#overcomingobstacles

first off, from chapter 3:

“Well,” he says, turning his head a bit on the pillow to look at her, “if it makes you feel any better, I haven’t ever been in a bed with a guy before either.”

Chrissy laughs again, a real full-body giggle, shaking the mattress gently as she does. After she stops, and after a few beats of silence, she speaks up again.

“What about a girl?”

Fuck.

He scrambles for a joke, the quiet stretching for a moment too long before he comes out with, “Yeah, you know, there’s been a couple of nights with Joanie for sure.”

Chrissy doesn’t laugh, so he glances over again. Her eyes are wide. “Joanie? I— I didn’t know you were seeing someone— I’m so sorry—”

She shifts and makes a move to get out of the bed. “What— no!” Eddie reaches out instinctively, grabs her wrist. “Chrissy, I— Joanie— you know, like— my guitar.”

She turns, freezes, and he drops her hand. In the dimness he thinks he sees her face starting to turn red, but in an instant she’s burrowed under the covers, groaning in embarrassment.

He follows suit a second later, straining to try and see her. He basically can’t, at all.

“Are we hiding?” Eddie whispers. “Listen, Joanie won’t get jealous. Plus…she’s asleep in the chair.”

i would be so remiss to not include "no bummers" in chapter 5:

“It’s weird,” he says after it’s been a few minutes and he’s composed enough to look her way again. “I feel like— it’s like it’s been so long, you know?”

Chrissy stares at him, her eyes bloodshot and blank. “Um. What?”

He starts laughing a little, and then she does too, and it takes a bit to recover from that, but he was trying to say something— what was he trying to say? Oh—

“I feel like I haven’t— I haven’t seen your, uh, uniform. Forever. But it’s only been since Friday?”

She shifts, fidgeting. “Saturday. ‘Cause, remember, I changed in the car.”

Eddie nods, the motion feeling incredibly strange. “Sears,” he says, sagely. “B’fore Sears. Remember— guh. Remember Sears?”

Chrissy slouches down real low as a car drives by the lot. “I remember Sears,” she tells him, chin tucked against her chest, eyes shifty still. “Oh— remember. Do you remember the camera?”

“Oh my God,” he says, awed. “The cameraaaaa.”

He hasn’t felt like taking pictures in the last day or so— what with all the consecutive bummers— but this feels like a good time.

“No bummers,” he tells her, digging the Polaroid out from where it’s stashed under some Nebraska travel pamphlets. “Chrissy, say— say no bummers.”

Eddie aims the camera at her, and she throws up a peace sign. “No bummers,” she says, eyes overly-wide, like she’s trying to make sure they’re really open.

In the morning, they’ll probably laugh about how weird the picture is, but for now it feels like a lovely little promise. No bummers, he scrawls in the white space underneath the photo.

there's this scene in chapter 8, which i still laugh at literally Every Time:

To his great relief, Chrissy crawls off of him, patting the back of her head. “My scrunchie! I— where is it?”

And then to his great horror, she drops to the ground to start looking for it.

Eddie scrambles off the bed and moves to help her search, hoping that maybe locating it quickly enough will save them from Chrissy finding the fucking handcuffs, but like before— it’s too late. He watches her arm shoot under the bed and drag them out, his face getting hot as he turns away.

“Weird,” he hears her say behind him. “Hey, Eddie— you’re under arrest!”

He doesn’t really have the space to feel anything but shock as he looks down at his wrist and finds that— yep. He’s half-cuffed now.

And then, as he’s still immobilized, standing there in a stupor, Chrissy closes the other cuff over her own wrist.

He stares at their hands for a few moments and then looks at her. “Why did you do that?”

this scene from chapter 12 makes me crazy for real:

"Do— do you just want me to go? For— just— should I just give you space? I need to know what you want, I need you to tell me, please—"

She opens the bathroom door and he falls sideways, catching himself with an outstretched palm against the black and white tile before he can crash his head into her bare legs. Chrissy looks down at him, the light behind her creating a strange strawberry gold halo. In her hands, she's got— oh, Jesus.

In one hand she’s holding a pair of pink school scissors, and Eddie suddenly puts it together that the peculiarity of the light around her head is because her hair is shorn off, jaggedly chopped just above her shoulders. In the other hand, she has a fistful of hair, and she holds it up like— like a visual aid for a big important speech, like evidence presented at a trial, the smoking gun which irrefutably proves that everything is different now.

"I don't want you to go," she says, quiet. Eddie staggers to his feet, still staring. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her face still wet with tears, but she looks almost steely, determined. Everything is different, and he knew that, but more important is the fact that Chrissy isn’t going to let things go back to how they were.

and then finally. FINALLY. one of my favorite ever scenes we wrote: Chrissy v Jason smackdown in chapter 15 :')

It’s impulsive, and thoughtless, and stupid, but Eddie is pissed as hell now and all practical thoughts of consequences and the like are out the fucking window. He genuinely isn’t fully aware of his movements until he’s already punching Jason, landing about three blows before some other jock asshole— Andy, probably, because the guy is the fucking worst— wrenches his arm behind him and nearly lifts him off his feet. Carver moves forward again, but before he can get to Eddie a loud smack rings out, followed by Jason’s shout of pain.

He crumples to the ground, raising a hand to his his right shoulder, and Chrissy stands there behind him holding her math textbook and looking righteously angry. It’s pretty fucking metal, honestly.