#rainstormies

He was leaning against the vending machine like he was born to do it. Like he was the patron saint of detention and late-night drives and not giving a damn. His jacket was too big for this kind of weather — worn denim over that same Hellfire tee he always wore, holes at the collar, fingers covered in silver rings and invisible ink. He was looking down at the row of sodas like they had personally offended him.

You almost kept walking. You should've. There's a kind of rule — people like you don't talk to people like him. But you were tired of following rules that didn't make sense.

“You hate this place that much?” you asked.

Your voice was quiet, unsure.

Eddie didn't look at you right away. His eyes flicked upward, like it took him a second to believe you spoke. Then, slowly, his mouth curled around something crooked and amused.

“Cheerleader speaks,” he said. “Alert the press.”

You rolled your eyes, a smile threatening. “Don't act so shocked.”

He shruged. “Can't help it. Most of you walk past like I'm one of the lockers.”

You glanced around. The hallway was fully empty now, the walls breathing faint echoes of your voice.

“Maybe we're just not used to you being so... stationary,” you said.

He chuckled, soft and genuine, and that throws you a little. You expected sarcasm, not warmth.

“I'm just taking a break from corrupting America's youth,” he says. “Thought I'd give the PTA a day off.”

You leaned against the opposite wall, crossing your arms. “So dramatic.”

Eddie studied you for a second, something shifting behind his eyes. Then he nodded toward the gym doors behind you.

“You like it? All of that?”

You hesitated. “It's not that simple.”

“Nothing ever is,” he murmured. “But you wear that smile like armor. Makes me wonder what you're really hiding.”

You didn't answer. You weren't sure how to.

“Just don’t get it,” he said after a while, voice low. “Everyone in there’s so busy pretending this is the best time of their life. Like they don’t know the real world’s gonna chew them up and spit them out.”

You looked down the hallway, past the cracked trophy case, the flickering lights overhead. You knew what he meant. Even if it was different for you.

“Maybe that’s why they pretend,” you murmured.

Eddie blinked. Like maybe he hadn’t expected you to say anything true.

You were the girl who smiled too easily. The one people thought had everything — the uniform, the grades, the crowd. But behind your smiles was the loneliness of always being the version of yourself people expected.

That was the first time you and Eddie spoke. You don't talk every day after that.

But he starts appearing more, the back bleachers during your cooldown laps, leaning against his van when you're walking to your car, flipping through records in the dusty back corner of the store you go to when you want to disappear.

It’s quiet in the back corner of the Spinnin’ Vinyl. The kind of quiet that hums, rather than echoes. Fluorescent lights flicker softly overhead, casting a tired, pale glow over the rows of vinyl. Dust lingers in the air, caught in golden shafts of light leaking in through the blinds. You always come here after school when things get too loud — when your brain is tired of smiling and your lungs feel like they’re running out of air.

You trail your fingers over the spines of the albums, letting them whisper past, searching for something you won’t know you need until it’s in your hands.

“I knew I’d find you here,” someone says, low and familiar.

You don’t turn immediately — but your pulse stirs, a subtle skip. You reach for a record — Joan Armatrading — and then you glance sideways.

Eddie Munson is half a row down, his wild curls tucked behind one ear, a frayed leather cuff at his wrist. He’s flipping lazily through a stack of used cassettes, his mouth curved into that slight, crooked grin he always wears like armor.

“How?” you ask, voice light.

He shrugs. “You’ve got the eyes of someone who listens to heartbreak songs and never tells anyone.”

You pause, fingers tightening slightly around the record sleeve. Your first instinct is to deflect — to laugh, to scoff, to pretend he’s wrong.

But you don’t.

Instead, you look down at the album in your hands.

“Maybe,” you say quietly.

Eddie glances at you, just once, then back down to the tapes. “I come here for the same reason.”

You hum. “Heartbreak songs?”

He smirks. “Nah. The silence. People think this kind of music’s all noise and chaos — but sometimes it’s the only thing that shuts everything else up.”

You move a little closer to him — not too close, but close enough to feel the shared space. “You talk a lot.”

He chuckles. “I’ve been told.”

“Well…” You tilt your head, watching him. “You’ve got the mouth of someone who never shuts up yet still says more truth than most people I know.”

That makes him stop flipping through tapes.

He looks at you — properly now. Eyes softer than they should be, like you said something he didn’t expect.

“Careful,” he says, voice low. “You keep talking like that, I’ll start thinking you actually like me.”

You smile. “Who says I don’t?”

Eddie blinks once, then covers it with a scoff, turning back to the display like he can’t quite trust himself to keep looking at you.

You don’t say anything else. You just browse in companionable quiet, standing half a step apart.

Later, when the sun starts to dip and you both drift toward the register with a couple of records in hand, he holds the door for you like it’s nothing.

But he holds your gaze like it’s everything.

And that’s how you know.

He sees you.

Even in the quiet.

Even in the corners where no one else looks.

After that, you talk more.

You learn he likes Dio and Black Sabbath and the kind of music that sounds like thunder and heartbreak. You learn he hates math, lives with his uncle, and that sometimes, when he's not joking, his voice gets really soft.

In turn, he learns your favorite kind of silence — the kind where someone just sits with you and doesn't need you to smile.

One day, you're sitting on the hood of his van, the sky that pink-orange color it only turns for a few minutes before dusk. Your knees are tucked up, arms resting loosely over them, and Eddie's fiddling with his lighter again, flick—snap, flick—snap.

You ask him, “Do you ever wish you could leave?”

Eddie glances at you, hair curling wild around his face. “Like run away?”

You nod.

He shrugs. “Sometimes. But then I think... what if nowhere feels like home?”

You look down at your hands. “What if nowhere's worse than here?”

He doesn't answer right away.

Then, “Then maybe you take someone with you.”

Your heart skips.

You say nothing. But the air shifts.

It's raining when you show up at his trailer, soaked to the bone, heart pounding like it wants out of your chest. Your makeup's a mess, your shoes are muddy, and your mom's voice still echoes in your head — sharp words about “reputation” and “wasting your future on a burnout.”

Eddie opens the door in pajama pants and a Metallica tee, holding a half-eaten granola bar.

“Jesus,” he breathes. “You'll catch your death.”

You laugh once, sharp and broken. “Maybe that wouldn't be so bad.”

You don't mean to cry. But it happens anyway.

He pulls you in without asking.

Wraps you in one of those flannels that smells like detergent and cigarette smoke and something warm you can't name. You sit on his couch, trying not to shake, while he puts on the kettle and jokes about you looking like a sad raccoon.

He never asks why you're there. Just stays nearby. Quiet.

That night, you fall asleep with your head on his shoulder. His thumb moves in slow, absent circles against your arm until you stop crying.

You don't talk about that night. But something changes.

He starts walking you to your car.

You start saving him a seat at lunch — far from the others, but close enough for him to know you want him there.

People start to notice.

The basketball boys glare at you like you've betrayed the crown. Girls whisper.

You don't care. Not anymore.

“Guess I've got a type,” you say dryly one afternoon as you watch Jason Carver spit venom across the hall.

Eddie grins. “Tall, tattooed, and one foot out the door of juvie?”

You smile and bump his shoulder. “Misunderstood and smarter than they look.”

He looks at you then, long and searching.

“You mean that?”

You nod. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

He kisses you that night.

Not at a party, not under the Friday night lights. Just the two of you, in the woods behind the school where the trees swallow the sound of the town. Where the stars look close enough to touch. The air smells like pine and coming rain. His hands are gentle, like he's not sure he deserves this. You press closer, fingers tangling in his hair. His hand splayed against the back of your neck.

And the world narrows down to just breath and heartbeat and the way you didn’t feel so alone anymore.

He pulls back just enough to whisper, “You scare the hell out of me.”

“Why?” you whisper.

“Because you're real.”

You kiss him again so he doesn't have to explain.

And maybe things don't magically get easier. Maybe people still talk. Maybe you still have to go home and lie about where you've been.

But now, when it all feels too heavy, you know where to go.

And sometimes, in the quiet between songs, in the soft breath of the world holding still, Eddie looks at you like you're the only real thing in a world made of cardboard.

And you believe it.

Maybe for the first time ever.

It happens somewhere between Tiffany rolling her eyes and saying, “You've been weird lately,” and another girl whispering something behind her palm about “the freak” and your “late-night van rides.” Your skin burns under the fluorescent lights. You laugh too loudly, too fake, and say you're going to the bathroom when really, your hands are already shaking.

You make it to the back of the school before the tears fall.

It's golden hour — that time when the sun hits the cracked concrete just right and makes even Hawkins look soft, like a memory instead of a town. Your sneakers crunch over gravel as you head to the back parking lot where the record store glows like a secret. It's quiet here. Nobody follows you here.

Except him.

Eddie Munson leans against the wall, arms crossed, black jeans ripped at the knee and guitar pick chain swinging against his chest like a promise. He doesn't say anything when you walk past him, wiping your face with the sleeve of your jacket like it's nothing.

You don't make it ten steps before his voice breaks the quiet.

“Didn't peg you for a Mazzy Star girl.”

You turn, startled. His hair is a little wild from the wind, shadows tucked under his eyes like secrets he hasn't slept off yet.

He's not smirking. Not this time.

You almost laugh. “You've been watching me?” you ask, trying for playful. It doesn't quite work.

He shrugs, pushes off the wall. “You always come straight to the sad stuff. Not even a pit stop in the pop aisle. It's kind of impressive.”

You roll your eyes, trying not to smile. “And let me guess — you're here for the loudest, weirdest vinyl they have.”

He grins, that crooked little thing that makes your ribs tighten. “Guilty. But I like your taste better. It says you've been through something.”

You glance down, suddenly shy. “Maybe I have.”

He steps closer, voice gentler. “Yeah. I know the look. It's the one you get when you've learned to keep quiet.”

You don't say anything. Not right away. Just cross your arms and shift your weight from one foot to the other.

He softens a little. “Rough day?”

You nod. “They think I'm... changing. That I'm not playing the part right anymore.”

“And the part is...?”

“Perfect girl... I guess. Loud laugh. Thin waist. Small brain.”

Eddie snorts. “God forbid you have thoughts of your own.”

You're too tired to laugh. Instead, your voice is small when you say, “They're not wrong. I have changed.”

He doesn't ask how. Just walks up to you, close enough that you can smell the faint cigarette smoke on his jacket, the leather, the mint gum he's probably been chewing since third period.

“I think,” he says, “you're just starting to like who you are.”

And maybe, you think, I'm starting to like who I am when I'm around you.

His fingers brush your wrist — barely there. You don't pull away.

You end up in the van that night.

Not for anything wild — not yet — just to sit. Just to breathe. Eddie pulls a blanket from the back and throws it over your legs. He offers you a mixtape he swears was made for someone else but you know was for you. A voice you don't recognize sings low about love and bruises and forgiveness.

He doesn't look at you when he says, “I know they talk. I know what they say about me.”

You whisper, “They talk about me too now.”

“I'd take it all if it meant you didn't have to hear it.”

That's when you kiss him.

Or maybe he kisses you — it's hard to tell, the moment catches like a match and burns before you can stop it. His lips are rough, a little chapped, but the way he touches you is gentle. Like he's scared you'll run.

You don't.

Your hands end up tangled in the front of his shirt. He groans softly against your mouth, thumb tracing the line of your jaw like he's memorizing it.

And when you climb onto his lap, straddling him in the dark, neither of you says a word.

Your thighs bracket his hips. His hands slip under your cheer skirt, just barely — resting, not rushing. The air is heavy with heat, the smell of dust and rain and pine-scented air freshener.

You can feel him, hard beneath you, and he looks at you like he wants to give you the world and ruin you in the same breath.

“Tell me to stop,” he says, voice ragged.

You don't.

But you lean forward until your forehead touches his, and whisper, “Not yet.”

You stay like that for a while — tangled, burning, not ready to go all the way but too far to pretend it's nothing.

It's everything.

And it's terrifying.

⊹ ︶⏝⭒ ⊹ ⭒⏝︶ ⊹

You don't remember walking to his trailer, only deciding to. The party was too loud, too polished, too much. Glossy girls with brighter smiles than hearts. Boys with beer and boredom in their eyes. The kind of party that tastes like cherry lip gloss and leaves you lonelier than when you arrived.

So you walked.

Now, you're standing outside his door with your pulse in your throat. You don't knock. You just open it.

Eddie's on the couch, legs kicked up, half asleep in his faded Metallica tee. His hair's loose around his shoulders, and the room smells like incense and motor oil. A movie hums quietly on the TV — something old, black and white, warbling in and out of focus.

He sits up when he sees you, a little too fast. “Hey.”

You shut the door behind you, leaning against it like you're not sure how to stand anymore. “Your uncle's out, right?”

He blinks. “Yeah.”

“Good.” You step forward, just a little, the quiet click of your shoes sounding loud on the floor.

He notices. He's looking at you like he's trying to figure out how much of you is here and how much of you is still wherever you came from. “You okay?”

You don't answer. Not at first.

You sit beside him, slower than you walked in. “I'm tired of pretending,” you say, so softly it sounds like a secret.

Eddie tilts his head. “Pretending what?”

You look at him, eyes a little hazy, voice steady. “That I don't miss you when I'm not here. That I don't think about this — whatever this is — when I'm stuck with people who only like the version of me they understand.”

Eddie's quiet for a moment. Too quiet. Then he says, “That's a dangerous thing to say. Especially when you smell like cheap vodka and cherries.”

You laugh, and it breaks the tension like glass.

He's watching you, but not like the others do. Not like you're a prize to be won or a name to be whispered behind backs. Like you're a riddle he wants to take his time solving.

You lean in, close enough to feel his breath. “I'm not sober enough to lie.”

There's a silence.

Then his hand is on your thigh — not rushed, not demanding. Just there. Steady. Warm.

“You've been gone,” he says, voice low. “I figured you were over it. Over me.”

“I was scared,” you admit. “Of what they'd say. What I'd become.”

Eddie shifts closer. “You mean what you already are?”

You nod, throat thick. “Yeah.”

His touch trails up, over denim, to your hip. “You're here now.”

“I am.”

The air is thick between you. Not heavy — just full. Like something about to happen. Like thunder waiting to break.

He leans in, his nose brushing yours. “Say it again. That you missed me.”

You don't hesitate. “I missed you.”

Then his mouth is on yours.

It's not soft. It's not rushed either. It's just real. His hands slide up your back, grounding you. Your fingers find his shirt, curl into it like you've been needing to hold something solid all night.

He pulls you onto his lap without breaking the kiss, and you let him. You're straddling him now, your knees digging into the cushions, your hands buried in his hair. He tastes like cinnamon gum and the end of a long night — sweet and a little wild.

The kiss deepens. His hands press into your waist, fingertips memorizing every inch like he's trying to carve it into his skin. You feel weightless. Reckless. Free.

Your lips part for air, and he's looking at you like you hung the stars. “God,” he breathes. “You drive me insane.”

“You like it,” you whisper.

His hand tightens just slightly at your waist. “Too much,” he says, pressing his forehead to yours, his nose brushing yours again like he can't help it. “Too fucking much.”

You stay like that, suspended in the hush between heartbeats. Kissing in the dark. The TV behind you flickers in a wash of silver and shadow, forgotten. The only thing you hear is your breath, tangled with his, and the thrum of your pulse like war drums in your throat.

Then he moves. Slowly. Deliberately.

His fingers slip under the hem of your shirt, callused fingertips brushing the bare skin of your lower back. You gasp, barely audible, the contact sending sparks skimming down your spine. He moves upward, inch by inch, like every patch of skin is sacred.

And you let him.

His other hand finds your thigh, grips it just above the knee, then slides upward with the same unhurried patience, anchoring you tighter to him. Your body curves instinctively into his, hips pressed together, and you swear he curses softly against your mouth.

Your lips find the curve of his jaw, warm and sharp beneath the stubble. You kiss him there, once, then again, then again — slower. Lazier. Like you're staking a claim.

He lets out a sound that's somewhere between a groan and a whisper, low and broken. His hands are moving now, one mapping the small of your back, the other ghosting beneath your skirt, bold but reverent. Like he's worshipping, not wanting.

Your breath catches. Heat coils low in your stomach.

“Say something,” you whisper against his throat.

“What do you want me to say?” he murmurs, his voice gravel and silk.

“That this means something,” you admit, because the words are already there, too big to swallow.

He pulls back just enough to look at you. Really look at you. His eyes are wild and open, like he's showing you every part of himself he's never let anyone see. “It means everything.”

Then his mouth is on yours again, hotter this time — messier. Less careful. Like he's unraveling right beneath your hands. You kiss him like you're starved for it. Like his mouth might be the only thing keeping you from falling apart.

Your hips shift. He grips tighter.

His thumb brushes just beneath the band of your panties — nothing more — and yet it's enough to steal the breath from your lungs. Your whole body goes taut, electricity singing in every nerve.

But he doesn't push.

Instead, he stills, forehead resting against yours again, both of you trembling under the weight of everything you're feeling but haven't said.

“You wanna stop?” he asks, voice barely there, like he's scared even the question might push you away.

You shake your head, slow but certain. “No.”

His eyes search yours a moment longer, making sure. Always making sure. But then he exhales like he's been holding his breath for days.

You're both breathing hard, the air between you gone heavy and warm, saturated with tension and everything you haven't dared to say. The room suddenly feels too small for all this want — too full of heat and moonlight and everything he makes you feel.

So you reach for him.

Your fingers find the hem of his shirt and lift, and he lets you, arms raised as you pull it over his head. The fabric falls somewhere to the side, forgotten. His skin is warm beneath your touch, dusted with freckles and old bruises, the kind of soft that hides strength.

Then your shirt is gone too, slipped away like a secret in the dark, and suddenly there's nothing between you but breath and skin and the electric pull that's always been there.

His hand comes to the back of your head, gently, like you're something precious — and he guides you down, slow and careful, until you're lying on your back, looking up at him.

Your legs instinctively wrap around his waist, and when he settles there, chest against chest, mouth just hovering above yours, it's like everything clicks into place.

It feels right. Not rushed. Not reckless. Just right.

Moonlight spills through the window, casting the room in silver shadows. It touches everything — the curve of your cheek, the slope of his shoulders, the way his eyes drink you in like you're something holy.

He undresses you like that, moving your legs for just long enough to get his pants off, in the quiet glow of night. Patient. His fingers careful, never greedy, brushing your skin like he's learning it —memorizing the shape of your ribs, the dip of your waist the places where you shiver under him.

Your hand finds his chest, palm spread flat, feeling the thud of his heartbeat under your skin. It's fast. Just like yours.

And then his lips are on yours again.

Slower this time. Deeper. He kisses you like he's got all the time in the world, like this is the only moment that's ever mattered. Every move is unhurried — the soft grinding of his hips, the gentle drag of knuckles across your jaw, the sigh he lets you when you pull him closer.

His mouth trails lower — jaw, throat, shoulder — and every press of his lips leaves a mark, not on your skin, but in your chest.

And not once does he let go.

His hands stay on you, steady and warm. Guiding. Anchoring. Holding you like he's afraid you might disappear if he stops.

And you don't move away either.

You don't want to.

Because for the first time, you don't feel like you're pretending. You're not the girl everyone thinks they know. You're just you, and he's just him, and there's nothing else here but the quiet promise of something real.

The kind of real that lingers.

The kind of real you don't forget.