Flight or Fight? An Eddie Munson Love Story

Chapter Five

"I thought you were going to tell him you didn't want to be friends?" Steph asked, a few days later.

I was lying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling.
I felt lost, and if I was being perfectly honest I was already miserable. I'd let myself down. I hadn't been able to be honest with Eddie.

"Don't." I groaned, as she scoffed at me in the doorway.

"What happened?" Steph asked, sounding sad.

"I couldn't do it." I said.

"You can change it, surely, just text him today and ask to meet for a chat. Then you can tell him." Steph said.

"I feel like I can't give him that right now, as much as I want it. I can't keep messing him around." I said.

"You've hardly messed him around. Just meet up with him and tell him you don't want to be friends." Steph said.

"I'm scared Steph......" I whispered.

"Oh honey, I know you are. Everyone gets a little scared when they like somebody. You're taking a risk by telling them how you feel and then dating them. There's a chance it won't work out and I get it. But there's also a chance it will. But that's the gamble you have to take, you have to decide it's worth taking." Steph said.

"I think I'm too messed up right now." I said, sighing.

"Listen, you need to have a good think about what you want. Because someone like him, as understanding and as gentleman-like as he is, someone else will come along and you just might lose him." Steph warned, as I sighed again.

"I know it's scary for you, for lots of different reasons. But you deserve to be happy." She added, before leaving my room.

Steph was good at gentle, but tough love.
She was honest, but knew how to deliver that honesty constructively. She didn't treat me like fragile glass, she was always honest with me and sometimes with an added firmness, because frankly, I needed it.

Therapy would only ever take me so far, I'd have to do the rest myself. But it was taking that plunge.

What if it didn't work?
No. My heart wasn't fully open yet.
I was going to have to make do with friends; he'd be in my life in some shape or form and that was better than nothing, right?

And he deserved someone who knew exactly what they wanted, an open heart and someone who wouldn't consistently desire to run.

Travis had ruined me.
Ruined who I was.

I couldn't present or offer the ruined version of myself to Eddie, he deserved far more than that. He deserved more than damaged goods.

If I was going to offer myself to Eddie, I didn't want to be this version of myself. I wanted to be intrinsically me. Authentically, me.

And right now, that option was not on the table.
I wasn't sure it ever would be.

**********************************************
One month later.

And so, we'd remained friends.
Friends who went for coffee once a week, chatted about anything and everything, and every Friday we either went to see Jeff perform solo, every other Thursday she'd come to see us in the band.

She was always there, her friends were always there and we'd become a group of good friends in a matter of weeks.

We all met for dinner, we met in the bar after work, had pizza and movie nights and did your typical friend stuff.

Gareth and Grant really liked the girls, and we all got along as a whole. But for me, it always felt like something was missing, or something was unsaid.