This Year is My Year

Why Doesn't Anyone Knock?

Eddie took my hand, walking me back to my room. I couldn't tell if this was a weak attempt to get into my pants, but the idea of a nap with Eddie sounding intoxicating.

We got to my room, and he set me on the edge of my bed while he scurried around my room. He took his boots off, setting them carefully by my door. He closed my door gently and picked up my copy of The Hobbit off my desk. He looked to me, smiling while he held it up.

"Bedtime stories!" He leapt onto my bed and positioned himself comfortably on the pillows. I watched him turn to me, smiling and he opened his arms, inviting me in. "Time for bed."

I crawled over to him and laid next to him, leaning my head back. I closed my eyes when I felt his arms around me.

"Not like that," he repositioned me, pulling me onto him, my head on his chest. My heart caught as he put his arms around me, kissing the top of my head. I relaxed into him, wrapping my arms around him. I could feel his heart pound through his chest, picking up pace as I traced patterns on his side. He took in a breath, trying to steady himself. It only made his heart go faster.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit," Eddie started reading from my book, making me smile. "Not a nasty, dirt, wet hole, filled with ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

I buried my face deep into his chest, remembering reading this to Dustin when he was small.

After our dad died, Dustin was confused, and our mother was crying every day, collapsing into our arms at any given moment. He was only six and didn't know where to put his feelings. He started lashing out, acting horrible as a way to grieve. Then, I remembered how much he loved the stories our dad would tell us – lighting up at the tales of knights, princesses, and great quests.

I went to the bookstore the next day, buying as many fantasy novels as I could with my babysitting money. I had Dustin come to my room that night, reading aloud to him as he would fall asleep on my shoulder.

He loved most of the books I read to him, but The Hobbit was his very favorite. As soon as we would finish it, he would make me start over, quoting the book with me. We did this every night, me reading to him as he leaned into me, curled up in my arms, up until my last night at home two years ago.

I smiled at the memory and closed my eyes, leaning into Eddie's pounding chest. I kissed it as he continued reading to me, rubbing my back as I drifted to sleep, the memory of Steve far away.

~~~

I desperately tried to focus the words on the page in front of me as Y/N repositioned herself on my chest, pulling me closer to her and nuzzling my chest.

The nap idea was truly born out of care for her, but it really worked out great for me too.

I was describing the Shire, rubbing her back as she glid her fingers along my sides, making my heart pick up. I thought it would burst out of me when she turned her head in and kissed my chest.

I felt her finally doze off, and stopped reading aloud, going through her book on my own. I smiled at her notes and annotations in the margins, noticing small drawings that I assumed Dustin made.

I pressed my lips to the top of her head, kissing her and inhaling her freshly washed hair. My brain felt foggy at the realization that she was real, in my arms, and holding onto me. I had never held a girl like her before. I had never been noticed by a girl like her before.

Charity case.

I winced at the phrase again. I was confused and angry by my altercation with Steve earlier. I didn't understand why he would help me the day before, telling me what Y/N's favorite flowers were, and then show up with the same flowers the next day. Was he trying to win Y/N over?