‘nobody cares if you don’t go to the party.’
maybe that’s what he’s afraid of. NO, a voice in his head tones. YOU’RE AFRAID OF USED NEEDLES, AND MRSA, AND ROTTING AWAY WHILE YOU’RE ALIVE, AND DISAPPOINTING YOUR MOTHER AND –
and becoming nothing. being as small, and weak, and fragile as sonia kaspbrak wanted him to be when she gave him asthma all those years ago. without the losers, eddie thinks, i really am nothing. nobody. why would the world look at a scared little invalid when it’s so much easier to let their gazes glaze over him, forget him, erase him? erase me?
eddie grips his aspirator, but doesn’t take a hit from it. he hates how his hands are shaking, but at least the resolve on his face is set, written in all the lines that might’ve held worry or uncertainty before. “i’m going.” he doesn’t know what he’s trying to prove, or to whom, but it feels right. it feels like taking a step out of the shadows. it feels like walking into the sun. “and you’re coming too, right?”