Nights alone were the hardest. Being alone left her with too much time to think, to many chances to pick apart her appearance, her self worth, or other things that Chrissy shouldn’t have been worrying about. Maybe that had been why she’d called him, asked him to come over, despite knowing that, had they been home, her parents would have lost their minds. Even Jason would be furious if he knew Chrissy had sought comfort in Eddie rather than him. That was the problem, though. Jason wasn’t good at comfort. He never had been. Not like Eddie, who seemed to be able to lighten the mood just by being himself.
She didn’t remember falling asleep and expected Eddie to be gone as she pulled herself out of bed and headed down the stairs. He wasn’t, though. He was there, on the Cunningham couch, settled under the old quilt her grandmother had made that her mom kept draped over the back of the couch. She offered a quiet laugh before padding across the carpet to settle on the edge of the couch and raising a gentle hand to his shoulder.
“Eddie? Eddie, it’s time to wake up...”