Fight or Flight (Eddie Munson x Y/N)

8. "Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone"

"What in the fuck was that?" Stacy approaches you slowly with a smirk on her face, as soon as Eddie is out of ear shot.

"What do you mean?" you reply. You've never seen Stacy react in quite that way to a guy you were talking to. It seemed like a mixture of caution, excitement...and fear.

"That's...that's Eddie Munson. That's Eddie 'The Freak' Munson," she whisper yelled, as if anyone else was around you. "You don't remember him? Ahh, I suppose you wouldn't actually. When you left he had a buzz cut, wasn't as ornery as he is now."

"'The Freak?' What, does he participate in animal sacrifices? Wait, does he FUCK the animals?" you smile, knowing (or at least hoping) you're being hyperbolic.

"No!" she scrunches up her face. "At least, what we've heard about that is rumor...I think...He's in that Dungeons and Dragons cult or whatever. And he's into Metallica and shit. Basically everyone's afraid of him."

"But Stacy...I listen to Metallica. And I'm not fucking goats over here."

"Duh. I'm just saying...I've heard things. He seems okay to me. But that's what people say. And I mean, he is pretty fine, even with all that hair." She says, looking past you and clearly in a day dream. You snap your fingers to startle her back to Planet Earth. She shakes her said. "Sorry! So you didn't answer my question: What were you talking to Eddie about?"

"Tutoring," you say simply. You're not exactly sure what to make of the exchange yourself so you figure the less you say the better so you don't have to eat your words later. "I agreed to tutor him if he teaches me how to shred on a guitar."

"Oh...my god," she laughs. "Tutor him? This...this is too good. Are you starting with anatomy because,..."Stacy stops herself, suddenly aware of the joke and its context to what happened to you three summers ago. Stacy knew you had been raped at that party, but you hadn't really given her much information other than that. Not who it was, not anything. She wasn't even sure you knew who it was, which, honestly, you didn't. You could see his face. Feel him on top of you. Smell him. But you didn't know his name, and you never saw him before. Or since. It was like a waking nightmare, and the less you talked about it the better. Given Stacy's issues with her brother, Billy, you knew she understood that not all trauma needs to discussed to be understood, simply, as trauma. "Sorry," she finishes.

You try to quiet the fear that, quite frankly, had been bubbling a bit since you made the decision to tutor this Eddie character. You didn't know him. Where would you be tutoring him? Would it be a private place? Was he really a freak? Was she setting herself up again? Even though her therapist insisted it wasn't her fault, she, like so many others, couldn't help but feel it was. Something had come over her in that moment, though, with Eddie. It felt like a knowing. That it was safe. She hoped she could trust that intuition. That was the point of coming back to Hawkins, right? To reclaim who she was before she had become someone she didn't even recognize...

"No it's okay. I'm not stupid, Stacy. I'll tutor him in a public place. We haven't even decided on anything. Subject, where, when...it just...kind of happened."

"Alright, well, I fully expect to keep updated on these...educational sessions," she smiled.

********************
In the living room of his trailer, Eddie squeezes the beer can in his hand using the pads of his fingers to create popping sounds. "Do you know anything about that new chick at school?"

Gareth exhales the smoke from his joint, watching it curl around his face, and squints to look at Eddie. "Who do you mean, man?"

"Y/N I think?" Eddie replies, knowing damn well that's your name but not wanting to come across like he cares all that much about the question.

"Oh dude, she's not new," Gareth coughs back, leaning over to put the joint down in the ash tray on the table next to him. He coughs again and waves his hand in front of his face to clear the smoke.

"The fuck you talking about?" Eddie reaches over to grab the joint and take a hit. "I've never seen her before in my life."

"Yes you have," Gareth says. "She's just...not who she was. And she hasn't been here since like middle school. When we were like, really little, she kind of looked the way she does now. But when we hit the end of middle school, man, she changed. Dyed her hair. Started dressing like the rest of those prisses. Not that she wasn't smokin' hot in the skimpy shit but...it wasn't the Y/N we all grew up knowing. It's probably why you don't remember her. She started hanging out with Jason and Chrissy and that crew. Got too cool. Partied. And then one day right before high school, bam, she was gone."

"Huh..." was the only thing Eddie could manage while he held the smoke in his mouth.

Gareth continued, "There are rumors something happened at Jason's end of summer party. The one he always throws with those assholes. Some say she got alcohol poisoning and had to get her stomach pumped at the hospital. Other people said she got raped. Other people said she had a nervous breakdown or an orgy with the football team. Whatever it was it was enough for her parents to have their house up for sale the next day and they were out before school even started the next week. It was bizarre, man.I just wonder what she's doing back here."

Eddie let out the smoke through his nose before looking at the joint and putting it down. "Wow," he mumbled.  He was dying to know more, intrigued on many levels by this new girl who apparently wasn't new, shrouded in mystery, disappearance and resurgence—but he didn't want Gareth to know that. "Well, I guess whatever it was, it wasn't enough to keep her from this shithole hometown."

"Ha! Guess not, dude. Hey, you ready to finish up this damn D&D campaign for tomorrow?"

"Yeah man," Eddie replies, hopping up from the his Uncle Wayne's busted armchair. "Let's do it."