EDDIE MUNSON IMAGINES

LETTER (3)

i'm including numbers here & below at the end of the chapter because it's important to recognize the dangers of domestic violence within teen dating. i've listened to too many tragic crime cases about it and i know too many people that have dealt with it or had somebody who passed away from it.

recognize the signs. stay safe. i love you guys. 

phone numbers: 

800-799-7233 (domestic violence hotline)

1-800-656-4673 (sexual assult hotline)
-

it was the day before christmas break and you could feel the energy in the air, the feeling of people eager to get home for three weeks. you walked through the door of the gym, your mind so focused on what had happened yesterday that your stomach was twisting in knots. you cautiously rounded the corner by the locker room, hoping to not see him, but as soon as you passed the door, you heard him call your name from behind you.

your muscles tensed up, feeling his hand reach out and touch you. 

"where you going? and so soon?"

you turned around to face him, your hair brushing past your shoulders as your eyes stayed on the ground in front of you. andy smiled at you sweetly, gently lifting your head up as he brushed some hair out of your face. 

"shit, you're still bruised?" he muttered, gently pressing the side of your face with his two forefingers as you flinched back in fear and slight pain. andy sighed, letting your hair back down as the bell rang before he pressed a kiss to the side of your head and walked past you to get to his locker. jason walked out of the locker room afterwards, smiling at you as he greeted you. 

"hey, _______, everything okay?" he asked as you nodded slowly, feeling the events of last night again as you briefly smiled at him, your hand reaching up to feel the bruise on the side of your jaw.

"yeah," you muttered, trying to remember the good times with andy to distract yourself from the argument he had gotten into with you last night. even though you hung out with his friends, he always thought you were cheating on him with one of them. he trusted you, but he also didn't trust you. 

"________? __________?" 

there was ringing in your ears as you thought about everything that had led up to the point. 

"________?" 

you sat up in panic, your mind overwhelmed as you reached up to the spot on your jaw that had been bruised previously as eddie turned on the lamp on your bedside table. your stomach was tied into a pretzel as you tried to ignore the nightmare you had. it was reoccuring. 

that nightmare, or the night that it first happened were the two most played nightmares you had of andy, but you had so many different ones.

"hey, princess, what happened? are you okay? did you hurt yourself?" eddie asked as you began crying, shaking your head as you reached for the letter and realized it wasn't there. you began to panic, getting off the bed as you used both your hands to search for it underneath your bed. you walked to the other side as you found where eddie had hidden it. you started flipping through the many different pages, trying to find the night when it had happened.

you sat on the floor of your bedroom, eddie cautiously getting up but you shook your head. 

"the day before christmas break was one of the harder days. it symbolized the shift in his behavior, from the previous night. he got into an argument with me over the smallest things- as if i would cheat on andy with sam. he didn't seem to listen or trust me during the argument, which only led to my jaw being the victim of his anger. he hit it hard enough to bruise it, and it left me jarred for the rest of the following two weeks. i fell asleep that night at his house and tried to sleep it off. i even went through his medications to find some pain relivers, luckily because he played basketball, he had plenty. i thought about how he told me he was sorry and he told me he loved me afterwards, and i fell back into his trap. he looked so sweet laying asleep in his bed and even after my jaw was hurt, it was only the beginning of the entrapment that i would be facing with him. i didn't know it yet. so, i stayed with him. i slept in his bed that night, i could feel his hands on me and i felt comforted. the same hands that had hurt me, the same hands that didn't care if there was consent or not. he said he cared, but he clearly didn't. he only wanted me whenever i was showing desperation to have him back after he threatened to leave me. i didn't want to lose the one love i had, or so i thought. i was scared, young, and dumb. i couldn't leave him because i was afraid to be alone. even after going into school that day, i was so scared. my makeup wasn't covering the bruise well enough so i made sure to have my hair down to cover it up. i couldn't risk people asking questions, who knew what he would do to me if i told anybody. i couldn't put my life in any unknown danger. so, i lied to everybody who happened to notice it was there. i became so good at lying, it was almost like everything out of my mouth seemed to be a lie in one or way or another. people stopped questioning the bruises or marks on me later on and a lot of people simply ignored it whenever i spoke to them. it didn't mean that everybody was bad, jason was the only who seemingly took notice and tried talking to andy about it. but all andy told me was that he had said to jason that i was being careless during cheer practices and happened to accidentally hurt myself. to him, it made sense. like the pieces of a puzzle fitting together," you read aloud, crying about everything that had gone on in your mind and with the letter. 

eddie started to get up again, waiting to see if you were going to tell him not to but you couldn't stop crying about it. the feeling of the bruise was still there, it felt phantom and faded every now and then, but it was still there.

it would always be there. 

"hey," he spoke softly as your eyes slowly looked up to his as he got on the ground in front of you, taking the letter away. "you don't need to read me anything you don't want to, okay?"

"it doesn't even matter anymore, eddie! steve already read it! all my private thoughts!" you exclaimed as eddie shushed you gently. he grabbed your hands as he pulled you up and into his hold, keeping you close. 

"hey, hey, shh," he muttered softly. "breathe, princess. breathe." 

he could feel you trying to calm yourself down, but your heart rate was insane. he softly hummed your favorite song to you, hoping it would help. he could hear your cries becoming more patterned in a calmed state, and he knew you were still thinking about it. 

"i'm always going to protect you," he muttered. "i know steve invaded your thoughts, but you know that i would never, ever let him start a conversation about it with you." 

you slowly nodded, your arms holding onto him tightly as he sighed, pressing a kiss to the side of your head. your mind flashed back to andy, making you feel guilty even thinking about him. 

"eddie," you muttered as he nodded.

"yeah? what's up?" he questioned. 

"he won't get out of my head anymore," you said to him, eddie staying silent. 

"would you want to talk to the school counselor about it?" he mumbled. 

"what the hell would she do?" you asked, slightly loud as eddie shushed you quietly once more. 

"shh, i wasn't trying to upset you," he said gingerly as you calmed back down. "after hearing that _______, it hurts me. the thought of you being hurt and still sticking with him because he lied to you?"

"i don't want to talk about andy anymore," you said, feeling the tears willing to come back as eddie nodded. 

"do you want to sleep?"

you were silent for a moment, debating the options you had here. sleeping might lead to another nightmare that you didn't want to have, but you were so tired and you needed the rest. eddie knew that, too.

"i'll hold you all night if you need me to," he muttered.

"how can you read my mind, munson?" you asked, looking up at him as he pressed a kiss to your cheek before responding. 

"because i love you," he responded. 

he walked back over to the bed and got under the many blankets you had as you gave him the letter, wiping away some tears you still had. he looked between you and the letter in confusion. 

"what are you doing?"

"you need to hide it again, eddie," you said softly, your eyes pleading with him. he sighed, getting out of the bed and hiding it underneath your laptop that was in it's case under the bedside table. you turned back around to look at him. 

he gently wiped away your tears, staring down at you in adoration before climbing back underneath the blankets. you followed directly afterwards, climbing under the blankets and straight into eddie's arms. you laid against his chest as he sat up against the headboard of your bed, running his fingers gently through your hair as you let out a sigh. 

"i'll talk to steve tomorrow, okay? in person," he said, hearing your breathing pattern evening out into sleep. you nodded ever so slightly.

"love you," you mumbled before falling asleep. eddie smiled down at you, his fingers still running through your hair as he sighed. he turned off the lamp, muttering a 'love you too' before the two of you fell back asleep.

eddie wasn't sleeping tonight, not until he knew that steve and your friends understood the definition of privacy.