Infatuation | Eddie Munson

17- Falling

~

I sat in silence, not a word escaping my mouth for the last couple of hours. I'd been staring at the wall, my mind blank, while also thinking a thousand thoughts at the same time. My face felt numb and I didn't know what to do with myself.

"Hey, Florence?" Eddie spoke. He tried getting my attention several times but I continued to brush him off. "Florence I know you're probably scared but it's getting late, you should-"

"I'm not scared," I said abruptly. "I'm not dying any time soon I'll make sure of it. What that thing, Vecna, did to Chrissy, he's not going to do to me."

I heard Eddie sigh, not sure how to respond to my statement.

"Okay- yeah, we'll make sure of it," he agreed. I whipped my head around to see him leaning against the wall, his expression unreadable. I stood up from where I was sitting, walking closer to him and leaning my back against the wall next to him.

"There has to be a way to break out of that trance, there's just gotta be," I began, waving hand in the air as I spoke. "And I'm not dying until I find out how."

He nodded, his expression still an unreadable portrait. I exhaled deeply before feeling something brush up against my hand. I swiftly looked down at my hand, seeing the long-haired boys hand coming in contact with my own. I immediately shot my eyes up to meet his face, only to see that he's already looking  at me. Outside of my control, my eyes averted to his slightly agape lips. 

His lips were like a fishing line, drawing me closer and closer, but as our faces inched closer and he thought he had reeled me in, I quickly pulled away. I cleared my throat, running the same hand that touched his through my chestnut hair as I walked towards the boat.

"Uh... I'm pretty tired, I'm gonna get some sleep," I blurted out, fiddling with my own fingers.

"Yeah, sure. Me too," he said hesitantly.

The atmosphere was awkward and the tension was high, sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder wasn't going to make it any better. We crawled into the boat and quickly pulled the tarp over us, luckily, this hid my bright red cheeks due to the pitch black that had now overcome us. The only thing I could hear was the sound of the rippling lake and my own heavy breathing.

"Goodnight," I whispered amongst the pure blackness.

"You too, princess," he whispered back, thought I couldn't see it, I could sense him smiling.

"Fuck you," I retorted.

After exchanging those last words, I spent what felt like hours shifting around in the rusty boat, whilst Eddie hadn't moved a muscle since. Every time my eyes felt heavy and I felt myself drift into slumber, I immediately woke myself up, knowing what was to come next if I allowed myself to fall asleep.

I fought my tiredness and tried to force my eyes to stay open, no matter how heavy my eyelids became.
But eventually, I had lost the fight and my eyelids were as heavy as ever, drifting shut as I finally fell asleep.

~
I woke up on a green field, full of flowers of every colour imaginable, the crisp breeze making my hair flow in the wind. In front of me sat my mother, and that was when I realised this was a memory. We were sat on the picnic mat and I felt like nothing in the world could have ever been better than that moment. As I enjoyed the memory, a huge sense of nostalgia filled me up from head-to-toe and I felt safe and protected.

"This is all your fault, Florence," a dark, deep voice echoed.

Before I knew it, everything around me had faded into the same setting the nightmares had taken place in all of the other times. My mother was standing on the edge of the building and there were vines displayed everywhere. But this time, I didn't struggle, I didn't run for her, instead, I let her jump.

"This is all your fault!" A voice screamed loud enough to burst my ear drums.

Tears began to fall from my eyes as my father emerged from the shadows, yelling and spitting in my face continuously.

"All your fault! All you fault!"

My lips felt as if they were glued shut, all that I could scream out was the word 'Eddie.'

"Eddie!" I cried, screaming as my father yelled back at me. "Help me," my vision became completely fogged with tears and I dropped to my knees.
"Please..." I whispered. "Eddie!"

I rose up from the boat, suddenly feeling incredibly claustrophobic, cold sweat dripping down my forehead as I ripped off the tarp. I heard a groan come from beside me, he was fast asleep, his hair a bird's nest. I wiped the dripping sweat from my forehead and ran my fingers through my hair. It felt like all I could do was stare at a wall until my heart rate slowed down, the usual after one of these bad dreams. I sighed.

"Florence?" A raspy, morning voice mumbled. "What time is it? Put the tarp back up."
He was muttering and waving his hand at me as he spoke.

"I don't know, you tell me dipshit," I said.

A smile quickly crapped at his lips as his eyes stayed glue shut. He let out a loud groan and rubbed his face with the palms of his hands before sitting up and stretching his stiff bones. We sat up in the boat, shoulder-to-shoulder as I look into his eyes and he looked into mine. My eyes moved from his eyes, down to his lips, scanning his face. I wanted to punish my brain for thinking that the boy who I once despised was attractive, but I couldn't even deny it anymore.

Before I did sometjing I would soon come to regret, I was the first to break eye contact, looking down at my hands.

"Have another nightmare?" he asked, his morning voice clearly showing through.

"Oh, yeah. But it's fine," I said dismissively, a small smile tugging at my lips.

We both knew it wasn't fine, but I avoided any further conversation about the topic and I brushed it off, switching the topic. "You hungry?"

"We're gonna be out of food pretty soon," he yawned, scanning the couple of bags laying on the floor.

"I have this," I suggested, reaching into my backpack and grabbing out a red apple, with a many bruises covering the skin. "Here, you can have it," I say, offering it to the boy.

"No, you take it," he said, immediately pushing my hand back.

"We could... split it?" I say shrugging.

"And how are you gonna do that, Spring?" he said challengingly.

"Uh..." I muttered.

"Pass it here," he said, opening his palm so that I could give it to him, and so I did.

He placed the apple in between his ringed-up hands. I watched his thumbs press down in the middle of the apple, ripping the apple into two perfect pieces. I scoffed, subtly looking him up and down, "Do you even want that or did you just use this as a perfect opportunity to show off," I asked, smiling.

He shrugged, passing half of the apple to me. The inside was brown and didn't look appetising, we looked at eachother and took a bite of the apple at the same time. In sync, our faces turned into a disgusted expression, spitting out the chunks of apple in our mouths. I began to laugh as I watched his reaction to the rotten and bruised apple.

"That was disgusting," he complained.

At this, I laughed. I couldn't deny it any longer. I couldn't deny that I was falling for Eddie Munson.

~
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