Together, until the end | Eddie Munson

Scars, nightmares and back to the future

After visiting Max in her caravan with Dustin, Vivien returns to the little house lost in the woods, after all it must be the least findable but it was well furnished.

He's been really quiet since they've been in Hop's house. She can't blame him. This whole week has been traumatic for him, for all of them.

When he was pulled out of the Upside Down,
bleeding, Eddie didn't think she would make it, yeah Vivien had promised him but she couldn't control it either. Somehow
masochistic, he thought he shouldn't have done it. He still blamed himself for what happened to the cheerleader. Maybe if Chrissy hadn't gone to him, maybe if he told her he wouldn't sell her the drugs, she could have been saved.

Vivien can't imagine how stressed and scared he was in that moment. He had seen someone floating in front of him, her eyeballs being sucked into her head and her bones breaking in different directions, and on top of that, he was blamed for her murder when it had nothing to do with it. The police were also struggling in this situation, so...what's the easiest target to blame? The city drug dealer who plays a fantasy game.

He was forced to stay away from his uncle and friends, hiding while people were hunting him.
He was distant, paranoid. Eddie's there with her physically, but he's not really there.

The first few days after being released were the hardest. And he was becoming more detached, but not for a specific reason. Vivien doesn't blame him, she can't fully understand how he feels, he came back from the dead.

"Ed! I'm here!" She enters the house with the key that Jim gave her, her arms full of shopping bags containing food and snacks. "Eddie?"
"Im here" she hears him scream softly.
A wave of relief when she realized he is okay, but his tone suggests otherwise. Walk to the bathroom door before gently hitting us with her knuckles. "Ed" she keeps a gentle voice, "I bought food, are you hungry?" She remains silent for a few seconds waiting for an answer.

"Can you please just go?" the boy responds with a trembling voice on the other side of the door. She just wants to wrap him in her arms, but she knows it'll only make things worse, "Please. I'm-I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Sure, come to me if you need anything, okay? Please. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere." She tells him with a heavy heart as she waits for another answer.
She knows that he needs time, she knows that he is traumatized but at the same time she just wants him to open up to her.

A few seconds pass before muttering a "Okay"

Time passes. An hour? An hour and a half?
She  tried to ignore Eddie by putting the only cassette film that Hopper had left in his 'house' "Back to the Future" despite she has seen it already three times.

Eddie in the meantime has remained in the bathroom, between silent sobs he looks in the mirror. When he returns to the living room he looks like a battered puppy as he stands there with his brown eyes. "Viv?" he whispers almost as if he doesn't want to be heard
"Hey..." the girl turns and goes to get up from the couch and approach cautiously
"I am so sorry..."
"For-for what?"
"The way I'm treating you these days. You-you don't deserve it. I don't know what's going on with me."
"Hey no no no...it's not your fault."

"I don't want you to see."
"To see what?" she asks confused

"The scars" he whispers and Vivi immediately understands. He is ashamed of the bite marks and scratches left by bats. It breaks her heart to see him like that, thinking he was something to be ashamed of. She takes his face gently in her hands and forces him to look at her.

"Ed..." a sad sigh comes out of her lips
"They're horrible...ugly on me. I hate them, I can't even look at them."
Oh, Eddie Munson, if you could look at you the way I do...