Whoop, here we are on part 2. I was a little too impatient to wait until Tuesday, but updates are supposed to be weekly so I can write a little bit ahead. Keeping a regular schedule is tough, y'all.
[Part 1] – [Part 3]
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Pin a String to My Chest – 2
A chance meeting
He might have never been interested in anything physical, but he had eyes, and people watching was always entertaining. Sometimes, that led to watching specific people. Sometimes, those specific people took issues with his watching.
(Sometimes, some rare times, people didn't seem to mind it, much. Sometimes, it even seemed they agreed with what he had to say. It's how he ended up with the current iteration of Corroded Coffin, beyond their shared interests.)
And Eddie would notice things. He had noticed his mom stopped fighting against his father's verbal and emotional abuse, so he started doing it instead. He had noticed that some of the things he heard at school were pretty close to shit his father used to say, and Eddie simply refused to be anything like him.
It was a lot easier to be loud about shit when he realized that not everyone could be. His mom, Gareth, and that one kid he found in the school parking lot in his sophomore year. It brought the attention onto him, but he handled Richard Munson just fine, right?
He'd never expected anyone to come to his defense; loud and opinionated metalhead that decided being different actually made more sense? Yeah, right. He wasn't even considering the fact he lived in the trailer park with his uncle.
(No offense to Wayne, of course, the man knew what most of the town thought about them. He just repeatedly urged Eddie to stay safe.)
Eddie, though, was the protector of his little group; drawing attention to himself then running with it, often literally. He could take a punch or two. Had taken quite a few in this school year already.
He had taken a couple of punches just now, so Grant, newcomer to Hellfire that he was, could get home unhurt.
"Hey!" The next punch never came, and Eddie looked up to see Jackass of The Week being pulled away by none other than King Steve himself. "That's enough, get out of here."
Eddie frowned, but neither the Jackass nor Harrington were looking at him; Steve was simply staring the guy down. At least it wasn't anyone from Hargrove's little group, this whole mess would've gone oh so well…
A soft touch to his arm startled him out of his musings as Steve started moving and taking Jackass with him, and he crossed his arms over his chest on instinct.
"Oh, geez, I'm sorry!" The girl next to him exclaimed. The hallway was pretty much empty after Steve left, save for a few stragglers that were doing a terrible job of not watching them. She grimaced and added, "I didn't mean to startle you, or anything."
Eddie shook his head and glanced around. He prided himself in paying attention to the people around him, but he couldn't think of a reason why sophomore cheerleader Chrissy Cunningham would be talking to him.
"Here." She held out a tissue, offering a small smile. "You got, uh..." She grimaced once Eddie took the tissue, and gestured to his face. "You're bleeding."
And yeah, okay, he could feel the sting now that everything was calm once more. He turned to Chrissy with a faint smile, pressing the tissue to his lip and trying not to wince. It could've been worse, but the split lip was going to be annoying anyway.
"Thanks."
Her smile widened, and she was quick to say goodbye after that. Something about cheerleading practice, "not that I think you'd know much about it," but it was said without malice. It sounded somewhat like I know it's not something you're interested in and that's okay. Like I listen, actually.
Realizing, later, that Chrissy Cunningham did listen, and even seemed to consider some of the things he'd said?
It was refreshing.
Which made seeing the downward spiral that much worse.
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