Everybody Hurts

Chapter 21

 Sam stood on the sidewalk, her body frozen to the core even as the warm rays of sunshine beat down on her, watching as Eddie climbed into his van and drove off, leaving her there with Steve and Robin. No one spoke. The air hung thick around them with the horrid thing they'd just witnessed, with the potential of what it could all mean.

"Shit, I have to call this in," muttered Steve. "Look, just..." He glanced down at Andy who lay still on the pavement, knocked out cold, but his chest rose and fell steadily. "At least he's still alive. That's something at least. Fuck! Just, you two stay here with him. Make sure he doesn't, I don't know, choke on his own blood and die or something. That would make this all even more complicated. I'm gonna call into the station."

His words flowed through Sam's ears but her brain barely registered them as she continued to stare at the place where Eddie's van had been just moments before. The look on his face, the self-hatred that was etched so deeply into every line. His eyes, the lack of hope, an emptiness within them that just couldn't be filled. He'd looked exhausted, weary, his body broken down by a lifetime of sadness and pain. The sag of his shoulders, disappointment and fear that he was exactly the monster this whole town had painted him out to be.

"Sam!" yelled Steve, large hands wrapping around her shoulders, shaking her gently. "Hey! Are you hearing me?"

She nodded, blinking slowly, struggling to focus on his face. She couldn't believe what she'd just witnessed. What had she witnessed? A man who'd been pushed to his breaking point. A man who had been tormented his entire life by a town that refused to allow him to be anything but the monster they'd decided he was. And Eddie had finally unleashed that very beast on the person who'd probably deserved it the most. Years of anger simmering inside of him until it had boiled over, a storm of havoc and chaos that was out of his control. Eddie had been a force of nature as he'd lashed out, a force that could neither be controlled or contained.

"Hey, look, it's okay," soothed Steve, hands running up and down her arms, making her aware that she was shaking. "I know that was scary but I swear that's not who Eddie is. Andy's had this coming for a long time with the way he runs his mouth. If it wouldn't have been Eddie, it would have been someone else eventually. Jesus Christ. This is...look, are you going to be okay? I need to call."

"Yeah, yeah...I'm good," Sam told him, nodding.

"Okay. I'll be right back."

Steve walked back into Benny's and Sam looked over to find Robin standing as still as a statue, staring down at Andy. Shaking herself from her own shock, she made her way to her friend, grabbing onto her shoulders, turning her body around, away from Andy and toward her. Robin's eyes were wide, tears hanging onto her lower lash line and Sam pulled her into a hug, crushing her against her, whether to comfort Robin or herself she wasn't even sure.

"This is so bad. This is so bad," groaned Robin, fingers digging into Sam's shoulder blades. "Andy's an asshole who had it coming but the town won't see it that way. They're going to come with their pitchforks and torches again. Hunt the freak. Eddie's gonna go to jail for this. There's no way Andy won't press assault charges. Everyone's just been waiting for this moment. They'll say he's finally getting what he deserves and after everything he's been through...surviving the demobats and the Upside Down and fucking Henry slash Vecna slash One, all for it to end like this! It can't end like this! He's a good person! We'd all be dead if it weren't for him and his guitar!"

Robin's words whirled through Sam's already muddled brain in a chaotic swirl. Demobats? Upside Down? Vecna? His guitar? She couldn't string a coherent sentence together right now, let alone try to piece together the nonsense that Robin was rambling in her anxious agitation. The one thing that sliced through the muddy waters of her thoughts was Eddie going to jail.