You still cling to that notebook as you take all your steady steps towards the door, turning over all your fury in your head. Turning all the lyrics over in your head. 

All those songs, all those lines – and he’d never picked up the phone and just called. 

You can only assume that it was all written more recently. Before he’d seen you again, even. And if he had still been writing about you, he could have tried calling you. He could have said all that he’d written to you directly, rather than hiding it all within songs that there was no guarantee you’d ever hear. Instead of singing them to crowds of adoring fans rather than to your face. 

You don’t knock on the door – you just open it. 

Music immediately surrounds you as you step in, loud enough that they clearly hadn’t heard you enter. Grainy guitars, deafening drums, billowing bass. And finally, amongst the madness, you can hear Eddie’s voice singing. 

“Do you wanna see how far it goes? Do you wanna test me now, my love?” 

Yes. Yes, you certainly fucking do. 

It’s not Eddie’s live voice coming through the speakers. It’s clearly a recording as he sits beside the producer, hunched over and nodding along, face twisted as he seems to dissect the music in real time.

One flourish of his ringed hand, and the producer is clearly hitting pause. 

“Do you think we can add in that synth I recorded earlier here-”

“Eddie.” 

His hand drops the moment he hears your voice. The chair he’s sitting in nearly tips from the speed in which he spins it around to face you, resembling a statue as he takes in your silhouette in the doorframe. 

You can only imagine the image he’s faced with. 

You, all your vexation and all your torment painted so clearly across your features. Your knuckles, looking physically strained from how tightly the metal spring of the notebook digs into your palm. Your chest, heaving with every breath, as if even being within his vicinity right now was torturous. 

And it was. God, it was. 

Salt in your wounds. Dagger in your stomach. Poorly bandaged contusions you’d never taken the time to balm and soothe. 

“Sugar,” he breathes out, earning him a strange look from the producer, “What are you-”

“Can we talk?” 

Your voice is quivering, strained from trying to keep a level head until the two of you are alone. 

“Right now?”

“Right now,” you almost add on the given alone, but Eddie is one step ahead of you. As he stands, he also waves his hands a bit, clearly dismissing the producer. 

“You want me to leave?” the man asks, standing slowly, looking curiously between the two of you, “Where do I even go? Matt said we’d be working for another few hours, at least-”

“Go to the fuckin’ lobby or something,” Eddie spits out, having a hard time pulling his eyes away from you, “I don’t-” He pauses, his eyes finally finding sight of that notebook in your hand. Clearly, he hadn’t noticed it before. “-care.”

All the blood drains from his face. He’s so pale, you’re worried that he might pass out any second now. 

He doesn’t look prepared for a fight – if anything, he looks terrified of whatever you may swing at him. 

The producer leaves, not without a few mutterings under his breath about not this again, but you don’t even bother to dig deeper into it. If Eddie frequently gets into fights in this studio, that’s his problem. 

Maybe he shouldn’t write songs about girls he’d hurt, and never pick up the phone.

He seems to be waiting on you, but you’re waiting on the click of the door. All that hurt, all that seething is burning in your chest, waiting for release. There’s no need to have any witnesses to the downfall of both of you. 

“How was your mor-”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence. One click from the door, and you’re storming across the room to slam that notebook into his chest, uncaring of how much it might hurt. 

You hope it hurts. You hope it aches like your palm that had held it, like your chest that feels as though it’s been pried wide open. 

“What the fuck is this?” you spit out, already choking up with tears. 

“What do you-”

“Where the fuck do you get off on writing all those- all those- all those fucking songs about us?” You don’t care that you’ve cut him off – it’ll be the least harmful thing you do during this argument. You’re desperate, rabid and crumbling as you push the notebook harder for emphasis, unable to let go just yet, “All those goddamn songs, lines about wanting me to come home, lines about us. Fucking pages of them! And not one single call. Not one single text.”

The first tear falls, and you’re quick to let go of the notebook so you can swipe it away. You’re not crying in front of him right now. You’ve done enough of that this morning, over old photographs and times you can never get back. 

“I’m sorry, excuse me?” he laughs nervously, looking between you and the notebook he now has ownership of. He flips open the cover, and his face falls when he sees the first page, “You were reading my notebooks?”

“Who even cares at this point?” you hiss out, taking a step back, needing physical distance now. “It was the only way I would ever find out how you really feel, right? It was between that, or having to hear it on the radio, right?” 

His face goes through several revelries before he settles on an emotion, mouth agape as he shakes his head slowly at you, brows furrowed and all his creases exposed, “Are you seriously pissed off right now that the rockstar wrote songs about you? That I wrote about you, which is what I do for a living?” 

“Your job isn’t to write about me!” Thank God for soundproof studios. Your voice is rising, tone cracking with emotion, “I’m not fucking mad that you did that, I’m mad that you never called-”

“I did call!” he yells back at you suddenly. Not out of intimidation, not even out of fury. He has to do it – he has to match your volume just to be heard. “I called hundreds of times. Before the tour ended, when I got back, when I saw you were gone. I did fucking call-”

“I’m mad that you fucking left!”

Silence fills the studio. Eddie has no retorts left as your words weigh down the moment, ricocheting off the walls and puncturing every delicate foundation of whatever closure bullshit you two had begun to falsely build. 

You finally throw your head back in bitter laughter, blinking away the unwelcome tears, “I’m so goddamn angry because you left me.”

“What?” his face falls, almost crumpling in the same manner as it felt your chest was, “You told me to go on those tours. You wanted me to get out there with the band. Not to mention, you left too. You left, seemingly without a goddamn reason. You said it yourself, just now-”

“It’s not about the physical leaving,” you interrupt, bones growing weary, tired from it all. Weighed down with memories and weighed down with emotions that should have been dealt with years ago. “I lost you long before you stepped foot on that tour bus that last time. You…” you pause, breathing erratic, coming out in harsh puffs, trying to build the courage for what needed to be said. 

“I what?” he’s all but begging now, the need to scream over each other evaporating into thin air.

“You stopped saying you loved me.” 

The words are out there now, and you can’t take them back. Two long years of him writing songs, of you washing away a stain that won’t ever fade, of something broken that can’t seem to be fixed. 

You reach out, but not to try and steal back the reason from him. No, that’s not possible. Instead, you take the notebook back from him and begin to gingerly flip through the pages as the tears fall and the words pour out.

“All those phone calls, all these songs, and you still never say the words I needed to hear,” you’re not just talking in past tense any more. It all seemingly blurs together, the past and the present nothing more than watercolors as they spill across the page and merge together. You can’t tell where the hurt from the beginning lays and where the hurt from now feathers at the edges. It’s all the same, and it all remains a stain, “I never needed elaborate metaphors or pretty words, Eddie. I just needed to know you still fucking loved m-”

You cut off as the door to the studio suddenly swings open. You’re frozen, rooted in spot, hand glued mid-flip as Eddie’s messy handwriting stares up at you from the page you paused on. 

Eddie looks ready to fight. To scream at whoever may have interrupted this crucial moment – a moment for you to finally say what you needed to, a moment for him to finally get his answers. 

He doesn’t, though. Not when a fairly livid, almost frazzled Matt is standing in the doorway, glaring at both of you.

“Ah, good,” he says, stepping fully into the small space that had just been a war-zone for you and Eddie. The door slams shut behind him due to its own gravity, “You’re both here. Makes my job easier.” 

“Matt?” Eddie crinkles his nose, “What the Hell are you doing-”

“What am I doing?” Matt walks until he’s standing in front of the coffee table, and motions to the couch with a flick of his wrist. Eddie is quick to follow the silent instruction, taking a seat, but you’re slower to move. You are not Matt’s dog, refusing to be at anybody else’s beck and call at this moment. And so you continue to hover, “What are you doing?” 

You become the pet he needs you to be when he suddenly tosses a magazine down on the coffee table, and you realize that maybe, just maybe, Matt has good reason to be commanding you. 

The vinyl front cover stares up at you, shining beneath the lowlights of the studio, but the image is clear. 

You and Eddie, walking into his apartment building. And in bold lettering, simple textually strokes in blinding white, is a headline that weighs you down enough to make you take the last few necessary steps around the table to fall into place beside Eddie on the couch. 

EXCLUSIVE GOSSIP ALERT: Rockstar Eddie Munson Spotted Canoodling with Mystery Flame! (pg. 89)

Matt’s eyes dart between you two before he finally sighs, “We need to talk.” 

—

The sweat of your hands is making the corners of the magazine pages curl. 

It’s the detail you choose to focus on rather than all the honking and commotion surrounding the car you’re currently sitting in, or the chilling AC that has blasted your right cheek to the point of numbness. The radio is off, the tinted windows are rolled up to dull the music of the city around you, and Matt hasn’t said a word since you’d buckled yourself into his passenger seat. 

Following Matt’s abrupt interruption of you and Eddie, contained chaos had ensued. A symphony of Eddie immediately coming to your defense, claiming the two of you weren’t even canoodling in the photos on the front cover. Of you, only being able to utter a shocked question of how? 

How did they get those photos? How did they print them so fast? How, how, how?

In the last twelve hours, as your life had been piecing together old rotting bricks only to once more fall apart entirely, some cheap gossip journalists had been formulating a front cover that truly felt like it was ruining your entire life. You didn’t know who all had seen the magazine, you didn’t know if the news had spread far and wide across the internet, and you certainly didn’t know what happened next. 

But then Matt insisted you all return to his office. A guarded ivory tower to discuss exactly what you were questioning – to figure out where you go from here. 

Eddie had been quick to suggest you ride back with him in the car that had brought him to the office; you had been quick to shoot down the offer and ask Matt for a ride instead. 

That’s how you ended up here. A magazine you wanted to burn at the stake in your lap, stuck in traffic on a busy street that more so resembled a parking lot at this point. 

“We need to talk about it.”

The first words Matt has spoken to you since the drive began. Not a question, not a request – you were going to talk about this shit show. No running from it, it seems. 

“I don’t know how they got the photo,” you blandly reply in monotone, staring down at the two photos clearly taken back to back, merged together with some pretty impeccable photoshopping. Doesn’t erase the fact that they’d definitely caught you’re bad angle, “I didn’t even see any paparazzi-”

“I don’t care about that,” Matt waves off as the light you’d been stopped at for several minutes now turns green, and there’s just enough of a gap in bustling pedestrians crossing the street for him to make the right turn he’d been signaling the entire time, “One thing you need to learn right here, right now, is there will always be paparazzi around when you’re in public with Eddie. You won’t always see them, but you should always assume they’re there.” 

The ceasing of that irritating clicking is heaven sent. One less commotion to cloud your reeling mind. 

“What do you care about then?” you mumble, finally side-eyeing the older man beside you. 

“I care about what you are to Eddie.” 

“I can promise you, I am noth-”

“Don’t feed me the same bullshit excuses he has, please,” Matt sighs as the rolling car slows, and he signals once more to turn into the parking lot of one of the many impressive skyscrapers towering over the street, “I’m not an idiot. Eds may seem to think I am half the time, but I’m not,” a confining parking space is where the SUV finally settles, but Matt makes no move to turn the vehicle off as he turns to look at you fully, “Look, just level with me. Because as of right now, the only thing I know is that you went to high school together. I need to know where exactly you stand with Eddie, not just because he’s my client, but because of the conversation we’re about to have.” 

Your heart fully drops, “What kind of conversation are we about to have?” 

“A hard one,” Matt instantly replies, not missing a beat, “A very, very hard one. With so many moving factors, it’s gonna give you a headache. And I want to warn you of it, give you a fair chance, because you seem like a nice girl. You’re not used to this circus like me and Eddie are – you deserve a fighting chance at what’s about to be asked of you.” 

What’s about to be asked of you. 

You had a few guesses, simply based on the grave look on Matt’s face. Simply based off of all the research you used to do back in your room in Hawkins’, when the joke of you managing Corroded Coffin felt more and more like a real possibility. 

“An NDA?” you guess, trying to seem indifferent. You should have seen that coming. 

“More than an NDA, dear.” 

Your head snaps in his direction, brows furrowing, “What could you possibly want from me that’s more than signing a piece of paper that promises I won’t tell anyone what’s happened last night?” you hold up that magazine from your lap, giving it a fluttering shake for emphasis, “Wasn’t that the point of showing us this?” 

He only smiles. Your heart only sinks further. 

“I’m going to ask you one last time; what are you to Eddie, really?”

A muse. A stain. A ghost. Something to haunt every avenue he’ll ever take for the rest of his life. A mistake better left unspoken between the two of you. A blip in his past, impossible to avoid. Something better left dead and buried, but the Universe just won’t seem to let the two of you rest. 

“I’m his ex-girlfriend.” 

How do you define an ex, though? Did you ever really end it? How can something be over if neither party has ever been willing to say the words? 

Matt nods slowly, smiling almost sadly, “I figured as much. Thank you, at least, for being honest.” 

“Can I ask you something, and you answer me honestly?”

The car carrying Eddie is probably nearly here. They had probably gotten swept into traffic while following behind Matt’s car. A few extra minutes added to their journey as they’d tried to navigate the nightmarish streets of New York. 

Come to think of it, you don’t even know if he’ll be using the same front entrance as you and Matt. 

“You won’t always see them, but you should always assume they’re there.”

He could use the back entrance, if there was one, to avoid the paparazzi. 

Technicalities you had never had to consider before. You’d only experienced a fraction of Eddie’s fame firsthand, in the beginning, when it was still reasonable to show him off. To brag about him in public, to pronounce your love from every rooftop. Hiding had never been an option – it hadn’t needed to be an option. 

“I know what your question is,” Matt says carefully, “And we both know I won’t say anything until we’re inside that building with Eddie.” 

“Is he even going to go through the fr-” you start to question, but cut off just as you see a familiar black SUV pull up to the front doors of the building. 

You have your answer, it seems. 

Matt unbuckles his seatbelt, and you take it as your sign to do the same. But just as you begin to reach for your door, Matt’s hand on your forearm stops you. 

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry for what I’m about to ask the two of you. Especially now that I know the truth.” 

Your heart finally arrives to the point of no return, unable to answer as the organ is buried six feet under within the grave that should be meant for yourself when it comes to the history books of Eddie Munson. 

Just what was Matt about to ask of the two of you?

You open the door without responding.