Fine Line // Eddie Munson x Reader

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐕𝐄

Many things made you feel devastated in life. The last pair of cute shoes being sold out at the mall. The wind flicking your hair into your lip gloss and smudging it. Horrific body odor or cheap perfume close enough for you to smell. 

But this? This was true devastation. You could care less about what it meant for Eddie - despite inspiring you to feel violently ill - because what you cared most about was your whole life had been a lie. Sure, your dad hadn't been around much lately but in your earlier years, he was your best friend. It broke your heart to know that he wasn't even your father in the first place.

You cancelled the mall with Brenda the day after, promising to tell her what had happened but here you were, two weeks later, still curled up in your room not wanting to brave school for having to see him. Your mom, in her guilt, had made excuses for you of course. Brenda had been patient with you too, bringing round your homework without prying too much for your mom to let her up to see you.

The homework wasn't done, or at least if it was, it wasn't by you. You felt like you were in hell. So desperately sad for the first time in your life, unable to stem the regular bouts of tears that came.

When your dad was home, you were especially shut away, refusing to go see him or be in the same room as him. You couldn't. Not without telling him. It was cruel of your mom to lay that on you and then force you to keep her secret too.

When you finally do return to school, you know what you have to do. Eddie would have no idea of what had happened and you currently had no intentions of telling him. The whole thing had put you in the vilest of moods and you had no interest in being nice to even yourself let alone anyone else. 

Your first stop is Brenda, where you ask her to switch lab partners with you in bio. 

"Sure," She'd immediately agreed, just glad you were giving her some kind of attention. You felt bad. You didn't mean to shut her out, but it was easier to not talk about the whole thing altogether. Talking about it made it real again. "Zack is pretty boring anyway. And he has a thing for you, so I can't imagine he'll be against it."

Great. Just what I need. Male energy. You internally roll your eyes but bite your tongue. It was better to simply accept the exchange; you could easily put off a guy like Zack. 

Then you went to each class and for the most part kept to yourself. Even going so far as to eat lunch in your car so you don't run into anyone you hadn't the energy to be around. It was just... Pretending to be fine was proving more exhausting than you'd anticipated. 

Knowing you had biology class at the end of the day was looming over you like a dark cloud, too. Maybe you could skip. 

But that was cowardice at work. You couldn't avoid Eddie forever, it was going to happen at some point so it was best to just rip off the bandaid and put a bitter pin in whatever he had intended for you. It wasn't like he'd even want anything to do with you anyway in your mind, since you'd stood him up and then dipped on school for two weeks. No, he'd be mad already. This would be easy. If you were lucky, he'd not even try to talk to you and things would go back to their hateful normal.

If you were lucky.

Which you weren't. 

When you get inside the classroom, arriving early to make sure you could get your new seat with minimal confrontation, Eddie is already sitting at your old station. There's only two other students in the class so far and that's Brenda and Zack, who were chatting casually. She was telling him her reasons for switching partners, kind in the way she assured him it was no fault of his.

Eddie glances up at you as you enter, halting you in your tracks. Big, warm eyes seek you out and then lower in sadness when you do nothing but stare blankly at him.