Drift Away
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request | masterlist
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𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔: eddie munson x fem/gn!reader
𝑠𝑦𝑛𝑜𝑝𝑠𝑖𝑠: a stranger dms you about the love of your life
𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠: mentions of suicide, heavy mentions of death, mentions of cutting, depressed!eddie, reader thinks its their fault
𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡: 919 (basically a blurb)
𝑎𝑢𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑟’𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑠: please please please read the warnings. based on this instagram reel.
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Laughter rings throughout the house. Love fills your heart as you watch your little girls play with their dolls--likely plotting the end of the world together. You take a sip from your mug as your phone lights up.
Instagram Notification
You hold up your phone in front of your face to unlock it, frowning at the direct message request.
hello are you y/n y/l/n that lives in the town hawkins?
You quickly send back a message.
Hello Could I ask why?
They reply within seconds.
do you know someone called eddie munson?
The name nearly makes your breath hitch.
Yes. He was an old friend of mine. I'm talking ages ago.
Not technically a lie, you think to yourself.
i found a mixtape made by him and i would like to share it with you
You look up at the girls and smile sadly, imagining what could've been as you type out your response.
That would be great!Eddie was my High School lover. I haven't heard that name in years!
i will send the mixtape now
The three dots pop up again, then fall, and then, after another several minutes, they send an audio message. You look again at those girls, who look so much like Eddie you'd think he was their father. You look down at the dimmed screen in your hand and only now realize how long you were staring dazedly at your daughters. You tap the screen before it goes completely dark and stand up, walk to the comfort of your bedroom, and close the door.
You take a deep breath to calm yourself, putting in your earbuds before you press play. You listen to the calming melody, so far from what you remember Eddie's music to sound like that you almost think the person who messaged you was pulling your leg. However, as the lyrics start, and you hear that gravelly voice of the man you never stopped loving, you feel a sense of gratitude to the stranger for letting you hear this after all these years.
"I think of you all the time, now that you're gone." He sings, and a lump begins to form in your throat, your vision suddenly going blurry. You think back to all the memories you made with the love of your life, think of the happy and the sad, the bitter and the sweet, and everything in between. With Eddie, there was no bad. not even during arguments.
"I've been doin' all kinds of drugs to get you out of my mind." a silent tear falls and you cover your mouth to hide in your sobs. You remember this. You remember all the pain he was going through, all while playing it off so you wouldn't see just how much he was hurting. You remember the final fight you had, the one that ended it all. You remember the way he cut you off from his life after you got mad at him for keeping it all bottled up. You know you shouldn't have, that you should've been more understanding, you know it then too, but you were fed up. You were done seeing him hurt, not only from the pains life put him through but from his own pocket knife and the substances he put in his body.
“'Cause I noticed you don't like me no more and it breaks my heart." You want to go back in time; to tell him he's wrong, that you love him with all your heart and just want to see him get better. But you know that you can't, that it's too late, that you'll never be able to hold him again.
"So I'll just drift away and disappear for a while." At that you finally fall to the floor, your body shaking in time with your cries of pain and grief. You can hear the door open and three sets of feet walking into the room. You can feel the large arms that hold you every night wrap around your wilting frame, the smaller ones cuddling into your sides. But none of this does anything to mend the shattered, trapped heart; none of this brings Eddie back.
An hour passes before you notice the mixtape stopped playing that beautiful, sad voice; before you notice the last message the stranger sent.
do you know how i could contact him? i thought i would share it with him as well
Your fingers tremble, tears filling your eyes again.
I'm sorry but Eddie passed away over a decade ago now. He struggled with his mental health severely.
You close your eyes the moment you press send, letting your phone slip from your hands as you let your tears flow. Eddie's smile flashes through your mind; his laugh plays in your ears; you can almost feel the long, messy curls that draped over his face; you can nearly smell the cologne that he only bothered to put on when you came over; you can taste the salty kisses you shared after you caught him in the bathroom with his knife.
You hate yourself every day for letting him shut you out. You want to scream at the world for taking him from you. You're mad at yourself for not being happy with your current life; for not loving your husband completely; for letting your heart belong to the ghost of your past that still haunts you inside. But most of all, you hate that this was all your fault.
