𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤: The aches and pains of growing up. Teens getting drunk. Occasional swearing. Long.
It seemed there wasn't an hour between my first macaroni necklace and my graduation just like there weren't five minutes between Jem and I screaming 80s tunes down the rocky highway in her brand new Chevy and sitting here on the beach at sunset wondering where had all the time gone and how we got all the way here.
Someone from the other side of the big table had the vision of driving down to the beach for one last goodbye before college. Some other tables caught wind and told some other people and before I knew it I was sipping lemonade on the sand as Jem joked with people she had never joked with before.
Hell, she didn't even know who they were.
"Oh, oh! And the time when he made an aide burst out crying the first day!"
It was loud. Between the enthusiastic outbursts of anecdotes, laughter and the guy's football game, you could hear the waves coming forward from seemingly nowhere.
"Man those were good times..."
It was a weird moment.
"Yeah who knew how fast it was gonna go..."
Happy but strangely downcast. We were hanging on to old memories as a way of not facing the unknown to come even if that meant bonding with people whose names you didn't even know.
But it was sort of fun.
Sort of. I was still itching for the surfboard seatbelted in the back of Jem's car as it got colder.
What was weird was the could've beens. The could've been times, the could've been friends, maybe even the could've been more than friends. It made me realise how much I held back in high school, and how much I'd been saving for college as if the hard work ended there. I always thought there was plenty of time later to party.
Maybe I regretted it.
Maybe it would've been nice to have more than a handful of people know my name.
But Jem was more than enough to handle.
"Hey," she scooted back over to me, nudging my arm and smiling that smile of hers that told me she didn't have a worry in the world "Wanna walk around?"
"Alright," I got up, dusting the sand from my blue shorts knowing it wouldn't make much of a difference. I turned around only to find her still sitting, lean dark olive arms reaching up to me and hands grabbing like a baby.
"Come on help Nana up," she pouted using every cute baby curl perched on top of her head to her advantage. I rolled my eyes laughing at her groans and grunts even though she wasn't doing any of the work as I helped her to her feet.
"You sure you can handle just walking now?" I ask her, squeaking our linked arms in concern as she chuckles, brushing the sand off her crotchet set.
"As long as we stay within a mile radius of the jocks I think I'll be good," Jem taps my hand averting my attention to the shirtless guys sprinting around the sand for fun, giving us flashes into the future as old women walking along this beach talking about the good times as we were doing now. "It's good for the soul."
I stare at them and their strange rituals of body slams, butt taps and roaring, considering intensely:
"I'm disappointed in us for finding them attractive."
She looks at me once, considers then turns back to the scene as we pretend to walk with sluggish feet that don't seem to want to step at all. She disagrees.
"The body knows what it wants sweetie. But forget high school guys. You won't even remember these guys after the buffet you're gonna get in Cali."
"I'm never gonna get rid of you am I?" I laugh at her shamelessness but with fondness at the idea of nothing ever coming between us.
"Honey it's gonna take more than a measly 35-hour drive without traffic to get rid of me..."
I slowed down and pulled my eyes away easily, that same sadness for what was and never will be again overcoming me.
"You looked it up?"
Jem stops too, glassy brown eyes wandering mine as she struggles with the sudden realisation that yes-
"I looked it up."
We both knew no matter how badly we tried to forget the distance, life would never be as easy as it once was with her a couple of yards away from me. I'll try to settle all the way in California with her still here in North Carolina but there was that inevitable sinking feeling of 'did I appreciate that convenience of having her around enough when I had it?'
I knew she thought the same.
She has a noisy face.
"But today," she shoves me out of my thoughts with her sing-song enthusiasm, she nods towards the guy's cooly as if she isn't gushing linking our arms again "we're technically still in high school till that sun goes down."
And a noisy mouth.
It's like a scene out of a movie; a bunch of sweaty shirtless guys playing football, the guys stop and whistle at the two blushing schoolgirls as they walk past for daring to show some leg but it wasn't that kind of movie.
Embarrassment overcomes me when It's in fact Jem who does the whistling, in a loud, saliva-between-the-fingers kind of way. I wasn't quick enough to run away or short enough to hide behind her as around 20 pairs of enchanted eyes fixed on us, laughing and flexing playfully at the attention. Some whistle back, some kiss the air but I'm nudging her a new waist, still unable to help the uncontrollable laugh clogging the back of my throat.
We turn to walk away when the show is over.
Then number 21 turns.
Jeon Jungkook turns to look at us with a squinted playful gaze, a hand blocking his view from the sun until a sort of recognition hits. His large palms reduce the size of the football to nothing and it was tough to look away, almost a challenge as he glistened in what little sun we had left of the day and the dusk cut his body into sculpture. In just a pair of black swim shorts, curly long hair and a telling smirk he was exactly who my mother warned me about when it came to 'boys' and exactly the guy described in the books I hide under my mattress.
I held my breath.
Everything in me turned to mulch.
It was slow, it was thick as we just stare straight through each other, trying to figure the other out with him apparently doing a better job as he sort of...winks? He bites his bottom lip in thought and to fight his grin before turning back to the game and I look back instinctively to see him playing like before.
And everything suddenly returns to natural speed as we walk away.
"What the hell was that!" Jem pulled my arm out of its place and stretched the sleeve of my sweatshirt beyond its limits.
"What do you mean?" I played it off cooly, trying my best not to expect too much for fear of being disappointed. But it wasn't a lie either. I genuinely had no idea what just happened, if it even did happen. There was a robust possibility that I imagined the whole thing. Any minute, my dad would call me down to breakfast and cuss me out for being late.
"This girl," she muttered in frustration standing before me in a confrontational way despite her excitement, she was gesturing so wildly I had to hold her arms to her side "That! With Jeon-run-over-me-with-a-lawnmower-Jungkook! He was eye-fucking you!"
"He was not," I laughed her off like a fly in the wind, trying to get out of the uncomfortable attention by putting my hands in my pocket. "...Was he?"
"Girl, you're delusional. If this was Salem you'd both be burning on a stick for fucking through air!"
"People weren't burned at the stake for eye-fu-"
"I'm just saying!" She interrupted before her eyes went wide and her eyelashes dug into her eyebrow, I was just glad she paid attention those last few classes in history. She looked over my shoulder, too mortified with my dumbness to make eye contact "Oh wait-shit. Don't turn around he's still looking!"
He was!
Fffffffffffffuuuuuuuucccccccckkkkkkkkk!
"You idiot! I said don't look!" Jem slaps my arm to fight the idiot out of me but her slaps always hurt more than she realised.
"Ow! When you say don't look of course I'm gonna look!" I yell back, covering my stinging arm and angling it away.
She pushes me with brutal force. I push her back and simultaneously defend my honour by trying to stop her.
"Don't pull that reverse psychology on me, you know those classes were my nap times!"
Our previous flirty walk was thrown into the ocean as we push each other like dicks until we fall to the sand in front of the very boys we were secretly attempting to impress. We laugh our ass off on our backs, stomachs aching at our desperate and stupid selves.
The hysterical laughter hurts my stomach until it doesn't. Something else settles in the cavity the laughter left.
"You remember the first time I talked to him?" I say out of nowhere, calmness and nostalgia in my voice.
Why was I thinking about that?
"When your pen exploded on his shirt?"
"Uh-huh."
I laughed breathily, finding it funny how Jungkook was just like the rest of us when he moved. He was picked on for being the only Asian guy, he was the weird gamer kid about 2-3 years ago and then he got hotter, he got superficial, and he got chicks.
"It was so embarrassing. You know when a guy is super good-looking like you try to deny it and it means literally nothing to you but you still wanna make a good first impression? So he asks if he could borrow a pen, I give it to him and it explodes on the spot against his shirt..." I drift into that warmer-than-usual math class and that Billabong off-white t-shirt.
"It wasn't even anywhere close to being my fault but it was still horrifying."
"It was a really nice shirt."
My voice is drifting, almost lethargic as I remember yet another could've been. It was funny how when I gave him that pen I thought it could change my life, like a single interaction with this guy would bring him back for another pen. And, another. And, another. I don't care now, I laugh at the memory but I cried so hard after that class and thought about skipping the next day.
"Funny thing is he won't remember."
Jem doesn't say anything.
"I do."
I frown at the sky, judging its distance.
"For some reason, I think about it all the time."
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It would be stupid to assume that at a beach full of nostalgic teenagers with little to nothing to lose there wouldn't be alcohol. It was darker, the sun floating perfectly on the sea level like a perfect egg yolk and dying the sky red and the only person sober enough to notice this was me.
At this point Jem was on the opposite side of the fire, slurring through her compliments to this guy and this girl who she found out was in her calculus since the beginning and whom she-
"-wish I got to know ya'll sooner!"
Before giving them a messy hug and moving on to the next bunch.
I was obviously driving us back.
Jem's confidence and sheer audacity were things I had always envied. While she told complete strangers her deepest darkest secrets and made everyone fall in love with her in seconds, I just sat here looking at the ocean wishing I was somewhere else.
I didn't really know how to put myself out there.
It's impossible.
You can't try too little cause then you're an arrogant ass or try too hard cause then you're desperate!
There weren't many people left/conscious, just pickings from every social circle all jumbled together discovering each other for the first time. Some were telling each other they'll love each other equally even from miles apart, some were making out and stopping every now and then to say:
"Even if this is it, I'll never forget you."
"There'll never be anyone else."
There were friends promising to keep in touch through blubbering tears that would devastate Jem and me when the day would eventually come for us when I'd never see her through my windows again. There were people from completely different sides of the field coming together, laughing, flirting, joking and celebrating their fear of becoming accountable, of becoming adults.
I leaned back into this thought, smiling into the warmth of the fire and enjoying the grit of sand in my palms.
It was nice.
Maybe they were just drunk.
"Can I sit?"
The tone was too confident to be someone I knew.
I dragged my gaze up a muscular leg, wet black swim shorts and a sandy black hoodie to the casual and expecting expression of Jeon Jungkook. I look over to Jem but she's in her own world, babbling something about instant noodles with no intention of making fun of me again tonight quite yet.
"Sure."
I was a little stiff, straightening up a little and dusting the sand off my palms. I was suddenly very conscious of my exposed legs. But there was something about this being the last day and all where he meant nothing to me, that everything he stood for meant absolutely nothing and would be washed away at the end of his high school career as easily as the sand on the shore. Between the crackling of the fire, the faint surrounding conversation and the ocean view, not even boy stress could phase me now.
I waited for him to talk.
Maybe he didn't want to talk.
Maybe he just wanted to sit.
"Designated driver?"
That's fine too.
I look at him not understanding at first until his brown eyes flicker towards the glass Calypso bottle in my hand.
"Oh, I'm not much of a drinker," I shrug, somehow less concerned with appearing cool than I thought I'd be.
It was just Jungkook.
It was the last day.
"No?" he asks with a charming smile, leaning back with intrigue and glancing at me bit by bit.
Until he smiled.
"You can't tell me you actually like the taste of that stuff," I laugh remembering the disinfectant-like taste of that blue stuff Jem made me try once and the morning of blue vomit that came after it.
"No you're right, it tastes like shit," Jungkook bursts into small controlled laughter, pulling a face as if he'd just watched his buddy eat a raw onion. He leans in ever so slightly as if he's about to tell me what brand of underwear he wears or even which one I wore but instead he comments:
"But it's not really about the taste is it?"
I study his face for a minute, the beauty spots, tanned skin and flawless complexion. The way his hair has dried in curls and his cheeks a little red from the heat of the fire.
"I guess not," I laugh too, looking down but not really because it was funny but because it was true.
As he takes another sip from his red cup, it settles in how strange it was seeing him up close. Since I didn't interact with his group on a daily basis, I had come to convince myself they none of the popular kids were real and now here I was with one of them, feeling strangely comforted by his odd company.
We were both staring out at the fire and the sea beyond it; him because he was cool and didn't have to and had no desire to look at me and me because I didn't want to, I didn't dare to.
"You know, aside from English I never really saw you around," Jungkook quite comfortably thinks out loud, enjoying the way his bare feet sank into the sand "where have you been hiding?"
I simply didn't know where else to look.
"You know me?"
"You sound surprised."
"Well, we've never gotten personal before."
"Not true. I borrowed your pen once and it basically detonated, so pretty personal to me."
"You remember that?"
"Of course I do. I've been looking for you to give you my dry cleaning bill. That was my favourite shirt you know."
"Oh, the lifelong embarrassment is plenty of compensation..."
And again the little laugh we did together got littler and littler until it was quiet again and we were fixed on the ocean but this time it was because I wanted to, and my eyes burned a little less.
I began to feel guilt for the cold way I was trying not to get to know him and my judgements about his attempt at being company. I turn to him barely, looking at his legs rather than his eyes which are more muscle than actual leg.
"I haven't been hiding..."
He turns.
"You just...?"
You just haven't been looking.
He knew I had more to say.
Jungkook knew how to manipulate the sharp edge of black eyes, he knew that his tendency not to blink would egg an answer from me from heaven knows where.
"I just..."
I laugh nervously.
It's desperately dry.
"I..."
He was dangerously patient.
"I keep to myself."
I frown at my response, unable to think of anything else to say that wouldn't offend him and make him tuck and roll away from this car wreck. I cared so much about what I said and I hated that. I was sorry that I had to take it out on him, despite him actually being a seemingly decent guy. But I couldn't stop.
Surprisingly I get the impression that Jungkook already knows. He stares at me for an excruciating amount of time after I answer his question, where I'm painfully staring straight ahead pretending not to realise.
The truth was that I wasn't hidden at all. I notice Jungkook every weekend when I surf since he runs for miles along the shore and despite sharing classes with the guy for years, we cross paths like less than strangers. I in no way resent him for that.
We were just two people whose paths were never meant to cross.
"How'd you decide that?"
I was beginning to get comfortable.
The heat, delicacy and unexpectedness of the moment made me lethargic.
"Jungkook, we both approached this life in wildly different ways..."
I hesitate.
"It doesn't matter in the long run but...
...I never felt the overwhelming desire to follow yours."
"And no matter what the movies say, it sure does matter to a lot of people
from which side of the fence you hail."
Jungkook respected this honesty. His smile was softer than it was before but there was something swimming in his eye that almost wanted to prove me wrong, to convince me that maybe one of us made the wrong choice.
"I swear I'm adorable when you get to know me."
Jungkook chuckles endearingly, touching a hand to his heart to make sure there wasn't a hole.
"If you try."
I chuckle unfazed, bringing my knees to my chest as I start to feel the cold.
I didn't doubt him for a second.
"You're drunk."
"I'm not drunk.
Jungkook's eyes gloss over as he stares at the spot of sand next to my foot.
"You wanna know something about my fence?"
I was a little too invested in what he had to say.
"I sat right there..." he turns and points to a large rock a couple of yards away.
"For about half an hour trying to get the courage to come over here and talk to you."
I laughed.
Not at him, which at first he didn't seem to understand but because I was the one who didn't understand.
"Me? We barely know each other."
"Exactly, we barely know each other and yet one look
and you'd already decided you'd rather not."
I didn't really have anything say. He wasn't wrong, and he was right either but I couldn't say that it didn't cross my mind. Not talking to the guy and judging him based on what I knew about him made me no better than them.
"I don't like it when guys say they're not like other guys..."
"Cause what if they are? What's wrong with that?"
"Like what makes you think you're so special to decide you don't belong to that?"
"What if I am just a stupid old jock?"
"Are you?"
Jungkook shakes his head honestly, curls shaking with it and laughing at the idea of him doing anything of the sort. It wasn't him.
"You'd know that if you ever asked."
Nice job. I'm glad I was moving away.
"I'm sorry."
"No, you're not."
My eyes went wide.
"I'm not. I mean I had to talk to you about something right?"
His expression settles into a challenging smirk, his head tilted back to take more of me into his view as I flush in agreement, snorting through a laugh at the state of this kid.
"You could've asked about my hobbies instead of absolutely crushing me."
"I know you surf. I see you at the beach every Saturday morning. You never wave back."
Jungkook smiles through a pout as if he even waves in the first place. He stares and continues to run, sometimes his pace slows slightly but it's ever so slight that I fall into the water from concentrating.
Just from concentrating.
"Shut up you don't wave."
"I knew you watched me run."
I flushed, slapping his arm in embarrassment. I don't know why. I just did.
"The point isn't that you're a pervert. The point is...
It's more memorable this way, no?"
I neither cared to notice nor was ever in the position to notice before how Jungkook's eyes shone when he was waiting for an answer to a question. It pushed an answer out of you even if you didn't think you had one or made you so lost you forgot he even asked a question in the first place.
When he laughs it comes from deep down, all the way from when he was little making it sound a little boyish.
I didn't realise how close we were sitting until he brushed my leg when he put down his cup.
It was silly how much that excited me.
"You going to college?"
I take one more look at him before looking away. He had the prettiest red scattering of blush growing from the corner of his jawline.
"Yeah UCSD, San Diego."
I didn't want to talk about college tonight. Didn't really want to think about it. It just made me sad.
"Makes sense. Jump out of class and into the ocean right?"
He smiles again- he doesn't stop smiling like a little kid at SeaWorld.
"Something like that."
"Excited?"
"Hard to be."
"Leaving a lot behind?"
"Mhm. It's a big step- the biggest step.
"I just hope it's everything I hoped it would be, you know?"
He moves my way.
"That's the dreaded thing. You won't know until you just do it.
But trust me even having the courage to even think about doing
something like that is worth something. Shit, I admire you."
I fight with the silence. I got eyes and ears there was a reason I didn't pry about his future beyond just being an asshole. For the last two weeks or so, everyone whispered about how Jungkook didn't get his football scholarship for college cause of his grades. I felt bad for the guy, knowing little to nothing about that which he's made for but certain he was destined for it. He wasn't very smart. But, I could tell he knew that I knew.
Everyone knew.
Jungkook knew.
I knew as soon as he didn't bring a pen to his Literature exam.
I clear my throat. Treading lightly.
"You staying local?"
He shuts off a little, fixating on the ocean once more where the egg yolk was almost completely submerged in the water.
"I might've got a last-minute spot in Long Beach.
Hey, you might have a friendly face on the flight!"
"Right."
I laugh at his enthusiasm, catching my mind from drifting to the thought of a 7hr flight in his company.
"Might?"
"Well, they said I could only major in exercise science if I joined the football team, did extra credit and basically retake the whole year over the summer. Turns out those grades? Pretty important."
"Win-win though right?"
He didn't sound excited.
He was quiet for a while. I checked what I said in fear that I overstepped again. He looked to any regular passer-by like he was enjoying the ocean air against his face, breathing in the salt and smoke. But, I could see from our close proximity that there was something else.
"I thought maybe I'd get to start again in college.
I thought maybe I could try not being the dumb football guy.
But maybe that's who I was meant to be."
I finally began to realise who I was sitting next to. Slowly I was learning more about Jungkook and it made me melt in his company, enjoy it and delusionally imagine us on that plane together with my board laid across our laps. It was a funny idea that I might know more about this guy than any of his friends, his parents, his cool cousins or strange uncles. It was scary how much trust you could have in someone after just an hour.
"Only you can tell yourself who you're supposed to be.
College is a lot of money to waste on finding yourself and what you love."
I check to see if he's listening.
He really is.
"You've always known you wanted to do marine biology?"
"I'm lucky. I'm one of the very few that will be able to study what I've always loved every day. The ocean. It's crazy how something so simple we see every day can be so complicated that we've only explored a fraction of it. God knows what's out there. I don't know if that's terrifying or exciting but I'm gonna find out."
I get comfortably carried off into my thoughts, unable to stop my inner monologue from surfacing until I'm not thinking anymore, just imagining getting to feel that initial cold wash of water every day and getting paid for it.
Jungkook is looking. He's studying me. His eyes weren't shining but his small hoop earnings were, mocking me for being so uncool and stupid. No one could ever pull those off like he did.
"I'm sorry I-"
"I'm glad you didn't keep to yourself today."
His tone was different. He made my heart stop though it hurt more to admit it than just to feel it. At the end of the day, what difference did it make? I was blissfully aware how after tonight Jungkook and I would likely never see each other again, how we would be just a picture in the yearbook and a face we might shockingly come across in 10 years time. But I wanted to indulge myself with this moment, in the delusion that this was a could've been even if just for a few hours.
"I mean this is the happiest I've seen you in a long time."
Melanie searched my face for any evidence against this face but she couldn't find it.
It was the honest truth.
I was so happy that I had to concentrate on the restaurant around me just so I wouldn't liquify in my chair- whether it be the people peeping to see what we ordered, the woman complaining about linen charge or the staff flirting behind the bar.
I was so happy that I didn't want to talk too much in case I sounded insane. I had always been the pessimistic one between us both, laughing self-deprecatingly when Melanie stumbled in messily from a hookup but cried when she went to sleep it off.
"Well," I blush and chuckle modestly, grounding myself by gripping the slim stem of the wine glass "I am. He's just- who I am now."
I saw her sisterly cogs turning.
"And before you say don't become too dependent on him I'm not," I point watching her smirk knowingly into the rim of the glass "It's a perfect balance, we're seeing each other casually and being all over each other sometimes."
It doesn't make sense.
This kind of luck didn't exist anymore with people being too awkward to meet face to face or getting carried away behind screens and instantly begging for something more. This was rare and it would take a lot for me to even think about letting it go.
"Well," she raises her glass of wine elegantly by the stem, grinning with dumbfounded pride "fuck you and your perfect life."
I laugh but there were worse things to be sworn at for. I didn't believe in luck or the manifesting stuff I caught on late-night tv sometimes but I owe someone a pretty big favour for having a great job, a fantastic new relationship and a perfect new life in just a couple of months since moving.
"To the perfect man," I toast and the wine sloshes and glasses clink.
I didn't know if it was the sweetness of success or genuinely the taste but as I took a sip it was the best wine I had ever tasted. It was the best pasta I had tasted and we were regulars at this place.
"Are you sure you want to live with him? I know he's a fucking catch but I can cut my hair, tape down my tits and deepen my voice!"
This restaurant is where we'd come to rant when we didn't want to cry since it's unbelievably intimate and public. But this time I had good news. I was doing just fine with nothing to cry about.
"How is it gonna be actually living with the guy? A huge disappointment compared to your previous roommate I know but..." Melanie shrugs sarcastically, wincing at the thought of having to warm her own coffee and pastries in the mornings without me to do it for her.
But he was very eager, almost insistent actually that we move in together. He said it was the answer to all our problems of struggling to make time for each other with our schedules.
"Absolutely but," I shrug still playing around with the linguine on my fork "I really don't know. I've never seen his place."
"What?" she shakes her head for clarity but mostly the drama "You never slept at his? What if he has star wars sheets? Ew, what if he cuts his nails in the kitchen? Kieran used to do that before I threw his ass and his toenails out."
I laughed again but the funniest thing was that I didn't even care. At this point, Tae could attack me in his sleep and it wouldn't stop the bubbling anticipation I have to see him first thing in the morning.
He always made it clear from the beginning that his life was incomprehensibly complicated, not in a worrying my boyfriend is a serial killer way but in a please don't pry and ask too many questions I'll tell you when I'm ready kind of way.
But she's right. It's weird.
"I don't know he always made excuses that his roommate, Jimmie or something, was weird, he hadn't cleaned, he was having the floors done. I know that's the part where you start tailing him after work or going through his Instagram but I chose to respect his privacy. Maybe he was embarrassed about where he lived."
Tae was a host at a prestigious hotel restaurant and the nights were long and hard for him and for me who often waited up for him with a glass of wine until the inevitable 'working late. don't wait up' message.
Then I got out the tequila.
"Well, I hope for your sake Tae isn't a snorer. Has he put down the deposit yet?"
"No, I did."
She drops her fork, eyebrows dropping to her nostrils.
"I thought he said last week that he found the place?"
I shrugged, never liking conversations about money even if it was with my best friend.
"He did but he's still waiting around for someone to take over his tenancy since his contract runs out in April."
Melanie doesn't say anything else.
By the time the bottle and the conversation had reached its end, we were wincing in heels through the door of our blue apartment for the last time. I was going to miss living with Melanie, we had lived together since we met in the second year of uni and ended up working at the same magazine.
At least we had one thing to keep us together, not that anything could ever keep us apart.
"I'm gonna miss this."
"Me too."
As we sloppily waved each other and walked into our separate doors my phone began to ring in my hand and I dodged a few boxes to the edge of the bed before answering. I waited for a second, a heavy glee pressing down my chest that I was scared would just crush me if I answered too soon.
Get a grip.
I slipped off my heels and picked up.
"You were out late."
His smooth deep voice poured through the speakers and into my spine which was dotted and frozen cold. I half unzipped my dress and flopped onto the bed on my stomach, legs kicking in a stupid girlie rush.
Damn him.
His tone was always firm but playful like he was telling me off and praising me at the same time. It was addictive.
"Yeah, we got a bit carried away with the old stories and the wine," I laughed at how my stomach still hurt from the uncontrollable laughter from a pair of twenty-somethings in a decently respectable restaurant "Are you on break?"
"No just snuck out when Craig wasn't looking, I wanted to catch you before you went to sleep and make sure Mel hadn't changed your mind. She can be very persuasive."
I couldn't help my smile as I rubbed my sore feet, the world suddenly just seems a little bit better. His genuine thoughtfulness was unparalleled and his words were effortless even if they were simple and meant little to nothing. Even when he met Mel for the first time, he was perfect, like an extension of myself.
"I can't believe in less than twenty-four hours I get to have you all to myself, all day, every day," he hummed happily, thinking out loud rather than just stating facts. It made me all the more excited, even the idea of yelling at him for his mess if he was messy or marvelling at his neatness if he wasn't.
I couldn't wait.
"Do you cut your toenails in the kitchen?"
But it was hard to articulate.
Taehyung erupted into unexpected laughter, more like a big splutter. I often carried out conversations in my head in public forgetting that the other person couldn't hear the first half of it.
"That's disgusting. Which one of Melanie's ex-boyfriends did that?" he replies knowingly, still laughing but also keeping quiet to hide from his pushy boss.
"It's just- I don't know..." I struggle "Don't you think it's odd how I've never seen your place? I've never met your roommate, only met one of your friends."
The more I talked about it the more I was talking myself out of this.
"Okay," he takes a deep breath as if he knew this was coming and had prepared something to say "Firstly, Jimin is the one respectable one out of my friends, I think you'd run if you met any of the rest. And second, my roommate was messy and the place was gross. I knew deep down that it wasn't my home because you weren't there, it was temporary."
I bite my lip, impulsively pressing mute so I could squeal into the sheets. I kick the headboard behind me over and over until my toes hurt. My heart was going to explode. God, I'm such a child.
I unmute.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking."
"Don't apologise. I know exactly what you were thinking. Fuck I don't know him, maybe he has pokemon sheets or he has a huge porn box under his bed."
"Do you have a huge porn box under your bed?" I ask playfully with intrigue. Very specific.
"I'm sorry to say I don't. I don't need it when I have a woman who does unspeakable things to me on the bathroom counter..."
The heat from my ears burns the screen of my phone. He hums deeply down the line, hating how he's knowingly ruined my sleep for tonight and he gets to walk away and head back to work as if nothing happened.
"I saw your Instagram story, I know you're wearing that slutty black dress that I love so mu- uh yeah we're still waiting for the 3-piece Piatti plates for the Jones' reception!"
I threw up the air I had been suppressing, bringing myself back into existence as a couple of voices mumbled a different type of adult talk on his side.
Damn you, Kim Taehyung.
"Sorry," he breathes relieved, I always loved how he did his job with passion "I have to go, close call."
"That's okay. You know you're getting pretty good at that."
"I have to be, imagine if they found out I was talking to the press," he teased "enjoy your last night of freedom."
"I will, enjoy your dickhead customers," I replied, humming in enjoyment as the cold sheets cool my blushing body.
I thought he'd hung up.
It was quiet for a while.
But I still held the phone.
"Y/N?"
I bite my smile back, disappearing shyly into my shoulders.
"Yes?"
I can hear his smile. He's not doing his wide shy smile but his loving pink pursed lips side grin.
"I can't wait to wake up to you every day sweetheart."
Kim Taehyung was a complicated man with a complicated personality, a complicatedly stressful job and a complicated way of organising his shoes. However, waking up with Kim Taehyung was anything but complicated.
I was usually awake before him and allowed myself the treat of studying his sleeping form as a morning dose of dopamine. Between Mel and myself, I've seen a number of good-looking handsome men in the past but their features were carefully sculpted and intentional as if they sat down and planned every fibre of their existence with a tiny brush. Taehyung was just naturally that way. His entire charm is his natural beauty, his unintentional charisma, his naïvity to his loveliness but his simultaneous arrogance.
He smells like lavender and fresh fabric softener, not nauseating tan, gel or cologne. The lines in his back are soft, brush-stroke-like and not forcefully chiselled to inspire fear. The only fear I had when I was with him like this was losing him.
"You'll be late."
I'm about to reach his thick eyelashes until he mumbles, making me jump and clutch the sheets to my chest. He's so close his nose almost bumps against mine.
"I'll send my boss a photo of you, she'll understand," I tuck my hands under the side of my head, quite comfortable with the idea of getting the sack just to stare at this man full time. The feminist within me was leaking out of my mouth, disguised as drool.
He groans with a cute pout, stretching out his arms on the other side of the gorgeous well-built bed until they landed beside my head and I was completely engulfed in his shadow. I gulp, nervous laughter disguising itself as I feel his body lower onto mine and his lips kiss the skin of my jaw.
"I thought you said last night you needed a rest?"
I look at him, his dark brown hair curling on his forehead in the morning and completely fucked out in the back. My hands reach out to touch it, curling a strand with my finger and running through it with my other hand. It was still so soft after all the rolling around last night.
"I'm rested."
He breathes against my skin. He loved it when I played with his hair because it soothed him or turned him on I wasn't sure. His kisses got less playful and intentional as he placed my arms against the mattress and muttered:
"Call your boss. Tell her you're a bit tied up and you'll be late."
Life was still pretty simple and I still did the same things every day. I didn't know why having a different place to go home to was going to change that. I still went to the same yummy sandwich truck every day, I still worked with Mel the only difference being I wasn't there to see her pop a huge spot on her butt cheek so she looked forward to telling me about it more the next day.
Yep.
Taehyung had an early shift this morning so he was gone before I woke up. While the sheets were a little colder in the mornings, I wasn't upset and only looked forward to seeing him more and enjoyed the rest. I'd wake up just to feel him kiss me goodbye, then drift back to sleep. We were building a routine.
It was going really great.
I had just walked in and the air was extra crisp, my coffee was extra warm and my hair didn't budge in the January wind. I greeted Ieuan at the front desk with an extra unstoppable smile.
"Hey Ieuan, anything for me this fine Friday morning?" I hand him one of the coffees from my tray, even though it was technically an intern job but I personally loved the way his eyes melted as if he hadn't eaten in a week.
"I love that you're not miserable anymore but it's freaking me out. I'm starting to think that I'm the problem in my life," he deadpans, snatching his coffee and nursing it in both hands.
"We both know your only problem is self-inflicted. He's not gonna call, move on."
"It's only been a year Y/N, we still have time," Ieuan rolls his ice blue eyes all the way back to his stupid brain that's fixated on a co-worker, as insanely hot as he may be, that he had a drink with one time and never called him back a year ago.
"I don't have time, shoot."
"Okay, I've got Austin Butler has agreed to an interview but he won't talk about surgery, Kelly said she won't cover Schiaparelli cause she's vegan, asshole love of my life wants to talk to you about the art page he said the red is too merry and not slutty enough and oh, do you know a Ben Rodgers?"
"Ben Rodgers? No doesn't ring a bell."
"He called like 5 seconds ago asking for you but didn't leave a contact number. He seemed like he was in a hurry. Sexy voice."
"Again? Weird, can't you trace it?" I shrugged, frowning as I rummaged through my bag for my work phone which conveniently began to ring. I heard that ringtone in my nightmares but it was unfamiliar. "Maybe it's some of your Grindr stalkers calling to see where you are."
"Still No Caller ID and my men take their time with me thank you very much."
I laugh at him.
"Forget about it, couldn't have been that important. If it's about a misprint, not much we can do when it's printed and under someone's coffee mug on the nightstand."
"Tae, have you seen my slutty black dress that you love so much?" I call to him from upstairs, confused not to see it when hanging up the laundry.
"Yeah, it's down my trousers! You might want to wash it," he calls back, his filthy mind making me laugh but still not distracting me from the missing garment.
I ponder with a 'hmm' as I follow the amazing smell of pasta down the stairs, pulling a navy jumper over my head as I run.
"Nothing?" Taehyung presses further, looking over his broad shoulders and away from the sizzling pan of wonderfulness to my missing dress matter.
"Nah I'm sure it'll turn up," I pick up the glass of wine and sit down at the table, relishing the feeling of not having to cook tonight and just relaxing until I'm fed. "What's that orgasmic smell coming from the stove?"
"It's my new shampoo rosemary and eucalyptus," he flicks his hair like a Pantene girl until he notices my angry impatient silence, something he knew never to mess with.
"Oh, you mean the food? Well, it's Italian sausage ragu thick tagliatelle with a fresh basil blanket and a sprinkling of Parmigiano Reggiano."
"I love it when you talk dirty to me."
"Wait until I tell you about dessert," he plays along, bringing my above-average-sized portion over to me with the prettiest presentation I had ever seen. He takes the wine bottle and tops up the glass in my hand before even thinking about his own serving.
I might love this man.
"Awe honey you baked?"
He looks at me mischievously before he sits, lost deep within the filthy part of his brain before uttering:
"Something like that."
I don't say anything and shove a stupid amount of pasta into my mouth to suppress a giggle. I groan at the taste, marvelling at the multiple talents of the god of a man that happened to host my birthday party once at the beautiful hotel.
Mel tolerated Taehyung, why she didn't embrace him as her own as she did with me I'll never know. She was civil, she asked questions, and she came over for movie nights and drinks but there was always something she wasn't saying. I thought it was because I did the same whenever she had a boyfriend. To me, no one would ever be good enough for her and if they were I was willing to turn a blind eye in fear of losing her.
How could she not like him?
"This is stunning! Since when do we buy these sausages?"
He looks up from his meal, lips painted red from the stain of the sauce and the dim lighting of the candle. His eyebrows twitch.
"Oh, I bought them today. Hope you don't mind, they still haven't sent my new card yet so I used your spare to get some bits."
summary you're a single mom living three trailers down. eddie thinks you're the prettiest girl he's ever seen. queue smiley face oatmeal, grossly misused power tools, desserts on the living room floor, a haircut, and an abundance of nerd metaphors [15k]
warnings teen mom!reader, fem!reader, r is junie's birth mother, fluff, hurt/comfort, eddie ends up being a total girl dad (<3), mutual pining, yearning etc, tw for not having much money, general loneliness, mentions of a shitty/traumatic pregnancy, general mom struggles :(, slowburn friends to lovers, you wash eddie's hair!!!! this was low-key requested by anon
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Eddie opens the door and finds a little girl on the steps of his house. Little girl feels generous – she's barely more than a baby. In a set of tiny matching pajamas and white socks stained green from the morning grass, she looks up at him with wide, sad eyes.
"Hey," he says carefully. "Hey, sweetheart."
"Good morning," she says, though it comes out blurry.
"Good morning," he repeats with a breathless laugh, instantly endeared.
He curls his hand around the railing and squats down. She really is very cute and obviously well looked after, although he realises upon closer inspection that she's been crying.
"Where's your mommy?" Eddie feels silly as he asks, but what else do you say when you find kids by themselves?
He's not really expecting her to know the answer. She pouts her small mouth and Eddie freezes up.
"Mommy.” Her breath quivers.
"Don't cry," he says very gently.
It doesn't work, obviously, and she starts whimpering in a way that turns Eddie's heart entirely.
"Let's find mommy, okay? Do you wanna do that? Wanna come and find mommy with me?"
"Yes," she says, though it quickly draws up into a sharp cry.
Eddie treks down the stairs and turns back, waiting. The little girl looks down at the steps and her eyebrows furrow as she places one foot after the other, looking like her socks are stuck to a fly trap.
He holds his hand out. "You got it," he says encouragingly, wiggling his fingers.
Her relief is palpable. Her brows smooth as she takes his hand, so small he can cover her entire palm with the meat of his thumb. She wobbles down the steps and then hesitates at the damp ground awaiting.
Eddie drops his gaze to her wet feet.
She looks up at him. Eddie doesn't think she means to but her eyes are pleading,and he's already moving to pick her up when she lifts her arms into the air.
She's heavier than he anticipates. He quickly gets used to the weight, shifting her against his side with his arm under her butt, her damp foot digging into his abdomen. She rests one hand on his shoulder and the other reaches for his hair. He can't help smiling at her as she pets the dark mess, hand clumsy but well-intentioned.
He walks down past the van and onto dark asphalt, looking up and down the road to see if anyone's around. He figures she has to be a trailer park kid – she can't have walked very far, and she'd been waiting outside. She must've gotten mixed up and thought his trailer was her own, which hopefully means her mom lives close.
The steps up into his trailer are on the right side. Eddie guesses she's come from the right. It's not a great assumption — he's grasping at straws.
"What's your name?" he asks.
She's taken a lock of his hair into her hands. Eddie worries for a second that she's going to try eating it but she only waves it around, looking pleased.
"I'm Eddie."
"Dee," she says.
"Almost. Eh-dee," he spells out, again not actually expecting her to understand what he's saying. He's unsure about kids her age – he's unsure what age she even is.
She babbles something unintelligible and Eddie hikes her higher up his chest. He strides out of the cool shadow and blinks, shielding his eyes against the yellow-white glare of sunshine. The little girl hides her face in his hair.
He hasn't walked very far when he sees you behind the trailer three doors down, pinning clothes that look the same size as the girl's pajamas to a clothesline with unhurried hands. The front door is wide open.
"Your poor mommy," he murmurs as he approaches, "out here doing the laundry by herself and you're halfway to Indianapolis. Musta got turned around, huh?"
You drop a small light blue dress on the floor and cuss just loud enough for Eddie to hear it. You pick it up fast and brush it down, looking over the fabric worriedly.
Eddie cuts over soft grass, giving the baby's waist a pat and holding her ears away from his mouth as he raises his voice. "Hey, is this your kid?" he asks.
You flinch toward him and your eyes go wide – wide, your lips parting and your brows jumping down like you might start yelling.
You're really fucking pretty.
Eddie’s quick to placate you. "She was sitting on my front steps."
You still don't look very happy though your suspicion melds to confusion and then a stab of too-late worry. You rush towards them and Eddie turns his body to encourage the girl's gaze to you. His chest warms when she perks up.
She wriggles in his arms impatiently and Eddie's surprised by how quickly she starts to cry, reaching out for you with insistent grabbing hands as he passes her over.
"It's okay," you say softly, tucking her into your chest.
The difference in body language is unmissable. Where she'd been restless (though more than pleasant) in Eddie's arms, she completely melts into yours. Her little face presses into your neck and her legs curl up. You pat her butt soothingly. "It's okay, baby. Where have you been?" You look up at him for an answer with concern lining your pretty features.
"I'm only three down," he says.
"Oh… Thank you," you say roughly.
Your gratitude is unnecessary. "That's okay. She's real sweet. I opened the door and the first thing she said was, 'good morning,'" he recalls with an easy smile.
Joy lightens your entire face. He feels his breath catch in his throat.
"She did? She said that?"
"Yeah, she did.” He tries not to sound as confused as he feels.
Your eyes close with the force of your smile. You encourages your toddler’s face back and drop your chin to plant kisses all over her tiny cheeks. Eddie feels something foreign yawning in his chest as she starts to laugh, a tinkling sound that's sugar sweet.
He scratches his neck and pretends to look over his shoulder, tamping his smile back into a neutral expression.
"She's having trouble talking," you say, lifting your head as the baby's giggles taper off. "She can talk, she says 'mommy' all the time, but she's s'posed to be saying more 'cos she's almost two and I know she can do it, she's so smart, but-" You cut yourself off and laugh all breathless and sheepish. "Sugar, I'm sorry. I mean- Sorry. Thank you," it almost bursts from you, "for bringing her back. I don't know…"
"You just moved in, right?" You nod. "The lock on the front door- they're all exactly the same, you just gotta shake it and it unlocks. Even someone small as her can could get it open with enough determination."
"She can be very determined," you say ruefully, voice hushed. You're still patting her butt, swaying her from side to side. Eddie's in awe at how quickly she's settled, her button features crumpled by a big yawn. "Always gets what she wants."
"I bet she does, she's a total heartbreaker."
You take a step towards him, your beat up sneakers half a foot from his converse. "She can't help it, she was born this pretty," you say. He loves how braggy you sound.
"I can see where she gets it."
As soon as he says it he wishes he could take it back. Not because he doesn't think it's true – you're really something else – but because he doesn't want to creep you out.
Luckily, he's rewarded for his bravery by another beaming smile, your words warm as you tell him, "They said she was the prettiest baby they'd seen in twenty years up in Eskenazi general."
The name pricks his ears. "You're from Indianapolis?"
"Kind of." You tilt your head to the side. "I'm sorry, I don't know your name."
"Eddie." He could applaud himself on how normal he sounds and how not normal he feels.
"Eddie, I'm Y/N. D'you wanna come in for coffee? Or I can make you some breakfast? To say thank you for taking care of my Junie."
"Junie," he repeats, surprised.
You shift from foot to foot. "She's a June baby. And she's getting kind of heavy these days, so. Breakfast?"
He follows you up the steps and through the back door.
"You can leave it open," you say over your shoulder.
He catches an eyeful of your bathroom, an organised chaos that smells intoxicating, the rich scent of jasmine heavy in the humidity chased by something softer. Talcum powder, he thinks.
You murmur something to Junie too quiet to hear and she rouses from her dozing, grizzling weakly.
"It's breakfast time! Is that what you tried to come and find me for, some breakfast? So impatient," you scold her lightly, smiling all the while as you set her into a bright blue high chair with a big yellow duck with orange flippers printed on the cushioning.
You squeeze one of her feet and frown. "Your socks are wet. Did you go swimming in the grass?"
Eddie leans against the doorway leading into the kitchen. He doesn't have any experience with kids. You make it look easy, pulling off her stained socks while she wiggles her protest and tickling the soles of her feet with the tip of your finger until she's happy again.
You turn back to him, socks clutched in your hand. "I'm gonna make oatmeal. Is that something you…"
"I'm an oatmeal fiend."
You grin and do a lap to close the front door. "Sit down. I'll get you some coffee? I got milk and brown sugar."
He throws himself into the seat next to the high chair with exaggerated enthusiasm. "Brown sugar? Sweetness, you're spoiling me."
Junie laughs. Eddie pulls himself up into a proper sitting position and gawps at her exaggeratedly. "What's funny, little lady?"
She giggles some more. Eddie leans his elbow on the tray of the high chair and pretends to glare at her. "I can already tell you're trouble."
"She likes you."
"Yeah?" he asks, looking at you over his shoulder.
You're half obscured by cabinets as you poke your head out, an open sack of rolled oats in one hand and a small pan in the other. You nod happily and move to the sink. He can hear the sound of the faucet and the burner clicking on, the saucepan sliding over the stovetop.
"I like you," he says to Junie quietly, rapping his knuckles on the tray. "But don't tell anyone, okay? I have a reputation."
"So, uh, how long have you lived here?" you call, almost smothered by the rushing sound of oats tipping into hot water.
Junie makes a funny face like she might sneeze. Eddie watches. "Since I was a kid." He's smiling as he talks, amazed when Junie starts to smile back. He nods his head gently up and down to encourage her. "Too long. Not that it's not nice here."
Junie looks like she agrees.
"For sure, but.. not always where you picture yourself," you say tentatively.
He hums his agreement. "Whatever though, right? A roof is a roof. Even when the roof is made of cardboard and corrugated metal. I mean, all things considered, this is a well kept vessel."
He's not just trying to make you feel better – you really are making a go of it. There's not nearly as much clutter or decoration as his own home but it's twice as clean and every surface brags a clear affection – you fucking love your daughter. There's a framed photo of her as she looks now at the mantle without a single fingerprint on the glass, baby photos in smaller frames hang on the wall.
Smallest of all, a photo of the two of you together. Your hands on her shoulders, your lips and nose pressed to her forehead. You're not looking at the camera, but Junie is, and she's exuberant.
Toys, though few, are arranged neatly under the TV. It's really the type of clean that takes hours. He wonders how you'd ever make time for it.
"You got a job?"
"Yeah, I'm waitressing at Benny's?" You say it like a question. "The burger place?"
"Yeah, I know the one. Randolph Lane, near the laundromat. Does Junie go with you?" he asks. He cooes Junie's name and feels very happy when the girl in question smiles some more, reaching out with her hands. Eddie offers up the same palm she'd taken before and lets her squeeze his fingers in a surprisingly tight grip. "She looks like a working girl."
"Benny said I could bring her with me until she starts daycare next week, so she really is a working girl." You giggle madly and Junie loves the sound, her chubby cheeks rounding as she smiles.
"I knew it," Eddie whispers conspiringly. "You have the face for it."
Junie laughs like something is truly hysterical and Eddie can't believe it, squeezing the small girl's smaller fingers in his and waving their joined hands together.
"She really likes you," you say, closer now.
You set a steaming cup of coffee in front of him. He pulls his hand from Junie's and moves the hot mug away from the high chair though she'd never be able to reach it as you set your own mug and a pint of milk half-full across from him, the brown sugar you'd promised in a pink and orange ceramic dish with a lid that clinks as he pulls it off.
You double back into the kitchen. This time you bring a baby bottle full of what he guesses is diluted juice and two teaspoons, handing him one with a quiet, "For you."
"Why thank you," he drawls.
He spoons a generous hill of crumbly brown sugar into his cup and swirls.
"The oatmeal needs to soften. Is there anything you want with it? I've got lots of options," you tell him, pouring milk into your own mug. When you're done you and Eddie swap.
He thinks maybe you sound a little nervous and wonders if he's the first neighbour you've met. Or maybe you're still freaked out about Junie.
He raises his eyebrows but doesn't look at you as he splashes milk into the dark recesses of his coffee, watching as it bursts back up to the surface and turns the drink a more acceptable brown. "What do you usually have?"
"Junie gets peanut butter and blueberries."
He tilts his head toward his shoulder just slightly and plants his elbows on the table, the rim of his mug held in tenuous fingertips.
"What do you get?" he asks, thinking that if the baby gets such a sweet treat you must get something equally impressive. He thinks of raspberries and chia seeds, flakey sea salt and bitter dark chocolate.
You blink. "What?"
"What do you have, on your oatmeal?" He punctuates his question with a sip.
"Salt. Sometimes raisins."
You make a nice cup of coffee. Eddie holds it in both hands and leans into the table. "That's it?"
You shrug. Junie starts to whimper about something Eddie doesn't understand. You reach out to hold her hand. "She loves blueberries. Don't you, Junie?"
"Blue," Junie says.
You're smiling as you take another small spoonful of brown sugar. You lick the tip of your finger and dip it into the well of the spoon until a few grains are sticking to you and hold it up to Junie's lips. "She loves sugar, too, but toddlers aren't s'posed to have it. Or so they say." You smile as she sucks the sugar off before wiping your spit wet finger in your pants.
Daughter appeased for a moment, you hold your chin in your palm and turn your attention to him. "Where do you work?"
He imagines this is how a plant feels when the sun comes out. "The Hideout, for now. I'm a very essential and irreplaceable bus boy." He nods very seriously.
"What's after?"
"Music."
Your lips curl into an interested smile. "Music? You a singer?"
"I have a great set of windpipes," he says agreeably, grinning. "But I'm a guitarist."
"And you're in a band?"
"I- I was. Yeah, we were good, too, but everybody graduated and our drummer skipped town. I just sub rhythm guitar for whoever wants me to."
"At the Hideout?"
"At the Hideout." He decides on his next words carefully. You could come see me play. Weak. You're welcome to come see it for yourself. Too strong? You're welcome to come by one night. Bring Junie.
He's not asking you on a date; he's a new acquaintance extending an invitation for you to get out and see a new place. That's all it is.
He opens his mouth to try and suddenly there's a loud clattering. Eddie flinches, blinks, finds that Junie has thrown her bottle of juice across the room.
Eddie waits for you to maybe tell her off like some of the mom's he's seen at Bradley's. A glare, a hissing remark to be good.
You reach over and your shirt rides up your back. Eddie averts his gaze guiltily.
You put the bottle back on the tray, giving him an apologetic grimace. "Sorry, Junie has recently discovered that every time she drops something I'll pick it up for her."
"Smart Junie."
The bottle falls to the floor again. "She's a genius." You don’t sound entirely pleased, picking the bottle up again and holding it just out of Junie's reach. You shake it up and down. "S'juice. You like juice," you try to reason with her.
Junie reaches for it. You purse your lips. "Be good," you say softly.
Junie takes the bottle and shakes it.
It's a small victory and still softens every feature. Your eyes squint, your bottom lip juts out a touch, your nostrils flare with a pleased inhale.
"Thanks, junebug."
"Tanks," Junie says.
"Thanks," you repeat, bubbly baby talk. "Thanks. Say thanks, Junie."
Eddie watches you encourage her over his coffee. It's quiet, peaceful here in a way nowhere else in his life has ever been besides quiet Sunday mornings with his Uncle. There's only the sound of the gas stovetop burning and your happy, patient voice.
Junie says "Tanks," a couple more times. You don't give up. When she finally says something that sounds almost like a "Thanks," you whip your gaze to his.
"Did you hear that?" you ask. Your pride is evident.
He puts down his half empty mug. "She said it."
"She said it," you repeat, your shoulders moving in the tiniest happy dance he's ever seen. You stand up and take her face into delicate hands. "She's my smarty pants. Aren't you, baby?"
You dot a kiss over her head and head back into the kitchenette.
"Tanks," Junie says animatedly, running on an affection high. She accidentally knocks her bottle over.
"Thanks, Junie," Eddie corrects, righting it.
He finds it easier to baby talk than he imagined. Being nice to little kids – that's easy. Especially as he gets older. When they hit the pre-teen mark is when he starts to steer clear, but even then he can't help doting on them sometimes. Like his club – idiots, annoying idiots, but his annoying idiots. He doesn't hold back with them. He doesn't feel like he's holding back now, either, it's just different.
Baby's want love. Care and affection.
And to pull Eddie's hair, apparently.
Junie's reaching over the gap with a fierce look on her face. Eddie pulls his chair closer and decides to let her try it out. She hadn't given him any reason to worry before, and she doesn't now as she takes a chunk of his hair into her hand. She pulls very gently, likely more that her fingers have gotten caught in his messy curls than any maliciousness.
"What's your fascination with my hair?" he asks her.
In her own home Junie's very noisy. When he'd found her outside she hadn't done much besides whimper weakly. Now, she's a riot of gurgling and humming.
"Are you a singer, Junie?" he asks.
"She sings all the time! She loves the Muppet Babies on TV, but I- uh, I haven't been able to actually get cable, yet. But when I get paid next week…" You come back into view with two bowls in hand. "She'll be in her oils."
Eddie says thanks as you put a bowl down in front of him. There's a smiley face there made up of berries with banana slices for eyes. He feels something crawling up his throat and has no idea what it is, and then something completely different when he sees your own bowl, a stretch of plain oatmeal with no delicious adornment.
You leave and quickly return with a smaller bowl, a baby spoon and a jar of peanut butter.
"Do you want some?" you ask, opening the jar to push the baby spoon inside. "I would've just put it in anyway but then I worried you were allergic."
You hand it off to Junie and she licks at it happily.
"Sure, I'll have some. Where's your smiley face?" he asks.
Your eyes widen slightly. Eddie's not academically inclined but he's never been stupid, and he sees it for what it is, something he's seen in himself and in every other poor kid who didn't bring lunch to school.
"I don't really like bananas," you say.
Whether you're lying or not isn't something he needs to know.
"Well, you're gonna have to share the blueberries with me, I can't eat this much fruit. I got a hearty diet of chips and microwave oven dinners to uphold."
Eddie shovels half of the smile into your bowl. You clutch your spoon in your hand like you want to protest, but no way is he gonna watch you miss out on nice things in your own home.
You smile and don't say anything for a while, rubbing the edge of the bowl with your spoon, your thoughts somewhere else.
Junie's food sits billowing steam in the middle of the table, which annoys the poor girl endlessly. She wiggles and murmurs and sucks at her empty spoon with a growing line between her brows.
Eddie eats and feels much better when you finally start to eat your own meal, leaning back in his chair heavily to loll his head towards Junie. "Your mom makes amazing oatmeal. You're really missing out."
You choke on a laugh and grab her spoon to load up with another small heap of peanut butter. "That is so cruel to lord over her,” you say. “I can't give it to her yet! It's scorching. She has a fragile mouth."
"I'm sure."
He picks one of his blueberries out of the bowl and offers it to Junie, who takes it slowly despite her previously rabid hunger
More oatmeal eating. Eddie ends up giving the rest of his fruit to Junie, your generous dollops of peanut butter more than enough to enjoy the oatmeal. He might argue it doesn't need any adornment at all.
You stir peanut butter into Junie's bowl and wrestle the baby spoon out of her tight grip.
It's a process to watch. You scoop up oatmeal, blow on it until you're sure it's cool, and push it into Junie's mouth efficiently. There's a method to it, the way you lift the handle of the spoon so oatmeal doesn't drip straight back out of her mouth. When it does you scrape the lip gently against her chin to catch it before it ruins her shirt.
It starts to rain. Hard not to notice, a light drizzle opens and sprays down against the windows and for a moment there's no reaction. Then, gasping, you drop Junie's bowl back onto the table in stress.
"Shit, the laundry. Are you okay to watch her please? Sorry. I'll be five seconds," you say, already heading for the back door.
"Sure.” He sounds about as startled as he feels.
The back door shushes open and your feet dip down the steps. Junie is not very pleased with her breakfast getting put on pause, her face growing as unpleasant as the weather outside.
"Mommy," she says, unhappy and loud.
Eddie doesn't think about it as he picks up her bowl. It's more a pulse of feeling than a thought. Feed her and she won't cry.
He blows on a spoonful of oatmeal with likely too much vigour.
Junie's still complaining as he holds it in front of her face. If she's surprised to be fed by somebody who isn't her mom she doesn't show it, her sticky face growing suddenly slack as she realises her oatmeal is back in play. Her lips part.
He feeds her oatmeal, does a very bad job, and tries to gather what's escaped with the spoon as Junie waves her hands around and pokes at spilled food on the white tray in front of her. By the time you come back damp and breathless with the cold chasing your heels he's successfully managed to feed her what was left of her breakfast. He's embarrassed to be caught but tries not to show it.
"You okay?" he asks, looking you up and down amicably.
"S'only a little rain." You push the laundry basket onto the sofa and smile sheepishly. "You didn't have to do that."
"And have the precious little lady starve?"
"Starve!" you repeat, a feigned incredulousness to your tone.
"She was giving me the puppy dog's," he says, shrugging as he takes the spoon out of Junie's wet fingers.
She whines for a second at his robbery but seems to realise she's full, picking her juice back up to shake some more.
You exhale through an open-mouthed smile.
"Thank you. She's gonna love you now, she loves anyone who gives her food. She's a real cadge at the diner. Never seen so much free cherry pie in my life," you remark, turning to what looks like your diaper station. You wade through a mess of things he doesn't recognise and pull out a packet of baby wipes.
"And her mom? Is her affection so easily garnered?"
"Takes more than a cherry pie to win me over," you joke, sitting down in your chair in front of the high chair with a soft sigh. You pull out one of the wipes and take Junie's wrists into your hand, wiping her fingers clean methodically. "I need at least a squirt of whipped cream on top before I consider any fondness."
He chuckles and you laugh too. It's short-lived, your lips pursed as you wipe Junie's face clean. She hates every second of it, writhing in her chair like she's being tortured as you clean a mess of brown and blue from her round chin.
"Sorry, I'm sorry. Done, done," you say, holding your hands up in surrender.
She pouts.
"Don't be like that," you scold her mildly. "Look how lovely and clean you are now! Eddie can see how pretty you look again."
You slide your hands under her armpits and pull her out of the highchair, groaning.
"Oh, there you go. Where's Mr. Bear gone, baby? You can play sticky bricks with him so I can get ready for work."
Work. Work. Where Eddie was going. Where Eddie is very likely supposed to be. He checks the time and his eyes flare, standing up abruptly. You turn toward him with Junie anchored on your hip, both wearing matching expressions of curiosity.
"Sh-“ Don’t swear around babies. “I'm sorry, I got somewhere to be that I totally spaced on."
You blink. "That's okay."
"It was sick to meet you," he says.
You blink some more and walk to the front door, pulling it open as an understanding smile curls your lips. "Super 'sick,'" you say, bemused. "Thank you so much for bringing Junie back. Really, I mean, if anything ever happened to her." You don't finish because it's obvious, your bright tone underlain with a burning fear.
He walks sideways out of the door and down one step, knowing he's super fucking late but not caring too much as he says, "Listen, I can bring you a deadbolt."
"You could?"
"Sure thing. Make sure this little lady," and he says it chidingly, directing his gaze at Junie who goes all shy and smiley from the attention, "doesn't go on anymore morning adventures. Especially without her shoes."
"That would be… that would be awesome, Eddie. Thank you."
He waves his hand and descends the last of the steps. "I'll come around tomorrow?"
It's a Saturday today. He's not surprised that you're both working the weekend, but he is surprised that you're working Sunday too when you say, "Would after five be okay?"
"That's more than okay. Bye, trouble," he says to Junie, bringing a hand up to shield his hair from the drizzling rain.
You look lovely on the stoop, fresh-faced and in your lounge clothes. You tug Junie up your chest and take her hand into yours. "Say 'bye', Junie," you tell her, waving her hand. "Bye! Bye-bye, Eddie."
"Bye Junie!" he calls, waving at the little girl with great fervour.
"Bye!" Junie calls back.
You both grin.
-
You're super tired from work and exhausted from an upset daughter. Even now Junie fusses. She hasn't been getting her naps because you can't set her down anywhere that isn't the wooden high chair in Benny's restaurant, which is months of a routine disrupted.
You're not mad at her – the opposite, you feel awful to mess her up like this, awful that she's so upset. Trying your very best to calm her down, you're swaying her from side to side in the middle of your messy living room with your hand patting a steady rhythm into the narrow breadth of her back.
"I know, baby, I know. I'm sorry. You'll get your nap tomorrow, I promise," you say, trying for softness and missing, desperation eating at your tone.
You try not to have a heart attack at the thought of her first day at the new daycare. I can't think about it, you tell yourself, moving your thoughts onto the Sunday checklist.
Junie's been fed. Unfortunately, she's the kind of wound up where the only solution you can think of is to get her in bed. If you can get her down soon she'll sleep until maybe 4AM. Not ideal; you'd prefer she slept later tonight and woke up at a healthier 6AM with you. When she does wake, no matter the time, you'll have her eat something substantial for breakfast and take a much needed bath.
Laundry, bills, cleaning, it all runs through your head. Junie's hair, her snacks for daycare, her clothes. Does she have clean socks for the week? Does she have a vest top for tomorrow?
Her crying grows loud and you can't think of anything except how overwhelmed you feel.
"It's okay, baby, just go to sleep." You shush her softly.
Somebody knocks the door.
You and Junie are similarly nonplussed. Her crying ceases for a second and her head turns in tandem with yours.
"Oh. Oh, you know who that is, huh?" you ask her, making for the door while her cries are still on pause. "That's our new friend Eddie. You remember Eddie?"
You pull open the door. There he is on the porch with a bag and a plastic case, wearing a shirt with short sleeves. You realise for the first time that he has tattoos.
"Hi," you say.
"Hi. Hi, Junie," he adds, looking at her tear-stained face. "Have I come at a bad time?"
"No, you're good. You're great, thank you for doing this." You lean back against the door and Eddie skirts past you. That close, you can smell the heavy sage and sandalwood of his cologne and see the beauty mark under his ear, dark hair tucked behind the shell.
He stops in the middle of the room and puts down the plastic case. "I'm gonna try to do it. Try being the essential word, and I make absolutely no promises." He makes a small cross with his hands leading out and the bag falls from the crook of his elbow to his wrist.
It sounds like more than a deadbolt. Eddie sees your gaze and jumps into theatrics that hook Junie's attention straight away, ruffling through the bag. He pulls out a VHS tape and then a second, one old and one newer.
"For your consideration." He presents them grandly against his check, his eyes flitting from your daughter to the tapes in wait of her reaction.
Junie has no clue what a VHS is. She thinks the TV is magic.
You swoop in and gasp loudly for Junie's sake, having identified his proffered tapes immediately.
"You know what that is?" you ask her, pointing at the slipcover. "Muppet Babies! There's Kermit and Fozzy and Rowlf and Gonzo." You touch your finger to each puppet in turn as you reel off their names.
Junie looks up at you like maybe she remembers, so you start to sing the theme tune for her. "Muppet Babies, they make their dreams come true. Muppet Babies, they'll do the same for you!"
The song jogs her memory. She starts her nonsense singing in a valiant but juvenile effort to recreate the music, dancing in your arms.
You sing it again for her as you lower her to the floor. She doesn't whine to be picked back up, a great sign that her mood has turned, instead walking to the TV, a small silver combi with a bubble screen. She raises her arms up high and starts hitting the TV stand with her palms flat.
Eddie looks to you as if he's checking that it's alright before crossing the small space and turning on the TV, your relieved smile more than enough encouragement. He's careful not to step on Junie's feet, surprised when she walks into his leg. She grabs onto his jeans and looks up at him with wide eyes.
Eddie visibly softens.
It's kind of crazy to see him, this metalhead dude covered in dark tattoos and wearing safety pinned jeans looking down at a toddler with nothing but patience in his eyes.
He drops his hand very lightly to her tiny back and pushes in the tape. "Hi, sweetheart."
"Hi," Junie says.
She doesn't let him touch her for very long, falling to her knees to pull out the bin of stickle bricks hiding underneath as Eddie fast forwards through the adverts and then turns up the volume until the Muppet Babies theme is echoing against the wood panelled walls..
Junie's eyes dart up the screen, two bricks held in her hands and a great smile on her face.
"Where did you find that?" you ask, in awe.
He steps over her and comes back to your side, crossing his arms over his stomach with a smug smile. "Not telling. Ruins the magic. Got The Bugs Bunny Show for when she gets bored of Miss Piggy."
You smooth down your rumpled black work skirt and smile shyly. "I can pay you back… Next week."
He looks lost for words for a split-second. It clears fast, and he says, "Tell you a secret. I have a friend down at good old Family Video that let me have 'em for nothing."
"Yeah?" you ask, unsure. You worry he's lying to make you feel better.
"Uh-huh. Friends in high places," he brags sarcastically.
You turn to watch Junie smile for the first time in hours and have to scrub your face to hide how shattered you feel. It's been a really long week. Your relief is a physical thing, a hand on your shoulder. You feel yourself deflate.
"You okay?" Eddie asks.
You press the backs of your hands to your cheeks. "Thank you. Really. You saved me."
"Yeah?" he asks, dialling up the drama. He lifts his chin high. "Would you say, oh, I don't know, that I'm your hero?"
It's his clear joking tone that saves him. If you'd detected even a smidge of genuine expectancy from him you likely would've shoved him out the door.
"Mm-hm. My hero," you croon, both of you grinning.
He turns back to the grocery bag and pulls out a bottle of juice. "I was gonna bring coke but I didn't want Junie to feel left out."
You move to the cabinets and can't believe how nice he is. You get a little warning stab, that feeling of if it's too good to be true… and shake it off. Maybe it'll turn out that way and you're not gonna do anything stupid to chance it, but he seems like a normal guy. A good neighbour who wants to be your friend.
You're in dire need of one of those.
"What was wrong with the little lady?"
You pour juice into a glass for him, less into a glass for you, and a half-inch into a clean baby bottle. "I can't get her down for a nap when she's with me at work and it really caught up to her today. She-" You yawn so wide it hurts your cheeks, covering your face with your arm.
Eddie looks up from where he's kneeling in front of the open plastic case he'd brought with him. "Caught up to you too, I think."
"A little." You smile ruefully.
He holds something red and black in the air. "This'll wake you up," he says.
It's a small hand drill. He presses down on the trigger twice in quick succession and Junie lies down on the floor to look backwards at him.
“Woah,” you say.
Junie rolls onto her knees and then stands. She's in that stage of walking where she can mostly do it but has a great tendency to trip over anything that might be in her way, and she stumbles as she approaches. Eddie moves the drill away from her and opens the case wide to show her his array of drill bits.
"How'd you like them, Junie?" he asks. "Pretty cool, huh?"
"What do they all do?" you ask.
"I don't have the foggiest," he says, grinning up at you. "And I really wanted to be cool and pretend that I did. I was going to, but you asked me that and now we're sunk."
Junie pokes at all the silver metal and turns away, bored, to return to her cartoons.
"I'm sorry," you say, not sorry at all.
"You should be." He shakes his hair out. "Can't say woodshop was something I ever paid much attention to in school."
You squat down beside him where he's counting the screws out for the deadbolt he'd acquired for you, your small cup of juice in hand. The deadbolt isn't new but it's clean of rust and that's all you care about. It doesn't need to do anything besides work.
"It can't be too hard though, right?" you ask quietly. There isn't any need to talk loudly this close to him and your head is starting to hurt from a long day.
"I hope not." He passes you the drill. "Hold onto that?"
He stands and you follow, the deadbolt frame in hand. He turns to your front door and holds it up to the frame, far from the door knob. "Where'd you want this thing?"
"Wherever you think is best," you say quickly.
"Got a pencil?"
You don't. You're ashamed to offer him a cyan blue crayon from Junie's arts and crafts. He takes it with a gleeful smile and uses it to draw a line under the deadbolt's two parts to make sure they fit together once they've been drilled in.
Junie starts fussing and you squint at her, trying to guess what's wrong. You leave the drill on the small table by the door.
"Junie, you want some dinner?" you ask, walking up behind her where she's stood watching TV. You rub her shoulder and lean over her, your face upside down in front of the TV. "I don't think you're hungry. Let's change that diaper."
She certainly doesn't want you to. You turn to Eddie where he's making clumsy crosses on the door in place of the screws, his brows furrowed.
"I'm gonna go get her some jammies," you say, and then wince. "Pajamas."
"Jammies," he repeats. You hate how happy he looks.
A hot flush washes over you. "She's the only one I talk to."
Again, that awful softening of his features. He's got the biggest, brownest eyes you've ever seen. "Why don't you get changed, too? I'm gonna start drilling." He waves the drill and you don't like how loosely he holds it.
"Please don't ruin the door."
A wolfish smile. "No promises."
You leave all the doors open. Eddie's nice but you're not stupid – if he plans on kidnapping her or something evil this is the perfect time. Though, you suppose, he could’ve abducted her when he found her outside.
You shed your uniform and pull on a pair of loose fitting pants. You can't find a clean t-shirt, probably because you own a grand total of three, and you get distracted when the drill starts whirring and Junie screams.
You know in your heart that it's just a baby scream rather than a sign that she's in pain and you still can't let it lie, rushing down the hall. You can see her, see that she's uninjured, only looking at the drill.
She's excited.
"You like that?" Eddie asks her. "Is that funny?"
Junie claps her hands together and reaches for the drill.
Eddie frowns. "Sorry, you can't have it. I gotta finish the door for your mommy. Why don't you build me something with your bricks, yeah? Something big."
Junie reaches up for the drill again.
"I can't, Junie, it's too dangerous. Don't want you to get all mutilated." You wrinkle your nose at what he's saying. He turns the drill towards his chest and touches the drill bit to his collar. "Look, see this? It's not for little hands."
Junie steps over the case of things on the ground and leans against Eddie's legs, insistent.
Your mouth drops open as he starts the drill and puts on some fake anguished screams. "Ah! Oh my god, it's eating me!"
Junie starts laughing at his fake screaming. Her eyes widen, her hands clinging to a rip in his jeans.
"Think that's funny, do you? Heartless girl. Where's your juice gone, hmm?" He holds the drill behind his back and points to her bottle on the side of the couch where you'd left it. "You want that?"
He goes over her head to grab it and encourage it into her hands. "Yummy," he says, his eyes moving to where you stand in the door past the kitchen, eyebrows jumping up. "Everything okay?"
"Screaming," you say, awkward in your breathlessness.
Eddie's eyes stay resolutely on your face. "She's okay. The drill is exciting. You're shirtless, you know."
You spin on your heel and back into your room. Your heart a jack hammer, you sieve through clothes until a rumpled t-shirt that smells of deodorant but not sweat appears and shrug into it.
Junie has a much better selection of clothes. You pick out some matching pajamas for her and a thick pair of socks and tuck them under your arm with her changing matt.
When you return this time, Eddie's drilling a third and fourth hole into the wall next to the door and Junie's watching with the teat of her bottle in her mouth, chewing but not drinking. You lay her mat down on the floor and grab her with a big sigh.
"Alright, Junie, let's get you all fresh for bed."
You change her diaper and she doesn't misbehave too much, Eddie's general presence a distraction. Soon she's sitting in your lap, dressed in new pajamas and smelling of talcum powder and baby creams, her wool socks soft as you rub your thumbs into the instep of her feet.
You sit on the floor watching Eddie drill the screws into the deadbolt frame. Junie slouches against you, her head digging into your chest and her tired arms struggling to hold up her bottle. You hold it up for her, watching Eddie's hands and his arms, how they move. Muscle and ligament tense under the skin, tattoos warping, his bats propelled into flight.
"I like your tattoos," you say.
Eddie stops drilling to look over his shoulder. "What?"
"I- I like your tattoos."
He lights up. His back straightens out and he turns back to the lock, giving the last screw a final good twist. The door makes a groaning protest and then it's quiet. Just Muppet Babies, Junie's soft suckling and the compliment you'd given adrift in the room.
"They're pretty sweet," he allows. You can hear how pleased he is though he won't look at you.
"They're cool. Have you had them long?"
Eddie starts to tell you all about them, fiddling with something you can't see on the door.
Junie decides that she doesn't want to be sitting anymore and turns in your arms, hands coveting your neck. You lift her into your chest and rub circles in her back, the weight of her emptying bottle on your shoulder. Soon, her small arms go lax. There's a rush of air as her lips open from the teat and the bottle tumbles to the rug with a dull thud.
He pulls open the door. Cool air rushes in. He closes it, slides the deadlock into place, and then pulls hard to make sure it won’t come free.
It’s solid.
He laughs triumphantly and Junie stirs. You pat her back and make some quiet shushing sounds and Eddie turns around, a slip of his teeth on show as he grimaces.
"Sorry," he whispers.
You shake your head. "You're amazing. Thank you."
If his cheeks weren't pink they are now. He leans into it, hiding one cheek behind his hair. "Stop," he says, exaggerated.
"I'll make it good, I swear," you whisper, covering Junie's ear with your hand. "I'll make you the best dinner ever. I'm the best at Kraft's mac and cheese, or-" You flush hot, realising that mac and cheese might not be the treat you think it is to him. "Or we can order in," you say, doing the maths in your head. You can't afford it, but maybe Benny-
"Kraft's mac and cheese? You're spoiling me."
You beam.
Eddie cleans up the small mess he's made. You're afraid to move quite yet in case Junie's not really sleeping, though she's a dead weight in your arms, and you watch Eddie walk through the room with both caution and ease.
"Oh, you don't have to do that,” you say.
He folds the baby blanket in his hands and puts it back on the armrest of the couch before moving on to the stickle bricks, not looking at you as he says, "Just earning my wage, doll."
You can't watch him clean your home. You wrap a tight arm around Junie and rise to your feet. Eddie sees your approach and his movements grow faster, rushing to clean up the mess before you can stop him. You don't know who starts first but you're both laughing as you grab his wrist.
"Stop!" you whisper, mock-furious. "Stop cleaning."
"Sh, you'll wake the baby."
You shake your head in bemusement. "I'm gonna go set her down. Then mac and cheese."
"Take your time. Lots of things for me to clean up out here," he says with a mock sincerity.
You drift down the hall and turn back to sneak a glance at him. He's pulled Muppet Babies out of the TV and is rewinding it around his thumb, a small smile on his lips as he hums the theme tune to himself.
With Junie finally in bed for the night you take a quick peek at yourself in the mirror on your nightstand and cringe. You look tired. You give yourself a big smile and feel better; a smile makes even your most exhausted features look pretty.
You slap on some chapstick. You know, to counter your dry lips. It shines.
Slipping out of the bedroom, you close the door as quietly as you can manage.
Eddie's standing at the end of the hallway. You expect to feel scared. Instead, you’re perplexed.
"Hi?" you whisper.
"Can I use the bathroom?"
You laugh. "Yeah. Course you can."
You have to pass each other in the hallway. His hip bumps your hip, a short rub of fabric.
You're still thinking about it when he finds you behind the stove, half asleep with your face in your hand. It's the kind of tired where your eyes keep slipping shut, not aching so much as blurry with a heavy head.
"You okay?" he asks quietly, sitting down at your cramped table.
You hum. "Hm. Just tired." You give him a guilty smile as you tip the bigger portion into his bowl. "Sorry. Mac and cheese with bacon bits for you, my hero."
"Thanks, sweetheart."
The fatigue ebbs a little.
Eddie’s easy to talk to. He makes you laugh. When you say goodnight, he looks back over his shoulder twice.
-
It's a funny coincidence that Eddie sees you Friday night. He never grocery shops on a Friday but he knowd when his uncle gets home in the morning there won’t be anything for him to eat after his shift. He takes a sharp turn towards the TV dinners and there you are at the bottom of the aisle with Junie in the seat of the cart. You're talking to her like you'd talk to anyone, though you didn't sound so saccharine sweet over mac and cheese. Close, but not quite.
"What do you want?" you're asking. "Ham and pineapple or mini pepperoni?"
Junie holds her hands out for both boxes. You let her take them and the two of you puzzle over the pizzas, heads bent together.
"Pepperoni, right?" you ask her, quietly enough that he almost misses it.
"Peroni," Junie agrees. You let her keep the box and put the other one back in the freezer.
"Pepperoni," you correct, absentminded.
"Peroni."
"Pepper-roni." You sound it out slow, looking at a scrap of paper in your hand.
"Pepper."
"You'll get there. Do you think we need shampoo this week?" You start jovial, but quickly lose your sprightliness. "Maybe I can put some water in the bottle and just… shake it up. No, we definitely need it."
Eddie watches you look over the cart. He knows exactly what you're thinking, What can I put back?
"Hey!" he calls, walking a little faster to try and hide how he'd been listening.
You turn on the spot and smile as soon as you see him. Junie, to his delight, is even more excited.
"Hi," she says, hands thudding along the cart's handlebar.
"Hi, Junie. How's my favourite neighbour?"
She babbles.
"I'm psyched to hear it. How about you, sweetheart?" he asks, parking his cart next to yours.
You're looking very tired. Still in your work uniform with a hoodie thrown over the top and your smart flats swapped for a pair of converse with the laces undone. You pinch your cheeks up into a big smile. He guesses that with a baby you've gotten very used to hiding how you feel.
You don't hesitate to lay it down thickly. "I'm really good."
"Yeah? How's Junie liking daycare?"
You cover your hands with your sleeves. "She loves it. Loves napping again. She-" You frown. "She doesn't like the mornings. Dropping her off. But after." You nod with a tentative smile "Yeah, it's nice to pick her up."
"Uh-huh. How's work?"
"What?"
"How's work for you? How's Benny's?" he prods.
"You're asking me about work?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"Nobody ever asks about work," you say.
You can't look at him as soon as you've said it, your eyes moving back to the grocery list in hand. It's an old envelope, and it crinkles under your squeezing fingers.
"Sorry," you mutter.
Eddie bites back a frown. "Well, I'm asking."
He holds out his hand for the list and you give it without thinking. He adores your handwriting the second he sees it, scanning the list for anything in this aisle.
"Hey, tell me about it," he prompts at your silence, pushing his cart. It takes you a millisecond to catch up, but when you do you're near frenetic.
"Well, I messed up like, five different orders today. And when I had Junie it was like they didn't care 'cos she's cute, but now she's not there they get pretty angry pretty quickly."
"She's like a magic item."
"Right," you say, sounding like you have no idea what he's talking about. "She was my lucky charm. 'N now when I mess up I gotta practically beg some of those guys to leave Benny alone. He's too nice to me already."
"Are they all terrible?"
"No, the regulars, guys in there everyday, they're all great. They're too generous. Benny's too generous. I know he's fluffing up my tip jar. I hate that. I don't want him-" You flinch. It's strange. Eddie takes a small step closer to you and waits for you to continue, but you've lost all steam. "Sorry, I don't mean to weigh you down with all of this."
"I asked. And I get it."
"I don't want him to feel sorry for me."
"Hey," he says, reaching out for a box of cereal on your list. He presents it to Junie and shakes it around, "who said anything about all that?"
"No, I know, I just-"
Junie smiles her approval and he chucks the cereal in your cart with a rattle of metal. "I'm not trying to make you feel worse, I swear. I get it. I- You said he's a nice guy, right? So maybe he doesn't feel sorry for you at all. Maybe he just likes you. He owns that place. I don't think it hurts him to put an extra twenty in your tips."
Junie reaches up. You turn to her and lean down until your face is a few inches from hers. "I wish I didn't need it," you say quietly.
"I know."
Junie puts her hand on your cheek.
You sniff, not crying or anything like that, only breathing. "Thanks, Junie," you murmur.
"Mommy," she says. She sounds a little concerned.
"Let's go get something yummy, baby." You stroke her face lightly. "I'm thinking canned peaches. Or pears, um. Fruit cocktail. And condensed milk," you add, sounding unsure.
"I got a can or two of that laying around," Eddie says, because he knows that shit is expensive. "Wayne hates sweet stuff."
"I couldn't-"
"You let me come over for one of those mini pizzas and I'll bring the dessert," he says, like he knows you'll say yes. He doesn't know. Eddie Munson’s an expert in pushing his luck.
Junie starts clapping her hands together.
"I think she's decided," you say.
-
You're terrible with a can opener. You whine to yourself as you struggle to get open the second can. Eddie had insisted on peaches and pears and fruit cocktail, because he wanted to try them all apparently. And then some dramatic speech about little kids getting spoiled.
You can hear him now in the living room with Junie. They're laughing in a way that you're worried about, that guilty, hushed giggling that raises your hackles.
"Shush," Eddie says, faux-angry, "your mom's gonna hear."
"Shush," she repeats with much more enthusiasm.
"You shush! Look, don't do that, Junie, you're gonna get it tangled in your hair," he says.
You carry the can and can opener with you into the living room. Something about tangled hair gets your heart racing.
"Eddie, please don't let her get stickies in her hair," you say quickly.
"They're called stickles," he says, dropping back onto his hands, head over his shoulder to give you a bright-eyed smile.
"I know what they're called. Junie can't say stickles."
"Stickles," she says.
"She couldn't when I got them," you amend.
He's up quicker than you can really take in, hands extended. "Let me do it," he says.
He works the can out of your fingers. It's more contact than you've had with somebody who wasn't your daughter in a very long time and it leaves you shell-shocked. Eyes on his nice hands, bigger than yours with thicker fingers and his riot of rings. He presses the can to his chest and hooks the opener, peeking between it and you intermittently.
"Go see what we made for you," he encourages. "I'll do it."
His arm brushes yours as he moves to the kitchen and that's worse than his fingers. You rub where he'd touched and drop down on your knees next to Junie, looking over the stickle bricks with a smile. It's a heart, poorly construed and of tens of colours. It falls apart when she tries to pick it up so you help her remake it, cooing.
"Thanks, baby. This is for me, huh? You're so sweet." Your voice drops to a murmur. "My sweet girl. Wanna cuddle?"
You open your arms out and she doesn't seem very interested. "Please?" you ask, vying for her waist.
She lets you pull her into your lap. When you actually start to hug her she does her lovely melting thing that she always does, a floppy fish in your arms but with tiny squeezing hands. You giggle at her antics and lift her up so her face falls into your neck.
"Thanks for my heart, Junebug." She snuggles her head into your neck, hair squished to your skin. "I love you," you whisper, rubbing her back.
"The works," Eddie announces grandly as he appears, two bowls in hand.
"Eddie, that's too much for her."
"She's a growing girl."
"A growing girl with a tiny tummy," you say turning her around in your arms. "Tell you what, you have that one," you point to the biggest one, "and we'll share that one."
"How about you share the big one?" he asks, though it hardly sounds like a question. He sits down and places the bowl in her lap.
You grab the spoon before she can and stir up some of the fruits. "Wow, look at this! You gonna say thanks? Thanks Eddie.”
She doesn’t say thanks — her mouth is too far open to form words. You make quick work of shovelling fruit and condensed milk inside, chilled enough that she shivers in your arms.
“Yeah, that’s good,” you say agreeably.
She gets enthusiastic enough to take the spoon and you let her, even when she totally mauls the food, eating so loudly that Muppet Babies becomes inaudible.
Eddie eats slowly. You can feel his gaze. “You’re not gonna have any?” he asks.
You’d felt it coming. Your answer is clumsy anyways. “No, I will. I just… I always have her leftovers,” you say, sheepish.
He stands up.
You’re gonna ask why when Junie tips fruit down your legs, cold on the naked skin of your ankle. You dab at your pajamas with a small sigh. There’s no point in getting upset. She’s a messy eater but they all are at this age. Honestly, it’s nice to see her attempting to use a spoon rather than her hands.
“You’re doing a good job,” you say. You’re not totally sure who you’re talking to.
“Tada!” Eddie cheers, wielding a third bowl of fruit. “Swap with me?”
“What?”
“You think Junie’ll come sit in my lap?” he asks. He doesn’t wait, really. He holds out the bowl and you take it on impulse as he sits down heavily.
He takes her into his lap with a cheerful groan. “Oh, c’mere, sweetheart. There’s enough milk on your chin to bake a cake.” He wipes it with his hand. He doesn’t so much as wince at the mess.
You stare. He eases the spoon out of her grip and scrapes up a half-spoonful of what looks like pear and feeds it to her with the same kind of deftness of hand that’d taken you months to learn.
He can feel your gaze, evidently, because he looks up. There, you catch it, that slither of insecurity he hides well.
You pick up your bowl and start eating. It’s the nicest thing you’ve eaten in almost two years. You’d die for Junie. You’d do worse. But to eat, to know she’s fed — gorged — to know you can sit here and eat this whole bowl of fruit all to yourself and you won’t have to put it down, that’s heaven. It’s better, because you never let yourself have anything nice if you can help it.
The fruit turns to a lump in your throat and you swallow it, sniffling. Your lashes grow heavy with unshed tears and you keep your gaze resolutely on your dessert. When was the last time you had something this nice all to yourself? When was the last time somebody ever went out of their way to be this nice?
It’s a small gesture and a huge one. A tear dribbles down your cheek. You lick it away and keep on eating.
-
Eddie starts to come around every Friday. It’s a good deal; you make dinner and he makes dessert. After that first time he makes it his mission to give you heaping bowls too much to eat most of the time. Soon, he’s coming a few days a week, not always long, sometimes until the late hours, though you tell him desserts are a Friday only occasion. He complies grudgingly.
You make your first friend in years, and it’s so sweet you don’t know what to do with yourself.
Or what possesses you to offer to cut his hair.
Eddie's sitting on the couch with Junie, his big thigh to her little one and a picture book spread between them whilst you clean the kitchen. He's not reading to her – she's trying to read to him. She can't read, of course, but she can remember some of the words in relation to the pictures. She pokes at the blue cat and says blue. She pokes at the blue dog and says blue. She also points at the red cat and says blue. It's a learning curve.
Eddie gives corrections and encouragements just as you would. You smile at him from behind your cup of water.
"He's red, sweetheart," he murmurs, arm around her shoulder to hold the book's edges. "Red cat."
"Red cat," she repeats with enough accuracy to make you choke on your water.
Eddie gasps almost as loud as you do. "Right! Red cat! You're so smart, junebug, I can't believe it," he praises, squeezing her shoulder. His gaze meets yours and he smiles.
You send him back your sweetest smile. If he wasn't always so nice to you you'd like him anyway because of how he treats Junie, like she's the fucking sun.
She gets so excited when other people are happy that she starts laughing, standing up and trampling all over his legs to give him a hug. She's given him half hugs, she's fallen asleep by his side and loves to pet his hair, but this is a proper, tactile hug. Her arms wind around his neck with purpose and as soon as his surprise has faded he brings his arms up to hug her in turn, laughing delightedly.
"You're such a smarty-pants," he praises, rubbing her back with a boyish brashness.
She squeals as he squeezes her, his fingers digging into her ribs. Never cruel, only tickling her. She eats up every second of it and buries her face in his neck, laughing her wound up baby laugh that always brings a smile to your face.
"Ooh, she's so smart. First blue, then red. Next you'll be saying indigo, and vermillion, and-"
He cuts off when Junie gets one of her nails caught in his hair. She jolts and whines like it hurts and he goes rigid. You move forward to play mediator but he's already pulling her away gently and making small shushing sounds. "Chill out," he chides lightly, "I got it. Here." He pulls the hair from under her fingernail and rubs the pad of his thumb over her hand. "Sorry, I'm sorry," he apologises, pouting at her scowl. He envelops her hand in his and waves it around. "Forgive me?"
She doesn't learn her lesson, pushing her hands back into his hair, probably less kind than what’s ideal. Eddie doesn't flinch.
You sit on the armrest gingerly. "Can I ask you something?"
Eddie looks over Junie’s head. "What's that?"
"Have you always had long hair?"
He doesn't balk. "No, of course not. I fu-" He clears his throat. "My mom was the best, and I fit in just like everybody else growing up. When I ended up with Wayne I was-" He smiles. It's the kind of rueful grimace that says, You didn't ask for this.
You smile encouragingly.
He drops his gaze to Junie, worming his arms around her in a loose hug as she continues to play with his hair. "I was mad about everything, and I remember him asking when I wanted to get my hair trimmed and I said ‘never’. Took a few years for it to grow past the awkward stage," he bares his teeth and nods toward his shoulder, as if allowing his past misdemeanour. "But now I'd say it looks pretty sweet."
"I love your hair," you say.
Eddie beams. "You don't think it's too long?"
Emboldened by his reaction, you slip off of the armrest to sit next to him, turning in until your knees touch. Junie, loyal as she is, climbs straight into your lap with a babble.
You pat her back with one hand and raise the other cautiously for permission. Eddie flares his eyes wide, as if to say, You want to? Go on.
You take a lock of his hair between your fingers like Junie had moments before. "I like it like this."
"But?"
You look at the ends, an inch of limpness where the rest curls. "You haven't had it cut since you were a kid?"
"Maybe not that long, but it's been a while. I do it myself sometimes." He gestures to his bangs. He speaks quietly. A rarity though not unknown for him to be so hushed.
You tuck the curl you'd been examining behind his ear carefully.
"Do you think my hair looks good?" you ask.
"Sh- Sorry, of course I do. I swear I was gonna-"
You shake your head, laughing. "Not like that. What I mean is, I cut my own hair. I cut Junie's, too, and I could do yours if you wanted me to."
He goes quiet.
"Only if you wanted. I know it's a lot of trust, so-"
"Would you do it now?"
You hold Junie's head away from yours to prevent a loving headbut. "Right now?"
"I'm in dire need."
He throws his big brown puppy dog eyes your way and you couldn't say no if you wanted to.
You explain how he needs to get it wet first and how the shower head in the bathroom doesn't detach. "It's, like, built into the wall."
"I could go home, come back?" he suggests.
"I can do it over the sink?"
-
Eddie can't remember the last time somebody washed his hair for him. He knows there must've been a time, some place in his life where his mom or dad had done it for him. He thinks that, if he'd asked, Wayne would've tried it once or twice growing up, but now Eddie's most definitely at the age where having his hair washed is a foreign luxury.
And it does feel luxurious.
It shouldn't; the sink basin is very small as they tend to be in the trailer kitchenettes – small sink, small stove, small small small – and Eddie has to crane his neck. Already the space between his shoulder blades aches from being bent over, and he can't breathe well, smothered by steam.
But your hands. One shields his eyes from run off, a gesture unnecessary and far from lost on him, while the other massages shampoo into his scalp. He'd been surprised when you started because you hadn't mentioned washing his hair, and he'd said, "You don't have to do that."
You'd hummed. "Well, it's kind of a waste not to."
That was that.
Your nails scratch lightly against his scalp and if his eyes weren't already closed they would've fluttered shut. He nibbles his lip and tries very hard not to show outwardly how nice it feels. Your left upper arm rubs against his back as you scrub at his roots, your right soaking wet beside his face, covering his eyes uselessly. He doesn't mention it. All this touching, he doesn't want it to end.
Your proximity honest-to-God sets him on fire. Your body pressed to his is a flame over his ribs.
"Maybe we shouldn't cut it at all," you say, stroking wet bangs away from his forehead. "It's soooo long."
"Can’t do it?" he teases.
"Keep your eyes closed, okay? I'm gonna rinse."
It's a comforting process. You dip your cup into the water. It fills with a wet glug, the rim shushing against the basin's bottom. You hold it over his head and pour carefully, heat caressing his scalp as the soap is washed away.
It's over too soon. You grab the towel you'd procured and tuck it around his shoulders, wringing all the excess water from his curls back into the sink. You encourage his head up wordlessly and he stands there, arms useless against the countertops edge, water sloughing down his face as you press the ends flat between your hands.
You lift his head and push his hair back with your hands, raking your fingers through it and laughing as soon as his face appears. "Eddie! I'm sorry, you're totally drowning."
He chuckles. They fade away as you pinch the corner of the towel and start to dab his face dry, dragging the rough material over his cheeks with an expression he can't read on your pretty features. Almost pensive, not quite.
"There," you say under your breath. "Saved you."
"My hero."
You smile at him softly before spinning on your heel. "I gotta find the hairbrush. And the good scissors." You look into the living room quickly and then turn to the hall leading to your bedroom.
Eddie looks into the living room too. Junie's not upto much, only watching TV, unusually subdued. He doesn't disturb her despite the itch to go over and play.
One of the muppets starts laughing about something and she laughs too.
"What are you smiling about?" you whisper from behind him.
"Nothing," he says quickly.
You raise your eyebrows. "She has a nice laugh, right? Doesn't matter how bad I feel, she laughs and everything's okay for a little while."
He feels a fond stab in his chest. "Her laugh's like yours."
"I guess we do sound the same."
You do, but it's not really what he'd meant.
The metal sound of scissors snapping. You wield them at him faux-threateningly and shepherd him into a chair you've dragged to the middle of the kitchen.
Eddie fights goosebumps as you pull a brush through his hair, loses when you take a lock at the front between two fingers and stop about an inch and a half from the end.
"I'm gonna do that much, okay?"
You're a quiet hairdresser. Eddie doesn't care, he can talk for Indiana, but there's something so sweetly simple about the quietude, just your hands in his hair, the snipping of your scissors and Junie's occasional excited chattering. You start to hum a song Eddie doesn't recognise about halfway through. It's melancholy. He doubts you realise what you're doing.
You draw silent as you round to the front. Eddie watches your hands work for what feels like hours. You have really pretty hands, not perfect, burnt fingertips and neat little nails. They smell like honey hand soap.
You pull two locks from the front together to make sure they're the same length. His curls will hide any discrepancy, he knows from experience, but he doesn't want to tell you that. Selfishly, he wants that extra time with you this close.
You work your way between his legs to comb his half-dried bangs. Eddie looks up at you with wide eyes.
"You want me to trim these, too?" you ask quietly.
"If you please."
You huff a laugh through your nose and start to trim his bangs carefully. He closes his eyes, and maybe it's the fact that he can't see you that gives him the confidence to reach out for your hip, a touch that can't be defined as amicable. He curls his fingers into the soft material of your shirt and feels the heat of your skin underneath.
You draw closer, as close as you can be.
"What made you decide on bangs?" you ask.
"Zits, mostly."
He can feel your laugh under his hand.
"I used to… I used to powder my face," you confide, a murmur, "like, an inch thick to try and hide everything. Being pregnant makes you so-" You pause to snip some hair, comb it away. It tickles his face. "Well, it makes you spotty. Or it made me spotty. It actually made me really sick."
"That's must've sucked," he says earnestly.
"It- Yeah. I guess it did. I don't know."
He hadn't meant to bring up something unhappy, but he's hungry to know. "Were you on your own?"
"Mostly."
"What was the worst part?"
"Being scared all the time."
He'd been expecting morning sickness or aching feet. "You were scared?"
"I honestly thought I was gonna die, Eddie."
He opens his eyes and leans back in his chair, hand flexing over your hip, as he tries to tamp down his surprise.
"It was," you mess with his bangs with the tip of your ring finger, "hard. I felt sick all the time, and when I didn't I would make myself sick worrying about her. What if I eat something or I catch something and it hurts her? What if- what if it all works out perfectly and then I can't look after her?"
"Did it work out perfect?"
You rub your lips together. "Uh, I guess so. It took a long time, and it hurt," you sound especially unhappy with that part.
He strokes up your waist, wanting to soothe the small crease between your eyebrows. "By yourself?"
"Yeah, by myself."
"I'm sorry."
You tuck his hair behind his ear and grin at him. "Now what are you sorry for?" Your hand lingers near his cheek. Slowly, you turn it, pressing the knuckle of your index finger into the skin under his eye and rubbing a small line. He worries he’s in love with you right then and there. "Not like you're the one who knocked me up."
You drop your hand and Eddie really doesn't want you to go anywhere, his grip kind but steadfast, bringing the other arm behind your back in a loose hug. "Who was it?"
"Just some guy. Nobody. Nobody worth thinking about."
"How old were you?" he asks.
"Why are you asking me all this stuff?"
"I wanna know about you."
You bring your hands to the towel around his neck and pull on it mildly. "I was sixteen. Seventeen when I had her."
He drags his fingertips up and down the small of your back lightly, almost like he's playing guitar. "I'm sorry you were all by yourself. That young. When I was sixteen I was still watching The Bugs Bunny Show."
You giggle and your hands move up to the side of his neck. He can hardly breathe, afraid to dispel whatever enchantment it is that he's under.
"Could be worse, huh? I'm nineteen and I still watch Muppet Babies," you joke.
"Why wouldn't you? It's the pinnacle of modern television."
"Yeah?"
Your beaming smile hits him straight in the chest. He thinks about how beautiful you look and can't stop, hiding his face in your stomach to stop from saying something stupid, laughing loud. You laugh in tandem, hugging the back of his head until your giggles peter out.
A small hand on his arm. You both turn at the same time and find a very unhappy Junie.
"What?" you ask her. Then, teasing, "Are you jealous?"
You lean down to pick her up. Eddie's gutted to lose your touch and then quickly exuberant when Junie ducks out of your arms to grab at his legs.
"Oh my god, yes," he says, holding out his hands.
Junie tries to take them and he slips them under his arm, pulling her onto his thigh with a big sigh. The sigh is half the fun, a theatrical reluctance when really he's always happy to have her climbing on him.
As soon as she's in his lap she's pleased, turning her head so she can watch the TV across the room.
You roll your eyes at his smug smile. "Shut up. She just wants what other people have."
"And you had me?"
"Shut up, Munson, seriously," you say. You don't sound half as mad as you're trying to.
Eddie takes a drying curl between his fingers and pokes at the side of Junie's face. "Whatever you want, sweetheart," he says, grinning when your daughter starts to squirm on his thigh.
He grins at her and tickles her until she's curling in with her chin dropped to her chest, smiling despite herself.
His fondness colours every word as he croons, "I got you."
Junie sounds about as outraged as a toddler can be when he tickles her nose and then drags the tip of the freshly trimmed curl under her eye. He draws a big circle around one of her cheeks until it's kissing her chin. She dissolves into giggles while squirming to get away from him and so he stops, only for her to blink and tug at his wrist.
He tickles her until she's screaming.
You pause on your knees where you'd been sweeping up his trimmed hair to look up at her and he's struck with guilt. "Y/N, you don't have to do that. I'll do it."
"No, you're okay."
Eddie finds his gaze drawn to your thighs, spread out as they are in your kneeling position, and then stolen by Junie as she almost topples off of his lap.
"I think…" he begins quietly, speaking to Junie though it's just as much for you, "that your mom deserves something nice for my haircut. What do you think?"
"I don't think that," you say.
"Wasn't asking you," he says seriously. Back in baby mode he continues, "What's mommy like, huh? What's her favourite thing in the whole world, besides you?"
"Sleep," you say.
"Well, I can't help you there."
"You help me there all the time. Junie sleeps like a log every Friday."
"Food coma," he says knowledgeably.
"You really don't have to get me anything, Eddie. My services were administered charitably."
He pushes his hands behind Junie's back and pulls her to his chest before standing. When he has her secure in one arm he pulls the chair back to your small table and tucks it in.
"Get up," he says to you. "I'll do it, alright? Swap with me."
You ignore him until he starts kicking you in the leg. "You're ridiculous!"
"You're ridiculous. Seriously, get up. You're not a serf." He returns your glare. "I'm a big boy, I can clean up after myself."
"It's my house."
"If you don't let me-"
"Christ! Okay." You drop the dustpan and brush sullenly, wiping your hands together as you stand before taking Junie out of his arms. "I'll make dinner."
"No you won't! I'm gonna order takeout," he says factually, already on his knees and sweeping.
"No you're not."
"I am. Me and June already talked about it. She's craving Marino's pizza."
"I'm not gonna let you use the phone."
"I'll walk to my place and order the pizza to here."
"Eddie-"
"Why are you being a hardass?" he asks.
"Fine! God, clean up your gross hair and order your stupid pizza. You're making me crazy," you say, collapsing onto the sofa with a little oomf, Junie's weight hitting you hard in the chest. She moves into a sitting position and pulls your shirt up, hands moving across the space under your chest.
Eddie throws himself into cleaning all the mess you'd made for him, the hair and the towel and the sopping wet draining board. He washes the dirty baby bowl on the side and fills up one of Junie's bottles with water, then a glass for you. He hasn't seen either of you drinking a thing since he's been here, likely his fault for distracting you.
He's about to call for pizza when he peers past the cabinets and sees you dozing on the couch. He decides pizza can wait until tomorrow; it's later than he realised.
Junie's halfway across the room with Mr. Bear playing make believe. She talks and talks and talks, gibberish to him but what's likely an unending, complicated storyline, no doubt.
Eddie approaches with the bottle already outstretched. "Junie," he says, and when she doesn't answer, "Junebug. Junie. Junie." Each iteration of her name softer and sweeter than the first, hoping to entice her in.
He holds the bottle in front of her face.
She finally looks up with a pout.
"For you," he says, offering the water.
She seems mildly interested as she takes it, turning back to her teddy and talking around the teat like it's not there.
You're struggling to keep your eyes open. Eddie gives the room a quick once over before kneeling down in front of you, tugging your shirt down to cover your exposed tummy as he says, "I should head home."
You blink at him and turn onto your side, cheek squishing into the couch cushion.
"Okay? Why don't you and Junebug head to bed?" he asks, using a tone not far from what he'd use with your daughter.
"You know, her full name's Juniper," you whisper.
He didn't know. "Really? I love that."
You wrinkle your nose, sounding very tired as you continue, "But someone told me it sounded like a name for a cat. So I've called her Junie ever since."
"It doesn't sound like a cat's name," he placates. "It's beautiful. You chose well."
"Yeah?"
Eddie smiles at you fondly, eyes tracing down your nose to your lips, shiny with balm. He tilts his head to the side to mimic yours. He could kiss you.
"Sounds like the name of an elf. Juniper Lightfoot, or… Goldwind. She could even be a mage. Juniper the Brave."
"Juniper the Loveliest," you say, and then grin. "Juniper the Hungriest."
"Juniper the All Great and Hungriest," Eddie says decidedly.
"Would you make her a hero, in your game?" you ask.
"Of course I would. She wouldn't even need to divide, she'd just conquer."
"What about me?"
"What, would you be a hero?"
You nod. He doesn't know why, but he thinks his answer is going to hold a lot of weight with you.
"You would be," he starts quietly, words painted slowly as he raises a hand to rest on your wrist, pinky finger spread over the hill of your thumb, "a fighter. With insight and survival."
"I don't know what that means," you say.
He leans in. "It means yes, you'd be a hero. You'd save kingdoms. Slay dragons." He squeezes your wrist.
"I think I better leave all that stuff for Junie. I'll just cheer you guys on from the sidelines."
"You're her mom, she can't do it without you. And even if she could I bet she wouldn't want to. Where's all the fun in guts and glory if you can't share it?" he asks, rubbing his thumb over your skin.
Your eyes shut. Eddie doesn't know if it's from fatigue or a want to end this conversation. He feels marginally embarrassed for descending into nerd metaphor with you, but he thinks it's the kind of thing you needed to hear. He thinks if Junie could understand how often her mom prioritises her and misses out for her she'd want to fix that. Eddie doesn't know you half as well as she does and it breaks his heart sometimes to watch you insist on a smaller portion, to watch you put things back at the grocery store because she wants a box of milk duds, even to watch you wear yourself out ironing baby clothes in the only pair of pajamas you own.
"Make sure you lock the deadbolt behind me," he says carefully. You hum. He gives your wrist one last squeeze.
Junie looks tired in that she's getting agitated, whimpering under her breath. Eddie ducks down to give her upper arm a good rub. "Why don't you go cuddle with your mom?" he asks her, turning her by the shoulder so that you're in her eye-line. "Go have a lie down."
He doesn't know whether what he says makes any difference but you extend your arms out and Junie walks towards you, big staggered steps that make him laugh to himself as he pushes into his unlaced converse.
"Don't forget to lock up," he says in place of a farewell.
"Goodnight, Eddie," you say.
He waves. You're both too tired to wave back.
He's surprised to find his Uncle Wayne still home when he gets in, shoving into his work boots with a grunted hello.
"Hey."
"Did you cut your hair?" Wayne asks, perplexed, a little gruff.
"Junie's mom did it for me."
"'Junie's mom,'" Wayne quotes dryly, slugging his bag over his shoulder. He's heard all about Junie's mom.
Eddie scratches the back of his neck and splutters when a big hand claps his back, a demonstration of Wayne's pity as he passes through the open door.
Eddie spins to watch him jog down the steps. "We're friends," Eddie calls.
"Don't be dumb," his uncle says without turning back.
"I'm not exactly known for being smart," Eddie says to himself, cheeks heated by a furious blush.
𓆩❤︎𓆪
thank you for reading! | my masterlist | multi-chapter
if you enjoyed, please reblog! i promise it makes a difference ♡
I really loved facade. It makes me sad to see how little Chris content there is these days but that little story was amazing. I hope you decide to write more parts or more Chris/rivers characters. You’re very talented and I hope you’re having a good day, thanks for sharing your writing with us 😊
I agree Chris content (like his character) deserves better and will definitely think about revisiting some of my 80s stuff in the future. I wrote them all quite a while ago so it's cool to see it's still holding up. Thanks for your lovely comment. All the best :)
Hawkins is a town of myths and legends. There have been explosions that tore through the town like the gates of hell, tragic unexplained deaths of kids, and real monsters. And yet, the thing that remained the itchiest itch in the brain to scratch was her.
Some say she dropped out of high school at 16 and ran away with the circus, some say she got drunkenly married to Bon Jovi in Vegas, others say she jumped off a building in Japan high on ecstasy, and it is even said that she later joined a convent in Scotland.
She comes and she goes out of Hawkins like she’s riding the lightning and no one knew why, not even herself.
They say she’s super hot but has like an obsidian soul, that she plays the guitar as if it's a walk in the park, parties like it's her last day on earth and fucks like it too.
She is utterly untouchable, impossible to catch and dies as soon as you touch her wings.
That’s you.
You sort of got off on the stories, enjoying the idea that you were the exception; that you were the 1% where people thought about something other than themselves for a minute.
Like Madonna.
Your enigma made it easier not to stick around, made excuses simpler and made living at Hawkins as a dutiful white skirt white socks girl a thing of the past. There wasn’t even an explanation. One day you were sitting on the grass with a decent social circle exchanging cassettes and the next you were gone.
Hawkins was your definition of an all-time low, the default setting, the sign you saw through your blurry eyes, the soaked windscreen, the frantic wipers and clumpy gross mascara which immediately meant you’d failed.
Therefore, the last place your brother expected to find you was outside his school at 8 pm on a Friday.
“I’m not so sure about this drawbridge guys...I mean do you think we can cross or is it just gonna collapse under our weight?”
Mike Wheeler speculates out loud noticing a vacancy in the air, possibly the smartest thing he’s said in high school so far. But Dustin took this personally, as a fat joke in a clever disguise.
“That is the least of our worries! There’s freaking dwarves on the other side!” Lucas exclaims to his friend, now his foe.
Eddie Munson, the usurper, the all-seeing all-knowing master of puppets, watched with an amused grin as his players passionately picked their brains for reason.
“And save me that ‘dwarves are harmless’ bullshit, we have to gain their trust and we’re holding swords!”
“Are we forgetting about the gargoyle statues that just happen to be staring directly at us?” Dustin intervenes frantically, attempting to bitch slap his comrades into the glorious land of common sense with his sassy hand gestures and urgent expression.
Eddie smirks at the glorious mess he’s created.
“Can you confirm that you wish to approach the gargoyles Hende-”
ＢＥＥＥＥＥＥＥＰ
A long, sarcastic and annoying old car horn that didn’t stop for a single breath interrupted the flow of the room, interrupted Eddie’s thought process, hell- even interrupted all of Hawkins!
The group stuck up their necks like meerkats, attempting to catch the source of the obnoxious noise through the pitch black dirty windows of the drama room.
Dustin didn’t have to look.
He could recognise that childish impatience anywhere.
That was the pathetic horn of your van.
His heart sunk into his stomach.
Was it bad that he was a little excited? That he was thrilled that you had thought to come and pick him up from his club? That you were home if even for a bit? He wasn’t sure.
“Sorry guys, it’s my sister...”
Dustin immediately scrambles his things together early, knowing your patience ran thin and the stamina of your stubbornness was unbeatable. In other words; he needed to move his ass, ASAP.
“Dude we said 9, can’t she tell the time?” Jeff argues with and for Dustin, desperate to finish the campaign and annoyed with the interruption of his ‘me-time’ but completely immune to the knowing looks of the rest of the club.
“Trust me if there’s one person you don’t wanna keep waiting it’s his sister,” Mike explains with a memory on his back, remembering the time when he and Dustin were supposed to have a ride from you to the mall at 3 but you left without them cause it was 3:02...
“Sister?”
A few eyebrows jump at the unknown association, a couple wonder why the urgency but Eddie was livid.
He was so furious he was red, beginning to sweat holes into his hellfire shirt and his rings dug into his palms.
Like, who do you think you are? Coming into his safe space and disrupting possibly the best campaign he had managed to put together in years! They hadn’t even gotten to the best part yet and Eddie was experiencing blue balls yet again!
Fucking trailer.
Before he knew it, he was following Dustin to your van, dirty sneakers stomping down the stairs and onto the freezing gravel with the wrath of a stubbed toe.
Dustin stopped in his place and a pair of scuffed black boots perfectly posed in the night came into view. He didn’t even know what he was doing until it was too late.
“Woah dude.”
You were the perfect mirage, exactly what Eddie had conjured in his mind as he himself fantasized about this mythical other Henderson.
She looked like she had been dragged through hell but gave it a good run for its money too. To Eddie, she did run away with Bon Jovi but she dumped him because he wasn’t metal enough, she got daily splitting migraines as a roadie for Megadeth, wore the tightest little Wrangler Jeans in every season and lit cigarettes like they were birthday candles.
And yet, there you were, leaning against your bright orange campervan with a lit joint in one hand and the other still pressed against the horn through the window.
Sweet jesus, is all that comes to mind.
“You’re early,” Dustin muttered in embarrassment, cheeks bright pink as you were technically a stranger to him and he was out of practice talking with you.
You were just a memory, some distant relative who came home every few years with a new tattoo and another crack in your heart.
That and you were here in front of all of his older guy friends...
“Huh?” You yelled, putting a hand next to your ear as your hand still remained on that damn horn.
“I said you’re early!” Dustin yelled back as loud and obnoxious as he could with his hands around his mouth so even the ones watching through the window could hear how much of an asshole his sister was.
“I can’t hear you!” you maintain, shrugging helplessly until Dustin gives up, rolling his eyes while waving you off.
You smirk through a dirty chuckle, flippantly throwing the cigarette away and opening the door to your mystery machine on your side. The other one jammed.
“Come on buddy, let’s go on a magical mystery tour,” you gesture inside, the faint sound of Jim Morrison poured out who, according to Dustin, was possibly the only person on earth who partied harder than you.
And, look what happened to him.
“You’re still early,” Dustin persists as he slides in, still not ready to let this go. Looks like stubbornness ran in the family.
Eddie felt suddenly exposed and vulnerable, his younger friend no longer shielding him from your piercing gaze. Would he turn to stone?
“If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve come earlier,” you muttered, fixed on the bushy-haired metal-head who followed your brother out of the building, who had a horrible look in his eye as if he had something to say that he’d immediately regret.
“Shit,” Dustin summarised the scene that only existed in the most outrageous and obscene mind of a dungeon master. This was the weirdest crossover in the history of the universe other than that disaster E.T video game that came out a couple of years ago...
“I’m sorry...” Eddie charmingly smiled, stepping into the line of fire willingly with balls of steel and a sarcastic chuckle “But for someone so in a hurry, you sure seem to be taking your time there.”
“I’m savouring the moment, Munson,” you glared crossing your arms, recognising immediately the big brown eyes and playful expression you had the pleasure of sharing almost every class you had with. “Do you mind?”
He’d changed. His hair was longer, he was still a metal head but broadcasted his freakshowness more it seemed. He used to get his ass kicked a lot.
Eddie’s eyebrows disappear into his curly bangs as you say his name, sickeningly gushing over the sound of his name tumbling out of those lips of yours which seemed to be perfectly stained with that vixen red.
But more importantly:
You remembered him?
“Come on. Let’s just go.”
“You interrupted our campaign, Henderson,” Eddie interrupted seriously with a serious stare “I can’t just let that slide.”
“Well, I’m too busy to play taxi. I gotta wash my hair tonight,” you shrug, not falling for Eddie’s fluctuating demeanour as he struggles to ground himself in front of you but still enjoying it nonetheless.
Eddie smiles plainly for a second. He’s thinking. He’s taking in your perfectly clean wild curly hair that was almost as glorious as his. He’s digesting your magnetic presence and how he actually can’t stop his body from leaning closer to you.
“How about this? You let Weird Al finish the game and I’ll take you back to mine and I’ll wash it for you. I’ll be super gentle and I’ll make sure to get all the special places you can’t reach yourself, huh?” he teases softly, reaching out and tucking a curl behind your ear.
But he’s trying not to freak out.
You have the prettiest beauty mark on top of your lip.
“Weird Al?”
“He wore a Weird Al shirt on his first day...”
“Brave,” you commend your brother on his bravery which causes him to stop freaking out in the van for a millisecond and digest that overwhelming swell of pride he gets whenever you compliment him.
Even if it was sort of backhanded.
You thought about staying there, you really did. You’d waste time comfortably leaning there and rubbing his precious club in his face just because you could. But then you remembered you had absolutely nothing to prove to some guy you used to go to high school with.
Especially if that guy happened to be Eddie Munson of all people.
Okay. Maybeee it was because The Twilight Zone was on tonight and it was that really cool one where that chick got plastic surgery and she got really gross and disfigur-
“Offer still stands.”
Eddie smirks as he leans against your window, his nerdish arrogance piquing your interest as a new flavour to your developed palette. How could he be so dorky, intimidating and confident all at the same time?
He watches as you reach out the open window to touch his jungle hair playing with it in your delicate fingers.
“Eddie, I’m so glad to see you trying to make friends your own age. This is good for you,” you patronize him, your sincerest smile more cutting to him than your hardest punch.
He jumps as you suddenly roll up the window, catching his hair between the rising glass. The blaring sound of your infectious laughter, the blasting motörhead coming from the stereo and the roar of the engine cause his heart to jump in his chest.
“Okayyyy ow ow ow ow!”
He has no choice but the run with the increasing speed of the car, trying to stop the hippy van from pulling his hair out of his scalp. Until the window drops again, sending him rolling back onto the dusty road.
“Better get to that salon of yours, Munson!”
And, as you drive away you stick out your tongue at Eddie Munson and hold up a peace sign while beeping that blasted horn again twice, satisfied with the way you closed what would be your last ever interaction with Eddie Munson.
You wiped the bubbling tears in your eyes, held the ache in your ribs and eventually stilled your laughter. You kicked the floor of the van like a child, delighted with your own brilliance. But the fun and games disappeared as soon as you saw your little brother sitting in the seat beside you, as far away as possible, wearing a shirt with satan on it.
“What the hell were you doing hanging out with Eddie Munson?”
This probably shouldn’t have been your first proper interaction with your brother in 3 years but Munson’s reputation certainly preceded him and your brother seemed to be caught in his web.
“Cut him some slack, he’s not what you think,” he responded defensively, his voice, now deeper and less squeaky than what you remember, swatting your attacks with every fibre of his fantastical being.
Dustin is nervous, you’re a pretty reckless driver and the way you kept looking away from the road at him for longer than necessary to tell him off made him grip the door handle. He was ready to tuck and roll if he had to.
“Oh, so he’s not a drug dealing delinquent who still hasn’t graduated or made any friends his own age?” you ask ready to be enlightened with a whole new Munson.
You look to your brother for an answer but he’s quiet, sulking in the orange and brown plaid material of the chair. You weren’t an objectively judgemental person, you just knew too much about his extracurricular activities to consider him a valuable addition to Dustin’s life.
There are guys like Eddie Munson everywhere.
“Well, is he?”
And, at this point, you’d met them all.
Dustin continues on his path of silence, choosing not to argue with you anymore because there was no way of winning.
If you had just gotten to know him like he did...
“You’re lucky I came to pick you up, what if Mom saw?” you scold him slightly, brows furrowed in concentration on the road but also frustrated with your idiotic younger brother who maybe wasn’t as smart as you thought he would be.
“Oh, so now you’re choosing to be my sister?” Dustin sort of snapped.
Well, he raised his voice sarcastically.
But that was pretty mean for Dustin.
“Where were you a couple of days ago for my first day of high school? When some of your old school friends disappeared? A few years before that where people started dying and you were nowhere to be found!”
He had stopped asking why, stopped wasting his time in trying to figure you out and bring you back home. He knew there was so much more to the story than just a teenage girl running away- as controversial and shitty you could be you weren’t like that.
He pretended like you didn’t look worse this time- that you weren’t significantly thinner, your eyes stained red, your face gaunt, your usually golden skin pale, even your signature way you carried yourself had sort of died.
Something must’ve happened.
But that didn’t excuse you.
“Or even when dad-”
Every thought he’d ever had about you suddenly queued up in his internal waiting room ready to come blurting out of his mouth. He didn’t care about his delivery, he didn’t think you even had it in you to cry anymore.
And yet here you were driving that same old van your father bought you when you got your license, the same burnt patch on the passenger seat from where you both accidentally lit it on fire playing with some science kit you got for Christmas, the same van you disappeared in for most of his and your school career.
You can’t look, swallowing your guilt all in one gigantic gulp.
“I’m sorry I hurt your buddy.”
It was the first time in a long time he had heard you apologise for anything, even if it wasn’t the thing he wanted you to apologise for. It was good enough.
“He has plenty of hair to go around...”
You grinned, looking away from the road at your brother to see him smiling too.
Only you do a double take.
“Oh my god, your teeth came through!”
Completely letting go of the steering wheel, you lean over him attempting to get a closer look while your younger brother freaks out, swatting your childish intrigue and keen hands away while screaming:
“GET HOLD OF THE FUCKING WHEEL!”
════════𝔸𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕓𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕠𝕗 𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℍ𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕠𝕦𝕥═════════
You take a long hard exhale of smoke as you stare at the back entrance of The Hideout.
You were trying your hand at being a good sister for a change. You didn’t ever want to see that look on Dustin’s face again when he yelled at you and you weren’t gonna solve that by running away just yet.
You’d only just got here.
Leaning against the front of your van, in the middle of the night and without a jacket, you realised that the Hawkins phenomenon was with Eddie Munson too. Being in a band anywhere was pretty cool, a stepping stone for so many legends but Hawkins weighed that band down like one of those weird scam workout machines they try to advertise to drunk single women who fell asleep on the couch at 2am.
Wow, that was specific.
What you mean is Munson’s band would never grow beyond their crowd of drunks, ageing rockers and people who just happened to be there because of Hawkins. He’d never get out.
And they were pretty good too.
The noise of the stereo slipping through the opening back door pulls you away from your cigarette and to Eddie Munson who was travelling alone with his guitar in a hard case.
Biting back a grin after you play out the scenario in your head, you throw the lit stick at him, unable to control your laughter as he jumps out of his right mind while stopping yet another hole being burnt through his shirt.
He fell asleep lighting up a lot...
“Jesus Christ are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Eddie yells at you, you who definitely wasn’t listening and trying to find a way to show Eddie an instant reply of what just happened using the Force.
“Well it wouldn’t be the worst outcome...” you ponder with a shrug, your giggle still tickling the back of your throat like some old dust.
He laughs sarcastically, scrunching his nose cutely before starting to walk away again.
Until he stops again.
Was he...smirking?
“Wait, were you waiting for me?”
“No I just really love the view,” you reply, kicking one of the thousands of trash bags littered around the place, 100% sure you just saw something move in there.
You’d never felt more at home.
“You crashed my club, you came to see my band. It’s not a far cry to say you’re a little obsessed with me Henderson,” Eddie teases walking towards you and your van while doing that thing where he takes in every reaction of yours to him by eye-fucking you.
“Please, there’s easier ways to get a migraine.”
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that sweetheart.”
This may surprise you but this wasn’t your first rodeo. You had herded many a cattle in your time already but there was something about the way Eddie always smiled like he’d discovered a second g-spot that made your past flings feel like a fever dream.
You take out your box of Lucky Strikes again to fill the silence, to get his big brown eyes looking at something else instead of you. Lucky Strikes. Those ads on tv know how to get you...
Hot guys on motorcycles.
“You were pretty good in there you know,” you praise him casually, trying not to get carried away with how fuckable he looked with the pout of his pink lips with the cigarette just balanced between them.
Fatal.
“Thanks,” he laughed just once, sort of self-deprecatingly “Couldn’t see you in there through the huge crowd.”
You laugh with him, sort of feeling bad for him with the way he hunched over. But also-
“Patience is a virtue dude. Hell, Metallica still don’t make songs everybody likes, they leave that to Sabbath.”
Eddie smiled down at you in the night, the shine in his eyes and sincerity on his face as you reveal a little about your interests. He was trying to make a moment here.
“Anyway, I gotta feeling you didn’t drive all the way out here to give me a music lesson,” he interrupts the thick smoggy air of the evening, using his puffs as strategy to slow down his nervous speech.
Fuck you made him so nervous in those jeans.
You sigh, leaving him hanging as you take a drag and wondering how you were going to fit everything you had brainstormed high on the drive over here in a really polite concise conversation with Eddie fucking Munson.
“I don’t know what you’ve told that kid but I can’t have you hanging out. You understand right?”
“Why, because I’m a freak?”
“Because you’re a drug dealer.”
Why did you have to try so hard to point this out to everyone??
“You’re high right now,” he laughs, gesturing to you and your fucked out pupils accusingly and whack-a-moleing you into the pit of hypocrisy you came from.
“I never said I was the example.”
Shit, here goes.
“I might be an asshole, admittedly but I fucking love my baby brother man...” you explain calmly to the bushy haired kid who was watching you look through every memory of sincere emotion you had to replicate some mush “So if I find out he’s spending his glorious high school days with Freddy fucking Kruger, he’s got another thing coming.”
Didn’t go so well.
Eddie Munson gulped, trying to relieve the terror from his throat.
“Naturally,” you smile sinisterly, trying to rummage through his secrets through his eyes.
“You really don’t like me, do you?”
“Let’s just say if you ever need a character reference to keep you out of prison, don’t call me.”
But Eddie wasn’t as upset at this revelation as you thought he would be. No, in fact he was smiling! He loved the fact that you didn’t like him because it meant that you were thinking about his existence even if for just a second. He had an excuse to spend more time with you, trying to convince you of his excellence while he could.
“Dustin’s a smart kid. He can make his own choices,” Eddie argued for his friend, unable to stop himself from thinking about all the things he was doing by himself when he was Dustin’s age like cooking for himself and binge drinking.
The kid was a saint.
And, you?
Well, you were going to make damn sure Eddie Munson never talked to a Henderson again.
“And so far, they aren’t looking so good so just make things easier for the both of us and reverse that for him,” you stare into his soul, trying to control him with your mind using the power of push up bras and close proximities.
“Or what? You’re gonna make me disappear?” Eddie mocks using a hypothetical situation but not going too much into detail in case he gave you some ideas and you really were serious about this shit.
What? With the amount of stuff he’d heard about you who could blame the kid!
It was worse when you said nothing. It terrified him more as you continued to stare knowingly as you got into the van through the only functioning door and closing it with a squeaky groan and a cloud of dust.
“Wait, are you!”
You drive away, leaving Eddie Munson to bite at the skin next to his fingernails at your total unpredictability. One thing was certain, he wouldn’t be sleeping tonight and not just because he was scared.
The link for Intentions is not working. It says there’s no post. I was in the middle and I accidentally swiped out. But the part I read was super good.
Heyyy sorry for confusion. Decided to make it a couple of parts long so gonna shift a couple things around so it makes more sense. Thanks for letting me know! Pt.1 will be up shortly
other Eddie Munson Hanahaki Disease fics:
Tears in the Rain
Gone with the Sin
prompt: when Eddie confesses he wants to ask Chrissy Cunningham to prom, you start coughing out flower petals.
pairing: Eddie Munson x female!reader
show: stranger things
note: besties, be proud of me! i wrote this in second person!! so this is a "you did X Y Z" narration, instead of "I did X Y Z" narration. is it stupid to be proud? probably a little - but i'm feeling good about this. maybe i'll even graduate to using "y/n" next.
second note: i've reedited!! thank you to everyone for pointing out when my wonky brain goes wonky and reverts back to first person. i think i fixed everything, but if you notice first person from now on...let's just live with it 😅
third note: given ages aren't confirmed in the show, let's establish that Chrissy is 17-18 years old, and Eddie's 19. reader's 18.
word count: 8.8k [got a bit carried away]
warnings: Hanahaki Disease ([Japanese folklore] fictional disease where the victim coughs up flower petals when suffering from one-sided love), cursing, angst, seemingly unrequited love, but things work out!
✅ no spoilers
🔪 please note there are a thousand ways to write Hanahaki Disease, and this is just my variation. yes, i did research, and yes, i tired my best.
🔞 none of the following content is appropriate for minors 🔞
Like every other Friday night, you hitched a ride back to his trailer with Eddie as you had nowhere else to be. Well, probably wasn't true as you were a social butterfly with plenty of prospective friends to hang out with, but your favorite place on any given day was always with Eddie.
He was home, he was safety, he was warmth, he was what you needed after either a really bad, or even a really good day.
Eddie had this superpower where he could either turn your bad mood around or he could increase your happiness tenfold. He was next to never upset or angry or frustrated, he was content to vibe in a constant state of "chill".
Your feelings for him might've started around your sophomore year, when he decked Jason Carver in the jaw for making you uncomfortable. Even to this day - it was one of the only times you've seen him angry, and the fact that it was because Jason was flirting with you made your heart lift. It spurred the hate between the two boys, but only solidified your everlasting friendship with Eddie. Yet, you buried these feelings out of fear of rejection, and change - you didn't want things to change.
You liked things where they were.
But it was getting harder to pretend you didn't like your best friend. As if everything he did didn't make you feel silly, stupid, and giddy all at once.
As if those wide, brown, doe eyes didn't make you melt, yet simultaneously make you feel stronger than before. A single look from him could give you enough confidence for a week.
As if his antics, pet names, hand holds, late night cuddle sessions when you were feeling lonely didn't put your stomach in knots but send you heart up to the sky, like if was filled with helium.
However, you were content because you never wanted to lose him. So, you'd suffer through whatever this was if it meant he stayed close. Despite the heaviness in your chest, you continued to pretend nothing was wrong because if Eddie picked up on it, he would surely hound you until you confessed - something you couldn't handle.
So, you curled up beside him in his (stained) bed with your head leaning on his shoulder as his hands distracted themselves by fiddling with the strings on his acoustic guitar while you nursed the joint between your lips. You were content to simply exist with him; be in his presence and listen to his musical talents. Occasionally, your hand would raise the joint to his lips, allowing him to take his own hit and for the peacefulness to prolong.
Things were good - like they've been for the past few years of being "best friends". I mean, yeah, you knew Eddie before the "Jason incident", but you were just a Freshman that only knew the town's Freak from a distance. You had two classes together. Often saw him at lunch. Sometimes gave him notes if he missed class. And ever since that day that he protected you from Jason's creepy moves, you've been thicker than thieves.
Things were quiet in his room outside of the occasional crackling of the joint's end, and his lazy strumming; things were peaceful; things were good.
Until Eddie sighed and leaned back to the wall behind you both, interrupting the simple thoughts in your head.
"What's up?" You asked quietly, turning to ash the joint in the plastic tray on his bedside table. "Huffin' pretty loud over there, pretty boy, I can practically hear you overthinking."
"It's stupid," he chuckled, focusing on the strings beneath his fingertips again. "Don't even think about it."
"I doubt it's nothing," you countered. "C'mon, you tell me any and everything."
"I, uh... I don't know how to tell you this thing, though..."
Now you were curious, "You kill someone?"
"What? No! God!"
"Gotta hide a body?"
"Not this weekend."
Nodding, you asked, "You fuck my mom?"
"Not yet, but can't say it's not on my to-do list," he teased lightly.
"Then I don't know what scenario there could be that you're too scared to tell me," you chuckled, smoking wafting in the thin air between you both, lingering from the lack of circulation. "C'mon, cutie, what's up with you? You don't usually hold back."
He sighed, the strings plucking harshly as he his head flopped back now. "It's just... Have you given any thought to prom?"
"Prom?" You repeated with a small laugh. "Not entirely, I don't know. Why? Thinking of crashing it?"
But he was silent, which made you a little nervous. You sat up and turned to face him head-on, your criss-crossed legs resulting in one knee pressing to his thigh. He looked like he wanted to say something, but a subtle shake from his head assured you that he changed his mind.
"Are you going?" he asked softly instead.
"Um, nobody's asked so I don't know. I'd like to, maybe," you tried to joke. "Why? You offering?"
He chuckled lowly, "Uh, well, I would be, if..."
"If?"
He gulped, "You know Chrissy?"
Of course you knew Chrissy Cunningham, who didn't? You didn't live under a rock, for God's sake. She was the designated 'it girl' of Hawkins, the 'queen' as people dubbed her - a sweet girl who was captain of the cheer squad that had an impeccable smile. Adorable strawberry blonde hair. A petite body, sweet voice, and of course, she'd been Eddie's crush since middle school. Yeah, you knew Chrissy Cunningham.
"Yeah," you breathed, nodding slowly. "What about her?"
"Well, I uh... I was thinking of asking her to prom. You know, before we graduate and get the fuck out of this town... Thought maybe I'd try my hand, you know? See if... See if something could finally happen."
You swear your ears started ringing because no way you heard him correctly, right? No way he was telling you he was going to ask Chrissy Cunningham to prom - no way. There wasn't any way. After all, the plan since about a year ago was that you would go together pending no other offers. No way the guy you've been in-love with for fucking YEARS was telling you he wanted to ask someone else.
And Eddie didn't know, but about 8 different guys had already asked you but you didn't want to go with them. You wanted Eddie to ask you - you wanted to spend a night of teenage normalcy with your best friend, and maybe get the chance to confess your feelings for him on the dance floor. Maybe you'd dress to match. Maybe he'd even get you a corsage - but Eddie wasn't the type.
So, why was he thinking about asking Chrissy? High school thriving Chrissy? Who would definitely want the stereotypical high school experience? Like - prom with a pretty dress, lots of laughter, her date giving her a corsage as her mom snapped pictures.
She would want all that, right? Would Eddie be the right date to give it to her?
You were honestly shocked he wanted to even go due to the idea that anything socially conforming was out of bounds for him. And when you made that pact, it was mostly out of a joke but you had hoped this whole time he was being serious. And he was being serious about prom, but not with you...
"Sweetheart?" Eddie asked softly, his brows now furrowed in concentration. "You okay? You look a little shaky."
Instantly, you nodded. "Yeah, totally, just, um... Just remembered I have this huge essay due Monday, yeah, uh-huh, yep. I should probably get started on it." Eddie's brows now fully crinkled as you jerked your leg away from his when his hand moved to lay on it, turning and instantly finding your belongings scattered around the floor of his bedroom. "Um, yeah, so, as for prom and Chrissy - I think it's cute. You should ask her, she'd be stupid to say no."
Eddie watched you tug your shoes on in haste, sitting up, "Hey, slow down, speed racer, I'll drive you - "
"No, it's cool," you assured swiftly, tugging your jacket on to combat the chill of the spring night. "I need the exercise."
Eddie scoffed, "I'm not letting you walk."
"I don't want a ride, Eddie," your voice took on an uncharacteristic hardened tick, something you've never had to use with Eddie. But you couldn't help it, your chest was caving in and lungs burning the longer you stayed there. "I just wanna walk for a bit, clear my head before homework, okay?"
He nodded slowly, "You sure, doll?"
"Positive."
Eddie frowned when your bag was tugged up your shoulder, turning from his room and jumping when he called, "Wait!"
Praying to God he was going to tell you he changed his mind and he wanted to ask you to prom - not Chrissy - you turned to look back to him. But he only pouted, "Don't leave without sayin' goodbye, sweetheart, c'mere."
Fearing the wet sensation coating your throat, you just backed up to the door and blindly reached for the doorknob, "You'll see me later, Eds. I've gotta go."
"Call me when you get home?" He asked, standing from his bed when you pulled his bedroom door open and moved out into the hall of his trailer. "Hey, hey, honey, what's the rush?" Eddie called, jogging a couple steps to follow after you.
"Just gotta go, Eds," you couldn't face him. But something tickled your throat and nose, prompting you to ask, "Um, do you have any tissues?"
He nodded, watching you pause by the front door before turning for the bathroom. A moment later, he returned with a box and handed it over, "Take it. I'm sure your allergies are acting up."
You nodded, "Thanks."
"Wait - "
But you were out the door and surging down the steps of his 'porch', turning on the gravel and making for the main road. Eddie watched you go from his front door, worrying over whatever he'd said, but after wracking his mind, he couldn't understand. He didn't need to know your chest was so painful, you debated if you were having a heart attack at 18; making you desperate to get away from him if it meant the pain would lessen.
You cried the whole walk home. The 8-minute car ride was actually a 41 minute walk due to the tightness in your chest, the tissue box tight in your hand as your lungs started to itch, burn, constrict themselves.
The coughing started that night. The entire walk, you used tissue after tissue to cough into and would ignore the flecks of color present against the soft white, shoving them down into your bag.
When you arrived home, the house was, as usual, empty. Steve Harrington used to hang out a lot with you due to how often both of your parents are out of town but once he started dating Nancy Wheeler, all visits stopped. Granted they were broken up now, he still didn't come back, and you were forced to get used to the loneliness. It left room for Eddie to slide into his place, often coming over to keep you company as being home alone for so long often made you nervous.
Eddie hated you feeling nervous, so, he had a couple of shirts and pants at your house for him to change into when he stayed the night. Now that he was going to make a move on Chrissy Cunningham, it made you think there wouldn't ever be other sleepovers. You worried he would never come back to your home, and an ice pick was conjured to stab through my heart.
In your room, you tossed your bag to your bed and groaned when it bounced off and spilled the contents over the floor. Shaking your head, you coughed a couple more times and got ready for bed; but soon, the coughing turned violent.
Kneeling over, your throat burned with crushing pain as your chest felt too tight with pressing tension. The heaviness was back, sitting right on your sternum and causing a twisting discomfort when you hurled into the toilet bowl. However, when your watery eyes opened, they were staring straight into clear water that was peppered with tiny little florals with swirls of bright red blood.
Panting in shock, confusion inked into your mind as you stood shakily to your feet and rushed for your bag again, pushing through the belongings to find the used tissues. Panic swelled in your chest when the tissues found, too, were coated in petals and blood.
"What?" you whispered to yourself, fear taking over. However, instead of doing the rational thing, like go to the hospital, you just threw the tissues away, flushed the rest, and curled up in bed out of exhaustion and draining adrenaline. Sobs wracked your lungs, making your body convulse and for the coughing to get worse.
You didn't move all weekend. You couldn't, for the pain was too great in your heart, mind, and body. Even when the phone rang multiple times through those two days, you couldn't care enough to get out of bed and answer it to see whatever was wanted from you. When the next Monday came around, you forced yourself to get in the shower and wake up from the cold water; getting dressed and heading out the front door to spy Eddie's van at the base of your driveway.
You sighed and made sure there were extra tissues in your bag as you made for his passenger door. When you hopped in, you were greeted with a glare.
"How was the essay?" he grits.
"Fine," you sighed, knowing it was a lie to make your swift escape, and leaned your arm on the door to prop your head up and stare out the window.
"Mhm. Thanks for letting me know you got home safe," he snipped. "Not like I was driving around at 1 am to make sure you weren't dead in a ditch somewhere."
You nodded slowly, "I forgot, I-I'm sorry."
"You forgot?" he repeated before scoffing. But when he glanced over and noted the heavy bags under your distant (watery) eyes, he frowned, "Hey? Y-You okay?"
"Mhm."
"Your nose is bleeding."
"Shit," you hissed, reaching for a tissue, and trying to mop up the blood from under both nostrils. "It's nothing," you tried to explain, sniffling a few times, and noting how sharp the action made your chest. Like something was stabbing through you, perhaps that ice pick again.
He shook his head, leering, "Suuuuure, mhm, okay." But when you didn't respond for another 3 minutes, he was annoyingly asking, "The hell's up with you?"
"Nothing, Eddie."
"Bullshit! You haven't looked at me once, didn't even greet me when you got in, and now you're sitting there, silent as the grave."
You only shrugged, not knowing how to put it in words, "Just tired, Eddie."
"Bullshit," he sighed. "But fine, if you don't want to talk, that's whatever. Just continue ignoring me, I guess."
Your eyes shut as you sighed, whispering, "I'm sorry."
"Why? What'd you do?"
Only shrugging, your head shook, and you sat up when you two made it to school. The moment the car stopped - not even in park - you were opening the passenger door and hopping out to take desperate gulps of fresh air. You waited a moment as Eddie got out, too, and just as his arm lifted to wrap around your shoulders to lead you into school, his attention was caught by someone else.
"Oh, there's Chrissy," he smiled, seeing the pretty cheerleader at her car. "Should I do it now?"
Gulping, you shrugged, "Do whatever makes you happy, Eds."
Eddie didn't understand what he did wrong to deserve your cold shoulder but figured he could talk to you later before making a beeline for Chrissy while you made for the front of the school. You ignored peers around you as you stuffed books and such into your locker, wheezing into a tissue when coughing took over.
A few other students paused to look at you with concern; you hand slamming to a closed locker as you couldn't draw breath in. The pain was suffocating, and the coughing made you nearly double over.
Robin paused at the sight, making her way over to you and just before she could ask if you were okay, she was gasping lightly. Looking up, you saw what caught her attention to spy Eddie Munson entering school with Chrissy Cunningham daintily hanging off his arm. Jason's glare was most prominent, but your best friend’s was much, much fiercer, and you? You had to look away because the ice pick was now hacking at your heart; palpitations making your chest throb with white-hot tension.
"Oh, no," Robin paused, glancing at you to see tears already in your eyes as your hands shook. "Oh, honey, I'm sorry - "
"Why?" You sniffled, shaking your head. "Doesn't matter, they look happy, right?"
"You don't," she whispered.
"Doesn't matter," you repeated. "I'll see you later, Rob."
She frowned as you charged away, watching you go as Eddie and Chrissy came to a halt beside her. "She say what was wrong with her?" Eddie asked the girl softly.
"No," Robin grit her teeth, offering him a stale up and down look. Though, she was slightly impressed Eddie bagged the popular cheerleader, she knew of your feelings for the metalhead, and huffed through her nose before taking off down the hall after you.
"Is everyone mad at me now?" He asked, looking down to the girl he'd successfully asked to prom.
"I'm not," Chrissy chirped with a soft smile.
So, here's the whole thing. Even though you've denied it for years, your friends knew DAMN well how in-love with Eddie you were. Robin had been the only one to really pick up on it a few years ago but kept quiet because of how close you and Eddie were. However, when you sat down for lunch, the Hellfire Club were ready to ask what was wrong when they saw their Dungeon Master enter the cafeteria with Chrissy.
They offered you looks of pity, understanding your behavior now.
Your hands started to shake, and you coughed harshly, bending at the waist to cough into a tissue half under the table. From beside you, Dustin caught a glimpse of pink and red in the tissue as your hand fisted over it and sniffled hotly. "Are you okay?" Gareth asked in concern, his wide eyes looking ready to shed tears. "You're sweating."
"Yeah," you whispered, catching sight of Eddie and Chrissy heading for your table. "Um, I-I forgot I have a test to make up in Spanish, so, I'll see you guys later, okay?" You rushed, picking up your untouched tray of food and shouldered your bag.
Before any of them could protest, you were tossing the tray and racing out of the opposite doors Chrissy and Eddie had come in through. You vaguely heard Eddie calling your name, never turning around, and shoving out of the doors.
You gasped when the fresh air hit you, not caring that you lied about some test and now headed down for the field. You didn't care if someone picked up on your lie. You didn't care about anything other than the crushing feeling in your chest; the way your lungs felt deflated, and how your throat was consistently wet from blood.
Robin had seen your abrupt departure and left Nancy Wheeler's side to follow you. When she found you under the bleachers, coughing and throwing up with tears down your cheeks, she knew something was wrong. Robin crawled under the bleachers, not caring about the trash or debris left, to reach your side and hold your hair back.
"Oh, my God," she wobbled, catching sight of the puddle under you. "W-What the hell is that?"
You panted, a string of blood hanging from your lips before falling to the saliva beneath you. "I-I think... I think something's wrong, Robin."
"No shit!" She hissed. "Let me take you to the nurse - "
"No, it's fine," you insisted, using another tissue to wipe at the blood under your nose. "I uh... I think I know what's going on."
"What?"
"We'll need to go to the library first," you nodded before shaking your head. "No, never mind, y-you should go back to class."
"Nope," she insisted. "I'll go to the library with you. Want me to call Steve? Get us a ride?"
You sniffled and nodded, tugging your bent knees into your chest as she nodded and begged you to stay put before dashing for the outside payphone. She felt anger as her eyes cast through the glass windows of the cafeteria, catching sight of Chrissy and Eddie laughing away with the rest of the Hellfire Club. Her fingers roughly punched in Steve's number and insisted he come pick you and her up. "Right fucking now, dingus!"
About 9 minutes later, Eddie had glanced out of the windows and caught the distance sight of Robin holding you in her arms and walking you (slowly) to Steve Harrington's trademark BMW.
His brows furrowed in confusion and concern before Chrissy's sweet voice was distracting him. In fact, he might've let himself get swept up in the sweetness of Chrissy - that he forgot you. The girl he's wanted since middle school was finally in his grasp but in order to do that, he had to let you go - resulting in cherry blossoms to sprout in your lungs.
The moment he made up his mind about Chrissy was the moment your fate was sealed. And after a trip to the library with Steve and Robin, you had your answer as to what was going on. It didn't make sense, but you understood there were three options for you at this point.
Option One: die. Literally, that was it. Let this disease kill you.
Okay, then Option Two: get Eddie to love you back... And that was seemingly farfetched and way out of asking range.
Third Option was to undergo a surgery, but according to literature, choosing this surgery would save your life but erase Eddie Munson from your memory. It was the only way to stop the pain besides dying from it or make someone to fall in love with you.
But that wasn't real love, was it?
So, you checked the book out and Steve drove you home.
You thought you could handle things, after all, the book said it could be manageable. So, you soldiered on and played everything off the next Monday as if you had some head cold making you a bit off, and not literal florals blooming in your fucking lungs.
Eddie didn't question it because he was too excited to tell you that Chrissy had said yes. She said yes - to him! To prom! And she was going to wear red, his favorite color. He was so shocked, it made you want to weep a little because Eddie Munson seemed to be the only one (minus Jason Carver) to not understand how amazing Eddie Munson truly was...
Well, maybe the rest of the school body didn't understand either, but that was beside the point. Eddie was always too hard on himself and hearing how shocked and happy he was that Chrissy said yes, just made you honestly sad. He didn't even know how loved he was, making the self-deprivation very real. It was once upon time ago that your job was to help him out of those ruts, but now it would be Chrissy's responsibility.
You knew if he was yours, you wouldn't let a single day go by where he thought he was inadequate. But he wasn't yours, and now that he had Chrissy, you knew he never would be.
Your throat swelled and more petals were coughed into a tissue in your hand when you realized that you'd bought a prom dress (in case Eddie did ask you) about a month ago, and it, too, was red. Yet, he was going to match Chrissy and you'd wasted $150 on a pretty, silk dress... And new heels because your mother insisted you feel (and look) like a princess.
You tried to be excited and happy for him, but it was hard to when Eddie was enraptured with Chrissy. You coughed more in that week than when you had that terrible flu 2 years ago.
When that Friday rolled around, you were heading for his van (like usual), only to find him and Chrissy waiting on you.
"Hey," you greeted cautiously, smiling at the pretty girl you never really had a full conversation with.
"Hey," Eddie smiled - and you noted the lack of pet name. "Uh, you ready to go?"
"Um, yeah," you cleared your throat, glancing at Chrissy again.
He understood your nonverbal question. "I'm thinking I'll drop you off at home first. Cool?" Eddie offered, looking at you as his arm snaked around Chris' waist.
Confusion warped into your voice, "Um, i-it's Friday?"
"Yeah," he nodded.
"I-I thought we hung out on Fridays? Like, every Friday?"
Eddie's other hand rose to rub the back of his neck, "Well, yeah, usually, but I'm taking Chrissy out on a date, so, I'll have to drop you off first."
"Oh," your eyes widened, and you felt so fucking stupid in that moment. "Shit, okay, my bad," you backed away, "I can get another ride, it's no big deal. Have fun on your date!"
"Hey, no, don't be ridiculous," Eddie shook his head, taking a tentative step forward as if he was nervous to leave Chrissy's side and approach you. "I take you home every day, c'mon. It's nothing, get in the van. I always take you home."
But you felt sick over the petty idea of sitting in the back while Chrissy took your seat in Eddie's car... Your place in Eddie's life.
Your head shook and a half-smile was forced over your lips. "No, it's seriously okay. You guys should go, it's cool. Have fun, okay?"
Eddie frowned, "I'll call you later tonight, okay?"
"Sure," you whispered, turning finally, and hustling your steps back for the school. Your hand balled in a fist to catch the splatter of blood and petals that shot out of your mouth, trying to shake the sick off so nobody would notice.
Light pink petals danced to the pavement behind you, and your heart plummeted with it as Eddie's van tires squealed when he peeled out of the carpark.
Robin was still at school and agreed to give you a ride home with Steve and Dustin Henderson; the two sharing looks of concern for you the entire drive. They kept asking if they could do anything, but the truth was, they could see the life slowly draining from you, and knew they couldn't do anything.
You didn't answer Eddie's call that night. You didn't let him drive you to school, either, since he'd been busy with Chris that all your conversations now revolved around the girl. This didn't mean he didn't come pick you up, but you usually always opted for the bus to "catch up on reading." You didn't hang out on Fridays either, because it was "date night with Chrissy", and you didn't sit at the Hellfire Club table at lunch.
It went on like this for another three weeks. Eddie replaced you with Chrissy, and she was everywhere you looked. You stopped going to lunch all together in an effort to save yourself from the sight of Eddie's arm around the pretty, popular cheerleader; instead, coughing out cherry blossoms under the bleachers and then forcing a smile on your lips like nothing happened.
The time you did spend together (a minuscule amount of time in comparison), Eddie would fill the space between you with chatter about how amazing Chrissy was - unaware of the pain he was causing you.
Unaware that every word strangled air and rational thought from you.
Unaware that you often held your breath to save you from the pain; to save you from bursting into tears; to save you from yelling at your best friend that you didn't care he finally bagged his crush.
Eddie was going mad, however. He didn't understand your distance, but he also didn't do anything to rectify the situation. He just figured you were going through something, and you'd show up at his trailer soon; tears down your cheeks as his arms open to welcome you.
He started to count the day since he last touched you. Eddie began to feel as if maybe he'd done the right thing by choosing Chrissy due to how far you pulled away from him. He's loved you for years but never admitted or confronted the feelings; so, he convinced himself to let you go in pursuit of Chrissy. So, to save himself from rejection of the most important person in his life, he thought it was a "safer rejection" by asking Chrissy.
He was just shocked she accepted, though he had a sneaking suspicion it was just to piss Jason off. Eddie didn't mind being her distraction because Chrissy was his distraction from you.
When the week of prom rolled around, you couldn't get out of bed because you were in excruciating pain in your heart and mind. Your mother had left on another business trip and only left a stack of cash for "emergencies", telling you she loved you, and never noticing your overflowing waste bin of bloody tissues. So, when Eddie rolled up that Monday, he was confused when you didn't come outside for a few minutes. He beeped, waited longer, beeped again - louder - before confusion troubled his heart.
He knew you were upset and distant, he knew you "liked" riding the bus now; but he also knew you weren't out of your house, yet. He planned on showing up earlier than the time you left, because he wanted to ensure you drove to school together - like usual.
Eddie got out of his van and approached your door, knocking repeatedly but never receiving an answer.
When he got to school, Chrissy told him to call your house and check on you - standing with him, as all he did was listen to the dial tone of a connecting call. You never answered.
At lunch, Eddie found Robin and asked her if she spoke to you at all this past weekend. She glared, "What? You didn't?"
"No," Eddie admitted, "I-I was with Chrissy the whole - "
Robin's eyes rolled and she stood abruptly, making Eddie take a step back. "Forgive me while I go vomit," Robin deadpanned, casting a single glare over his shoulder to the strawberry blonde before pushing past them both.
Eddie asked Hellfire what he'd done - but none of them had an answer. "She's not been looking well," Dustin mentioned. "Keeps coughing out blood."
"What?" Eddie asked, rigid with fear.
Dustin nodded slowly, "I don't think she knows I know, but Steve gave her a ride with us, and her tissues are all bloody."
"She's coughing out blood?" Gareth asked sadly, Dustin nodding. "That's not good, we should get her to a hospital."
"She won't go," Dustin frowned. "I heard Robin trying to convince her, but she keeps saying she's fine."
"She's not fine," Eddie growled.
"Obviously," Lucas rolled his eyes. "She's also not sat with us for weeks."
"She's been avoiding everyone," Jeff added sadly.
"Wonder why," Lucas sneered, casting a glare at his Dungeon Master.
"Am I supposed to know what you're insinuating, Sinclair?" Eddie snipped.
"Aren't you her best friend? Shouldn't you know that she's sick - instead of hearing it from Dustin?"
Eddie shrugged, "So, what? I haven't been able to track her every move. I've been busy - "
"With Chrissy," Dustin and Lucas chimed together; Lucas rolling his eyes before stabbing a green bean forcefully.
"We know," the Freshman 'all-star' basketball player rolled his eyes, pushing his tray away and glaring to the tabletop.
"What did I do?" Eddie asked, looking to his comrades with earnest confusion.
None of them answered because nobody knew what was really wrong. All your friends (including outside of Hellfire) felt concern fester because you were never forthcoming with problems. You never asked for help - it was something observed by others before they're offering you a hand. So, if you were going through something, they knew you'd handle it alone until you couldn't anymore and would confide in them.
Eddie grew increasingly frustrated as time went. For you, time was slower than ever, and you were forced to live through each painful retch and convulsion of your muscles. You laid in bed; a bloody projectile pattern splattered across your sheets; dotted with sticky, pretty petals.
The night of prom rolled around, and you were knelt in front of your toilet again. It had gotten worse; Dustin phoning you every day to update you on school, and unconsciously complaining about how much time Eddie and Chrissy were spending - causing a riff in the group. You tried to assure the Freshman that it was a new and exciting relationship for them both, but Dustin voiced his concerns after spying Chrissy speaking with her ex, Jason Carver.
The vomiting got worse after Dusty's phone call. Acid burned your nose and your throat wept for relief; finding only more pain as the toilet bowl before you decorated with not just your blood, but actual buds of flowers. You knew naturally that cherry blossoms didn't have thorns, but there, before you, were floating pieces of your flesh that was cut from the sharp floral.
You sobbed the whole night. Your chest was ready to cave in and the vomiting, nor pain, wouldn't stop. You wondered if this was how it ended for you - alone, on prom night, coughing out blood while the rest of the town got their romantic night.
Fuckers, you thought bitterly.
But then - the weirdest fucking thing happened. Amid vomiting more buds and thorns, your chest started to feel a little clearer and you could cough the rattling wetness from your lungs. There was just slight relief, but enough for you to draw in harsh breaths. You panted and spat out another bloom, trying to ignore how oddly poetically beautiful this was - to die by a fucking flower strangling you. Your body was thinner in the weeks since your turmoil started, throat too raw to pass any food as your lungs were stuffed with petals. It made living harder.
It made getting out of bed physically impossible.
It made your feet numb.
Your chest to ache.
Your head to throb.
And your stomach to knot itself.
Sweat pooled over your brow and your hand rose to wipe at your nose, smearing blood over your cheek. More vomiting. More pain. More petals and blooms and thorns and blood.
It felt like it'd never end but that was the most justice you had - that this would kill you because you couldn't let go of the love you had for Edward Munson. Love that would last a lifetime - or until it killed you.
Seemed like a fate closer than graduation.
You were startled when knuckles began rapping on your window as another violent purge overtook you. Shaking and sobbing, you ignored whoever had climbed up to your window because you were so focused on keeping your hair back as you purged.
The rapping turned into full-on pounding; the glass pane shaking.
The blossoms were bigger now. Thicker. Small, wee little stems on them that only added to your pain. Petals were left behind on your tongue and sticking to your cheeks; throat bleeding into your stomach from the way thorns shredded it up and down.
"Hey, hey, hey, sweetheart," you recognized Eddie's voice over the sounds of your retching. "Oh, my God, my sweet girl. Shit, you're okay, you're okay, I got you," he assured quietly, taking your hair in his hands to hold back as another wave racked through your body. "You're okay, let it out," he soothed, sitting on the lip of the bathtub, and rubbing your back.
You sniffled and spat the remaining petals from your mouth, using your arms to cover the toilet bowl and block his sight. "W-What're you doing here?" You asked through a thick tongue.
"Your window was open, I let myself in." He reached out for the toilet paper and pulled a bit off, gingerly reaching up and wiping the blood from your lips. "A-Are those petals?" He asked in shock, looking at the toilet tissue.
"Why're you here, Eddie?" You asked again, turning to close the toilet lid and rest your head on it. The cool porcelain felt nice on your feverish skin.
"Where else would I want to be?"
You scoffed, "Just fuck off back to Chrissy, I know that's where you want to be."
It was quiet as sweat dried on your skin and created a new cooling sensation across your tired muscles. "Why're you throwing up blood and petals?"
"Why are you here?" You snapped, lifting your head to glare at him. "If I wanted you around, I would've called."
"Haven't called me in weeks."
"Then maybe I don't want you around. Just go - get out," you grit, turning away from him again. "This is hard enough without you fucking here. Get out."
It was quiet as Eddie didn't move, your chest rattling with every labored breath to make it sound like a wheeze. It caused a new wave of violent coughing, Eddie's eyes widening when you appeared to choke on something in your throat, toilet lid lifted as your fingers crammed in the back of your throat.
From this position, Eddie could make out the blood and blooms floating in the water, flinching when you threw up blood - a sight he'd never wanted to see again. Thorns cut your mouth and lips, making you whimper in sheer pain as your chest was ready to cave in finally. Sweat coated your skin again, and Eddie refused to leave your side. He watched you as your body shook with each retch; how the color of blood stained your lips like expensive make-up.
When you panted and threw yourself back to the wall behind you, Eddie reached out and started to wipe blood from your nose, mouth, chin, and cheeks.
"Why didn't you tell me?" He asked.
"Tell you what?" You wheezed.
"That you were sick."
You scoffed, "Would it have mattered? You're too busy with Chrissy."
He shook his head, "We broke up."
Now this - this shocked you. Your brows furrowed, "It's prom night."
"Mhm."
"All you wanted was to go to that stupid fucking dance with her," you pointed out with a glare.
Eddie nodded, "I thought so, too. Until we got there, and I realized that I was with the wrong girl... I thought I wanted to be with her, she was unobtainable and has been my crush for years..."
"Guessing the real thing didn't compare with your imagination?" You sneered, rolling your eyes. "Big fucking deal, Eddie - "
"No, no, I uh... I just, we got there, and I wanted it to be you."
Something in your chest twisted.
"That's not funny," your eyes rolled again.
"I'm not joking. I wanted to be with you all night - hell, every day of the past few weeks that you've been avoiding me, I just wanted to be with you. Why did you pull away from me? Was it that shitty to see me and Chris together?"
You admitted, "Yes."
"What?"
You chuckled dryly, "It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
And there it was... "Yeah," You whispered, "love me like a best friend, right - " Only, the words were gargled as you leaned forward and puked violently.
"No, sweetheart," Eddie frowned, holding your hair again. "Shit, this isn't good, baby, we need to get you to a hospital."
"No," You groaned into the bowl.
"Please," he begged, other hand coming to soothe up and down your back. "You're in pain, and - "
"It doesn't matter, Eddie," you coughed again, sticking your tongue out to pick a few petals off. They fell to the water, a sightly morbidly beautiful image as thick blood swirled.
"It does matter! To me, it does!"
"Why!?"
"Because - Jesus Christ!" He raged, anger finally morphing over his expression. "I'm in love with you, God damn it!"
Your brows furrowed, bottom lip trembling, "W-What?"
He shook his head, "You really don't know?"
"Know WHAT?" You felt anger swell in your stomach. "That I've spent the past however many years thinking I was only good enough to be your friend, and now you're telling me you're in love with me? What? Did Chrissy stand you up? You need a rebound?"
He sighed, nudging you over an inch to slide down the wall into the space between you and the bathtub. You both stared forward, a light splattering of blood across the pale porcelain you stared at.
"I was the one who left her," he admitted with a sigh. "I just... We got to the first dance, and I just hated myself, because all I wanted - for the last few weeks, too - has been to have you in my arms, again. I've missed you more than anything."
You shook your head, "You've wanted Chrissy - "
"She was a want, doll," he whispered. "But I realized tonight that you're a need. I need you in my life, baby, please believe me. Look, I-I got caught up in the excitement of dating Chrissy, but she knew my heart wasn't 100% in it, and told me it was okay."
"Ch-Chrissy told you to leave?"
"She told me to run to you and not let go when I had you in my arms," he nodded, looking down at me now. "She knew the whole time... I couldn't stand being away from you, not talking to you, so she offered to help distract me until I bucked up the nerve."
"Nerve to what?"
"Ask you to be mine," he smiled softly. "Look, I know, I've had this thing for Chris, and when I finally had her, I just didn't know what to do. But she knew the whole time, and insisted I come find you."
"Oh," you breathed, chest tight for a new reason.
"And I realized I was at prom with the wrong woman," he nodded, gingerly reaching his hand out to stroke over mine. I sniffled and turned my hand over to lace our fingers together, leaning into his shoulder. "Not seeing you there, I felt worse than ever before. I couldn't admit I was in love with you - I was scared we'd lose this. Our friendship, we'd lose the comfort and protection."
Tears swelled in your eyes as you squeezed them shut; a few tears rolling sadly down your cheeks. "You don't mean that..."
"How can you say that?" He asked incredulously.
"Because you just feel bad," you whimpered. "It's okay, Eddie. I'm okay - you don't have to do this. It doesn't matter - "
"Anything regarding you, to me, definitely matters. Why're you so against this - against us?"
"Because it's not real," you sniffled. "You've been in love with - "
"Please, please, go ask Chrissy yourself," Eddie begged, shaking his head. "She'll tell you - go ask Dustin, Garth, Jeff - anyone, baby. Please. I'm in love with you, and I need you to believe it."
"Why now?"
"Why what?"
"Why tell me now?"
He chuckled, "Because I hoped there was enough time to get here and take the girl of my dreams to prom."
"You don't even like prom. Or any social gathering, for that matter."
He chuckled, "Yeah, very true, but you're everything to me and I know you wanted to go. Remember last year?" You sighed, soft smile stretching across your face. "You were so excited that I made you that pact that if neither of us had a date, we'd go together." You nodded against his shoulder. "And I just thought... I thought other guys wanted to take you, and you'd want to go with them more sine they could give you the full 'prom experience'. So, I panicked and focused on Chrissy..."
You sighed, "I wish you told me the truth... And that you'd have just asked me properly."
"I regret nothing more," he sighed. "Because it made you feel left out and neglected."
You nodded, "Eddie?"
"Yeah, peaches?"
The old nickname from 10th grade made heat pool in your chest, cheeks, and ears; feeling flustered as you whispered, "I'm in love with you, too."
"Yeah?" He chuckled.
"Mhm."
He sighed, "Oh, thank God."
You couldn't help but chuckle lightly, "What?"
He looked down at you with a grin, "Been waiting years to hear that."
"Oh, is that so?"
"Since I decked Carver in the face, yeah," he breathed. "Just wanted to pull you into my arms and tell you how much I loved you."
"Maybe if you did, we could've had more time together."
"We have all the time in the world now, baby," he beamed. "'Cause I'm not letting you go - hear me? You're mine, and I'm not letting go."
You smiled and leaned up so you could rest your forehead on his, "I don't want you to let go."
"I'll hold on forever, baby," he whispered. "But I have something important to ask you..."
"Hmm?"
"Think you're feeling up for a dance with me?"
You chuckled and nodded, "Uh, maybe one. Do we have to go to the school?"
"Nope, not if you don't want to."
You paused for a moment, asking shyly, "Eddie?"
"Yeah, peaches?"
"Would you go to prom with me?"
Eddie chuckled, "You're throwing up blood, baby, I think I should take you to the hospital instead. C'mon, instead of a prom dress, I'll dance with you in a hospital gown."
You couldn't help but giggle under your breath. "Come with me, I need to show you something," you sighed after, reaching forward to flush the blood and petals before standing up. With his hand in yours, you lead him from the bathroom and to your room, sitting on the bed and placing a book in his lap.
"What am I looking at?"
"Just... Read this page," you pointed to the paragraph you wanted him to read; taking the spot beside him and leaning to his shoulder again as he scanned the page quickly.
"Holy shit," he breathed at the end, looking up at you with tears in his eyes. "Doll, no, no, no. I-I did this to you?"
"I did it to myself," you whispered.
"B-But I've been in love with you, too? So, how did this happen?"
"Neither of us admitted it to ourselves. At least for me, it was until the night you told me you were thinking of asking Chrissy out."
"For me, it was until tonight," he realized with a whisper. "I-I told Chrissy I loved you, an-and it was the first time I admitted it..."
You nodded, "Yeah... So, uh... Yeah."
"Fuck," he shook his head. "I'm so sorry, I-I didn't know it hurt you this bad. Jesus Christ, sweetheart, you didn't deserve that. I'm so sorry."
"But it's over now, right?" you asked quietly.
"Yeah, baby, it's all over," he nodded, tossing the library book aside to turn and wrap you in his arms. He whined lightly and tugged so you were straddled in his lap, running a hand through your hair. "Oh, my sweet girl, I'm so sorry. I can't imagine the pain."
"You're here now," You whispered into his neck, fingers twirling a strand of his hair as your other hand clung to his neck. "That's all I care about."
"I'm never leaving you again," he swore, arms tight around my waist to drag me all the closer. "I'm so sorry, peaches, I-I didn't mean to hurt you."
"It's okay," you promised, sniffling after. "I could've spoken up, too, but I was ashamed. I didn't want to ruin anything between you and Chrissy."
"Promise me, you'll tell me from now on. Okay? I don't care what's happening or where you and I stand - you fucking tell me if something's going on with you, okay?"
You nodded, sniffling lightly, "Yeah, okay, baby, deal."
"Hey," he cooed, pulling me from his neck. His hand reached up to caress the side of my cheek, "I love you, pretty girl."
The smile on your lips felt silly, but you replied, "I love you, too, baby."
"Can I kiss you? Please?" He pouted, making you chuckle lightly before reaching for his cheek and bringing him in to meet your lips. He groaned in relief, hands tightly over your ribs before sliding to your back as his tongue poked against your lips, sweeping into your mouth in a slick dance. You whined lightly, Eddie making a noise of surprise as he pulled back, a string of saliva trailing between your lips.
Your brows furrowed as he reached up and picked something from his tongue; a light pink cherry blossom petal stuck between his pointer and thumb. "Oh, my God," you wheezed, leaning forward to rest against his chest and push your face into his neck. "I'm so sorry."
He chuckled and let the petal flutter to the ground, "Kinda hot."
"Eddie," you whined.
"I'm sorry, baby," he chuckled, pecking the side of my head. "Are you feeling better?"
"Mhm, much better now, honestly. Having you here helps."
He pulled back to grin brightly at you, "Wanna go to prom then?"
You sighed lightly, gazing down at him in his suit and smiling lightly when you pressed over his red shirt. "Did you match Chrissy?"
He sighed, "She ended up choosing a green dress. Thought red was more my color," he smirked lightly. "But I can't lie, we looked like human Christmas."
You snorted in humor. "Red's definitely your color," you agreed, glancing back at your closet before back at him. "Um, wanna give me a few minutes? We can leave after?"
"Take as much time as you need, peaches," he nodded, leaning in with another smile to press his lips to your own. He chuckled a few times, pecking his lips rapidly before pulling away.
Within an hour, your hair was fixed off your neck; make-up minimal but still noticeable; and red dress shimmied up your body to then tie over your shoulders. Lacing your shoes on, you looked in the mirror before exiting your room and descending the stairs to find Eddie hunched over a counter, working in the kitchen on something.
You cleared your throat as your fingers fiddled together nervously when Eddie turned, and you swear time stopped. "Shit," he breathed, eyes weeping you up and down. "Oh, my... God."
"You've said that," you teased. "Whatcha makin' over there?"
He smirked and picked up a flower from the counter, turning and taking your wrist. "My girl needs a corsage," he explained, showing off the flower he'd clipped from an old bouquet and then fashioned with a rubber band and safety pin. "There," he smiled when it was settled, "now you're ready for senior prom, huh?"
You nodded, hands placed to his chest as you smoothed out a few wrinkles, "You look unbelievably good right now."
He chuckled, "Look who's talkin'. Givin' Bo Derek a run for her money, aren't you? God damn."
You couldn't help the bright grin across your face, stepping into his embrace. "I love you," you whispered.
"I don't think I'll get tired to hearing that," he beamed, pecking your lips after. "I love you, too, baby - so much. And I'm so sorry it took me this long to admit it. You didn't deserve anything you suffered through..."
"It's done now," you nodded.
"And we're never going back," his hands rose to caress either of my cheeks. "Now - wanna go rock this prom?"
"Smoke up your van after?"
"You know it, princess," he grinned, pressing another kiss to your lips. "My lady," he smirked teasingly, offering his bent arm.
"My lord," you breathed, arm around his, and chest feeling lighter than it had in weeks months. Maybe things would be okay and they could work out, but for now, it was refreshing to live in the moment with Eddie. Your partner in crime. Your other half. Your best friend, and now your boyfriend. Someone you adored - and someone who adored you in full return.
Maybe love wasn't too bad after all - when it's not trying to suffocate you from the inside.
My father's authority rained over the crowd of grey and beige with his spit and I wasn't talking about the guy upstairs.
"Every, every day, our Lord is testing us!"
You could hear my restless gaze in this quiet little church in our conservative little hometown.
"If he wasn't testing us, how would you account for the sorry state of our society..."
This was Sunday for the teenagers thrown in her to wipe them of sin by their parents but for me and my sister, this was life.
"For the crimes that plague the big cities of this country..."
A life where you wouldn't even dare dance in case your own blood would burn you at the stake.
"When he could sweep this pestilence from the face of the earth with one mighty gesture of his hand?"
It wasn't a question, religion was never up for discussion in Bomont.
"If our Lord wasn't testing us, how would you account for the proliferation these days of this obscene rock and roll music..."
My sister and I share a guilty look as we had more than one life in this tiny town and only one of them we could project to our father.
Not only was the arrow pointing to us obvious but there was another head at the other side of the room that hung low at the mention of something as normal and harmless as music. There must be a new boy in town as his reactions were not yet trained to hide away from the sea of judging eyes all doing God's work.
He was exciting, the same disinterest in the twinkle of his eye and fluffy hair and a striped suit that screamed big city. It was the place I wanted to go so I wanted to find out more about this guy. His eyes crawled the room at the mention of sexuality and he rubbed his tired eyes into his hand.
He must've had a long journey.
"If our Lord wasn't testing us, why, he could take all these pornographic books and albums and turn them into one big fiery cinder like that!"
I snickered a little at the mention of things such as these from my father, the hesitation on his lips was comedic and the way he said these words were like as if he tried speaking german for the very first time. It just sounded weird, wrong.
My little snicker made the spark on the other side of the fence turn towards me and hold a little grin everywhere but his lips that remained stoic. Seems he had this town figured out a little better than I thought...
He held my gaze there, challenging me to ignore these words of wisdom and turn to sin until a hand came smashing down from wood that made us jump higher than a terrified cat. I thought it was the big G until I saw the shame and passion in front of me continuing his weekly speech.
It was God's day after all.
That didn't stop him from turning his head once more, I grin with a lifted eyebrow as to portray my intrigue but I never turned to face him again. I let him study me as I pretended to care at the same old words that got shouted my way whenever I gave in to 'sinful actions'.
There was a teeny tiny gasp near me as Rusty spotted the gaze of the new guy lasering this way and nudged Ariel with a girly whisper. She turns to him with the same arrogant intrigue, her bouncy curls flicking in my face in slow motion and her baby blues sizing him up. Her lips, painted only slightly curled up only slightly.
Rusty's long ponytail continued to wiggle about like a real horse's tail as they chuckled together at the cute boy looking their way, not in a million years thinking that he could be possibly looking at me, the one who never really existed in this town hidden by the wingspan of queen Ariel.
"I welcome his test!"
Ariel was beautiful, attractive, intelligent and charming with enough power to mould herself into whatever shape she wanted based on who she was talking to. Me, however, I didn't really talk to anyone and had only a handful of friends that wouldn't nudge my side when a guy looked at me because it never happened.
It never happens.
"I welcome this challenge from my Lord..."
She could poke and poke and poke but it was only a matter of time that he burst. He would eventually fall for her and I would just be a name in registration. Anyway, it was nice to know that I was first for a change.
I don't know if God gave me this challenge but the day that Rusty got it all wrong was the day that the world went all wrong like watching a dog walk on its hind legs.
"Come on mom just one more page, I'm almost finished."
Sam was practically on his knees begging to his mom and Lucy could never understand one little bit the deep connection between a boy and his comics.
Sam didn't even like that horror stuff that he was reading, he'd always scream at the creatures that his lamp made and the voices that the wind would create. It was a sight for sure to see a grown-ass kid running around screaming in his bedroom.
"No Sam, we have a busy day tomorrow. It's grandpa's animal festival thingy! Plus I need to know you're living a healthy lifestyle while I'm gone."
"How could I forget? Your 'big date'. Yes and this comic is helping me to prepare for either a) being kidnapped/murdered by vampires and/or b) deal with the horror that will be that festival, mom. Try to understand!"
I had to admit when Sam got all whiny and teenagery while making up excuses not to go places or bicker with his mom, I couldn't help but chuckle at him. It was like he was a character, all exaggerated in all the right places- too good to be true you could say. But, here he was right in front of me while I was in the shadows.
"Fine. No more attitude though. This family's been through a lot."
"I know. I know"
"20 minutes then lights out."
He smiles that goofy flirty smile of his, looking straight towards the closet doors.
"You're the best!"
"I know!"
Nanook trotted after Lucy proudly to wave her off I'm sure.
The door shut and another one opens. I come falling out of that closet as if I was being suffocated by stuffed dead animals, dirty designer laundry and hidden posters of gorgeous girls. I coughed, catching my breath from having to hide my breath all the time and all he does is laugh mischievously at his mom's stupidity.
"You okay?" he asks, laughing at my outburst quite literally.
"Are you kidding? Do you know how many times this thing poked me in the butt?" I held up a dead hedgehog carefully, feeling the tiny pokes still in my butt from earlier.
He could only laugh and lift his brows.
"Well you better get used to it, it's not the only thing that's gonna be poking you tonight."
I put the dead animal down, feeling as if it was slightly out of place and copy Sam's devilish invitation to his bed where he was laying.
"Is that so?"
I make my way over to him, his comic book laying on his chest as there is better entertainment in front of him now- or so I hoped. I straddle his slightly sitting position, hands comfortable finding their comfort place around his neck and weaving into his blonde hair comfortably. It was still wet from where he bathed earlier and stuck to his flushing face like the sauce to spaghetti.
"Was it worth the wait?" he asks, looking to the closet again where there was a tiny intimidating gap that all the animals could peer out of if they wanted to.
I slid down him, embracing his warm chest over his duvet until he throws it over us both, locking us together in a place so that we could never escape. I didn't really want to either.
"I'm in no rush," I whisper, looking up at him as I finish to see him already figuring me out from above.
His big blue eyes looked at me and I knew they wondered 'what is this girl?' and 'how did I get so lucky?' and this wasn't me being selfish, it was a fact since he reminded me of those questions every single moment we spent together. I wondered the same thing but he's a guy so kinda wondered differently.
Sam's lips capture mine from somewhere way further above than where he was, so above it was heavenly. Sometimes we'd like to shout that we're older than what people think but it was times like this where we enjoyed being young and young other- not having to worry about anything other than this very kiss. But, at the same time, we were maturer and wiser since we kissed and we lived like it was the last time we could ever as if someone was coming to take it all away.
He throws the comic book to the side and I jump sensitive to all the sounds. His arms squeeze my frame, growing more confident in the way we touched and mounting me under the warmth of the sheets.
"I can't wait for a whole weekend of this," he groans in between kisses, distracting me with his words from the pressure he was adding to my neck.
I really tried to hold back my sounds, I really did, like I did in the closet but sometimes nature just has a way of letting all of it out against your will. After all, there was no controlling nature.
"Me neither."
Biting down hard, my chest collided with his suddenly as my back tensed to the sky. He wasn't doing anything other than dating me and still it could drive me crazy.
I used to panic about this kind of thing and Sam said he could feel it in our first awkward little kiss together. You think but how will I know when to do this, what do do with this but there is no answer. You see, even someone as painfully overthinking as me, when faced with that moment at that moment just does it. You just do it and it all makes sense and you become so proud of yourself for something so stupid.
Drilling me against the mattress, his head travels lower down until I could see the outline of his quiff in the space between my middle and his baggy shirt that I was wearing only. He kisses down, leaving the redness of his lips everywhere including my face and my vision. I was seeing red but not the bad red like in Vampires Everywhere, the good red.
The red that can make you feel overwhelming things.
"Can I try something?"
His tone is serious, persuasive and full of hope as if his whole world would crash down if I said no.
Of course, I said yes regardless of his persuasion techniques and I couldn't help but get a little hotter by his question, really feeling that passion that all the older girls chatted about in school while they left me out the circle.
I nod up on my elbows, I nod everywhere and he could feel it with his head directly facing my crotch at this point. The heat I'm sure was like a hairdryer to his face and the wetness and pulsing was surely like he was holding a human beating heart.
"It'll feel good, I promise."
I already knew it would but I didn't know what he was doing.
I was still young- although I'd hate to admit- and of course, being young my knowledge of sex stretched no further than making out and what some of the girls did behind the bleachers while getting out of health class.
He was so far down when my heartbeat reached a deadly pace that his whole body was lying on the bed apart from his head and the tops of his shoulders. Sam's blue eyes were now black, looking at my underwear as if accomplishing a lifelong dream like getting to a top of a mountain and finally getting to embark on that dream.
His breathing alone was driving me insane, in and out, in and out just like my own. The exact same pace. The exact same anxiety and heaviness within it.
What if I'm not sexy?
What if she doesn't like it?
But both 'what if I'm not good enough?'
He warmth of his exhales were brushing against me making tiny pricks of joy and pleasure begin before the DJ had arrived at the party. And then he kissed that other part of me and suddenly I didn't have to worry and even if I wanted to I couldn't.
This was the life.
"I'm so glad you invited me over," I breathed, the crown of my head digging into the headboard to try and bring myself back to reality with pain as so normal life of a human should feel this good at any moment.
He moans into me, tongue wiggling into me after teasing my clit for a while. I didn't really understand what he was doing and had no idea how he was so confidently inexperienced but I didn't care. It was too good to care.
I tried not to roll my eyes when he hummed into me but I couldn't help it. My body had lost control of all of me and the puppet strings had been cut.
My hand flies to the headboard as if he's pulling me more and more towards him, like a black hole taking me in part by part. That black hole continued to suck me in, quite literally, until I reached the core and it good better, nicer and whinier.
By that, I meant I was close.
"Sam, I'm close," I look to him for help as if he could help me at all in his moment.
He replies with that smirk of his, as usual, spreading along with me down there and detaching himself from his previous location. He inserts a finger into me, sending me quickly from a disappointing transition to an 'oh my god what is he doing!'.
I grab the collar of his shirt, pulling him back up towards me in hope that his frame would mute the noises that spilt out of me as dark and as deadly as an oil spill.
"Holy shit you're so hot," he whispers into my ear, youthful voice twitching them as he bites them lightly and playfully.
Was there a secret class in school that I didn't know about?
"Sam."
He asks if I'm ready.
"Oh, Sam."
I nod aggressively.
"Sam please."
He thrusts straight into me.
"Sam."
He continues to torture me.
"Y/N."
He starts the noises.
"Sam."
I reciprocate.
"Sam!"
My mouth was closed.
"Y/N you there?"
So was his.
Too quickly for us to move, the door to him room slams open before we can make it less obvious that we were fucking. Luckily the sheet covered us but no fabric could cover the gasps we made that didn't help our case at all.
Warnings: swearing, innuendos, grinding, Buddy Griffith deserves his own warning he’s such an underrated babe
It's weird how one tiny action can have a ginormous knock-on effect on everything in your life.
If you disagree and totally see how this is possible, I bet you that getting stuck under a table is not a thing you would recognise as one of those tiny actions.
It was 3:55 on a Tuesday and I was spending my empty time after school with my buddy, Buddy. We didn't really have to do much, I just stood and laughed for a while at his new room revamping with tits and ass every place you looked. It was hilarious- well hilarious if you hadn't been crushing on the kid since you could both hold hands in the playground.
He was like a brother to me at this point but like a hot brother that you just want to take- okay maybe not brother...
He claims to not remember but I was closer to Buddy as a kid than his sister, Terri. We'd skip around the yard, hand in hand not caring about the teeny tiny insults being thrown at us by people who had only just learned to speak.
But that's the way it was and over the years I realised, I didn't do that out of friendship but for a totally selfish reason which was that I liked him a lot, no not even that loved! Then it was too late, his hormonal brain caught up with his mouth and now there's pussy all over his walls.
Tragic.
"God damn it, Buddy, will you stop throwing that damn ring around? You're gonna take one of those girls' eyes out!"
For the past 30 minutes, Buddy has found peace in taking my ring off of my own finger and tossing it at the wall so that it bounces back to him. I'm not sure he really understood the value in things like that but it wasn't as if it was a relic. I got it online. I just liked it.
"Okay sorry, one more!"
And with that, the ring doesn't bounce back this time and his face drops.
There is an echoing sound of silver falling behind his narrow desk, piled underneath with shelves and old hobbies of his that never truly went away. I glare at him and he shrugs as an apology.
Perfect.
I knew he wasn't gonna get it, not wanting to get his jeans dirty probably so I roll up my sleeves and get ready to go under...the desk.
I crawl under and I hear the silence of anticipation behind me. I leave it all behind to go into the dusty cave that was the underneath of Buddy's desk. Having so much Pizza was maybe a bad idea since I had to really squeeze to get through. I used my carrots to better my eyesight and eventually found my ring.
"Got it!" I shout in victory, feeling the cool metal beneath my dirty fingers.
"Buddy?"
"Oh- uh- um...yeah?"
I furrowed my brows in confusion with his really weird response. I couldn't wait to get the answer as I crawled away from the desk, shaking his shoulders in my dusty hands ready to lecture him about respecting others' possessions.
I couldn't wait but maybe I'd have to since I didn't seem to be moving from under the desk.
Shit.
My boobs squeezed against the tiny shelf on the other side, which was currently closing me in like a nutcracker. I panicked, shuffling about a bit until I realised I was probably royally screwed.
The breeze was travelling up my skirt from the outside but down here, the heat was invading my face at an insane pace. The confusion was all around, including my friend on the other side who was calling out to me, a little too nervous to be laughing at me.
"Buddy help me," I grunt, wincing at the feeling of my boobs pressing against the wood that was sending splinters through me like I had fallen down a hole on top of a billion toothpicks all at once.
I hear the scrambling of his converse behind me, rushing to help me and not noticing the awkward position until it was a little too late.
He was on his knees behind me, either hand on the side of my hips, crotch digging into my butt furiously as he tries to pull me out. It was suggestive, wild and driving me crazier than this claustrophobic feeling. The position, if walked in on, would be one for the history books and no explanation whatsoever could justify why Buddy Griffith was dry humping my ass right now.
"Buddy..."
He doesn't say anything, frozen in the spot with only one thing moving and getting harder and harder and let's just say it wasn't his grip.
Despite the determination in my voice, I was ready to give up my freedom in the outside world just for him to stop pulling and start pushing straight into me as the feeling was unbelievably empowering for a little girl like me.
That escalated quickly!
"Keep pulling," that brings him back to reality, ready to pull me out again with a raging boner and an ass fully on show for him that's actually not from his posters but from his friend stupidly deciding to wear a skirt that day!
"How can I pull you? I can literally see your underwear right now!" He exclaims.
"Just pull me damn it! I'm getting claustrophobic down here and there's a dirty pizza! What the fuck is that moving on it! It's moving! Oh my god, Buddy quick!"
He pulls.
"Stop saying my name like that it's not helping!"
He pulls harder.
"Stop listening to me and keep pulling so I don't have to keep feeling your boner on me right now!"
And harder again.
"It's the pictures Y/N! I can't help myself! They're staring at me dry humping a girl and I can't deal with it!"
And harder and harder again.
"Well if you were actually gonna do it I expect a little more effort thank you very much- Harder Buddy, I'm almost there!"
He pulls and pulls and pulls.
"Y/N," he grunts, holding my butt and continuing to pull.
"You got it-"
He continues to pull when I'm free sending us both tumbling backwards into the place with clean air and fewer creatures living off of Buddy's lazy bacteria.
When I was hurled backwards he came with me at the same speed until he hit the wood of his bed. This boy really had to start investing in some plastic or else I'd turn into a spike ball.
With a groan from both of us, we slumped against the wall, my back on top of his stomach. I clutching my back which was aching with my position for a minute or ten under his desk on all fours. That sounds really wrong...
I roll off of him and gather my surroundings, not even managing to take in the cobwebs on his ceiling before his face blocks it and that familiar crotch is connected with me again. Why did he roll on top of me?
We were caught in the moment and when e asked me to kiss him, there was something else in his eyes that wasn't desperation.
"Kiss me Y/N," his voice echoes and I find myself staring at his lips to crave what I could be touching.
So I do.
And I didn't regret the bruising on my ribs one bit.
Billy fucked up the new job Alec got for him and he knew it.
Oh he fucked someone else too but oh well.
━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━
Warnings: swearing, mentions of cheating, references to sex, hurt feelings, asshole Billy, fancy Alec more here honestly this should just be an Alec imagine ignore title.
"How's that meaning of life coming along Kev?"
Everyone chuckles except for Kevin who just exhales his lung cancer at a howling Alec.
When the whole gang was in the bar together it was the best feeling ever with tons of laughter, sweat, dancing when you didn't even know you were moving, saying things you never meant to say, lots of drinking and just forgetting about the responsibilities that we'd all have to face by morning.
"Alec, when are you gonna get a new car? One that truly expresses your lifestyle as the perfect couple."
Billy faced me, his silver little earring glistening under the hard light every time he laughed at one of Alec's jokes or when someone got up for drinks and fell to their ass. Although the crowded bar was not really the most romantic setting, it was these moments with Billy that I appreciated most. I liked going on dates but dates with friends were even better.
"As soon as you settle down Jules."
Tonight though, he didn't talk to me much, ignored most of the things that I had to say to him and used any excuse he could to shrug or hum instead of talk. The rest picked up on it even with starry eyes and deafened ears by the music.
The music was so loud that I could feel it in my chest, right beside the undeniable hurt that I was sensing.
"Excuse us, ladies, gentlemen, we're just taking a trip to the little boys' room," Alec announced to the table, an arm around Billy that was guiding him towards the far side of the bar where many people gathered to not do things you would typically do in a bathroom.
I saw him gesture to the girls with his noisy face to comfort me or some crap. The man never knew the meaning of subtlety.
"He's probably just asking him about the job Y/N. Don't sweat it," Jules rubbed my arms beside me and I leaned into her embrace, eyes still glued to what was on the other side of that door.
"I don't know Jules, I don't know."
---
Billy was in comfortable silence with Alec as they both leaned into urinals the opposite sides of the room.
"How're things Billy, haven't seen you in a while now," Alec asked from his side, knowing how false he sounded but luckily Billy was too far gone to notice.
The kid couldn't even hold himself up to piss.
"You saw me yesterday," Billy chuckled, zipping up and washing his hands.
Alec sighed, finishing and washing.
"A lot can change in a day, my friend."
Billy poked his arm like a little kid, putting creases in his still crisp suit despite the evening being full of different events all with different names.
"That's right, that's right. I don't know how you do it, Alec," Billy shakes his head, getting a little dizzy from even that, his friend's face was starting to blur in his vision and grow in size.
"Do what?"
Alec was washing his hands, staring at his swaying buddy in the reflection of the mirror in front of him although Billy was right beside him. He was a little worried about what was gonna come up about the job. He really wanted to know but your disappointed face at the end of that table was far more important than any lousy title to him.
"The shady business life."
Alec was intrigued.
"Check it out. Now, don't get pissy, I know how many strings you had to pull to get me that job but I think the circumstances of my demise were pretty great," Billy's story begins and Alec's ears flame as his old pal lean against the wall casually, telling him about how he fucked up his life..again.
"I was in my armour, suit and tie crisp as yours. I walks into the office supplies store you guys use with the company credit card, in Senator Pomerantz's name. I'm just about to grab some paper and more envelopes when two hot chicks working there check out the card, believing that I was the Senator. I knew he was away for the weekend and I had listened to hours of his wife talking to me about their new tub and their holiday. So I took them there, one was under the water and one was straddling me, my lips were raw they kissed so many times. We're in our third round of mind-blowing fucking right and who walks in? Husband and wife of the office and I get fired on the spot," Billy laughs, slapping his leg and his best friend's arm who was laughing with him.
Alec slaps him all over playfully while chuckling. He slaps his arm. Slaps his head. Suddenly, he drops his smile grabbing his head and forcing him into the nearest stall. He doesn't even struggle and BIlly screams underneath him. LIke teenagers again, he forces Billy's protesting face into the toilet drowning him with his friend's limbs slapping his from behind.
"You're a fucking asshole. When are you gonna grow up," he grits one more time realising how breathless the brunette beneath him his getting and releasing him.
Billy takes a breathless breath and runs his hand through his hair.
"Like this was real mature, Al?" he squirts water out of his nose and droplets run down his face, he was too drunk to be disgusted but Alec was seeing clearly.
"It's just a job Alec, I'm really sorry and all but working for Senator Pomerantz was not for me," Billy protests, still dripping somehow in places that didn't even go into the toilet.
Alec charges towards him again, ready to repeat but Billy holds him back this time.
"This is not about the fucking job you heartless piece of shit! What about that poor girl sitting on the end of the table waiting for you, not knowing that you fucked someone else and is laughing about it to me, expecting me to what- feel sorry for you? Laugh with you? Think you're tough shit? Well, you're wrong."
Billy turns white, thinking about your laughter and the feelings that bundle inside of him that doesn't bundle with other women. He didn't understand, Alec did it many times. Why was it okay for him to stand and shout?
"You're a hypocrite, what about Leslie?"
"You don't know the guilt I feel about Leslie being with a non-committal asshole like me but I'm scared, Billy. I'm scared of growing up just like you are. Trust me, no matter how many girls you fuck that feeling ain't going away until you face yourself and marry the one. Y/N could be the one but I hope not. I hope she doesn't waste her life worshipping someone as worthless as you Billy."
Silence.
"I want you to go back out there, take your stuff, say there's a problem and get out. For good. She will never see you again until you decide to explain or apologise. Got it, amigo?"
Billy nods to the tiles, too afraid to see that disappointment again in Alec's eyes.
---
Billy slumps out of the bathroom guilty like a little kid.
What happened in there?
He dripped from head to toe, more than he normally would while performing with his sax in here. I was about to ask him what was ogin on and the girls were ready to scream questions at him. The guys gave a look to Alec who followed Billy so tightly that he was treading on the back of his heels.
"I'm sorry Y/N I have to go, there's been a problem. I-I love you," he utters with a tiny tear in his eye that could also have been whatever he was drenched in.
My brows were furrowed and in sync, every confused face turned to Alec for answers as usual.
What the hell was going on here?
"Just had to do some business in the bathroom," he takes a sip of his drink and leaves with his finance, who stumbled just as confused as I did.
what it takes to make Corey Haim open up on camera?
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Warnings: flirting, sexual tension, Corey in this interview has me in chokehold.
Andy was pulling some real strings for me to be here- by strings I mean poles.
Ever since I understood what media was and what people were, I wanted to be involved with both. I'd sit there for hours and watch interviews shouting the questions they should've asked with confidence and yet not even being able to recite the 2 times table in class.
It was the only thing I ever cared about and now I got to watch the real thing behind the scenes.
"Before today, I've done preparation so I really know the main basis of the character and what kind of things to pick at."
Andrew had been a really good friend of Dad's since the popularization of television. They grew up TV nerdy and stayed that way and had kids just like it. Andrew was so close to me that I called him Andy and I was so close to him that his son is my ultimate best friend ever since we could watch TV too.
But, he wanted to be a director.
"So you'll be shadowing me with Corey Haim, I'm sure you've heard of him and I made sure that I knew off by heart the movies he's been-..."
Although Andy was a hella interesting guy, my mind fuzzed once that name settled into my head. Corey Haim? The guy was a huge celebrity, especially with girls my age, with a mischievously charming personality. This was gonna be my first impression of a real-life interview? Oh my!
Andy stands in front of me, grabbing my shoulders comfortingly. The kindness in his blue eyes spoke before he did as always, just like Anthony.
"Y/N, I know how nervous you are. No one said this was easy but all you gotta do is watch. Corey's a funny guy I've had him before but he hates bullshit. So we gotta be careful, okay? He rarely gives good answers and hardly any of your time so if you start to sweat just deal with it. Okay?"
I smiled, nodding.
"Okay."
---
We knocked on a dressing room before entering. As soon as the door was opened, I could've died due to an attack of hairspray. The smell of translucent powder reminded me of the locker rooms after gym class, something that I definitely wouldn't miss.
Through the mist were baby blue eyes that stared into themselves in the mirror. Girls fumbled around him with red cheeks, short skirts and necklines that almost hit the floor doing just about anything they could find just to say they had spent one minute with Corey Haim. They spiked his now black hair towards the ceiling, somehow contributing even more to the bad boy look that he already wore in his daily life.
I swallowed.
"Mr Haim, are you ready for your interview?" Andy asked professionally, sounding completely different than how he did talking to me or to my dad.
It was strange seeing people in action.
Haim turns dramatically in his spinny chair, making my eyes automatically roll to the back of my head. I continued to clutch my worn notebook filled with everything I needed to my chest, trying to cover me up from him as I was beginning to get a little pissed. His eyes were roaming all over me, eating my skirt up with no shame at all.
"I'd rather if she did it."
Unsettled I look to Andy who seemed to wear a lightbulb with pride. He faced me and I gave him a worried look but I knew his faith in me was stronger than any shake of the head that I could throw at him.
"How 'bout it Y/N? You're more than ready, I'll be right there if you want. This is the perfect opportunity plus he's your age. It'll be just like talking to a pal."
He was always too convincing for my liking.
"Yeah Y/N, I'll go easy on you," Corey's taunting voice piped up, making me turn his way just to see him smirk out of Andy's sight.
I sighed in my mind, growing two inches taller, seeming incredibly optimistic on the outside while dying on the inside.
"Anything to make the guest happy. Right, this way Mr Haim."
---
"People like you don't really care what I think, just what you can put in the headline."
In the cream chair opposite my crossed legs was an arrogant young man who hadn't even grown up enough to achieve that title yet. So far I had nothing but scribbles in my pad and statements that I was writing down just to joke around with my dad later.
"Why do you even want this job? It ruins you but at least you'll be the hottest one."
Even though I knew I was younger, I felt like an old lady trying to talk some sense into her grandson and trying to have a rational conversation with him.
It wasn't working. For a while now I tried asking him serious questions, sensitive questions, funny questions but somehow each time it came back to girls or how nice my legs looked in my skirt and tights today.
"So Mr Haim, what was it like filming Dream a Little Dream with Feldman? Was it any different from a normal acting gig since you know each other?"
Then suddenly, it got a little interesting. That wall we hit? He jumped over it, dragging me with him by my curls.
"You want the truth?"
I loosed my grip on my pen.
"Always."
"When you see us together on TV people always think, 'wow you know these guys are good actors at such a young age' but then they see us on the streets and realise 'geez, they weren't acting at all. This is what they're really like'. Guess you could say it ruins the fantasy a little, we just have good chemistry."
His arm dangled behind the back of the chair. I didn't need to fake how interested I was as I did some effective note-taking. It was hard trying to balance all of my thoughts but luckily I had prepared, doing some of my own research beforehand.
I was totally prepared for this.
Nothing could bring me down.
"You think that makes you a bad actor?"
He smiles, adjusting a little bit. Something I noticed was how restless he was, angling himself in ways I could never dream, looking more and more attractive every time. He rolls his eyes when he's thinking not because he's rude but because he's trying real hard to answer right. He scratches his smooth skin with his ring-clad fingers when he thinks. The way he moved was captivating, you couldn't find any of these in my old high school.
"I guess you could say that. You could also say that scripts aren't just things you learn, you know? When you act it, um its gotta come from somewhere, a memory. I think that's kinda why we agreed to stop working with each other now for a um- a long time. When you get type-cast, especially with someone else as the 'Two Coreys', you have to use the same memories over and over so the acting gets old, you know?"
"That's a very interesting idea. You think you've connected with some scripts more than others, with or without Feldman?" I ask with genuine interest as if finally taking the pen off the paper and writing in between the lines.
I tilt my head and he copies.
"Definitely. The Lost Boys was fun and that was a real hit for us, really set us off in our careers. I guess I connected with it because it wasn't about me and a girl like most of my other plots. This time it was about family, friends and vampires!" we laugh together. "It's about vampires sure but really I think it's about being a teenager and how easy it is to be manipulated. As living proof to that, I guess that's why I connected most with it."
"Are you perhaps saying that you don't like acting romance and prefer darker messages?" I dig into that theme, noticing how much he squirms with it and I want to see where this can go beyond what the camera shows.
"Maybe."
"Maybe?"
He shifts again.
"Maybe I prefer real-life romance. Doesn't happen a lot but it so can go beyond um what the camera shows," I jump at our similarities, luckily I am not really being filmed likely apart from my crossed legs as he keeps staring at them endlessly.
"I want to know Corey, what's your response to the media's claims reportedly calling you a "sleaze", "the living proof of sex, drugs and rock and roll in movies" and "yet another child star who has let all the fame go to his head"? I test with a mischievous grin, getting ready to scribble down an argument or a cuss that I can throw to the newspapers gladly.
I just wanted to make him sweat and a million guys in my college that were just like him who gave me a tough time and not about my legs.
"Is that a quotation or your own words Miss Y/N?" his fingers tickled his lips that wouldn't stop grinning no matter the subject.
He was a little nervous, disappointed too.
"It's just what the media claims Mr Haim, no biased judgement here. One could argue that drug use is influential in this, something you have claimed to have struggled with also the disrespect towards women by being exposed in multiple relations," my arms cross in my lap.
He thinks, smile widening then shortening over and over as if trying to decide one of the biggest decisions in his entire life.
"Is one saying one does not find me attractive?"
I freeze, glad that my dad was not present and instead Andy who knew how capable I was in handling difficult situations and even more difficult subjects. Sweat. Heart beating. Pen shaking.
"I'm sure the thousands of female fans of yours out there would gladly answer for me Mr Haim, now back to my question-"
"Are you trying to seduce me Mrs Robinson?" his eyes were now slithering up my legs and I could actually feel it, making shivers travel through my body like someone was dancing on my grave.
"Me, seduce you? Are you kidding Mr Robinson?"
"Are we married Y/N?" he teased, restless in that stupid chair.
"In your dreams Corey Haim."
The interview continued and got a little more playful and professional. We talked about subjects that got the crew behind me chuckling silently and also got the tears flowing. He really laid all of his cards out on the imaginary table, unafraid to share anything I asked him and that's what I think really took balls.
"That was fun. I hope you interview me again in the near future."
He shook my hands afterwards, searching in my eyes for answers to his own questions with intrigue. I was as intrigued by him also, propelling me towards my interest in the job even more if possible.
I got a good review with a particular statement sticking in my mind since that day.
"You should be proud. That is the most Corey Haim has ever opened up to anyone on camera like that before."
Joel had a lot to say about you now you weren’t there.
And Dinger didn’t like it one bit.
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Warnings: swearing, the world faggot, homophobia, bullying, references to violence, mentions of sex, jealous Dinger.
I was clutching my books realising how no one had bumped shoulders with me since I was seen with my new friends.
I even sped up a little, whistled made extreme eye-contact and no one dared look my way just in case one of the guys found out. Some of the girls even stared at me in admiration to have such boys looking out for me constantly. They were always just that one step behind me but also in front.
Sidney, a girl from my English ran up to me calling my name to make me stop. Poor thing looked like she'd been running for hours. Her hair was dishevelled and her face was as red as her shoes.
"What's up, Sid?" I continue cruising by her side.
"Didn't you hear what happened at lunch today?" she started poking my arm, expecting me to know something that I shouldn't.
There was probably a fight that I didn't care enough about to bother witnessing. Nothing happened today.
"Oh my! Did people eat?"
She slaps my arm.
"No silly. There was an outburst between Joel and Dinger. I don't know the full story but Sheila told Betty that Joel was saying bad things about what he wanted to do to you and Robin told Tom, Cameron's friend, that Dinger totally was there for you and put that asshole in his place."
"What!"
----
half-hour earlier
"Hey, Bobby, Joel."
Dinger sat down next to Bobby and Joel. They seemed to be deep in discussion with each other. Dinger didn't really want to interfere but the worried face of his new friend was in his mind, telling her constantly that she deserves better.
"How're things with Y/N Joel?" he asks, squinting at the sun in his eyes and spitting his name next to yours as if it was poison.
Bobby turned in Joel's direction, agreeing with his friend's question with the same curiosity.
"Yeah Joel, how are things?"
Did Bobby know something he didn't? His heart began to race and fist began to tighten.
Joel took a second to contemplate, chuckling with a scoff to himself. Things weren't looking so good already at this point to Dinger and he wondered if there was a missing piece to this puzzle that Y/N or Joel or even Bobby wasn't telling him.
"Well it's just, I'm a guy you know and things are just so- lacking. All this romance shit is tearing me to pieces. And she's so hot I just wanna grab her and... you know?"
Dinger sat up a little on the wall, Bobby searching his face for the same reaction.
"No Joel, I don't think I do know."
Joel was looking for confidence as his friends were staring at him in a way that he was intimidated by. He knew that he was doing something wrong but Dinger didn't have to know and he didn't really understand why it was so wrong in the first place.
"Sorry to interrupt but I believe you're being a little vague to Dinger Joel, you know one of Y/N's new buddies?"
He turns to his dearest friend, whose worried face contrasted with his crazy carefree red locks.
"Dinger, Joel was just telling me that he wants to use Y/N so hard until she cries. He wants to- what was it? Grab her hair and swing her around like a pinwheel? Want her to do as she's told just to show all the other guys and girls who's boss. Isn't that right, Joel?"
Joel was white, hearing his own words from Bobby's smart-ass mouth was like a punch in the stomach, like a badly remembered memory and it turned him sick to his stomach. Of course, he wanted all those things but in this group, you were always told never to speak your mind no matter how fucked it was.
Dinger looks at Joel in disgust, more than Bobby somehow even though his eyebrows here down to his dirty socks. He continued to sit, manspreading like there was no tomorrow and seeing only blurry red smudged everywhere in his vision.
"How dare you be so fake to somebody only to say things so disgusting and god damn awful behind their back? You're an airhead Joel. I warned Y/N but I don't know what you've said to her but she has somehow come to think the sun shines outta your asshole. You and I both know that is total bullshit man. Major."
Joel goes to speak.
"I don't wanna hear a god damn fucking thing you have to say because I know it's all from your dick and not from your heart or even your head. I will make sure- no I'll promise that she never trusts you again. Later."
He goes to leave but not before whispering to none but himself:
"Is there any love left in our universe?"
Joel grows a pair, finally planning and editing the words he wants to say to win this battle and keep his crown just for the next few days even
"You what, faggot?"
Time seemed to stop for every single member of that friendship group. The yard went silent and all you could hear were the sudden gulps of a dozen teenagers riding out the wave of suspense.
"Faggot? I'm a faggot for having feelings Joel and respect? If that makes me a faggot then consider me the all singing all dancing faggot of the fucking universe," he snaps, head moving, hands throwing, teeth-gritting.
Dinger Holfield was present.
"How are you so different then huh? I'm sure a million bitches at this school would gladly announce how played they were by Mr Dinger Holfield."
"I didn't love any of those women Joel. If I loved a woman- if I loved Y/N I would take her out only when she wanted, spoil her if she needed, let her be an independent woman. Wait for everything until she was ready. I would never rush her into anything because why? Because I'm a decent guy at the best of times. I fight, talk shit, do shit but I am not a shit."
"Now, later."
---
I did try to find Dinger but at the same time I was pissed at both of them
Who was Joel to own me like that?
Who was Dinger to decide my life like that?
I needed to take a chill pill so I just went home. And, it was really working until the doorbell rang.
At the other end of the chipped paint was a worried-looking redhead who looked as long he hadn't blinked, ate, talked since 'the incident'. I didn't know what to say and neither did he so we both just leaned against the doorframe, gazing at each other but my glare was a little stronger.
"Have you got anything to say for yourself?"
He was taken aback as if a wind inside my house had blown him off of the step.
"Me? Are you kidding? What side of the story did you hear?"
"The right version, now tell me how is this any of your business at all?" I asked, a little hurt in my voice as I realised that someone was trying to control me like a third possessive parent that I didn't need today.
"What's your damage Y/N I'm sick of seeing him treat you like that. I can't hide my hurt anymore every time he grabs your chin to kiss you or glares at guys when they ask you for help with their homework. It's sick demented shit. And, I can't hide the fact that I love you anymore either," he mumbles the last part, declining in confidence suddenly.
I laugh in my place, sounding too much like Joel at one point. He shrinks twice in size.
"Oh please, you don't even know what that means Holfield. It's too late anyway, I'm going with Joel," I cross my arms, trying to pull myself from the fantasy of my life together with Dinger.
How different my life would be if I was going with Dinger.
"I won't beg you into loving me but don't waste your life on an asshole like him, for me. I'm not always right but I know this time I really do, I know what I'm talking about. Guys like them just hit it and quit Y/N," he gets closer to me, his puff of hair finally taller than me.
I lift my eyebrows, that lifestyle was copied and pasted into that entire friendship group. Who was he to judge? Why was he so god damn special?
"Isn't this a little hypocritical?"
"What? No! I only hang out with chicks- women, that know what they're signing up for. They're not being played, they know what's happening."
"How am I any different, how do I know this isn't some kind of move to steal me off of Joel?"
"Is it working?"
Seriously?
"No, you're not being vulnerable or truthful enough to me," my arms cross harder, scared of the rest of the lies he'd unleash upon me and how ready I was to believe them.
Dinger was the bad guy and not Joel.
"I'm a virgin."
Proving his devotion he turns around to the watchers in the street shouting at the top of his lungs and pointing to himself.
"Virgin! Virgin right here. Soy virgen! Dinger Holfield is a virgin!"
I laugh into my hand, and people in the street turn to a red-faced and haired Dinger to look at him. He takes the next step up to the door frame, eyelashes tickling my own we were so close.
"Listen to me. You can listen, leave Joel and be happy with a guy who loves you for you. Or, you can give me a shot and if you hate it I will leave you alone and never come back."
He gulps at the thought alone and what made tears prick my eyes was that at that same time, i gulped too. Despite knowing him for only a few months, I couldn't imagine a school day without him, never mind an eternity.
I cry at the monster that I've been wasting so many things on, the first kiss, first real handholding, first date, first makeout, first skipping of school. I hung my head low, tears hitting the grime of the boy's boots in front of me. When I think about it Dinger has given me the warmest welcome to the school, introduced me to all his friends the day he almost knocked me over in the hallway, carried my books, listened to my concerns and told me what I should do only for my own sake.
His finger tickles my chin, bringing my saddened eyes to his beautiful ones. He smiles knowingly, not in an I-told-you-so way but in a way I could not explain.
"May I?" he asked.
"Yes."
He tilts his head, leaning in as if I'm made of slightly shattered glass. Although I'd done it before, it felt like the first time all over again and I felt my hold of his waist slacking and trembling. Checking again in my eyes and dragging his gaze from my lips, he sees the want in my eyes and connects our lips. We're standing on a doorstep, in a world full of dirty shame and dirty people having an innocent and pure moment.
An older man and lady observed from across the street, smiling in each other's embrace as they recalled their older memories together and the years they had spent in complete bliss.
"Remember our days like that? They were the best times, still are."
Alec had a very complex relationship with the concept of cheating.
As an extreme non-commital, I always knew his relationship with the lovely Leslie would go downhill but I didn't think it would happen that fast. I thought they would've at least gotten married first.
You see, Alec told me on many occasions that if he got married, he would no longer fuck all of these women because he had something worth holding onto, something to control him. All of the gang, including me, knew that was true. Still, the guilt in his eyes when he'd tell me about the receptionist he screwed from work would win me over just that little bit. I hated the fact I believed in him.
Not him, but in him.
I knew so much since Alec couldn't trust the other guys really. I had never been a girl figure in the group, just someone who was there for everyone, someone to organise things, the smart one, the wise one, the one who didn't say much but didn't really have to. It was also the fact that the others were so self-destructive.
Billy was a handsome, fun guy who would always make your own problem his problem as a part of his caring nature. The problem in that problem was that he had many of them himself, that he was ignoring on purpose. You were his excuse.
Jules had a lot to deal with and she kept this stuffed behind her charming façade. If you had a problem, she would be fine with it but not if it wasn't life-threatening since her cynical and joking advice would prove less effective in the long run. She's unfortunately dramatic and reckless so she can be unreliable.
Kirby was cute and probably the least offensive of the bunch but he thinks to make a tense situation okay again you just have to crack a few jokes unless it was a scenario about the woman he was in love with. Dale.
Wendy was too innocent to understand both sides of the argument. To understand a situation such as Alec's you had to understand the true heart of desire you know but she couldn't. She was a virgin.
Kevin was the most likely candidate being smart, an asshole but too hung up on his own self-pity and also the meaning of life. He was always trying to philosophise every moment and wasn't truly present unless it was all fun and games. Plus, I knew he was in love with Leslie and the reason they broke up was that they fucked.
Or was that just the result?
Leslie was sweet and smart-mouthed but she was the fucking problem.
"She just keeps asking for her records back all the time! She keeps waddling over in her heels and sexy skirt and asking me for her things. I mean, I'm trying to get over her here but all I can do is think of excuses to see her!"
And that's exactly why I had to take the blows.
"So I think of an excuse to see her but what do I see? One of my greatest friends since school in between her fucking legs which might I add was further than I ever got!"
I watch him pace in a fluster across my apartment. His shirt was unbuttoned and he was tugging at it and throwing away pieces of his suit on the ground. He kept running his hands through his dark hair covering some rosy cheeks. I gulped.
"Look man all you need to do is chill for now. Give it time. Talk to both of them and ask, is it more? If it is you might have to be the bigger man and step away. This isn't your final year of life and plus love isn't the most important thing."
He huffs, slowing down his pace and standing over me finally. "You're right, you're right."
He admits defeat, understanding my words and calming down. The sofa I'm casually sitting on sinks as he joins me by my side, head on my shoulder and tickling my neck. I allow our heads to touch with my lips pouting in a little pity.
"I know it's my fault."
"No, you don't."
"Yes, I do."
"No, you don't otherwise you wouldn't be so angry."
He shoots up as if I sent an electric current through my body to his. He glares at me, brown eyes dissecting my face. He loves to preach how much of an adult he is to everyone and when his adulthood is challenged, he gets angry.
"What would you know? You've never loved anyone. You wouldn't know what it's like to see your best friend with someone you trusted!"
I sigh, shaking my head at his hurt. I knew that feeling well...
"Alec my love, you need to realise that you fucking all these other women, faceless they may be, still counts as cheating and what you and Leslie had counted as marriage. Some people go their whole lives without marriage but it's enough, it's never just dating. It's always more. You took advantage of this ideal of marriage. Deep down you knew you were never gonna stop. But, you can't even admit that because you saw how happy she was under him!"
He grabs my arms, pulling me to my feet so he can intimidate me with his flaring nostrils and crazy eyes. My heart races.
"How dare you think about me that way! You don't know anything other than what I've told you. You don't have the right to judge my life because you don't really care about us."
"You're right."
His eyes narrow, Alec is confused.
"I don't care about the gang, I care about you."
Before I knew it I was being lured just like those girls at work, just like those stupid girls who are stupid enough to believe sex equals love. It doesn't.
All I did was kiss him and he throws me on my couch harshly, mounting me and stripping us both.
I kiss him feverishly and he returns each of them just like I had dreamt. His bare body presses into my own and suddenly he enters me in one movement. Not only do I feel physically fuller but the one thing I had been missing as I was growing up, something they couldn't teach you in school had been filled by my best friend. I was pulling a Leslie right now and so was he.
And, like a drunken blur that was the last thing I could remember before I woke up the next morning. After the first round, he carried me to my bed which is where we stayed for the rest of that long night.
I wake up in my bed but I can feel something is different like when you buy a new lamp for your room or you wear new pyjamas. This time I was completely naked apart from the fragrant shirt covering my decency. I had never been so grateful for shirts in my life.
Alec is next to me, assessing his own damage and we both shoot up, not looking at each other in the eye. I run towards my side of the room, gathering the trail of clothes leading to the starting point and wearing them despite the sweat. He does the same. I don't look at him but I can see him glancing at me.
Like he hadn't seen me fully naked I carefully removed his shirt and throw it back to him.
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck..."
We chant in unison, a mutual pair of fuck-ups.
I'm standing in my jeans and my bra when I just really breathe in the realism of the situation and laugh at myself and scoff at him.
"I can't believe I fell for that Alec serial fuck thing," my hands were on my hips, challenging him in disbelief.
I honestly couldn't believe it. I never thought it would happen and I didn't think I would go through with it. i was a terrible friend to both parties.
"Woah, this wasn't my fault. You pulled my hair! You know what that does to me and you know it!" he begins to yell in his underwear and unbuttoned shirt, pointing at me with a veiny finger.
I march towards him, poking his stupidly perfect chest with my veiny finger.
"My fault? You practically pounced on me!" I was so enraged and disappointed at this point but it was mostly at myself, as much as I hated to admit it.
"Pounced on you. Original. This wouldn't have happened if you didn't give me those fuck me eyes," he towers over me, a tall shadow turning my whole world black and looking into those eyes that killed him that night.
"These are my normal eyes, Alec, I can't have a fucking eye transplant with a virgin."
His head dips lower, practically overlooking my scalp he's so tall.
"Oh please, you were eating me up because you love me."
I bite my lip, feeling the tears start to flow at how little he cares about me to just throw that sentence in my face without a thought, a touch or even a tear.
"Maybe I do alright?" I cry, looking down and moving away once he goes to answer me and reaches out.
"Did- do. I don't know..."
I put on my button-up shirt, making sure to do the top one up since I felt so dirty and vulgar at that moment. I had never imagined doing anything like that in real life, that was a dream sequence. People don't just fuck their broken best friends.
"I'm not gonna run away with you for a fuckfest or anything after you and Leslie just broke up. This cannot go any further and I'm glad you finally got your head out of Leslie's ass to acknowledge me."
"I'm sorry," he stutters, the fear of me walking out that door for good haunting his mind despite it being my apartment.
I knew in that group I didn't really matter. They wouldn't care if I went. Just a little chuckle that would come up every now and then like a dead teacher but that was all.
"Don't be sorry. I've given you all the advice you need but know this, she doesn't want you anymore. She's gone Alec and who was the first person to pick you up after you fell- me. Stop waiting for her Alec because she's gone and will never look back for you."
"Harsh," he swallows a couple of tears but some were too strong and stained his light blue shirt piercingly.
I grab my car keys and throw on some shoes and a jacket. stopping abruptly when he cries.
"If that's how you really feel then consider my feelings dead but my 10-year ache for you will never die."
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