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rip-quizilla · 8 months

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Impossible to Hate You ~ Part 4

Pairing: Eddie Munson x fem!Reader

Summary: Summer brings feelings to the surface; maybe not enough to bloom, but certainly enough to grow.

Word Count: 6K

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Part 4

Summer, 1983

Summers are for (fill in the blank).

For you, summers were for stuffing your piggy bank. For Eddie, summers were for spending his time doing whatever he wanted to do rather than what someone else told him to do.

For Robin, this summer in particular was for keeping score of every time she caught Eddie staring at you from across the corridor in Starcourt mall. He had a clear view of Scoops Ahoy’s serving counter from his checkout counter at Radio Shack, which seemed to be a double-edged sword; he could see you perfectly, with no obstructions other than the odd passers by, but this also meant that Robin could see him ogling you clear as day.

She had bought a dry-erase board specifically for the purpose of keeping track. The words “Stalker Score” were scrawled across the top in black, sporting a tally mark for each time that she’d caught him staring at you, enraptured by the way you just…Eddie wasn’t sure, exactly. Existed? Moved? Smiled? Glowed?

Dial it back, Munson.

Eddie shook his head, dark curls that had escaped from his ponytail swishing around his fluorescent-lit face. The vignette that had formed around you in his mind, blurring out any surrounding details in his periphery, cleared away until he registered Robin Buckley grinning smugly at him from behind your unsuspecting frame. She glowered in the little window behind you, brandishing the white board that now showcased six tallies.

Shit. He needed to work on his subtlety.

So far this summer, it had become apparent to Eddie that Robin was under the impression that he had a crush on you. It was ridiculous- was Eddie really the only person at his school besides you who believed in platonic male/female relationships? Was everyone else that small-minded?

Duh, he reminded himself, you’re in Hawkins.

Eddie pulled himself out of his reverie when he felt a hand give him a friendly clasp on the shoulder. “You’re good to clock out, Ed, we’re slow enough that I think I’ve got it from here.”

Half-smiling with his eyebrows raised, Eddie turned toward his boss excitedly. “You sure, Bob?”

Bob- Eddie’s manager- smiled kindly, sending a conspiratorial nod towards Scoops Ahoy. “I know you’re going straight over there anyways once you’re done. If you want to thank me, you can bring me over a vanilla shake.”

Bob was probably the only kind of manager that Eddie could see himself keeping a job for. When you’d suggested he apply for the new Radio Shack opening up across from Scoops at the mall, he’d actually cringed. Like, physically cringed when he pictured himself in a polo and khakis. However, when he thought about how nice it would be to have some money to throw Wayne- not to mention play around with for himself- he’d actually seen more pros than cons. When Eddie had actually been offered the job, he was surprised by how much he actually enjoyed the idea of working over the summer. Part time employment meant his shifts only lasted about five to six hours, and because the location was new, Bob had been happy to accommodate Eddie’s request to line his schedule up with yours.

Because he was your ride to work. Not because he was some kind of stalker or anything.

Eddie grabbed his things from a small cubby in the back with his name on it, hopping into the staff restroom/supply closet to change out of his uniform. Summer was a respite from daily encounters with asshats who seemed to think close proximity was the only reason they needed to beat him up. Eddie wasn’t about to stroll out of his place of work in khakis and a firetruck-red polo and give said asshats a different reason to make giving the freak a black eye their summer pastime, too.

Your smile when Eddie entered Scoops was sunlight after an afternoon bathed in artificial light. Surrounded by the overwhelming and tempting scent of vanilla and waffle cones, he wondered whether the sudden increase in his heart rate was a sugar rush he was getting simply from the sight of you. Was it possible for something to look so sweet, it spiked your blood sugar?

“Bob let you off early!” you said, cheerily. You were shoulder-deep in a tub of rocky road, scraping the last delicious bits of chocolate goodness from the crevices at the bottom before replacing the tub entirely.

A small boy stood with his mother at the counter, waiting patiently for you to finish scooping his ice cream. Eddie didn’t miss the way the mother looked at Eddie- his ripped black jeans, his Iron Maiden tee, his bag that sported pins and patches displaying various offensive words and quite a few hellish creatures drawn in sharpie on the canvas material by Eddie himself. He saw her eyes harden in disapproval as she tugged her kid protectively closer to her leg.

You, however, smiled at him like he was the most harmless thing in the world- and to you, that’s exactly who he was. Harmless Eddie. Familiar Eddie. Couldn’t hurt a fly even if he tried Eddie.

He was okay with you seeing him that way. It meant that you let your guard down for him- it was like you had a fence around the real you, the parts of you that he had never really seen before this year. Eddie was harmless, so you trusted him with those parts of you- and now that he’d been allowed behind that fence? He never wanted to leave. You were becoming his favorite exclusive, VIP-access-only club.

“Yeah, and all I have to give him in return is a vanilla shake.” Eddie leaned against the counter, batting his eyelashes at you as he gave you an award-winning smile.

You raised an eyebrow, nestling a perfect sphere of rocky road into a cake cone and handing it to the little boy over the counter as the mother handed you a five. “Well sure thing, one vanilla shake, coming up!” you opened the register and handed the mother her change as your eyes landed on Eddie, “That’ll be $2.50.” You punctuated your sentence with the mechanical sound of the cash drawer closing.

The mother was quick to take her son by the hand and turn tail to exit, but not without throwing one last disapproving glance in Eddie’s direction. He thought about flipping her the bird, but with you here, he felt like taking the high road. Eddie met you at the register, setting his elbows on the counter and pouting.

“But what about the best friend discount?”

Robin appeared in the window behind the counter as if summoned on the spot. “Excuse me, the what discount?”

You replied to Robin without looking, keeping your eyes on Eddie. “Robin, a person can have multiple best friends, this isn’t the fifth grade.” Unbeknownst to you, behind your back was an ever-so-smug Robin Buckley, adding a tally to the Stalker Score.

Eddie shook his head, lips pressed tightly together. She was quick to hide the board when you glanced over your shoulder to see what Eddie was shaking his head about. You shrugged, smiling wryly at Eddie. “I’m assuming the ‘best friend discount’ is free?”

He smiled widely, nodding ‘yes’ with eyes that reminded you of a toddler begging for a cookie. You tried to hold your ground, you really did… but those eyes were your kryptonite.

You sighed, shaking your head exasperatedly as you began scooping vanilla ice cream and dropping it into the blender bowl.

This was how most days went now- without school to hinder either of you from spending your time how you wanted to, you both spent the majority of your time with each other. Sometimes Robin was there too, or some of the Hellfire guys, but you were always together. At first, the reason for that had been your lack of a car- but the third week of summer vacation, you’d received a call from the mechanic that your old sedan was finally road-ready. Eddie had driven you there to pick it up, and if he was being honest with himself, he’d been genuinely afraid that this meant the end of your constant company. He’d been surprised when he received a call from you the next day asking why he wasn’t parked in front of your house, ready to drive you to work.

“You aren’t driving yourself?” He’d asked, confused.

Your voice was crackly over the phone, but he could still hear your frustrated sigh. “We work across the hall from each other, Eddie, we save on gas if we carpool.”

Relief washed over him like summer rain. It nurtured the soil, helped his confidence grow taller.

“I’m not sure you’ve ever even offered to split gas with me, ace.” Eddie leaned his shoulder against the wall, fiddling with the telephone cord as a smirk got cozy on his lips. “Is this you offering?”

You huffed out a laugh. “I walked right into that one.”

Eddie shook his head, cheeks hurting from the size of his smile. “Sure did.” he chuckled. “But I would never ask you to pay, seriously. Just throw me free ice cream every once in a while.”

“I will do no such thing, that’s against company policy-”

“I’ll be at your house in five!” Eddie chirped, interrupting you completely, “If you can have a scoop of cookies & cream ready for me at the end of my shift, that’d be great!”

He snorted upon hearing your scoff across the line. “Oh, it’d be great, huh?”

“And do you guys do that chocolate fudge dip thing? Yeah, if you could just drench that fucker in chocolate sauce too, that’d be spectacular, ace.”

“Since when am I ‘ace’?”

“See you in five, ace!”

Even though you didn’t need to catch a ride with Eddie, you still did. Your car worked perfectly fine, and yet you barely drove it. You enjoyed those precious moments with him too much to give them up. He drove you to work. He drove you to Robin’s. He drove you to Gareth’s whenever he had band practice (you loved tagging along, even if it was just to sit and listen. Sometimes you brought a book and pretended to read it. Sometimes you didn’t have enough self control, and just stared the whole time- Eddie getting lost in the music, you getting lost in him.)

When the temperatures got unbearably hot, Eddie drove you and Robin to Lovers’ Lake. The three of you would make a day out of it, bringing towels to lay across the sun-bleached wood of the dock and a cooler filled with sodas even though you all knew you should probably be drinking water- but you were young and stupid in little, non-life-threatening ways. You let yourselves get drunk on the sun and each other’s company.

For Eddie, lake days were dangerous.

He had always known that your body was not a difficult thing to look at- he wasn’t blind. But there had always been a barrier between Eddie and the understanding of just how not difficult to look at you were. That barrier had been clothes.

The first lake day, you’d climbed into his van wearing trendy, high-waisted shorts and a cropped tee. Safe. Basic summer clothes. Eddie hadn’t thought much of it.

Then, once the three of you had set up all of your things on the dock, you kicked off your flip flops, brought your fingers to the waistband of your shorts, and unbuttoned. Then, Eddie heard the sound of your zipper. And he just…froze. Because he knew what happened next, and in the back of his head he knew it made sense that you were taking your shorts off in front of him, out here in the open- you were probably wearing your swimsuit under there. You were at the lake, so of course he was going to see you in a swimsuit. Duh. It wasn’t a big deal.

But then your ass just… popped out of your shorts.

You brought the shorts down over your hips, and that ass… he saw a lot of your ass. You were the kind of girl that kept up with the trends, and the current trend was a very high-cut hip. You delivered. Your hips were front and center, accentuated by the cut of your suit. The morning’s movement had caused the fabric to wedge itself further…up. In? Eddie didn’t know which preposition to use, but he knew he was thankful for it all the same. Your back was bare, save for just about an inch of fabric that made up the strap of your top. He saw more skin than fabric, more skin on you than he’d ever seen. His brain was short circuiting.

You turned. He forgot to look away. When your eyes locked on his, you smiled shyly. You’d hoped he would look at you. You had bought this suit despite your better judgment- normally you didn’t show this much skin, but for Eddie you wanted to. You wanted him to see you and want you.

And want you he did. Eddie did everything he could to hide it, but oh… every time he laid eyes on you, he never wanted to stop looking. It was a problem. Specifically, his problem was that little fleshy part where your hip became your thigh, where your fat folded just so and formed a little sideways V-shaped crease. He wanted to touch that spot on your skin, wanted to grasp it, palm it, lick it, bite it.

This was bad.

Eddie wasn’t supposed to see you that way. That wasn’t part of the plan- you were his friend, he wasn’t willing to jeopardize that friendship just because he saw you in a bikini and liked what he saw. Liked it a lot. Platonic, guy-girl friends were all he would ever let himself see the two of you as, because anything else came with a whole lot of complications that he really didn’t want to have to navigate. Was terrified to learn how to navigate.

Besides- friendship was simpler. Comfortable. It almost scared him how comfortable it felt, being around you. Eddie had never been good at romance; never allowed the warm fuzzies and butterflies to evolve into anything more than pulling a girl’s pigtails or swiping his sweaty palms on his thighs.

Or dressing up like Jason and scaring girls through their bedroom windows.

Whatever. Eddie could handle this. He was mature enough to simultaneously want to squeeze the skin of your hips and know that he shouldn’t. Won’t.

He was mature enough. Seventeen years old, practically a grown-ass man.

Growing ass man. Definitely an ass man. Growing harder by the second, staring at that ass.

Good lord. Horny bastard, calm the fuck down.

You giggled out a girlish squeal, shielding yourself from the splash of the lake water from Eddie’s cannonball that sprayed you where you sat on the deck. Eddie hadn’t had much of a choice- you and Robin would only see his burgeoning boner while it was above water, so underwater he went.

When his head popped above the surface, however, he accidentally gasped water into his nose and lungs when he realized he was eye-level with where you sat on the deck, dangling your toes into the water. He hoped his coughing hid the effect you had on him, a vision of midwest summer decadence.

Knees, shining with sunscreen that glinted in the sun. Thighs met hips. Hips met love handles, creasing into a little dip that made his dick go from halfie to hard-on.

You were not going to make this easy on him. It was almost like you were trying to get him to break his vow to keep things platonic, because the things he wanted to do between those thighs right now were not platonic. Were you doing this on purpose?

Eddie escaped underwater, and you giggled smugly in his absence.

Yes. Yes, you were.

***

“He was staring at you so hard, I thought he was going to set fire to the deck.”

Ever since Eddie had dropped you and Robin off at your house, she had been spending the better part of an hour trying to get you to admit that there was even the most remote possibility that Eddie might like you back.

You’d finally admitted it to yourself before the end of the school year; you were head over heels for Eddie Munson, fallen victim to a crush of the highest degree. You were aware… but that didn’t mean you were ready to admit it to Robin, especially after an entire few months’ worth of time repeating to her over and over that you and Eddie were “just friends”.

Which was true, but that didn’t mean you wanted things to stay that way.

“He’s a teenage boy and I was next to naked,” you said, trying not to grin like an idiot (and failing). “-of course he was going to look. That doesn’t mean he like likes me.”

Robin raised an eyebrow. “He was like liking you so hard, I think I saw him drool.” Throwing herself onto the edge of your bed, she grabbed the magazine you’d begun half-heartedly flipping through and flung it to the floor.

“Hey! I was reading that!”

“Bullshit, you’re avoiding your feelings.” Robin leaned in, burning a discerning, focused stare into your retinas. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not crazy for that dingus.”

You wanted to meet her challenge, you really did… but instead, you squeezed your eyes tight, sighed heavily, and let the words rush out at a rapid speed that rivaled your pounding heart. “I can’t, I am crazy for that dingus.”

“I KNEW IT!”

You clutched desperately at her knees, which were tucked excitedly up to her chin to frame her giddy expression upon hearing your admission. “You can. Not. Tell him.” You pleaded, desperation in your eyes.

Robin was cackling in the face of your pain, still high on the feeling of being so incredibly correct. “Oh I’m not telling him anything.” She giggled matter-of-factly. “You are.”

You blanched, taken aback and immediately defensive. “Like hell I am!” you screeched. “I am doing no such thing, thank you.”

“What’s the harm? He is so blatantly in love with you, it’s hard not to laugh when I see his big ‘ole ridiculous goo-goo eyes-”

“Whoa, I think ‘in love’ is a very strong way to put-”

Robin’s eyes were comically wide. “Because the way he feels is very strong!” Her arms were flung out to either side, flabbergasted at how blind you could be to something that, from her angle, was clear as day. “Eddie Munson feels very strongly about you, if he feels any stronger, he’s gonna combust. You might combust.”

You rolled your eyes. “That’s a massive exaggeration.”

“Or…” A smile crept onto Robin’s lips, eyes narrowing slyly. “...you both just get so pent up that you combust together-”

Whatever might have followed that sentence was cut short by a pillow thrown into Robin’s face, met with muffled cackling on her end and helpless groans on yours. “What am I going to do?” you whined, flinging yourself back onto your mattress and smacking your palms over your eyes as if applying pressure might just ease the anxiety in your chest and the butterflies that fluttered lower when you thought about her insinuation. What might that look like- combusting together?

“Well, the way I see it,” Robin chirped, entirely too happy about your situation, “-you have two options. Either you make the first move, or you sit and wait for him to do it.”

You remained unmoved, eyes covered in your anguish. “What about a third option, where I keep on doing the same thing I’ve been doing and acting normal and just crushing so hard I want to cry while I pretend that everything is fine?”

Robin was silent for a few long moments before finally jabbing you in your side and causing you to yelp and convulse away from her. She knew you too well- your subtleties, your tickle spots, and especially when you were in denial.

“One of you is going to crack eventually,” Robin said, “and unless you want to wait around for Eddie Munson, lord of avoiding his problems- another way that you two are a match, by the way, you’re masters of evasive action- then I suggest you make the first move.”

You considered her words- Eddie was a serial procrastinator. If Robin was right, and he did like you back, he would probably rather wait around for you to say something about it before making any moves himself.

So the question was, were you willing to bring it up? To change your whole friendship, flip everything you two had built since the spring, based on the hope that he might return your feelings?

“Worst case scenario,” Robin continued, “he doesn’t like you back.”

“And he stops talking to me.” you added glumly.

“I don’t think he could if he tried.” Robin smiled. “Look, whether it’s romantic, sexual, platonic, whatever-” you exaggerated a shiver at the word sexual in the context of Eddie Munson, even though the two of you knew quite well that you were anything but disgusted by the idea. “-he’s crazy about you. Whatever you think that means, it’s probably right.”

You grinned shyly, ducking your head lower to avoid Robin’s eyes. “I’m pretty crazy about him too.”

Now it was Robin’s turn to smack you with a pillow. “Yeah, no shit!” she guffawed.

The two of you descended into giggles, and for the rest of the evening Robin continued to pester you with quips about Eddie and your massive crush on him. Each time you pretended to be annoyed, but in actuality each joke about how you loooooved him just solidified the idea in your mind of the two of you as an item. You imagined Eddie holding doors open for you in a boyfriend way. Stopping by your work to pester you, but the way a boyfriend would.

Boyfriend. Boyfriend. Boyfriend.

Eddie Munson, your boyfriend.

You wanted to speak it out loud, just to taste it on your tongue.

To capture it in a polaroid. To feel it in your hand. His hand, yours.

Boyfriend.

***

Eddie cared a lot about his clothes.

You knew this, it wasn’t a surprise to you. Everything about him projected the type of man he wanted to be perceived as, so his appearance was- unsurprisingly- carefully curated to his tastes.

Now, he seemed to think that his own personal aesthetic needed to extend to you as well.

“Eds, I already have enough shirts, why do you keep handing me shirts? I need shoes-”

Your sentence was cut short by Eddie piling yet another T-shirt and a matching flannel into your arms. You were sure that whatever the limit was for how many items you could bring into the fitting room of this store at a time, you were pushing it.

“Come on, just try them on for me? Please?” Eddie’s hazelnut eyes rounded out in a pout that you knew would be the death of you one day if you weren’t careful. “I don’t know if you’re ever gonna let me pick out your clothes again, the opportunity to dress you up like a paper doll is just too good to pass up. Humor me?”

You sighed heavily, making your way to the fitting rooms and hoping Eddie wasn’t perceptive enough to notice that you were a little too happy that he was so excited to look at you in any capacity, even if it was technically the clothes he was excited about and not necessarily you.

If Eddie could hear your thoughts, however, he’d argue that you couldn’t be farther from the truth. He didn’t want to dress just anyone up in a wardrobe of his own design- no, he wanted to see you in clothes that he picked out.

See, Eddie had been fantasizing about you more and more lately. Not in a weird way… just in a ‘it would be kind of cool to see my best friend wearing the kind of clothes that I like to wear’ kind of way. Was that weird? Regardless, Eddie had convinced himself that it wasn’t weird.

So there you were, shoving a plethora of denim, flannel and T-shirts into a fitting room. Sure, you owned a flannel or two for when the weather got chilly, as well as at least one pair of black jeans. You had a trusty denim jacket. Why was Eddie so hell-bent on seeing you in these clothes specifically?

You understood once the clothes were on.

“Eddie?”

“Yeeees?” You could tell from his voice that he was smiling on the other side of the fitting room door.

Unable to hold back a smirk as you assessed your reflection, you replied, “Was it your intention to turn me into the female version of you?”

Eddie’s heart just about skipped a beat. His palms were suddenly clammy, his face hot. Why did the idea of that turn him on so much? It’s not like they were his clothes.

You in his clothes. Now Eddie was picturing it. Picturing it… then shaking his head hard enough to make the image fall out his ears. Focus, Munson.

“Bold of you to assume you look as good in black as I do, ace-”

And then you opened the door.

Black jeans with rips at the knees. Forest green flannel tied snug at your waistband. Tight black cotton hugging your curves and puckering at your chest. A denim vest hanging loosely over your frame, allowing bare shoulders to peek out the sides.

Eddie’s heart just… stopped. You looked adorable. Fierce. Terrifying and brilliant. You somehow took all of the things he associated with himself and had turned them into things he liked. On him, these clothes looked rebellious to Eddie; they were like armor, meant to scare- keep those who might harm him at a distance. On you? They looked beautiful, striking-

“Amazing.”

Eddie saw your eyes light up and quickly realized he’d said that last part out loud.

“Amazing!” he repeated, this time, slightly less aghast and more enthusiastic, as if he’d known the whole time that you would rock the metalhead look even better than he did. As if the sight of you in a denim vest that looked an awful lot like his didn’t have this effect on him. “But you’re missing something.”

And then his hands were brushing the skin of your shoulders, pushing the denim vest down your arms. You didn’t fight him as he worked, focusing on the way your arms shifted behind your back, the way your chest inflated forward with the motion just enough for the peak of your chest to kiss the lapels of his leather jacket. If he noticed, he didn’t show it. You hoped that he couldn’t see the evidence that you’d noticed through the fabric of your black tank top.

Haphazardly folding the vest and placing it on the floor of your fitting room, Eddie then began to remove his own jacket. He slinked behind you and held the black leather as if to drape it across your shoulders, but stopped just short of letting the body-heated lining touch your skin. You realized he was waiting for you to reach your arm back and thread it through the sleeve, so you obliged.

Eddie’s face was so close; you felt the stray baby hairs at his shoulders tickle your chin when you barely turned your head. As you worked your other arm into the sleeve, he exhaled a little heavier and you felt it as it blessed the back of your neck. You reveled in the goosebumps that rolled down your arms; wanted to know what that breath might feel like everywhere else- anywhere else.

He bent to pick up the vest and hand it to you, but then stopped short as he caught you looking at the new and improved outfit in the full-length mirror. You stared at yourself, decked out in black and plaid but infatuated with the fact that you were wearing a part of him.

Eddie dropped the vest back to the floor, standing up straight again behind you. He didn’t move away, didn’t move to step back and relinquish your personal space- something about seeing the way your eyes couldn’t leave the black leather in your reflection was acting as some sort of visual pheromone. He couldn’t look away, wanted to melt into the light that he’d never noticed refracted off the surface of that jacket until you were the one it clothed. He wanted to drape himself over you the same way the jacket had, wanted to beat this jacket’s record for square inches of your skin being touched at the same time.

You had no oxygen left when you saw the way his face had slotted itself in the right angle of your neck and shoulder, had no resolve left to put on a brave face and pretend you weren’t molten beneath these foreign clothes. Your jaw went slack, eyes wide and wanting. His gaze was…possessive, if you dared to call it that. With it, he painted you in his image and signed his name in black leather.

You would be a willing canvas if only he asked. Was this him asking? Dressing you up like his own personal paper doll?

Eddie Munson’s doll. You liked the sound of that.

“I’d get it if you didn’t want to walk around school in my jacket,” Eddie said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “If anyone recognized it as mine, you might get some…”

“...unwanted attention?” you finished for him.

Unwanted. Of course that’s what you thought it would be. Eddie moved to take the jacket from you, but your hand flew up to stop him.

Your fingers curled around his hand, a vice on his skin that begged like a child pleading for five more minutes. “Can I keep it on, actually?”

Eddie froze, confused. Hadn’t you just admitted that you didn’t want the attention that would come with wearing his jacket around?

“It’s cold in the mall.” You looked at him with wide eyes that shone in the fluorescent lights, and for a second he let himself believe that maybe you wouldn’t mind being seen with him; wearing him. Of course people at school knew that you hung out with him, but wearing a boy’s jacket told a different story, sent a different message. Did you know that? Would you mind that?

“Uh, yeah… you sure?” Eddie breathed the words like smoke, exhaling them into your air after holding them in to mull over until he was sure about them. However, the smile on your face when you answered knocked any air left from his lungs.

“Of course I’m sure…wearing it feels like you.”

His lips revealed a smirk that you’d been sorely missing. “Feels like me, huh?” his hand darted out to squeeze your side, causing you to squeak as your waist went concave, bending away from his fingers on instinct. You giggled, breathy Eddie! Stop!s bouncing out of you as you avoided his hands that made to take advantage of the tickle spot he’d long since figured out.

“What’s the matter, ace? Thought you liked the way I feel?”

His fingers wiggled mischievously, and you retreated into the fitting room before closing the door in his face. “No,” your voice rang through the door, “I like the way your jacket feels.”

Bullshit. Eddie had heard you. No amount of saving face now on your end would be able to wipe the joy from his smile.

Feels like you. Wearing it feels like you.

You changed in silence, Eddie separated from you only by a vinyl door about one inch thick. On your side, you pulled his leather jacket back on, pulling the collar up around your neck until it enveloped your skin the way you wanted Eddie to. You quietly inhaled the scent of the well-loved leather, smiling at the way his jacket so eagerly melted into your reflection, like it had belonged there the entire time.

On the other side of the door, Eddie leaned against the wall dividing your fitting room from the next. One tennis-shoed foot rested up against the wall, propping up his knee. Hands slotted into his jeans’ pockets, face tilted upward- he would have made the perfect picture of nonchalance had he not been smiling like a lovesick fool at the ceiling.

When you finally emerged, the two of you walked toward the counter to pay for your new clothes until something caught your eye, bright enough to stop you in your tracks.

Platform Chuck Taylors. Canvas dyed a gorgeous stewed-cherry shade of red, the soles still shiny and new- a whole two inches thick- with that trademark black stripe down the middle. Eddie watched as you stared at the beautiful shoes, and he could have sworn he saw the pupils of your eyes turn to little hearts.

And then he watched you check the price tag.

A pained hiss came from your lips as that little sticker on the bottom of the shoe dashed your wish before his eyes. Eddie winced, slightly afraid of the answer. “How bad?”

You shook your head sadly. “They’re $45, which is absolutely ridiculous. A regular pair is only twenty!”

Even twenty dollars for a pair of shoes was pushing it for Eddie; he was a thrifty guy, excited to find a new-ish pair of sneakers at the secondhand store for less than $5. However, Eddie wasn’t going to tell you that. He took pride in what he wore, kept his things clean and in good condition for as long as they would serve their purpose. He was raised by Wayne to be that way.

You wound up purchasing a classic white pair of Chucks instead. “They’re just shoes,” you’d said, “and how often would I really have worn platforms anyways? I’ll get much more use out of these.” But Eddie didn’t miss the way you glanced longingly back at the cherry-red dream shoes. They’re what tugged on his heartstrings enough to make him do something stupid.

Back to school shopping with Wayne was one of the old man’s least frugal times of the year. First impressions, he’d always said, are everything, boy. Start the year fresh, and you wipe the slate clean. It’s a new year, so you’ll need a new pair of shoes, brand spankin’ new.

Each August, Wayne would hand Eddie a twenty dollar bill. It was meant to go toward a new pair of school shoes. And this year, they would still go toward that.

They just wouldn’t be Eddie’s.

In the middle of your lunch at the food court, Eddie pretended to go to the bathroom. He was gone a little longer than what would usually be considered normal for a restroom break, and he knew that you’d give him shit for taking a shit when he got back. But it would be worth it.

In actuality, he had the sales associate at the store hold the red shoes for him. He’d return to purchase them after dropping you off at home, and he rationalized this decision by saying he’d just give them to you in a few months as a Christmas present. He would have bought you one eventually anyway… what was the harm in spending the money a little early?

His face hurt from smiling. Funny, he’d been smiling so much more this year that he was surprised that the muscles in his face weren’t used to it by now. You did that to him- you, the girl who’d run around the playground in red mary janes. You, the girl who’d chased him down on Halloween. You, who’d somehow gotten him to think a little higher of himself and start believing he might be worth a damn.

Looking up as he re-entered the food court after securing those red chucks in his name, his grin went from subtle to blinding when he laid eyes on you once again.

You, the girl who wanted to keep wearing his jacket because it felt like him.

Part 5

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