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You slammed open the door to the trailer, your vision blurry with tears. You couldn't believe it. You didn't want to believe it. Your shirt felt sticky as it molded itself to your chest, and you sniffled, trying to keep quiet. Knowing Eddie, he was asleep, and you were thankful. Maybe you could get the stain out without questioning.
You weren't nearly that lucky. As you stripped the soiled shirt over your head, you stepped into the kitchen, and you saw Eddie sitting at the small, rickety table. He seemed preoccupied with a Dungeons and Dragons book, his eyes skimming the page as he nursed a bottle of beer, but stopped reading the moment he heard your sniffles. "Hey," he said urgently, setting his book down. "Are you crying? What's wrong?"
You said nothing. How could you possibly explain to him what had happened? Of course, on the surface, it seemed easy to explain: Heather, your tormentor, had it out for you and had splashed a drink on you. Heather had been teasing you and bullying you ever since you first came to Hawkins in middle school and now, a few months shy of graduation, it seemed she was upping the ante. You knew exactly why she was too, and it was the exact reason why you couldn't tell Eddie: it was him.
Ever since you started dating Eddie, Heather and her cronies had become uncontrollable. There had been countless incidents in the past and you hadn't told Eddie about any of them. He himself was already treated poorly by your peers, and you didn't want him to suffer because of you, so you kept it all to yourself. That was starting to bubble up and boil over, though, and your crying became harder.
"M'sorry," you sniffled, scrubbing at the shirt underneath the kitchen faucet. It was Eddie's shirt, his coveted Hellfire Club shirt, and you knew that was why Heather had targeted you in the first place at lunch that day. "Spilled a drink, I-I'm just clumsy. Go back to your book, don't worry about it."
