imagine what he had felt like gripped in your hand—

Yanking your hand away from him forcefully, you push yourself up off of the rickety bench to create distance between the two of you. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” It comes out in a biting tone that you hadn’t necessarily meant. Reminding yourself that he had approached the conversation civilly, you try again, now facing away from him and breathing the words out in a huff,

“Eddie, I don’t know what you’ve been on about lately—but it doesn’t make me feel any better that you smoke all of the time, either. I thought we were both on the same page when it came to rolled-up, smokeable, necessary evils.”

He holds his hands up, raising his eyebrows,

“I don’t know, you tell me,” it’s an honest question and he speaks it kind enough, 

“Tell you what? You don’t know what?”

“You tell me why you’ve been hiding something from me.”

Your inhale stops abruptly on your tongue; you don’t know what to say. Crossing your arms, you swivel your body away from him and pace slowly towards the edge of the forest, then back with your head down, kicking up fits of leaves with the toe of your boot.

He already knew something was up, no denying that. You had no good excuse that he’d buy and believe. You spin on your heel once more to do another slow back-and-forth lap. 

“Really?” He’s got a bit of sass now,

“Eddie, can you just drop it? Please?” You even take it as far as to plead to him. This wasn’t what you wanted to talk about with him right now. Didn’t he know that you’d been running through imaginary scripts in your mind for weeks? They were all useless dialogues that did nothing to help you come to a conclusion on how you would tell Eddie about the Derrick situation.

For so many different reasons—you were embarrassed, you were ashamed, and mostly, you were scared of what Derrick would do if he found out you had told people. What if Derrick was capable of hurting the people you loved like he had threatened before? What if Derrick hurt Eddie? Surely, he’d be darkening Derrick’s doorstep in the worst way immediately after finding out that he had ever placed a finger on you. 

Fighting a useless battle, you squeeze your balled up fists to yourself in an attempt to keep yourself from falling down into that pit of your sorrows this early in the day. Wasn’t your situation with Eddie bad enough? Now the skeletons in your closet are coming back with a vengeance; they have work to do. 

“No, because you keep pulling stunts where you’re putting yourself in danger and making irresponsible decisions that I have to keep saving you from.” His words are sharp now, final and meant to slice. 

“Eddie—” You cut yourself off, you have no defense against his sword-like accusations.

He just stares at you, eyebrows pulled down in worry and frustration as his eyes beg—scream—to you,

Please just tell me, enough with the bullshit.

“Eddie, you know how much you mean to me, right?” You guess it’s honesty hour; he’s got you nervous and spilling all types of word vomit. 

He seems taken aback, like he was definitely expecting you to keep arguing instead of the words you’d just offered him.

“I—Yea? I mean, you know how much you mean to me too, right?” It sounds just as anxious as you almost and very confused. Eddie couldn’t hide most emotions from you.

“Yea, but Eddie, you’re right. I’ve been the absolute shittiest friend in the entire universe for a while now and I’m definitely only still alive because of you for so many reasons. You always take care of me—I never thank you enough,” You ramble it all out because he deserves to hear it. 

It’s now or never, this conversation would just keep happening until you laid everything completely on the table to him honestly and stopped being the one who needed saving all of the time. Eye contact isn’t something that you’re able to bring to the exchange presently and a mild rose glows fiercely on your expression when you say it. You’re proud of your voice for not cracking, but you couldn’t avoid the dampness that collects in your waterline. 

The heaviness from the past few weeks weighs on you now, and you’re word-vomiting bits and pieces of the pity party Eddie had barged in on only a few minutes before all over him. 

You’re standing right infront of the picnic table now, knee caps pressing into the wooden plank to account for your weight, as he still sits on the other side of you. His eyes are wide, drinking in everything you’re feeding him, almost looking scared. Fingers fidgeting with his rings nervously, he clasps and unclasps them over his palms, as well. He averts his eyes down to his hands, suddenly placing his palms roughly on the table and standing up, he then turns his body away from you like you had to him only a few moments prior. 

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” It comes out swiftly and sounds full of discontent.

“Yea, I know that Eddie, but I’m trying to tell you—”

“You’re trying to butter me up before you tell me something really terrible?” His accusation is searing, “What’s been going on, y/n?”

He didn’t take anything you had said seriously and it had been so hard for you to gather and speak your thoughts to him in the first place. It wasn’t hard to tell Eddie how grateful you were for him, but it felt impossible now when you’re only now suddenly realizing that you’ve been head over heels for him since the very start. Additionally, it was hard to take blame for your own harrowing behavior. You wonder if it gets any easier as you grow and mature.

What were you supposed to say to him? You still hadn’t told him how the argument with Derrick in your trailer a few weeks ago had ended. A small scrap of you still gripped tightly onto the sorrow that stalled in your heart when Eddie had roared at you that Derrick only treated you like a whore because you let him. A larger fragment still believed him. What if everything that Derrick had done to you was a direct result of your own inadequacies?

You let out a displeased huff as you lift your arms wildly into the atmosphere before dropping them at your sides again—simultaneously fighting an imaginary war with yourself that he couldn’t see—

“Eddie, I meant what I said,” you pause and the tension strung between both of your glares threatens to snap, “I’m being serious, I owe you thanks until the end of time. I’m—I’m sorry that I’ve been—been being like—weird and—weird and stuff, I don’t know?” You weren’t sure if you could have stuttered more. 

Eddie stands across from you looking like he’s got a one-way ticket to an entirely different train of thought; His face is masked in distress and what seems to be disbelief. You shift the weight between your legs awkwardly.

“I’m about to start begging, I swear to god—”

“Could you just give me some time?” You cut him off so softly that you’re not sure if he’s even heard you. 

He stops his tirade midword to backtrack, fearing that he’d lost some sort of important information in your whisper,

“What? What’d you say?” He says it way too eagerly and nicer now,

“I asked if you could just, just give me some time, Eddie? Please?”

At this he seems perplexed. The machines in his mind whir silently as they work overtime behind his pupils to discern his next move. A flurry of emotions stumble messily over his face and he shakes his head back and forth slightly in internal controversy.

“Why can’t you tell me? Are you safe?” He moves now as he utters the questions tenderly, his hand traces and drags along the short edge of the picnic table as he breaks the barrier it had once served between the two of you.

His figure hesitates before coming any closer, he gives his weight into the table top slightly—it creaks in response. Eyes seemingly bigger than a full moon and deeper than Mariana’s Trench, he tilts his head down to encounter your own.

“Yes, Eds. I’m safe, promise,” your eyes connect finally, “Just give me some time?”

Now his hand on the table keeps moving, nearer and nearer until he’s awkwardly leaning over the bench you stand in front of and prying further at your expressionless mask that you don in front of him way too often nowadays.

He raises his eyebrows and his mouth stretches into an unsatisfied frown; the look of a melancholic mercy and concern. 

“Is it something that I did?”

“No! No, no never, seriously,” You confirm quickly, “I promise.”

He seems to have to take a while to will himself patience on your behalf, but he gets there soon enough. Brown eyes bounding over to yours once more—this time warm and inviting again. He inches his hand that rests on the table closer to you, moving closer to you. You’ve got no idea what to do when he sits on the bench you stand in front of and becomes almost eye-level with you. Your knee caps were touching, you were still standing in the same position as before. 

You hold your pinky finger out in front of yourself, he crosses his eyes dramatically to stare at it and pretend to think about it. He’s trying to get you to laugh, to get the conversation back to a positive tune. Eddie really hasn’t appreciated how almost every interaction the two of you have had for months has been negative. He knows some of it has been his own fault, not just yours, but he also thinks maybe he could mend the relational wounds a tiny bit by watching his temper. 

“Oh c’mon Eds,” You chide, waving your pinky finger closer to him for emphasis, “It’s nothing you did, I pinky promise.”

Eventually his significantly larger finger joins yours, winding around and squeezing for good measure. Only he doesn’t let go of your pinky and gazes into your eyes for an inappropriately long moment. You flounder, the silence is blowing out your ear drums,

“I meant it though, Eddie. Seriously, you’re—You’re literally the only reason I’m breathing right now,” A puff of air and a nervous laugh escapes your mouth—be brave, “I’m being serious when I tell you thank you—Just—Just thank you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry for—” 

Another nervous laugh, you wonder if he can tell how bad you’re sweating merely from the contact of your pinky fingers. Then he’s wrapping all of his fingers around your hand and pulling you towards him. You let him do whatever he’s going to do, still paralyzed in front of the man. Now he’s got your hand within both of his, one of his large hands cradling the back of yours gently while the other one explores lines on your open palm. 

Your body had inched forward notably when he tugged your limb towards himself, leaving you standing in between his knees from where he sits on the bench as he pretends to be way too interested in the skin of your hand. The position was intimate, but you weren’t sure in which way. You and Eddie had ‘intimate’ moments all the time, you were up each others’ asses sideways for almost half of your lives—But this felt like distinctly uncharted territory somehow. 

He’s waiting for you to finish your sentence, you realize. Both of your eyes are glued to where Eddie continues to rub your flesh soothingly. 

“I’m just sorry for everything,” You start to wiggle your own fingers now, flesh sliding on his in the smallest movements, “I’m sorry for always bothering you about Derrick, I’m sorry about the funeral, I’m sorry for avoiding you when I’m upset, I’m sorry for lying to you, I’m sorry about the party—”

There’s no avoiding the flushness of your cheeks when you bring it up in the middle of a long ramble, and really no avoiding the ‘why’ when you had cut yourself off from it. Eddie peers up at you now, both hands grasping gently onto your own still. It throws you off when his own cheeks are painted in a blush, too. The atmosphere surrounding the both of you drops into something different at record breaking speed. 

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” The words are soft, but serious.

“It’s not okay Eddie,”

Your eyes stay connected, both of your gazes desperately clawing at an invisible surface to find the truth. You’re both flustered and staring at each other with rosy faces; You’re sure sweat is gathering at the back of both of your necks. It isn’t easy for either of you to talk about emotions, especially Eddie. So, if you could tell that he was serious and had something to say, it’s a given to afford him the time he needs to construct a response. After a few seconds, 

“You’re right, it’s not okay, but it already happened. And—And if I had to relive all of it, I don’t think I’d make a single decision different,”

His words strike you straight in the heart and somehow you feel worse, you want to disappear. It’s your turn to really be brave now as you bring your free hand to cover part of Eddie’s hands that had already been holding yours captive. 

“Eddie, you didn’t deserve anything I put you through, I need you to know that—I—It’s all my fault, you’re the best friend ever and I’m—I suck—”

“You have no idea what you do for me, sweet pea, every day—You have no idea,” The bundle of your hands grips tighter now, both of you holding onto each other for dear life. The look he’s giving you feels forbidden to divulge in, too intimate. You realize that you’re not the only one who has unfallen tears built up in preparation on your lash lines. 

Sweet pea. 

“You too, Eddie, you have no idea,” You whisper, scared to crack the bubble of affectionate vulnerability you had both unexpectedly created together. 

There’s more silence, more hand squeezing, and you could swear his knees shift slightly to crowd you into himself further. Your shared eye contact is infallible, both of your eyes round and vigilant, fiercely exploring the other’s for any hints on how to read into the situation. 

“I’m so sorry,” You breathe out, more timid than before; You needed him to know that. 

“I know,” Eddie declares indubitably, eyes wide and alert of the situation.

“I wanna be better, Eds. I’m gonna.” It’s a little louder, so he knows you’re gifting him the truth in a few, plain words. But, you’re scared for the moment to stop.

Scared for the closeness and intimacy to stop. 

“I know you are, I already know.” He says with a serious expression for a few seconds, then switching to a small smile as he gives the bundle of hands another squeeze.

“If my girl doesn’t stop skipping class, though—” He pauses for dramatic effect, reeling you closer by your hands once more as you roll your eyes into another stratosphere, “She’s never gonna make it to college.”

At that—after you get over the heat your body delights in at ‘my girl’— you scrunch your nose and face inwards in a sour taste. College?

“Eds, we both know I’m not going’ to college,” Your explanation comes with a soft smile, but confident nonetheless. You really didn’t think you saw that in your future. Your mom really needed you to be working more—You didn’t see the point in college if you couldn’t pay rent to have a roof over your head.

“What do you mean? You’re definitely smart enough to go to college!” Eddie’s louder now, and you know the small allowance of connectedness that you’d been afforded was over. 

Eddie lets go of your hands rapidly and swings his legs over the long plank. Snatching your sketchbook and pencil off of the table, he hunches slightly and starts hashing assertive lines on the page. 

You hesitantly decide to sit a good two or three feet away from him; You weren’t sure what had just happened and where you should go from here. It felt so awkward, so obvious. If a brightly colored, pink, and scaly dragon came swooping down from the heavens right now—landing and breathing out scorching, electrifying flames from its jowls—you’d both stare unproductively at the ground and act like you hadn't felt the heat from the fiery beast blasting against your skin.

“Maybe I could get into a close-by community college or something, I guess. But I don’t want to and we both know I can’t. Mom needs me to work, and if I ever want to move out of our piece of shit trailer and move into my own piece of shit trailer for the sake of peace and privacy, I’m going to have to be working fulltime and then some.” 

Eddie’s face falls further into a painful grimace with a twisted expression as he works on a second drawing of a figure in your sketchbook. You’d always envied him for his imagination and how easily he could just create something beautiful from his hands. You continue talking because he offers nothing to you in exchange.

“You know I already have that summer camp thing hooked up for June, and Dave said he could potentially start paying us for performing soon because of the crowds we’ve been pulling lately—Corroded Coffin, too, obviously—”

“Yea, but—look sweetheart, if you go to college you’re so much more ahead than everyone else—I mean you know that autoshop up the road wouldn’t even interview me for that management position because I didn’t have a college degree,” The malice is evident in his voice, but you know it’s not for you, “I just think you’re really smart, and you’d nail college—easy—I just think, you know, you shouldn’t have to worry about your parents’ problems or shortcomings. Going to college for a year or two could really help you in the future.” He keeps scratching away at the sketch.

You didn’t know what to say. Hearing Eddie talk to you like the parent you never really had strikes an odd note in your brain.  On one hand, you knew Eddie spoke some truth and it was evident that it was a topic he had thought a lot about, but also, it felt comical to think that someone like you could ever end up in college. Picturing yourself walking across a stage to receive a degree seemed not that far off from picturing yourself in a Superman costume, flying through the clouds. 

“You’re right, maybe I’ll think about it, I don’t know.” You start to collect your things off of the table top slowly, plopping them back inside your bag in clumsy handfuls from where you’d dumped it earlier. You wanted to tell him that he was incredibly smart, too, and that he could nail college easily, too, but you didn’t want to press the subject; It felt like a wound of his that you didn’t think he necessarily needed to explore at this very moment. The air felt so thick around the two of you that you wondered if it was only you who felt like the air was unbreathable. 

You wanted to hold his hands again.

“Here, like this,” Eddie presents your sketchbook to you, gripping either side with his hand. He pokes his head around the side of it, using the pencil as a pointer, “Maybe horns? Not sure, but I felt like we could draw some sort of armor on him similar to this kind of pattern here?”

It didn’t bother you that Eddie couldn’t finish a conversation to save his god damned life, because neither could you. You’re already brainstorming armor ideas for the character Eddie’s displayed to you, while simultaneously beating yourself up over college and yearning to be standing in between his legs once more. 

“Let me see,” Reaching forward to pluck the book from him, “Didn’t you want him to look different from all of the other characters? His silhouette is really similar to this one—” 

As you begin to thumb quickly through your book in search of the doodle, Eddie slides down closer to you on the bench. A little too close for how friends would sit by one another; Your shoulders touch and you can smell him all too clear. Are you a weirdo for liking how someone smells this much? Whatever, you think. 

His form leans forward ever so slightly, shoulder pressing just a little harder into your own. He’s watching your face as you watch the pages consciously flick through the tip of your thumb. Ah-ha! Your finger stops on the page that houses the creature in question.

“See?” You turn to face Eddie full-on now, your noses a few pathetic inches apart. It seems you’ve both forgotten about the sketchbook, just staring at each other for a few moments. Again, it feels different, new, exciting. 

 “You wanna go smoke?” He must care about the sketches just as much as you do currently.

“Weren’t you just lecturing me on skipping and smoking?” You ask him incredulously, raising a brow in suspicion.

“Yes, but alas, I am only a man—There’s a reason I’m out here too, y’know?” He smiles sheepishly and looks away from you now.

“Are you good to smoke?” His question throws you off, “You gonna be okay?” 

What the fuck was he on about? 

“What? Yes—I’m always good to smoke, what do you mean?” There’s an incredulity laced around your words, and at that he gives an odd shrug of his shoulders.

“Dunno—Just want you to be safe—” he cuts himself off with a shrug once more, and then you’re pushing the strange inquiries aside in your mind. 

“I’m safe, I’m with you, Eddie,” You’re already folding your book closed on its spiral spine and dragging your bag towards yourself once more, “But, what happened? Why are you skipping?”

You didn’t need much convincing to smoke, if that hadn’t already been painfully apparent. You’re preparing for a quick getaway. 

“Tell you about it in the van?” He was already up, swinging his long legs over the wooden bench, both hands in the pockets of his denim vest. You take extra note of the broadness of his shoulders from behind, then drag your eyes away quickly.

When he’s facing you once more, he grabs up your sketchbook, a few scraggly pencils, and a tube of lipgloss that had somehow ended up on the table, then he takes off to the path between the trees in which he had come from. You’re always dropping shit and toting around that god damned dirtied, denim bag of yours—Eddie had long realized you’d both get where you were going a lot faster if he helped you with your knack for disorder. 

“Wait up!” You shout as his unruly curls disappear through the bunches of autumn leaves, his dark hair working as some sort of camouflage. 

“I call shotgun!” His shout isn’t too far, but it’s got some distance,

“Eddie, you're driving! It’s permanent ‘shotgun’!” You realize you’ve fallen into his stupid trap of a joke after the obvious statement had already left your mouth as you rush to catch up to him. His cackle reaches you through echoes amongst the branches and leaves ahead. 

It was a no-brainer to the both of you that you were both headed to Eddie’s rusted van towards the back of the lot. Whether you were staying in the lot or not is usually something the both of you decide after you’ve already finished the first joint. 

When you both finally make it to his van, an immediate awareness thrums to life in your brain as your eyes lay on the passenger seat—You hadn’t been inside the van since after the party, right before everything else had happened. As you stand on the pavement in front of the cracked, faded leather of Eddie’s passenger seat, images of the night of the gig flood into your mind. Higher and higher until you’re floating at the top of the room, lips pressed up towards the ceiling of your psyche in one last, pathetic attempt to gasp for air—

“You getting in or just watching? You know, there’s an on-looker fee.” Eddie’s voice pulls you from drowning in your thoughts from his spot in the driver's seat, where he sits like a king on his throne. 

“Shut up” You huff out as you throw your bag onto the sticky, stained floor at the feet of the seat. Pushing yourself up into the vehicle with your right hand on the door as leverage, you slam it shut towards yourself once you’re properly seated. 

“So what’s your tragedy of the day? Tragedies? Multiple?” You’re way too curious of a person, despite mentally setting flames upon Eddie’s feet anytime he pried at you lately. 

“You’re not even gonna let me smoke yet?”

“Never. Talk and roll, hot stuff.” It surprises you how clunky, awkward, and wrong that the pet name sounds leaving your lips. You’d called Eddie that a hundred and one times, you both always flirted as a joke—But now that it wasn’t so much of a joke for you anymore, you cringe at your own words. It’s so bad that you swing your head to look out of the passenger window for a little, trying hard to look like you’re nonchalantly interested in the school parking lot to hide the mortified expression painted on your face. 

“See—That’s actually the problem—That I’m not hot stuff,” Eddie lets out in a comical tone, reaching over your knees momentarily to pop open the glove box, “Why don’t you roll? I always roll!” 

“Because you always tell me I roll like shit!”

“You do roll like shit—thanks for reminding me actually, nevermind.” It’s not said in a rude way, you know it’s his banter. 

You’re very curious now about whatever Eddie was going on about,

“Not hot stuff? What, Chrissy Cunningham said no when you asked her to Senior prom?” You snort, trying to keep the jealousy at bay as you jest at him over his middle school crush. Well, you guess his other middle school crush. He snorts some air out of his nose and a flicker of a soft smile plays on his lips as he gets to work rolling the joint.

“Yea, something like that,” The way his eyes float in a pool of anxiety in his skull and the odd tone in his voice gives it up, “It was actually Lisa.”

Again, you’re stumped for words as any and every part of you and Eddie’s conversations are somehow ending back at the party. Or rather, his shower. 

You were trashed beyond belief, but your brain had surely logged the blonde girl’s name and the fact that she was, in fact, not Eddie’s girlfriend. 

Was that why he was so upset? Had she turned her ugly colors on him, too, like she had done to you in the cafeteria? You want to feel bad for him, you really do—But inside you’re pumping your fists in the air in celebration. Was there a point in getting jealous over Eddie’s romantic pursuits or happy over a lack-there-of if you would never act on him? You weren’t sure. The thoughts make you dizzy.

“That—Uh—Girl I was with in the woods—The one you asked me about—” He starts on a further explanation when he’s met with your silence.

“Yes, I remember,” You try not to sound curt, you just didn’t want to hear about her and Eddie together anymore, quite frankly. 

“Yea well, earlier in between classes—she cornered me in the English hallway—Of course the busiest one—and she—she,” He laughs to himself in a sadistic way as his tongue peaks out to lick at the rolled paper in his hands. Of course you watch his mouth work, trying hard to keep up with the story when your own thoughts of forbidden desire and desolation do their best to drag you backwards into nothingness. 

“She asked me out—”

“What the fuck?” You cut him off without meaning to, your words drip in offense. You couldn’t help it, the thought made you sick. Especially after what she had said to you weeks prior when she was a part of your own personal public humiliation skit. 

            “Woah woah woah—is it really that unbelievable that anyone would ask me out?” He’s igniting the end of the joint with a low flame now.

            “What? No—I just meant—” You give it up, you’ve got no idea where that explanation thought it was headed. How would you dig yourself out of this one? You surely didn’t want Eddie believing that. 

            After an undoubtedly awkward beat of silence as Eddie took a strong hit from the burning drug in his hands, he speaks again with no acknowledgement of your silence. 

            “She asked me out—and I don’t know—she’s pretty and I really thought at first maybe she was—” He’s talking fast but you manage a huge scoff that draws his attention to you, “I really thought maybe she was serious about it—I just got flustered.”

              He stops talking now, eyes crawling around his lap as he hands you the joint blindly. It’s really hard to remind yourself to be there for your best friend through his pain rather than get angry over it. For Christ’s sake—you didn’t even know what had actually happened yet. 

              Pulling a drag and sputtering a bit, you speak,

              “Well, what? Did you say yes?” You’re not sure if your tone sounds neutral or not. But, you’re sure your hair has been replaced with raging flames that dance in an envious crown above your head.

              “No! I didn’t really get to say anything before the entire volleyball team made their grand entrance and she was screeching ‘better luck next time’ like a goblin in her super fucking high-pitched voice!” 

“Better luck next time! Hahahahah!” He mimics once more to no one in particular in an ear-splintering tone with his nose scrunched up and his teeth on show in a faux grin. 

               It angered you to say the least; It made you infuriated. 

“Oh I’m going to kill that bitch!” The words come out more forceful than Eddie had expected, he looks to you curiously now as he holds his hand out for the joint back, “I swear to God—After that cafeteria stunt? Boy, I have been waiting for a reason to make sure I don’t ever have to hear her dog-whistle laugh ever again!”

Your entire body is hot and you’re fidgeting now, rubbing your hands up and down the denim covering the tops of your thighs. It hadn’t occurred to you that your face was pulled into the fiercest of grimaces as you shake your head a little too long. You give a big huff of air out of your chest and grab for the joint, yanking it from his fingertips right as he goes to hit it.

“I didn’t even hit it!” Hey starts with his hands energetically thrown into the space around him, full body twisted to face you now. You glare forward as you pull the smoke through your lips from the filter. After blowing it out, 

“You know, she’s really not that pretty because she’s a bitch of a person—it doesn’t matter if you’re pretty on the outside if you’re not pretty on the inside!” It comes out with a bite to it, and Eddie struggles to understand why you’d be approaching the subject from this angle. He also zeros in on the small stick in your hand: engaged target. 

“Yea well, I don’t know y/n, it felt kinda nice for a pretty girl to pay attention to me like that for once,” He snatches the joint from you like you had earlier, “But, you know, then it got a million times worse because why wouldn’t it?” He gives a pathetic laugh, and you know it isn’t a genuine question that he poses. 

“Eddie, pretty girls pay attention to you all the time,” You roll your eyes so hard they threaten to fall out of your skull, “Have you seen the back alley at the Hideout after a show?”

Jealousy and self-hatred boil higher and higher inside your form while you think about the few regular girls who always hang all over the boys after a set. It boils even higher still when you really start to think about how you catch even some of the cheerleaders eyeing him suspiciously long and diverting their gaze when it veers to you, seated next to him. 

“Yea, sometimes girls fall for the ‘rockstar’ facade momentarily and give me a quick one night stand before bolting, and sometimes daddy’s little perfect angel from the rich side of town comes to my trailer for weed—even when that’s not what they really want,” He rips the joint hard, talking louder now, “But I’ve never been given the time of day or the decency of a conversation, it’s not the same.”

A silence fills the front cab of the van, you’re not sure what to say because you hadn’t thought of it that way. Eddie—the boy who deserved the most of every kind of love in the world—felt like nobody had ever shown him any at all. 

You want to give it to him. You want to give him all of the love in the world,  and it scares the shit out of you.

“Well anyways, yea I’m a little upset even if you think it isn’t warranted—” He starts to sum up the conversation, but you’d be damned if you kept pushing him away when you’ve realized that you wanted to care for him so badly.

“No! No! Eddie—I’m sorry I just have a lot on my mind, I don’t want you to think that I don’t think the situation was fucked up,” You rush it out, the high getting to your head now, “And I’m sorry—I’m sorry she made you feel like that. Some people are just rotten on the inside and that’s about all there is to it.”

Eddie cracks a miniscule smile quicker than you thought he would,

“You sound like Wayne,”

“Shut up!” You squeal, “I’m being serious, I know she’s vile, but try not to let it get to you because people who think like her don’t matter.” 

Eddie’s stubbing the finished joint out in the ashtray of his center console, then snatching up his metal lunch box from the back to grab more bud. He’s quiet; You worry that you said something wrong. 

“You still gonna make me go to that party?” His interjection is a huge shift in the conversation. You didn’t feel peace from how the last had just ended, and you wondered why he changed the subject so abruptly. 

He was talking about Steve Harrington’s annual halloween party. Robin, who worked at Family Video some days after school, somehow formed a friendship with him. On her insistence, you, Kennedy, your friend Mariana, herself, Eddie, and the rest of the boys of Corroded Coffin were going—it was in two days, on Saturday night.

“Okay one, yes, if I just go as a slutty cop alone without my jailbird I’m going to look stupid as fuck—I need my culprit!” You screech for emphasis, “And two, if I ever see Lisa again, just know I’ll take care of it, cross my heart.” You make a criss cross motion with your finger over your chest as you lean towards him over the center console to catch his gaze.

“I cannot believe you’re making us be a cop and robber,” Eddie starts with a smirk as he brings the second now-rolled joint to his lips, “Practically fulfilling Chief Hopper’s dream—for fun!”

Between yourself, Robin, Kennedy, your friend Mariana, Eddie, Gareth, and Jeff—None of you could decide on who would do what kind of group or couple costume with who. So, you’d all rolled dice on it. Eddie and you had ended up together somehow by chance, and the following day you’d run into a matching cop and robber costume at Melvald’s that was discounted if sold as a pair. You both had shrugged and thought less work for us, it was funny enough and ironic to the both of you. 

Eddie also thought the cheaply constructed dress fit your form a little too well. When you’d hesitantly walked into his room from the bathroom, arms crossed strategically across your midsection and wearing a look of absolute anxiety—Eddie had found it extremely difficult not to gawk. Instead, he’d made sure that you knew it looked perfect on you; He joked that you’d have to keep multiple pairs of cuffs on you in case you had to arrest more guilty suspects other than just himself.   

Later that night, you’d decided that the dress wasn’t as bad as you had originally thought. Alone in your room in front of your blurry and dusty full length mirror, you finally decided that you kind of looked sexy in the costume. Something about it and being in a matching costume with Eddie made you more excited for the party than you’d originally been when Robin told you you were going.

Of course you both loved parties to an extent, but a highschool party thrown at one of the king jocks’ houses wasn’t exactly your scene. It was likely that you’d have at least a few negative experiences with some people there, and Eddie too—he was definitely using it as an excuse to sell. Corroded Coffin might be able to afford a new piece of equipment if all went well. 

From this angle, with you twisted oddly over the center console and staring up at him, he’s a tantalizing sight. You’re trying to be happy and keep the mood up for Eddie’s sake, but jealousy and insecurity eats away at your mind in a vicious corrosion. What did Lisa ever do to deserve someone like him? He deserved the best, far better than you could ever give. 

But is that what makes him feel nice and seen? When extremely gorgeous girls dote on him for a period of time? 

“Don’t start anything with Lisa though, I’m sure she’ll be there,” Eddie continues the thought in your absence of speech, “I’m sick of getting in fights half of the times that I go out in any kind of social realm. Trust me, it’s not worth it.” He gives a small laugh with a breath of fresh air forced out of his nose, but the comment stings deep to you. He always ends up defending you and it makes him hesitant to go out with you. You’re a hazard at best for everyone around you. 

You’re not sure what to say, so you accept the joint from him and hit it a few times. The high was definitely present, and it made it seem a little more feasible to organize your thoughts and talk yourself down from negative emotions. It also made awkward pauses less awkward, both of your brains settling into the comfy, blurry haze that is marijuana—and taking their god damned sweet time to form any thoughts. 

“I just want to forget about the Lisa thing,” Eddie emphasizes again, her name feeling like a needle prick on your fingertip, “It’s really whatever, just upset me.”

He must sense that your emotions concerning anything to do with Lisa aren’t good ones, but he doesn’t know why you’ve been acting the way you have about her. 

“Okay Eddie, like you forgot about Derrick all those times? If I see the bitch and it’s warranted—or if I’m a little too drunk—I’m going to do my best friend duty, okay?” 

He gives a louder laugh now at that, his mood having morphed back into something positive he leans his head all the way back into the seat, his curls pushing up into the headrest and flooding awkwardly out around his head. Yet he faces you, lounging in the driver’s seat looking like some sort of sex god, as he holds his hand out meekly to invite the pot to himself once more. 

His gaze bores into your appearance, something deeper that’s been unidentifiable your entire life screams to be let free. His eyes fleet away from your face in a second, then they come back. His tongue is quickly wetting his lips, he takes a deep breath, 

“What’s the point in you fighting Lisa when I’ll already be there with the prettiest girl in Hawkins? She’ll quite literally have me in cuffs, too.”

Your world stops for real this time; Your mind travels somewhere serene that you’ve never journeyed to before. That was a fucking flirt. That was definitely a fucking flirt.

What should I do?

Your face is immediately sheathed in a shameful warmth, eyes bouncing carelessly back into your lap away from the threat at hand. Did he mean it? Surely he did. 

Nervously, you clutch at the seam of your shirt and rub the fabric between your thumbs for reassurance. Do it back.

Do it back— you dare yourself.

“In cuffs, huh? You into that?” 

He smiles to himself hard, and you can tell that he’s trying diligently to hold it back. He seems taken aback that you’ve fed into his bait, but he’s quick nonetheless.

“Sweetheart, I’d be into anything with you,” It’s unfamiliar but sweet to hear him talk to you in this tone, “Shit,” he trails off, turning his head towards the window as he scratches the  back of his neck, stuffing the joint in his mouth as a distraction.

“Oh really? Anything?” Now that you know your place in the conversation you’re more confident. You’ve got your footing and you’re going in for the kill, “Not sure you could handle all of this, Munson.” 

“Oh, I’d fucking worship you, if you’re offering, doll.” He laughs lowly in a daring tone.

God. You shift in your seat, pushing yourself up slightly to sit up, then falling back into the leather once more. Eddie absolutely notices you pulling your knees together tight, pushing your thighs into each other. You certainly weren’t used to Eddie turning up his charm on you—the nicknames? The insinuations? The tone of his voice. 

Where do you both go from here? Worship me? Fuck. 

What if you were just honest with him? What if it didn’t have to be this hard? Nothing’s ever been easy for you. 

You begrudgingly glance at him for guidance. Both of your eyes might as well be deep cannons somewhere out in Arizona, filled with beautiful, flowing springs that sparkle when the sun travels just right to the cannon floor.   

Endless.

Sometimes it feels like Eddie and you are always having some sort of silent conversation behind the closed doors of your ego’s consciousness. 

Yet somehow, Eddie’s taking in your expression and silence and regretting everything he’s said to you in the past 10 minutes.

“Shit—I’m sorry I didn’t mean to be—” he laughs and it seems uncalled for, nervous, “I shouldn’t have said that, um, yea, I’m sorr—”

“It’s okay, Eds,” it’s quiet and in a different voice than he was expecting. Your timbre is gentle, scared to crack the current environment in the van and watch it crumble around yourself to smithereens. 

“It is?” 

“Um, yeah” Inside your head, you’re surely stomping your feet into the pink mush of your brain and screaming; You knew Eddie better than yourself, why was this so hard? It should seem obvious that Eddie reciprocated your feelings to an extent, but it just wasn’t a risk that you could whole-heartedly jump into with no hesitation.

  “Oh—um—okay,” He laughs a little but it’s hardly a sound, “Wait—so, like, what are we actually talking about right now?” He’s more jittery now, the question comes out exasperated with a shake of his head. Eddie’s entire face shines pink and meeting you eye-to-eye seemed impossible. You know the atmosphere in the van has changed when Eddie tosses the now-out joint into the overflowing ashtray lodged in front of his gear shift, half-finished. 

And your entire life couldn’t have prepared you for an answer at this moment. Flinging your head back into the headrest, your eyes flit to the ceiling before shutting. You deliver a loud groan that lasts longer than it needs to, then you’re whipping your head to the left to stare back at the man. 

Gazes meet, and you’re both simply allowing for one another to crash through emotional walls that you had thought were water-tight your entire life. It seems like, for a blip of a second, you’re both giving up on the charade. Both throwing your heart at the other’s torn up sneakers; Here, have it already! 

“I’m sorry about, you know, after the gig.” Fuck it, might as well bring it up now. When would be a better time than whatever the hell was going on here? 

That definitely wasn’t what Eddie was expecting for you to say; You can tell by the way his brows get lost in his hairline at the comment. Both of your faces are fucking burning from the vocalization of the heat in your secret desires once more. Eddie thinks his body hasn’t been this shaky in a very long time; He finds it hard to sit still while he tries to hide the feeling of his heart escaping the steel bars of his rib cage. 

“Oh—It’s okay—Um, do you remember all of that?” His voice flies a few octaves higher to match his brows.

“Not really, some of it—enough of it.” The view out the window is suddenly more entertaining than your best friend’s expression.

“Y/n, I mean you were trashed and high out of your mind, it’s okay.” He even gives a laugh at the end of the statement. He moves in his seat so much, picking up random objects around his peripheral and playing with them for a second before moving on to the next, that you think he might be getting ready to jump out of the car. 

“Yea but, I really am sorry. And thank you again, seriously Eddie.” 

“I promise you don’t ever have to apologize for anything remotely close to what happened that night.” And another laugh; Eddie always laughed when he was nervous.

Yet, he sounded genuine. This didn’t feel like normal banter. Again, it was unfamiliar, but not necessarily bad. You liked talking to Eddie like this—even if he seemed so unsettled that you wondered if he had an ant hill in his boxers or something. Would it be so bad if you said something? 

“I wish I hadn't been so trashed, you know?” You try it out, 

“Seriously, it’s alright, you’d do the same for me—”

“Yea but I wish I had been more sober so I could’ve remembered what happened.” 

Your sentence is a catalyst for a long bout of silence in the car.

Inside, there’s an unavoidable panic that you’ve said something wrong. Sitting in the depths of the silence, you stare at your fingers in your lap. A helpless bundle of appendages that couldn’t even hold yourself together.

“Okay—y/n—I’m not going to lie, I don’t know what to say right now, I’m not sure what you’re wanting from—” Eddie begins to ramble anxiously after an uncomfortable experience of quiet, but you have to put the fire out. You have to get to your point.

“I was just saying that maybe I would have liked to remember some of what happened,” You don’t mean for it to sound as exasperated when it’s expelled from your lips, “Because—because I liked it.” 

The last line is filled to the brim with certainty. 

A confession.

An admittance. 

It’s enough to send the car into another silent intermission. 

When he doesn’t say anything for an uncomfortable amount of time, refusing to face you as you observe the back of his unruly locks. What if that isn’t what he wanted to hear? What if you read this wrong? What if you had made him uncomfortable? Now he doesn’t know how to let his friend down easily. What were you thinking putting the two of you in this situation?

You feel fat tears forming for the umpteenth time that day; You felt rejection worse than you’d ever felt from anyone. 

“I’m sorry, that was really uncalled for, I’m sorry Eddie.” The words creep quietly so as to not disturb his unknown emotional state. 

“I’m not—I won’t say shit like that to you  anymore—Seriously—”

He swings his head back towards you with ferocity this time. Eyes narrowed and inspecting; What had you done wrong?

“Seriously? Seriously—After what I just told you? You’re cruel; You’re just like her.”

What?! You were horrified. He thought that you were joking.

“Like who?!” It’s a defensive screech,

“Like Lisa!” He’s officially yelling; The boom of his low timbre bounces around the two of you in the cab of his van. 

Your face screws up tight as you give the loudest scoff ever,

“Oh fuck off, you’re just an idiot!” The anger came so quick with the two of you. Anything to do with the unexplored tension sporadically combusted in both of your faces too often lately. 

Was he kidding? 

A larger, wiser, and usually more patient part of yourself knows that anger is a coping mechanism; It’s how you keep yourself safe. It’s how you keep your heart safe; Locked so tight inside your chest that sometimes it felt like it couldn’t even beat correctly. 

“I’m an idiot?!” He’s sitting straight up now, both hands gripping either side of the worn steering wheel as he seethes in your direction. 

And you wanted out. You didn’t want to fight anymore—You didn’t want to yell with anybody at all. You don’t want to yell with Eddie. You don’t want to yell with Derrick. Yelling made you immediately shrink in on yourself, even if you would shout infuriated lines every now and then. Slowly, the little girl who’s lived inside your body since birth retracts in on herself. You didn’t know what to do—but you knew you sure a hell didn’t want to be in the van anymore with Eddie. 

So you don’t reply to him, and instead you begin haphazardly grappling at your bag where it rests by your boots. You shut down momentarily. 

When he realizes what’s happening, he lets out a sardonic laugh. 

“So now you’re leaving?!” It’s got no legitimacy behind it, he knows what it looks like when you flee from an interaction. He’d give anything to know what was playing through your thoughts at the moment. 

“Not like you want me here anyways, right?” You’re clumsily tumbling out the door; The heel of your boot accidentally catching on the frame mimics the creak of the hinges, “I just remind you of every other cold hard bitch in Indiana—and I’m still not enough, right?!” 

If you regretted letting that slip—you didn’t feel it at the moment. 

“Y/n—What are you fucking talking about!?”

The heavy metal slams in his face, jostling the parked van back and forth on its wheels for a moment. 

Cold hands reach for either side of your jacket, pulling it tighter on yourself and hiking your bag over your left shoulder, where it belongs. Hefty boots slap across the worn pavement as you make your escape. But—not before you hear the distinct screeching of Eddie’s driver side window lowering. 

“At least you have Derrick to run back to then, right?! It’s always back to him! I know for a fact he’s not gonna help you with your little problem.”

                     The swivel you land off the heel of your boot is vicious, your hair races to catch up to the whiplash. 

“Oh fuck off Edward! You have no idea what you’re talking about because your big ass head is too busy trying to bullshit its way out of your asshole! You’re an idiot!” The words aren’t much more than an unpleasant shriek, and you almost immediately roll your eyes at yourself over how childish you sound, “Whatever the hell you think that you know about me, you don’t! Fuck off into another universe Eddie!” Your voice strains to a point that it usually only reaches with Derrick in a bout of explosive fury.

The turn of your boot in the opposite direction is quick, and your short tirade must have been enough to render the man speechless. You couldn’t find it in you to care much, not when you already felt lower than low over anything to do with Derrick in the first place. Not when you had just tried to gauge your best friend’s reaction to a secret love admission and he’d thrown it back in your face. Not when you had no idea where to go or who to run to. Not when you realized that at the end of the day, all you had to run to was yourself—and you couldn’t even trust that. 

~~~~~~~~later that Thursday night~~~~~~~~

“Like a virgin—HEY!—Touched for the—” 

“Jesus Christ, the pizza is burning!”

“God dammit—ROBIN! You said you set a timer!” Kennedy scolds.

“I did! Then I had to keep checking on it because it wasn’t done and—LIKE A VI-IR-IR-IRGIN, WHEN YOUR HEART BEATS NEXT TO-” 

“So did you plan to check again or just let it catch the entire house on fire while you practice for your MTV debut!?”

“I got it, I GOT IT!” You quell the argument occuring midway between Kennedy’s kitchen and living room as you slip your hands into the scratchy mitts. 

The oven gives a creak as you bump it closed with your hip and you swing your body quickly to place the boiling hot pizza pan onto the counter top. You set the food adjacent to an old pizza cutter and paper plates that are already laying haphazardly on the counter, waiting.

When you turn to lead back into the living room, the two girls are already thundering into the kitchen, full of cackles and smiles.

“Why thank you good sir!” Robin spits in an over exaggerated British accent, “I’ve been starving all day!”

“Yes thank you!” Kennedy chimes in, moving towards the stack of paper plates.

“I didn’t buy the pizza or put it in the oven, I only just saved us a visit from the fire department.” you say with a shrug, leaning your weight into the countertop.

Kennedy’s kitchen was cozy; It always felt safe and inviting. The light overhead was surely harsh and fluorescent—only to be turned on when someone needed a splinter removed or had an overly-ambitious science project due the next day. Instead, Kennedy’s mother insisted on the use of a few, smaller lights and candles to fill in the gaps.

Her mother had been a single parent for far too long now—similar to your own mother’s strife. Kennedy’s father never had really been in the picture to begin with. Yet, her house always felt warm and secure. When her mother spoke it sounded like ancient hymns; Words seemed to sound more astounding coming from the woman.

She put special care into her home-environment for sure. Creating an unmistakable ambience through the low, but consistent, hum of an older record spinning in the background and a frenzy of pleasant smells from her incense and candles. 

Kennedy’s mother was awesome. But, she wasn’t home much. A few years prior, Kennedy’s grandmother who lives about an hour away fell ill, and her mom spends most of her time there nowadays. The house felt a little empty without her, but it was also empty of parental supervision. 

You suppose that Kennedy's house is the designated sleepover house for a reason. You weren’t, however, so sure that one of her mother’s normal vinyls being swapped out for Madonna’s new record was going to serve to your benefit.

“I hope Mariana is okay,” Robin starts as she expertly rolls the pizza slicer through the dough, “I spoke to her earlier, she wasn’t feeling up to a sleepover tonight. I hope she pulls it together for Saturday, though!” 

You move to the back of the make-shift line you girls have made next to the frozen-pizza-feast. Kennedy rolls her eyes as Robin already begins to stuff her mouth with the food. 

“I hope she does! How can we be Luke, Han, and Leia with only the two of us!” Kennedy replies, pushing her long golden hair over her shoulder haphazardly to prepare for the pizza carnage, “If we’re just in full Luke Skywalker and Han Solo get ups everyone will think we’re there as a couple- I’m getting laid whether I’m dressed as a bad, gender-bent rendition of a Jedi or not!” 

“Of course I want Mariana to come—But what’s wrong with Luke & Han together? Gay rights!” Robin muffles around the remainder of her crust as you finally plop a few pieces for yourself onto the cheap paper plate. 

“And speaking of gay rights- I HAVE A NEW BAND NAME RECOMMENDATION,” Robin throws her plate of pizza onto the counter beside her, splaying both hands up to frame her face, “Burning Brides!”

“We were already Burning Bridges! That sounds too similar—It’s literally only one letter less! Plus, we just got exposure from the Stand Alone gig as Dead Wives!” Kennedy beats you to it in a heartbeat, saying all the right things. 

“So?! We change our name all of the time, we’re never happy with it!” Robin answers passionately. 

“I like Dead Wives, though,” You chime in in Kennedy’s defense, “It fits better than Burning Bridges did.”

“I agree! But, if we’re changing band names, I’ve had one in the back of my brain forever, just waiting-” Kennedy starts,

“Then spit it out! You’re only saying that because I brought up a new one!” Robin’s voice raises in pitch and volume; Usually band name changes turn into an argument pretty fast.

“Mutually Morbid!” Kennedy spits, “It’s dramatic, it’s macabre, it’s got the alliteration—Can’t beat it!”

“Mutually Morbid—What’s wrong with Dead Wives?!” Robin argues.

“You literally want it to be Burning Brides!”

“Burning Brides, Dead Wives- It’s kind of the same thing, just better!”

“Mutually Morbid is kind of cool, not going to lie—” You start, Robin refuses,

“No it’s not! You guys seriously don’t like Burning Brides?!”

“I still like Dead Wives!” Your emotions rise to match the other two girls’. You had been the one to come up with Dead Wives in the first place, so you felt some ownership over it. 

Kennedy quickly drags you out of your own anger when she throws her arms into the air dramatically, lashing her head backwards in frustration. The theatrics make it hard not to let a giggle out, coming to your senses on how stupid the lot of you look. 

“Alright—You guys can lightsaber duel at the party Saturday over the name,” You offer in a lighter tone, “Kennedy, if you don’t kick her ass—”

“Hey no fair Han Solo isn’t a jedi!” Robin counters once more. 

“Well you can have Mariana on your side too—Sexy Leia is oh so distracting and powerful—”

“Marianna might not come, though, so that’s again: not fair.” Robin’s munching on her slice once more, so you know the tension has dwindled. 

“Well, sounds like the group might just turn into Luke, Han, and a random slutty police officer,” you add to the conversation between a bite, “Although, I will be fighting as a sexy, sexy police officer in honor of keeping ‘Dead Wives’”

Kennedy and Robin stare at you in tandem, seemingly more interested in you now and seeking an explanation. 

“Eddie and I are fighting again, so who knows if my cellmate will actually show up or not.” You try not to sound as disappointed as you are as you give a measly shrug. 

You can tell both girls are now more invested in you, tucked in the corner of the kitchen counter facing the two of them, than the prior conversation.

Robin gives an eye roll, throwing her hands into the air around herself, “God dammit just fuck already! I really thought it’d happen after the gi—”

Kennedy hops off of her place atop the counter to give Robin an instinctual shoulder shove with her palm—

“Knock it off Robin—Why? What happened? Was it about the after party?” You could almost laugh at the two girls’ antics.

No one had talked much about the night of the party outside of the gig since it had happened; The two girls had been teeming with curiosity since you’d stumbled with Eddie to his van that night. 

Another weak shrug runs from your shoulders as you haphazardly throw your plate onto the counter. It was getting admittedly harder and harder to not only run from all of your emotions, but hide the terrifying pursuit of your demise from your loved ones, as well. 

You didn’t feel like running from the inevitable anymore, you needed help. Should you let your friends help?

Giving another anxious shrug out of habit and then wrapping your arms tight around yourself, you divert your gaze to the half-mutilated pizza on the stove top. For a second you envied every inanimate object in the room—feelings were hard. 

“So I want to be done talking to Derrick, I swear—Like—I hate him, I don’t want him around!” You surprised yourself with the unexpected admission; Your voice cracked more times than you’d like and the tone of it was a roller coaster in itself. You knew that you were approaching the metaphorical edge of what you could handle on your own, since every time someone gives you the chance to talk about anything, everything spills out messily. 

Kennedy and Robin must sense that the conversation is a serious one this time, and that some sort of answers would be soon provided to the pair in details that they had been waiting on for months it seemed like. Both girls stay quiet, their bodies shifting ever-so-slighting to put full attention on you. 

“And—and—so what if I do like Eddie?!” 

“Tell him!” Both girls squeal with bravado; their bodies jolt with energy. 

“I can’t! I cannot—” It stutters from your mouth instinctually. They were your best friends, the girls you tell everything to. But, how the hell do you admit to your friends something so terrible? 

How would you even begin to admit to Eddie that you were undoubtedly in love with the mother fucker. It wasn’t simple in the slightest; You had too many loose ends in your life and miles of shame and embarrassment. Eddie hated Derrick, was surely starting to hate you because of Derrick, and made you feel ashamed for hiding abuse—even though you’d said nothing to anyone about the matter. Ever. 

Undeniably, you know none of it was really your fault, not the abuse anyways. But that doesn’t change how your heart feels; It doesn’t change the thick, sticky guilt and humiliation that sinks slowly down your throat and drips leisurely around your heart. How do you tell someone any of this?

Like many times this week, the tears begin despite the way you try to control it. Salty liquid pools rapidly, you blink a bunch—Fuck.

They’re flowing persistently now down the streams between your pores and around the creases in your nose. Slumping into the counter more, you bring your hands up to cradle your face and attempt to conceal and stop the tears. 

Kennedy and Robin are on you instantaneously, pizza forgotten. The pure love and tender care that your friends provide you with calms your soul, but you cry even harder, still. It feels good to let it out, to let it go and release unwanted emotions. 

With both girls on either side of you, you figure your body must have really given up. Kennedy’s hand flies up in an instant to cushion your head when your neck deceives you, your skull banging into the cabinet behind you. Her fingers thread carefully into your hair and rub soothing circles; Robin’s got both your upper arms in her grasp, laying her own head awkwardly into your chest. The bundle of bodies isn’t in an ideal position, sure, but they’re letting you know that they’re here. They’re here and they just want to help. 

There’s no space in your brain to worry about how Kennedy can probably feel how many days it’s been since you’ve washed your hair. There’s no space to worry about how Robin might be able to smell that you haven’t done laundry in an even longer amount of time. Since you were a child you’d had to grow up all too quickly with little to no parental supervision—when shit gets hard, every aspect about yourself hits the fan in the most horrendous way. 

You have no space in your brain to begin to comprehend how Eddie probably notices this, how Eddie probably smelt your clothes or felt the grease in your hair earlier, how Lisa probably never misses a day of conditioning her own locks—

  For once, your brain shuts it down. There’s no space.

  “Hey, hey, I know—” Kennedy squeezes your head to her own chest a little tighter, “Why don’t we calm down a little and then we can all talk, hm?” Her voice is precarious and warmly sweet, just like her mother’s. Kennedy’s always been the best at comforting anyone who needs it. 

“Let’s head upstairs—No one’s been home all day so the water is definitely nice and hot!” She says it softly with a smile, Robin still clings to your front half. 

You have to remind yourself that these girls love you more than anything and that they only want the best for you; They’re not trying to tell you that you smell, they’re trying to tell you that they want to help you take care of yourself when you can’t. That they know you’ll feel better after you’re taken care of. 

They’re granted a weak nod from you, and Kennedy backs up a little as she slides her hand down to grasp your own. Robin does the grunt work of pulling your body forward off of the counter. The weight of your body resting on your feet once you reach the ground pulls you back to reality enough that you support most of your own weight, at least. 

Robin tethers you to herself and makes way towards the stairs. You wish you had it in you to laugh when Kennedy quickly galivants over to the record player and smacks the needle off with irritation, as if to say ‘Not now, Madonna’. 

  ~~~

  You’d never been more grateful for the two girls as you brush through your unruly, damp locks in front of Kennedy’s bathroom mirror. Wrapped in one of her fluffiest robes, you smell of the girl as you slathered her own face, body, and hair products onto your own being. You definitely needed that shower. 

Yet, your stomach drops itself to the lowest points of your body once more; you’re going to have to tell them.

You’re going to have to tell someone. You can’t keep doing this. 

After placing the brush back nicely onto the counter, your hands follow and splay themselves across the frigid, ceramic countertop. Leaning further, you have a standoff with yourself in the mirror. You wish that you could make a bed within your own irises, pulling the various tones of pigment up overself tight like an old, welcoming comforter. 

Alright. You have to do this. 

            When the door to the bathroom within Kennedy’s room opens, dragging quietly with little resistance over the old carpet shag, you emerge like a pathetic animal coming out of hibernation to meet the spring sunshine; a little dazed, but rejuvenated and ready for new beginnings. 

             Robin and Kennedy sit perched on the bed and the floor respectively, poised but up on their knees, standing to full attention. They argue over a tissue box, sneering in whispers back and forth— “Keep it in your lap down there—” “No! Just keep it up there, she’s going to sit there next to you—”

             The discovery of your presence triggers the end of the bickering and a quick onset of panic. The box, sent flying a few inches into the air after batting back and forth between the two girls’ hands for a beat, is snatched out of the air with ease by Kennedy. She holds it in her arms, secured down into her lap like it had been there the entire time, and offers a small smile. 

“Hey! Come sit—you feel better, sweetcheeks?” Kennedy’s voice is reminiscent of her mother's in times of dire need. 

“Yeah,” you sigh, “A lot better. Thank you guys so much, seriously, you know how I get sometimes.” 

You take a hesitant seat next to Kennedy on the bed, soaking in the warm, comfortable lighting that her bedside lamp provides to the room. 

Where would you start? Both girls sit patiently, wide eyes accepting, yet hanging off of the biggest cliff of anticipation. 

Unsure what to say first, you divert your eyes to your bare toes where they sit atop your feet as soon as the pause of silence becomes too awkward to carry any longer. 

“We just want to help, you haven’t been okay, y/n.” The gentle whisper from Robin surprises you almost as much as it just about wretches your heart out of your chest. She accompanies her words with a careful hand grabbing at your shin from where she sits next to your legs. 

Eye brows pulling in taught towards each other and eyes filling to the top with worry—you think this would be easier not looking at either of the girls. Instead, your gaze focuses on the old, wooden bookshelf that lives next to the bathroom door. It’s been there since you met Kennedy, but years of friendship has taught you that she’d had the bookshelf since she was a newborn; it had been part of her nursery furniture set. You catch the glint of the glass with your sight quickly, your eyes training familiarly on a small, hot pink picture frame. It’s you, Kennedy, and Robin sitting at the picnic table in her backyard in the summer of 1980, you all were 13 or 14. 

These girls are some of the only family that you’ve ever known. 

“Do you remember what I said in the bathroom a few weeks ago?” It's a pitiful tone that rolls off of your tongue, with a crack in your timid voice to match.

Both girls nod gently, but sternly—Go on, it says. Robin squeezes your calf where her touch stays for comfort. 

“It’s worse than what I said. I lied.” Your eyes stay trained on the photograph across from where you all sit, but they’re wide with emotion. The focus of your vision is lost from the braces, scrunchies, and brightly colored headbands to a blurry sheen as tears gather for the finale—the big admission. You couldn’t explain how absolutely sick it made you to imagine looking either of the girls in their eyes at the moment. It made you sicker to imagine saying it while reminiscing across the room at the three of you in some of the last moments of what you’d considered your childhood. 

Both girls whisper your name in tandem, trailing the word off, and you’re sure they’re twisting their expression into the worst mirror you’ll ever have to face. 

“Did he—did he touch you?” Kennedy braves it first, the fabric of the comforter shifts slightly as she leans towards you. She places her hand on your thigh over the fluffy fabric of her robe that you don. Of course you’d had your suspicions that the girls had their own suspicions about why you were acting the way you had been. But you’d assured them that you were safe and that it wasn’t as bad as it was. You had lied and told them you’d tell Eddie. You don’t have the space in your mind to wonder how long your story-twisting had thrown them off of your guilty scent before they circled back. 

Hearing someone say that outloud—deliberately ask you—it breaks you. 

Your vision still fails you, but it doesn’t matter. You’d swear every muscle in your face contracts instantaneously at the question and no matter how much you’d fucking cried in the past few weeks, months, the tears are more plentiful than ever. Ugly sobbing, just as you had in your bedroom in front of Eddie a few weeks ago when you’d thought of facing the same conversation that you were having now. 

The floor creaks under Robin as she shoots up from her spot near your legs dangling helplessly off the side of the bed. She’s sat on the other side of you immediately, and Kennedy moves in to squeeze you between the both of them just as quickly. 

At least a few minutes pass just like that. Two of your closest friends freeze time—stop the world from spinning—for a few minutes to allow for you to have space to process the entire mess. They understand. Their whispers of love and reassurance bleed into your ears and function as a magical elixir, beginning to heal some of your deepest wounds already.

Eventually, the three of you end up falling back onto the bed together, with you still tangled in between the two. The pile of tangled limbs, appendages, and hair stays bound on Kennedy’s bed for a few more minutes as your sniffles die down. You come to terms with how absolutely light you feel now with the worst part of this conversation being over. You come to terms with having to talk about it. 

The air pulls into your lungs until they’re full, and releases into a shaky sigh. All three of you stare at the ceiling now, still grasping on to each other for dear life. It reminds you momentarily of when you’d lay in the grass sometimes together as young teens and point out shapes in the clouds. Who would’ve guessed where you’d end up? Who could’ve predicted their own downfall through secret imagery within the heavens, like some ancient soothsayer?

Certainly not you. 

“It started in June—the night of his graduation,” you begin quietly. You don’t continue for an unusual amount of time, but the girls don’t dare falter in their patience and understanding. They’re giving you your space to get these toxins out of your body with no obstructions or obstacles.

“He was really drunk—I mean, really drunk—” it hurts to dig through the boxes of recent memories you’d stored away in the attic of your brain, next to all of the other traumatic ones.

“I was also drunk, it was after we all left Julia Stevenson’s house party.” You know that the girls’ minds are focused solely and completely on you in the moment when Robin doesn’t call Julia some play on the title of stinky bitch. 

You sigh again. Would you ever spit it out?

“When we got back to his house, he decided that he didn’t like what I had been wearing the entire night. He came into the kitchen to grab another beer from the fridge, yelling at me the entire time—I mean, stumbled in, you know—and he ended up, like—he—he pushed me pretty hard into the pantry—a lot of shit fell down on to us too—I thought maybe, maybe—” Hands grip tighter now as limbs squeeze harder. 

Kennedy turns her face into your hair and neck, resting her face into your shoulder. If you didn’t know Kennedy so well, maybe you wouldn’t have noticed the slight dampness through the robe fabric, or the way her features flexed suddenly while pressing into you. The last thing that you wanted was for either of the girls to feel any type of guilt for your shameful secrets. 

A whisper of your name from Robin, one that has no purpose of developing into anything further than an acknowledgment of the seriousness of the admission, prompts you to finish your thought. 

“I thought that maybe he had just lost his balance, I mean—he was so drunk, you know?” it comes out in nothing stronger than a whisper. You’re sure that Kennedy is crying now, as she clings tighter to you and shakes lightly intermittently as her breathing increases ever so slightly. 

“Oh, y/n—” it sounds like it pains Kennedy to say it. 

You stare blankly at the ceiling now, feeling more numb the harder that the conversation becomes. 

“But, it happened again,” you continue, “more than a few times—the pushing, they weren’t accidents.”

“I’m going to fucking murder him, I swear I’m going to—” quiet, but overflowing with venom are Robin’s words as they battle to escape neatly between clenched teeth. She’s cut off by a blubbering Kennedy, who throws her arm out across you quickly to grasp at Robin’s shoulder.

“Let her finish, Rob.” She lets out quietly, sniffles present and all. You want this to be over sooner than later, you bid yourself to align the events of tragedy in your memory in the most stream-lined dialogue possible. 

“And of course the name calling, locking me outside his house in the middle of the night, waking me up to yell at me, constantly accusing me of cheating—that all had happened before but it got worse.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Robin means no harm from the question, her tone is completely innocent and purely inquisitive. You know that she feels the same unnecessary and incorrect guilt that Kennedy does. Why didn’t you let them help you earlier? They can’t fathom you holding on to this alone for all of this time. 

You shrug, but you’re not sure it does much for your case. A few more tears leak out, but you feel it the same as a lake would feel light rain hitting the surface. 

“I couldn’t,” another weak gasp for air, “I couldn’t—I shouldn’t even be saying this now—”

“Y/n, this is serious! We need to go to the police—” Robin’s tone is louder and stronger now; Kennedy stays clinging to your side, but now peers up at you with a twisted expression.

“We can’t!” You startle both girls when your body rises against your will at the suggestion, leaving the pile of limbs, “Don’t you think I’ve wanted to?!” 

“Y/n—” Kennedy’s heavenly voice leaks out softly as she sits up to join you and gently grasps your forearm, “This is serious.” She tries in Robin’s defense.

“And what are the police going to do?! Call Derrick in for questioning? Pull me into a terrible legal case set up for failure? I have no evidence—” You struggle to keep up with your own words, “Derrick cannot know that I told anybody! Literally ever! That is what’s serious!” 

“We need to tell people who can help, y/n!” Robin’s adamant, her and the other girl fall into good-cop-bad-cop once more,

“What if we just start by telling some adults—your mom should know—” her tone is soft, but her suggestion is offensive to you.

“My mom?! Yeah because she’s awesome at dealing with domestic abuse—right?!” It seemed almost humorous that either of the girls would even consider bringing your mom into the situation, not when you had to watch her boyfriend beat on her for years during middle school. She did nothing—said nothing. She let him back into the house every time, even after he had grabbed your wrist and upper arm way too tight more than a few times. 

A little guilt simmers in the depths of your stomach when both girls pause their voices and gaze at you with pity and regret. It wasn’t fair to throw that back at them when they were quite frankly the only people in your life trying to help you right now. Not that you didn’t have others that were dying to help, if only they knew what was wrong. Eddie, Wayne, Mariana even—hell, you even had a teacher or two who you felt cared about you enough that you’d possibly consider telling if you felt like you had nowhere else to run. It was no secret that you’d been off and different for the past few months. 

“Look—I’m just going to avoid him like the plague and never put myself in a position again where he has any opportunity to do anything to me ever—”

“Y/n…” Kennedy cuts you off softly and both girls give you the look. 

You’ve said you were done with him too many times to count, for years. 

“We can’t—we can’t tell anyone—I’m serious, we can’t—” You begin to take too many breaths at once again, “He’s going to hurt you guys! And Eddie! And—And—And, everyone! That’s all he’s ever said—he means it, he’s crazy!”

Hands fly up to shield your face once more to conceal the wretched expression that you don. As the firm flesh of your hands pushes unreasonably hard into your eyes and plush cheeks, you feel as if you’re physically trying to hold yourself together. You push into your hands further, maybe you could leave your body and feel peace for once. The wetness of your tears and snot feel disgusting on your palms; if you held on tight enough, maybe you’d close in on yourself and disappear all together. 

Kennedy’s hands are feather light on your wrists, but stern in her goal—slowly pulling your hands off of yourself and into her lap, she ducks down to catch your gaze.

           “Nobody is going to let anything happen to anybody—look at me,” she pauses to command your direct attention, “I promise nothing, nothing is going to happen to any of us, or you, okay? I will make sure of it. But this can’t be ignored.”

“But what would we do?! Let’s just deal with the damage that’s been done and let it rest!” You protest.

“Derrick is dangerous! And, he needs to be held accountable for his actions! If it were up to me, I’d kill the mother fucker!” Robin pipes up with volume once more. 

“Rob’s right, Derrick should be somewhere far the fuck away from you, y/n,” Kennedy squeezes your wrists for emphasis, “And he should be held accountable—the whole world should know he’s a disgusting, dangerous piece fo shit!”

“I’m pretty sure the entire world already knows that, Kennedy!” You aren’t yelling at either of the girls, and they know that, but you’re backed into a corner and petrified.

It’s odd, really, the way that you don’t truly believe the words flowing off of your own tongue. In a way, a tiny voice in your head is absolutely screeching at you in agreement with Kennedy and Robin. You knew they were right—hell, they’d always been right, even when they had no confirmation of what was going on. 

You see the danger that is Derrick in the depths of Kennedy’s wide, trepid eyes. 

“Why don’t you want your mom to know? I know she hasn’t been the best by any means, but you live with her and she cares about your safety—” Robin’s suggestion ignites more terror in your bones.

“No! Do either of you have any idea how fucking embarrassing this has been?! How disgusting I feel?! I let this happen to me—did I deserve it? I’ve been slowly rotting away for months while everybody watches!” It surprises you when it flies out of your mouth, as well. Your emotions have completely taken over and the girls are witnessing you at your absolute lowest. 

You’ve detached yourself from both girls on the bed once more, feet hitting the ground and you wrap your arms around yourself awkwardly. While your eyes are zeroing in on the old photograph on the bookshelf once more, you hear their bodies shuffling to the ends of the bed. 

“Y/n, Why would any of this be your fault? Why are you embarrassed? I’ve never loved anyone more in my life than I love you and Robin.” Kennedy’s voice is a warm, reassuring energy that was everything you needed in the moment. 

It prompts you to tears again, head drooping to stare at your feet where they stood planted in the tufts of the carpet. You tighten your arms around yourself, fingers slowly crawling across your ribcage and towards your spine. 

“I’m going to do anything I possibly can to help you and keep you safe—everything in my power—and this is not okay.”

“Me too, until my last breath, y/n, you know that—we’re your family!” Robin chimes in.

“I know—,” you sob in a pathetic way, “I know, but, you just don’t understand—the shame, the heaviness, I don’t know—I—I—” The girls don’t rush you when you cut yourself off after some quickened breaths, “I was so scared, I’ve just been so scared.” The end of the sentence is a whisper, confidence giving out last-second. 

“I know, I’m so sorry I didn’t realize sooner—” You’d be damned if you let Kennedy or Robin feel guilt for your incompetence. 

“No—this is on me—all me,” you finally spin to face the girls, standing unsurely in front of them, “please don’t apologize for anything, please.” 

“Okay, but y/n, this is not your fault—it’s Derrick’s. You did nothing but stay by his side for years. He decided to do this to you, not anyone else—including yourself.” Robin’s firm in her statement. 

“Yeah, but I never said anything—I wanted to—I —” You wring your hands in uncertainty in front of your body. You decide to settle down onto the ground once more, crossing your legs, resting your elbows on your knees, and catching your forehead in your hands. You wanted to have this conversation without crying, but you try to allow yourself patience. This is a big deal, as much as you’d rather ignore it. 

“We understand, it’s okay—what’s important is that we know now and we make sure it never happens ever again.” Kennedy comes towards you, situating herself on the floor, as well. Robin follows soon after, either girl softly grabbing one of your arms in an attempt to get you to reveal your expression to them. 

Begrudgingly, you meet them with bloodshot eyes and moist cheeks. You don’t stop Kennedy when her hand reaches up tentatively to run a finger under your eye; she wipes some of the saltwater off. Deciding on a better idea, she bends back awkwardly to snatch the tissue box from earlier, offering it to you. 

You three sit there, on the carpet in Kennedy’s room, for a few minutes in silence while you and Kennedy both wipe tears and blow your noses. Robin has one of her hands on each of your knees reassuringly. You girls sit in a circle like some sort of coven of sadness. 

“That Saturday a few weeks ago, that you asked me about in the bathroom,” you start seemingly out of nowhere, catching the girls’ full attention once more. You didn’t want to keep talking about it, but you didn’t want to talk about it ever again if you could help it, either. It’d be best to lay it all out on the table now.

That, and, your soul felt almost unsettlingly lighter the more you admitted.

“That night when he called here—when I left to go to him—” You didn’t want to say it, it was already realer than real, but admitting this particular moment out loud would be hard. 

“I shouldn’t have went, I knew I shouldn’t have went—” Again you’re cutting yourself off, a bitter laugh this time, “That night I ended up fighting with Eddie really bad, too, that’s why everything’s been so—so—weird, and bad—and just, bad lately. He knows something is off.”

For as much as you’re running circles around the ending of the story, both girls haven’t wavered. Steadfast in their soft, yet intense gaze towards you. Neither girl looks directly at you; one peers towards your feet as she fiddles with the fiber of the carpet, while the other hugs herself and stares towards the window. You’re grateful they aren’t making you face them dead-on. 

You’d honestly be doing your girls’ a disservice if you’d ever assume that they didn’t know what was coming next—what you were going to say when the story was over. 

“Derrick was drunk, again, and when I picked up the phone I could tell he’d been crying—he struggles a lot with depression and obviously it comes out worse when you’re drinking—,” You cut yourself off again to give a sniffle and a big, audible sigh, “I’m always worried he’s going to hurt himself, he always says he’s going to hurt himself. Yea, I think I basically hate him—but I love him enough that the thought of that still makes my blood run cold. I don’t know what I’d do if—I—I just don’t know.” You pause again.

“And, I think he’s lying a lot, I know that he does it to control me—but what if the one time that I don’t buy it is the one time that he’s serious? What would I do?” You shake your head back and forth prominently, sliding your fingers down either side of your face to gently tuck some awry locks of hair behind each of your ears. A hand follows quickly by reflex over the top of your head in an attempt to smooth out some frizz, but you doubt if it actually does much for your appearance. 

“I understand, but, it’d never, never, be your fault, Y/N.” Kennedy whispers tentatively, stretching her hand across the carpet towards your own fingers, where hers place themselves atop gently. 

“I know—but, just the thought of it—I don’t know—regardless,” You sigh again, “I left here and I went to him. I shouldn’t have.”

You pause for no other reason than to avoid the inevitable, the only part of this story that truly mattered. The part that made your stomach cave in on itself in the most wicked of ways. The part that made you ashamed of yourself more than almost anything else that had happened to you in your short, yet long life.

The girls wait patiently, they know what’s coming. Robin still avoids staring straight at you; Kennedy watches her finger tips dance over the top of your hand in comforting swirls.

“He—uh—I, ha,” With a shake of your head, you clench your eyes tight, new tears rolling from them, “Derrick, he hit me. In the face. I hit the wall next to us—I—”

You break into sobs again, understandably, expectedly. You don’t see the horror on the girls’ expressions, but you could imagine it pretty fucking crystal clear. Again, your fingers yank rapidly from under Kennedy’s to smash your own face into your palms. 

Both girls whisper your name in tandem once more, you picture their heads shaking back and forth, their brows pinched in with more tension than a tightrope. 

“I left, I left immediately—I didn’t know what to do—I was—I was—” Gasping now, you remove your hands from your face to reveal wide, wild eyes and a mouth turned violently downwards in a terrible grimace. Robin and Kennedy flood your form with theirs once more, a girl on either side of you now with you in the middle. Their arms grasp tightly at each other’s, at your own body, squeezing tight, giving you their love, their souls. 

“Why would he—why would he do that?!” You surprise yourself once more, no control over your words, the dam was broken, “Why would he do that to me?!” You yell once more.

The girls pull back a little and you desperately search their eyes for answers that they could never give you. You search for yourself  in their glassy eyes; who were you?

Did you deserve that?

  Why would Derrick do that to you? He loved you. He was supposed to love you. 

  “ I—I don’t know, baby, I don’t know,” Kennedy replies frantically between her own cries, bless her whole being for trying her damndest to keep it together, “You didn’t deserve that—look at me”

Kennedy cuts her sentiment off mid sentence, unwrapping her arms from around you and grabbing either one of your soaked cheeks. Her touch is a little rough, but the situation calls for an intense human presence right now—an intense human connection that reminds you that you’re alive and you’re worthy and you’re cared about. Her body weight threatens to topple into you and Robin, still intertwined, as she pushes herself up on her knees more and flexes the muscles in her arms awkwardly to gain her center of balance back, accidently squeezing your face tightly in the process. The interaction is rough, but it’s full of tender, genuine love at the same time, and it grounds you. 

“Look at me—you did not deserve that, no one deserves that,” The tone is so serious that it makes more of your tears drip out onto her hands where she held you nose-to-nose, “Derrick is a disgusting piece of shit that we’re going to make sure ends up in the fucking ground—if I have to die fucking trying—”

At that poor choice of words, you let out a whine once more—

“Kennedy, I’m scared— I don’t want anyone hurt—” You’re so close to her face that you feel her quickened, ragged breaths spread across the planes of your tacky cheeks, nose, and chin. The sentence doesn’t get finished, how did you possibly have anymore fucking tears to cry?

“We know this is scary, y/n—it’s more than scary—we’re scared for you,” Robin finally interjects from where her face is pushed oddly into your shoulder and bicep, “So, we need to do something—this can’t go unchecked—I’m sorry.”

At the memory of what happens next in your story, your heart breaks a little more. How was that possible? Add it to the list of questions that you’ll never quite have an answer for. 

“I—I tried to tell Eddie—I tried—that night—so many other times, too!” Your words have been hysterical and in a high, almost-unrecognizable pitch that your voice hardly ever has a reason to reach, “That night, I ran to Eddie—I ran all the way there—I was going to tell him—I was so scared—” So many thoughts at once, so many feelings.

Kennedy had let go of your face, arms now wrapped back tightly in a cat’s cradle sort-of-knot with you and Robin’s own limbs. 

“I can’t imagine, baby, I’m sorry—” Kennedy begins

“Please stop apologizing, this isn’t your fault!” You answer to her in a fragile voice, before she even has the time to finish her thought.

“Did something happen with Eddie? Or you just didn’t want to tell him?” Robin inquires softly into the fluff of the robe that’s suddenly way too hot and constricting. 

No matter the situation, you girls worked unanimously as a collective. You carry each other, you care for each other. Leave it to Kennedy and Robin to make sure that they have all of the information that they need. 

They need it to understand, they need it to comfort you, and most importantly, they need it to somehow solve this situation. 

Unbeknownst to you where you reside with a smooshed face between the two girls, they share a look together over your head. This was bad. They were conflicted, they were shocked, they felt guilty, and worst of all: they felt all of your hurt as if it was their own. 

“I wanted to tell Eddie—I mean, I didn’t want to—” a sniffle, “He was drunk, too, when I showed up. He was mad—he was mad that I came to him.” You pause again.

Both girls haven’t broken their secret eye contact as you fill in the picture before them in their conscious; Eddie needed to know, now. 

“He was sick of me always needing help, always going back. I always go back—why do I go back too him?” Raising your head a little, either girl moves back a bit to accommodate your head in between their own. Foolishly, you’re looking at the wrong people for the wrong answers once again.

“Y/n, Derrick is abusive, he knows how to keep you around, and he obviously knows how to keep you quiet,” Robin teeters lightly, “You’re a victim.”

The last part is said lower, slower, more serious. The tone Robin had spoken in for the past few minutes told you that she was doing absolutely everything in her power to keep the anger at bay, and a part of you felt like she was trying to hide certain reactions of hers. 

You wondered if you’d regret this whole thing, this entire conversation. You’d beg both girls to let you handle it, but you weren’t sure what you meant by “handle it”. It was obvious you weren’t capable of that. How would the girls go about this? Would it make it worse? Would they tell you before they said anything to anyone? At the end of the day, it was because they absolutely fucking loved you harder than you felt your own mother did. It didn’t make it any easier, and it didn’t make your newfound feeling of anticipated betrayal disappear, either. 

What happens now?

“Eddie—I just needed help—I was going to tell him—we fought,” You ignore Robin’s defense, “He—he told me that Derrick treats me like a whore because I let him.”

You hadn’t repeated that back to anyone yet, hell, had barely repeated it in your own head after the initial shock wore off.

“What the fuck?!” Both girls demand in tandem, their tones louder than they’ve been using. 

“He apologized—but,” you shrug, tears roll over your soaked flesh with no resistance, “That hurt. I didn’t say anything after that, I left. He didn’t follow.”

“And that’s why you missed the rest of that school week.” It wasn’t a question from Kennedy, but rather her finally uncovering the last piece to the world’s shittiest puzzle that she felt like she had been jumping out of her skin to solve. 

Everyone has been worried about you, everyone’s watching.

            How ironic and absolutely mortifying that you found yourself in the exact position as your mother had been in for a majority of her life. How humiliating that you couldn’t escape it—you were now in her shoes that you had always looked down on her for wearing. You were her. 

How fucking embarassing? A wave of shame crashes into your skeleton rapidly, the bones clinking guiltily as you succumb to yourself. You could almost hear your demise. You felt naked. 

“Good that he apologized, but y/n, that is not true—you know that, right?” Kennedy adds, dipping her head slightly to catch your gaze. She doesn’t let it go, so you meet her irises with your own. Did you know? Your face is screwed up into something terrible, brows bent downwards in utterly helpless melancholy, “Tell me that you know that’s not true?” she repeats for emphasis.

You drop her gaze, then let it hit the floor and shatter at your feet. 

“I know, Kens.” Did you?

“Well, I personally don’t care if he fucking apologized, someone’s getting my fist in their face within the next 24 hours, and Eddie seems like a good first victim.” Robin says matter of factly, enough of a tone to tell that she wasn’t completely serious, but would act on it given a chance. 

Both girls surely knew that Eddie didn’t mean that—certainly not when the boy had been obviously in over his head with love for you since you both first met. They understood his frustration and heartbreak in having to deal with watching you and Derrick for years. They understood it even more when they themselves had watched Eddie’s lips and nose busted open by the bastard one too many times over you. But, still, it was not okay to say that to you. 

Regardless, Eddie was entangled in this tragedy, and he needed to be kept in the know.  He was most likely one of the only people who could truly keep you protected from Derrick. Both girls decide to keep Eddie’s petty, derogatory comment in their back pocket to be addressed to him privately at a later time. They had way bigger fish to fry currently, and both girls were still doing their best to tread lightly in how much trauma you were having to recount to them tonight. 

“Guys, he and I already dealt with that—” you sigh, “Just drop that part of the story, please?” Your nervous system has engaged into calm-down-mode. The tears are less, you feel more air in your lungs, and you can talk without stuttering, gasping, and hiccuping. 

“Y/n, thank you for telling us, seriously,” Kennedy grabs at your hands, her mother’s voice speaking serenely, “You’re safe.” 

“Yea—we fucking love you, we’re going to fix this, okay? It’s never happening again.” Robin follows up with reassurance, snatching the poor tissue box once more to help wipe your face clean of liquid suffering. 

“I think we should tell Eddie.” Kennedy whispers quieter, even from your peripheral you see an unsure look on the girl, you still see how she shoots her gaze to Robin over your head—silently communicating to each other. 

They’d tell Eddie whether you were involved or not, and you knew that. Although it hurt your heart in a feeling that felt all too similar to betrayal, you knew it was because they loved you, and you knew you’d do the absolute same if the roles were switched. 

Did you want to be involved in telling him? You could barely stomach imagining the tortured expression on his face when he was finally told—the anger, confusion, disgust, and clarity all battling it out across his face at once. What if you just let Kennedy and Robin tell him, anyways? You didn’t need to be there, right? 

You felt like you were hiding again—you’re always fucking hiding. 

You were terrified and had nowhere to run.

What was the point in telling someone if you didn’t want the help? You needed the help. All of this you know, for sure, but,

“I’m scared Kens, what if he hates me?”

Both girls’ faces drop into the most impactful ‘are you fucking serious’ look that you’ve ever seen, complete with matching scoffs given in unison.

“Y/n—” they both begin to chide at once.

“I know—I know—Or, I don’t! I don’t know!” You stutter as an interruption to the lecture, “Could you guys just give me a few days? He should find out from me.” 

Again, it’s odd how the lies feel sliding off of your teeth. And to your dismay, neither girl looks like they’re on board with your suggestion. 

“This is serious!” Robin tries a little louder.

“I know, I know—” You catch your tired expression in your palms once more, cradling the conflict in your consciousness. 

A bout of silence passes; a sole canoe gliding at a steady pace across a desolate lake somewhere. 

“Can we wait until after Saturday? I was kind of looking forward to the halloween party…” You trail off the request, glancing up at both Robin & Kennedy. You feel like a kid asking their mom if they could wait to do the dishes until the following day. 

Both girls’ eyes snap to each other, arguing in swift silence; the conclusion doesn’t come quick enough for you. You feel so inexplicably nervous. 

Brains are funny—you think, as you immediately begin to list the pros and cons of heading home, packing a suitcase, and disappearing for good. 

Kennedy breaks first, her eyes now flitting between Robin’s and your own.

“I mean—you’d tell him Sunday… right?” 

“Kennedy!” Robin answers in a chiding tone.

“Yes! Sunday! Right after I promise—we can tell him—we’ll tell him Sunday!” Cursing yourself before the words even finish leaving your mouth, because it didn’t sound the least bit believable.

“What would he do anyways? What’s the difference is he finds out right now versus in a day or two—I’ve been avoiding this since June!” Another try in your defense, both girls ponder once more.

“Exactly! I mean…I’m just worried, now that we know—I’m just—y/n, we care about you. We know how hard this is—we’re scared of Derrick too—even if we haven’t seen the worst of it—we’ve seen enough and unfortunately heard the worst of it through you—More people should know, more people should be there for support and safety.” 

“And I want to see him get his ass beat so bad—” Kennedy starts

“If you want to wait until after the halloween party—go for it—but if you don’t tell him before next week is over, I’m doing it myself with or without Kens.” Robin states indifferently, her mind is completely made up and certainly not changing, “I know I’m sort of the reason everyone’s going in the first place—but fuck a god damn party over this—this is serious!”

“I know I was just kind of looking forward to going—you know—with Eddie. In our costumes—” It still feels foreign and taboo to be expressing your feelings for him openly like this, “But, I’m not sure he even wants to go now, and I also really feel like I’m going to be sick.” You finish honestly, grabbing at your abdomen.

The girls stare at each other once more, eyes bouncing back and forth between you and themselves. Kennedy snatches a small, tin trash can from next to her nightstand and slides it in front of you with a comical swiftness; a silent acknowledgement of your words. 

“We know this has been a lot—but thank you for telling us, this needed to happen-”

“Yea, thank you, this isn’t your fault, and we’re going to fix this, you’re completely safe now.” Robin talks over Kennedy, not being able to wait for the end of the sentiment to add her two cents. 

You give a big sigh once more. Your body has never felt weaker, you figure the adrenaline spike of the conversation had dropped from an inexplicable height. It’s crashed out, you feel like the walking dead. 

For the millionth time, both girls rush at you and capture you in an ethereal embrace of friendship, love, and womanhood. These women were your life, they’re here for you always. The love almost overwhelms you as you squeeze both girls tighter.

“Well—we can talk more about this tomorrow, yeah? I think you’re pretty tuckered out, and I want to do something to lift the mood—” Kennedy pulls back in sync with you and Robin, all sitting back on your knees now.

“Yea—I rented some movies! I tried to grab some that I think you haven’t seen yet, want to look through them? Your pick!” Robin adds.

“And I have popcorn! And our pizza!” Kennedy beams at you with raised eyebrows.

You give a little laugh of relief and pure joy. These girls were your everything.

“That sounds great—thank you—seriously, I fucking love you guys—” you cut yourself off when a few more tears slip; leftover emotions that have nowhere to flow.

“We love you too! C’mon—happy thoughts, happy thoughts! Let's get you downstairs on the couch and comfy!” Kennedy chirps while both girls lean in for a group hug once more.

You couldn’t express the relief that you felt now, the lightness. A century’s worth of pain, worry, melancholy, and true fear stripped from you within an hour or two. But, at the same time, new feelings of worry conjured themselves. How would this pan out? How would you tell Eddie? How would he take it?

Would you lose him, too?

As you all rise to your feet to navigate to the living room downstairs, you catch the subtle glances. Kennedy and Robin’s eyes throw a quiet agreement across the room at each other as they grab pillows and blankets from the bed. You try to keep calm and push the worry down—assure yourself that they love you no matter what and want the best for you. 

When you’re all almost out of the door, Kennedy and Robin’s eyes bore into each other once more, except this time you’re almost positive that Kennedy’s head bounces slightly downwards and up again—a nod at Robin. A nod you weren’t meant to see. 

If you thought you had ever been afraid of Derrick or telling anyone about him, this moment almost scared you more. What would happen? 

You follow the girls down the steps, on a journey to park yourselves on the worn, pilled fabric of the couch and pretend to watch a movie. All staring at the screen, but no one paying it any attention.

  You, replaying all of your trauma in your mind, and the girls, now imagining scenes of violence and your sorrow in their own heads. 

  It’s easy to get comfortable on the center of the couch, watching a fantasy play out on the box in front of you—you were great at pretending. 

  _________________________________________

Wine is poured, golden chalices exalted. You are a vision and he is a toad looking creature of a man that only his mother could love. Not quite his brother, never quite measuring up the same way -- always trying to puff his chest. It was easy to tease him, ego easy to bruise -- little brother. You’d spent time in your childhood tagging along with your brother and the other kids to taunt him, pathetic and whimpering. 'Tale teller!' you'd jeer, every time he'd run off to his mother to blubber over how mean you all were. And you were mean.

But people grow, as they do. And so did you -- still mean, but in a different way. Listening to meetings, reading maps, keeping tabs on new republics, on potential uprising. The poor -- the fucking poor. Finding new ways to keep them occupied so that they'd stop trying to find ways to be powerful. Powerful like you. Powerful like the man at the head of the table with a plum to his lips. And as it has been said, a man in possession of a good fortune and power, must be in need of a wife. It became clear when you arrived that this was not a business dinner before a grand feast, your parents simply forgot to mention what this was really about. Your best linens, your hair coiffed, your best jewelry, you should have known it had been a ruse the moment you got there. His home on Palatine just sparkling the way the gold on your fingers did, candles in the halls and stairways glittering when they hit the rubies and pearls on your chest and ears. When your father veers the conversation from politics and business to marriage you both choke, stern eyes glued to your mother's painted face. A business dinner where you are currency -- more than worthy. Just a few months shy of being eligible when Caracalla was, regrettably, forced to marry Flavia at the last moment. It would've been nice to have the gang together again in some capacity. Could've bullied the toad to assasinating himself if you were lucky enough. Total power. Complete upheaval. The more you thought about it, the more of it your craved. The pit in your stomach grew, if it wasn't with his brother -- even though you bore no attraction -- there was not a point at all. Geta didn't think nearly as critically, didn't hit hard enough, didn't strategize correctly. You'd never even seen him pick up a sword -- but then again, that made sense. You very rarely spent time in his palace, much prefering the festivities of Caracalla's close by.

You listen while your mother goes on and on about his grace, tongue dipped in honey while she blabbers. She mentions how handsome he is, his valiance in leadership, how honorable he's become as he's taken the place of his late father -- you can't help yourself but laugh. The giggle echos and bounces through the high ceilings, floating against the archways, getting caught in the drapery by the open hall. His eyes flick to you over his goblet, catching in the candle light, an aggravated sneer plaguing his face. He looks like a pig when he does that, you think to yourself.

You know that business, for the most part, is a man's game. But it does not deter you from doing your best to try and wager yourself out of this. Ideas drip into your mind while the drone of the conversation turns to fuzz in the background. How can you sell that this is a bad idea? It will bring less publicity, less of a threat, less resposibility if married to someone with equal nobility. Certainly not an emperor. Especially not one like this. So petulant, so competitive, so eager for a war he does not know how to plan, so temperamental, so weak, so conniving, so consumed with the colosseum that he doesn't think of what should be done around him. It's his voice that brings you back to attention.

"And why is it she hasn't been taken for a wife then, at this age?" he asks, brow quirking in your direction. You let out of huff of offense while he sips his wine, metal clinking as he places it back down. A smirk flits across his features at the remark, "Is something wrong with her?"

Your father, sweating with embarrassment, looks over at you and back at the emperor, "Well she, she's of course beautiful." Geta winces, cocking his head to the side with a shrug. Your father sighs, desperate to try to find a better angle, "She um, she -- she has great wits, Ceasar, unmatched. She knows her duties as a wife, but -- a great thinker. She could -- she could be helpful!" "Wits," he mumbles sourly under his breath before leaning back leisurely in his chair, "Great thinker? Very surprising." "August--" your father starts. "Co--" you correct over a sip of wine, "Co-Augustus."

Geta tosses you another sour look, tongue running over his teeth before clicking it behind his lips. You shrug while swallowing. "Semantics, Publius," you wave a hand at him. A hush falls over the room as his gaze snaps up at you, blanching at the disrespect of being called by his first name. Your mother hides her face in her napkin with a groan. Your father leans his temple against his fingers, eyes closed in frustration. "Mind how you address me," Geta corrects with a stern pull to his lips, eyes glittering with rage. Your eyes catch over the mountains of food before you, holding your glass out as one of his servants pours you another glass of wine. "Is that not what your mother calls you?" your voice feathery, but certain. A vein begins to raise and pulse in his neck while his shoulders round forward.

"Please apologize, dear," your mother mutters, putting the napkin back on the table, "Tell -- tell the emperor what it would mean, to be -- to be wed to someone of such calibur."

Your eyes stay on his, challenging him while your mother begs you to say something to make amends. Another sip of wine passes your lips, "No, shan't."

Your mother scolds you, your full name escaping her with embarrassment tainting her tongue. Sweat beads at your father's forehead while he changes the subject, doing aything to try to keep his good favor with both sides of the imperatorship.

You grin into your goblet at the sight of Geta's face -- reddened with anger and frustration at the brazen disrespect. But it was fine to continue to be an enemy if it meant you would leave these regal walls and never have to step foot in them again. And if you did, it would be as another senator's wife, visiting his brother in another house where you'll laugh and drink wine and cheer when he's killed.

Even his posture is revolting, hunched over while he listens to your father speak. Now going on and on about paper work that doesn't interest you if it doesn't have a say on who is next on the list to conquer. Your eyes glaze over in boredom while pomergranate, honey pudding, and dates are placed on the table. Rose wine replaces the red to sweeten the tongue -- you're sure your parents wished it were true.

It's not very long after dessert is served that your parents start again.

"As you know, she does come from a family of very fertile women," your father encourages. You quickly swallow the bite of date you'd taken to interrupt, nearly choking, "Excuse me, I'm not sure this is appropriate dinner conversation."

Geta looks at you while you speak, scanning you and then lingering on the dessert in your hand, "Her hips are quite sizeable -- big enough to bear multiple childen, that's certain. Is that her only sell?"

Anger bubbles under your chest, but warning looks from both of your parents keeps your sharp tongue between your lips. The grip on your goblet tightens, jaw clenching while your pass another sip through gritted teeth. You let a seething breath out through your nose. "As I tried to explain before," your father continues, "She is very on the pulse in terms of the political climate and, and, and great with strategy." "I'm not looking for a wife who tries to strategize for me--" he responds coolly. "From how the empire has not expanded since your father's death I would guess that perhaps you should be," you snap back smartly. His posture straightens, chains and medallions across his chest glinting in the candle light. The room quiets itself again, only the sound of untensils and cups being put down or collected filling the dead air. The soft scrape of metal, the rustle of linens while servants and guards alike avert their gaze downward.

"Leave us," he states, voice pungent with authority. You stretch your neck on both sides while the servants depart, already bored with the back and forth. Already moved on from the eventual scolding and potential exile that won't get put into motion because you are simply too friendly with the rest of the upcoming generals and politicians. One rogue idiot who barely has the power his brother has, that his father never trained into him, could not dole a punishment that is worth your genuine fear.

You sigh, hearing the staff make their way down the long stone corridors into the grand halls to prepare for a more formal party with other higher status families. More likely a collection of offerings for him to choose from, other parents trying to arrange a marriage with the empire's most powerful and eligible bachelor. It would be one of the few times the brothers would have to engage with each other, which you're sure put Geta more on edge than normal.

"Senator, please take your wife to the grand hall to be seated," he commands, his voice lower, delving darker. The vein in his neck continues to pulse, forearms straining against the golden cuffs over his wrists, "The guards will accompany you."

You watch as your parents rise, bowing their heads before following the guards out of the room and through the blood red drapery hung from gilded valances. Geta's eyes stay hardened on you, and yours him, while you rise as well, taking a few steps around the large wooden table toward the exit. "Not you," he says, not turning to face you, "You will stay." "It is not appropriate for me to be unaccopanied in the pres--" "Do not speak," he huffs, hand coming up to silence you, "Your voice grates on me." "Then you can imagine what your own voice does, Augustus," you say without thinking, letting the insults flow out of you like the fountain water in the courtyards. He pushes away from the table, steadily walking towards you with enough vigor that the bottom of his cape starts to billow behind him. On his way, he pulls a sword from a guard's holster, dragging it so the tip grinds against the stone, making your jaw clench at the shrill sound.

"What happens to those who speak against me?" he asks, steps clicking against the floor from the studs on the bottom of his sandals. He begins to stalk around you, circling while he waits for an answer. "Execution," you respond, keeping your eyes on the drapery just twenty feet ahead of you. "What else?" he asks, you can feel his breath behind you, the whining grind of the sword against the stone making your shoulders tense. "Exile," you answer, a laugh bubbling out of you, "But I can't imagine your brother agreeing to either of those. You'd really banish me, Publius? Because I was a little mean to you?" When he appears in front of you again, your lips stretch into a sickeningly sweet smile, sarcasm staining your tone, "But we're such old friends."

He cocks his head to the side, taking a step closer with the sword between you, "Oh, I wouldn't do that to you."

He leans forward, enough that you can smell the rose wine on his breath. His voice quiet and menacing, "Though -- it could be that the senator said something to offend me tonight at dinner. It could be that perhaps he -- spoke poorly of my dear brother or my late father. Something just dastardly enough to sour my brother's respect for him." "And you expect Caracalla to believe that?" "In what way does it benefit me to lie about it?" he challenges, "And even more so -- with your father exiled, where does that leave you?"

You swallow thickly, not giving him the satisfaction of replying while your look into his now wild brown eyes. Flashing with mania and endless possibility.

"A peasant," he spits.

"If it keeps me out of these halls I should be lucky, no?" you fire back, looking at him from under furrow brows. He continues to circle you, dragging the sword again. The click, click, click of his shoes keeping time in your head. "I'm sure my brother would be happy to keep you as a pet in the meantime," he laughs to himself, "Or we could put you in the colosseum, you think you'd fare well?" "Better than you could, that's certain," you cross your arms over your chest, "Could never stand up and fight like a man, even as a kid. Your father would be embarrassed."

The grinding gets louder as he presses harder down, causing small sparks to fly from the edge of the sword.

"If you were to be chosen, would ever even attempt to learn respect?" he asks sharply, "Or would it have to be beaten into you?" You snort, "At least you're the funnier brother, you have that going for you." You can see him out of your periphery, the way he pulls his cheeks in, the roll of his shoulders -- he's losing patience. "What, would you prefer I called you Geta? Augustus? Ceasar?" your eyes roll. A soft cackle comes from his through, canines showing in a gleeful smile, "No, no -- from you? I'd much prefer something more respectful." Click, click, click. The grind of the sword. The rose on his breath. "Dominus," he nods with the threat, "Dominus et Deus."

"You disgust me," you respond quickly. "As a husband and as emperor is that not my title, already?" he shrugs, looking at you like it's obvious.

"You are nobodies Lord and God, you are a petulant -- sniveling -- repulsive little brother who is only where he is by being lucky to be born," you glower.

"You still see me as a child, femina," he tuts, "I promise you, what ever Caracalla has told you is a tapestry of made up stories. You could hang it on the tallest arch and it would hit the floor ten times over."

"I do see just a whining child before me," you hiss, "I'm sure you'll run to your mother after this, too."

His chuckle turns to a low, dark laugh from deep in his chest. It crawls up your spine and rings in your ears, mixing with the grating 'shhhhhhinnnngggg' of the sword on the ground.

"If it were fate that there was union between us," he asks from behind you, "What would you say to that?"

You look straight ahead, hearing the click of his shoes. The heat of the torches on the walls billowing onto your face while you keep your eyes on the drapery, still closed -- still keeping you here.

"It would be a fate worse than the hottest hell," you confess, your voice not wavering.

The whine of the sword stops, sheathed into his belt. The click of his shoes halts.

Quiet.