Chapter Text
Eddie rounded the corner, hands in his pocket already pulling out his pack of cigarettes. He’d moved too swiftly, unable to stop and slink backwards without being seen.
“Sorry,” he said, hands up defensively. “Didn’t know it was, ah, occupied. I’ll-” Eddie was about to say ‘go,’ when he saw the look on your face.
Your skin was blotchy, tears streaming down your cheeks. Bloodshot eyes, mouth open, gasping for air. He knew a panic attack when he saw one, even if he didn’t know they were a thing with a name.
“Are you okay?” Eddie asked.
You said nothing as you stared at him like an animal caught in the headlights. He thought you might speak, but it was clear you were chasing your breath.
“You… need to breathe. Keep going like that and you’re gonna pass out. And, you know, I’ve got a bit of a reputation already. Don’t want to add ‘seen with unconscious girl behind the woodwork shed’ to it,” he joked.
Nothing. No reaction from you. It was like he wasn’t even there. Eddie was almost going to give up, but there was a memory of you in his mind. Vivid. Formative. So, instead of leaving you he said your name once, firmly, loudly. It made you jump a little, startled.
“Come on. Sit,” Eddie said, moving to sit at your feet, cross legged on the shitty high school grass.
Complying, you sat, legs folded under you on an angle in front of Eddie.
He looked you dead in the eyes and said, “In through the nose, out through the mouth.” He demonstrated. You tried to copy it, but it took a couple of tries. Slowly though, it worked.
“There she is,” Eddie said, his voice back to being soft. “You’re okay.”
Eddie watched you avoid eye contact, pulling a drink bottle from your bag and gulp down water. It was quiet, the distant sounds of power towels and teenage laughter providing the only relief for any awkwardness. To kill time, wait for you, he got out the cigarette he had come to that hidden away spot for in the first place. He leaned back, the heel of his hands digging into the ground behind him for support.
“Thank you,” you said, voice barely above a whisper.
“No problem… So, ah, what class is so awful that someone like you is skipping?”
Sniffling, you replied, “I’ve got a free period,”
“Ah. Of course…” Eddie took another drag of his cigarette. “Do… you wanna talk about it?”
God, when was the last time you had just… talked about it? Talked about anything? Months. Months and months. But what were you going to do? Spill your guts out to Eddie Munson?
“I’m okay,” you replied.
“You sure? I am an excellent listener.”
You looked at him, saw how casual and honest he was. He maintained eye contact while he lifted his face to exhale smoke up and away from you.
“I have to give a speech next period. In History,” you told him.
Eddie was confused. “I don’t know if you remember, but we were in the same English class last year,” he recalled.
“Yeah, I took a Senior class,” you replied.
“Yeah. Even though you were the only Junior in the class, you never got nervous. Always seemed real confident to me.”
He was right. The school counsellor had told you picking up an extra Senior class would look great on college applications, so you chose English. Eddie was repeating his Senior year for the first time then and spent the whole time sitting in the back corner not participating. Unlike you. You would speak first in class discussions. Joke with the other students, your friends. Eddie remembered, you were eloquent and sure.
“Yeah, well, that was before,” you mumbled.
“Before what?” Eddie asked.
Was he fucking joking?
“Seriously?”
Eddie shrugged, made a face that clearly meant he had no idea what you were referring to.
“You don’t… know?” you asked.
“I’m not exactly part of the Hawkins High popular crowd phone tree,” he joked.
“Yeah, well, neither am I anymore.” You didn’t say it with venom, but with sadness. Eddie saw the pain in your face. You pulled at blades of grass before braving eye contact again. “You really don’t know anything?”
“I mean… I don’t see you in the cafeteria with the rest of the pom pom party, but I figured, you know, Senior year. Smart girl. Probably spends her time studying.”
He really didn’t know about the… About any of it.
However, at some point, he noticed your absence during lunch.
“I’m… not friends with them anymore,” you told him, leaving it at that, a little thrown that you were telling him anything at all.
“Oh… Well, good riddance? Right?” The joke slipped out and he was sitting up straight, stubbing his smoke out into the grass. “Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean- I’m sure they’re-” He couldn’t think of a lie. He was sure they were all assholes.
“It’s okay,” you said with a weak smile. “But, yeah, I’m not on… Good terms with them,”
“And now you gotta give a talk in front of them, kind of thing?” Eddie guessed.
You nodded, thinking about it. The tightness returned to your chest and you were aware of how dry your mouth was again.
“No, no, no, you’re fine. You’re gonna do fine,” Eddie told you, reaching out and taking a hand. “Don’t freak out on me again.” He might have been able to coach you out of panic, but as soon as you stepped foot in that History class you were going to lose it. He knew it. You knew it. “Alright, fuck. Here,” he said, pulling a tiny plastic bag from his pocket. “You on anything?”
“What?”
Eddie smiled at the way you were innocently watching him. “Like, medications. Anything?” You shook your head. “Alright, well, I’m giving you half of one of these bad boys. It will just… take the edge off. Like, barely. Just enough.”
You watched him snap a small pill in half using a loose coin he found in his pocket. He held it out to you and nodded.
“What is it?” you asked, looking at it sitting in the palm of your hand.
“Just valium. Half the school is on ‘em. I promise it’s safe.”
There were reasons to not trust Eddie Munson, drug dealer, in that moment. Maybe he was just trying to get you hooked on his drugs so he could make lots of money off you. That’s what drug dealers did, right? Or maybe he was like all the other boys, only thinking of one thing.
There were reasons to trust him, though. His kindness, for one. It was a warm feeling you weren’t used to anymore. Secondly, you had very little to lose.
You swallowed the cut valium with the last of the water in your bottle.
“Thank you,”
“Again – no problem,” he replied. “You should probably just sit here for another five minutes. Make sure you don’t have a reaction or anything,”
“Does that happen?” you asked, the pitch in your voice indicating worry.
“No. No. I just… Ya know. Looking for an excuse to keep talking to you,” Eddie said, his delivery perfect. Flirty. Kind. A little bit of danger.
His smile stretched ear to ear and his teeth were whiter than you would have expected for someone who did… drugs. Do drug dealers do drugs all the time?
You blushed, looked down and busied yourself with looking for your compact mirror.
“What class are you skipping?” you asked him, suddenly aware you had no idea what he was doing out there, besides having a smoke.
“Ah, that would be English. Same class, third year in a row,” Eddie told you, exaggerating a wince. He caught the micro expression flash across your face. “I know, I know. Going for a fourth at this rate. It’s just… I didn’t do the homework, so…”
“What’s the homework? Of Mice and Men still?”
“Yep. I could recite that book front to back…. ‘What the hell do you suppose is eatin’ them guys,’” Eddie quoted.
“Why haven’t you done the work then?” you asked. Eddie shrugged. “Is it an essay? What’s the question?”
Eddie was just happy to have gotten you talking, distracted from your own perceived impending doom.
“Uhhh… It’s like… Discuss the ways… the book is… similar to a play? And… does that make the book better or worse?” he recalled, doing a pretty good job at remembering the essay question. To be fair to Eddie, he had planned on doing it. He really wasn’t trying to fail again. But Wayne had to cover an extra shift, so Eddie had to do the laundry and grocery shopping. He would have time to do it all too, but he was shitty at time management.
You laughed. “That’s the same question from last year. It’s about how each section starts with these long, descriptive paragraphs. They set the scene the same way it would in a script for a play,” you told him as you fished out a notepad and pen from your bag.
“What are you doing?” Eddie asked.
“I can’t get you an A, not without the book and more time, but I can probably get you a pass?”
Eddie was stunned for a second, watched you begin to madly scribble out sentences, trying to use your thick thighs as a table, your legs still folded under you.
“Why?”
“As a thank you,” you said. “Now shush. Let me do this,”
“Well fuck, alright. Here, let me be useful, at least,” Eddie said, laying down on the grass. He took the notepad and put it on his chest, gestured for you to continue, then put his arms behind his head.
“You have to close your eyes if you’re gonna lay like that,” you told him, leaning down and letting his ribcage keep the notepad mostly steady.
“Like what?” Eddie asked, looking up at you. He didn’t like the frown you shot him, so he did what he was told and closed his eyes.
Relieved that he didn’t press the subject, you could focus on the homework without feeling the heat of embarrassment. You were sure that you looked horrible from his angle. Fat.
There were ten short minutes left until the next period when you finished. “Done!”
Eddie’s eyes opened and he sat up. “She’s gonna know I didn’t write this,” he said, flicking through the pages.
“It’s not against school rules to have someone else scribe your work,” you said.
“Look at you. Loopholes, huh? How do you know that one?” Eddie asked. When you hesitated, he smirked. “You’ve done this before,”
“Yeah,”
“You really are different. To how you were last year, I mean,”
“Is that… good?” you ventured.
“Yeah. I think so. You don’t?”
Jesus. That was a can of worms you did not want to open. You shrugged and went back to looking for your compact mirror. When you found it and saw your reflection you almost gasped.
“I look like a raccoon!” you squealed involuntary, furiously rubbing under your eyes trying to shift the mascara.
“A cute raccoon,” Eddie clarified. You shot him an angry look that he just chuckled at. “Here, lemme,” he said, pulling the bandana that hung from his back pocket out and picking up your water bottle. Empty. “Spit,”
“What?”
“No water. Spit. Unless you want my spit on your face?”
You hesitated, realising you didn’t know how to just… spit. The next best thing was taking the bandana and sucking on the tip of it, handing it back to Eddie despite knowing what it was for. You could have done it yourself, but he had said to let him, and there was something in that tone that made you want to comply again.
Eddie held your chin with one hand and wiped at your messy makeup with the other.
“There. Pretty as a picture,” he told you, letting go.
Checking his work in your mirror, you nodded. “Thank you. Again,”
“Think I might need to thank you for that one. Come on,” he said, standing up and offering you a hand. “You better get a head start.”
You brushed the grass off your knees and picked up your bag, slinging it onto your back. “What do you mean?”
“Can’t go out there together. You, seen with me, behind the shed? Social suicide,” Eddie said not sad but neutrally, which was way worse.
You’d already survived social suicide. Something Eddie had no idea about. When he found out what had happened, you were sure he would be disgusted by you too. He’d feel like the people who used to be your friends did. It would be the only thing Eddie Munson, the basketball team, and the cheer squad had in common, but it would unite them in their shared revulsion.
Until then, you could pretend.
“So, you won’t walk me to class?” you asked looking up at him.
That goddamn smile was solar power. “You sure?”
“I’m sure,” you confirmed.
Eddie nodded once and began to walk with you in the direction of the main buildings. The bell rang as you approached, and soon enough you were surrounded by students. Most of them had their own shit going on and paid no mind to you or Eddie. Some of them were interested in your fall from grace.
The walk was void of conversation, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. At the door of your classroom, Eddie spoke. “Feeling okay?”
You nodded. “Yeah. I think the valium worked,"
“Good. That’s good… Well… knock ‘em dead, kid,” Eddie said, punching you in the shoulder so gently you hardly felt it.
“Thank you, for everything. I…”
“S’okay. Just… Remember. You’ve only got a year left here. Then you’re okay. Whatever else is going on, it doesn’t matter,” Eddie said, his gaze falling on your classmates as they approached. You nodded. “See ya around.” All you could do was nod, because how you felt as he stepped away from you was beyond your capacity for words in the moment.