old fashioned • dj&ts

xviii. more than enough

Alexis didn't have to look very hard for Eddie. She saw him walking into his room when she left hers. She stood outside of his door for a while, fighting with herself. She overdosed only hours ago because she couldn't handle the pain she felt around him, who's to say she won't run off again? She didn't even remember running off until she woke up next to Billy on the bus and he told her.

The door opened. Did she knock? Her fist was in the air. It fell down when Eddie hugged her. She heard him cry. She hugged him back.

"I'm so fucking sorry," he cried into her shoulder. They eventually moved inside, and Alexis started to see how similar she and Eddie actually were. Both of them ran away from the mere idea of pain, Eddie finding comfort in a past love while Alexis found comfort at the bottom of a bottle. Neither of them were innocent.

"I need you to tell Billy," Alexis told him. That's the only way she would consider forgiving him, if he took the weight of hiding his secret off of her. It wasn't a secret she wanted to keep. She didn't want to feel like she was excusing him for what he did or like she was part of it at all. Billy's just as much a victim as she is, despite his flawed past.

"Okay," Eddie agreed, figuring Billy's reaction couldn't get much worse than it was earlier. All Eddie wanted was forgiveness, and if all it took was a punch or two, he was willing to take it. No amount of physical pain could even compare to what he felt hearing about the overdose. He walked towards the door but Alexis stopped him.

"Wait," she grabbed his arm. She wanted Eddie to hurt, but not the way Billy would hurt him. She didn't think he'd be willing to tell Billy at all, but he was ready to in that moment. "You were really going to tell him."

"Yeah," Eddie told her, confused as to why she was stopping him after being the one to send him in the first place.

"He'll hurt you," Alexis told him. "Like, actually beat the shit out of you."

"It can't be that bad, he still needs a bass player," Eddie shrugged. "I can take it."

He used his other hand to open the door while she used hers to shut it.

"Alexis, I'll tell him."

"I take it back, I don't want you to," Alexis panicked, remembering Graham telling her stories about how Billy would beat kids to a pulp if they even looked at Graham the wrong way. "You told me, Camila should tell him."

"Why forgive me, then?" Eddie asked. "You have no reason to."

"Because no matter how much I want to hate you and forget everything that ever happened between us, I can't."

"You said you're sorry you never told me you love me and you're sorry you ever loved me at all," Eddie said quietly, repeating what she wrote in her letter. "Did you mean that?"

"I did," Alexis answered. "But that doesn't mean I regret loving you. I just regret not telling you the truth. If I did, maybe things wouldn't be this way."

"Why didn't you?"

"Why didn't you?" Alexis asked, not ready to be vulnerable yet.

"I'm fucking afraid of rejection," he shrugged, laughing at how dumb he sounded. "You're the only person I've ever actually loved and that scared the shit out of me. I hated that you even thought I could be in love with someone else and that you didn't believe me when I said I wasn't."

"I've never felt good enough for anyone," Alexis cried. "My family wants nothing to do with me and my first boyfriend beat the shit out of me. Why would this time be different?"

"Because you were everything to me," Eddie told her. "I didn't know what your life was like before I met you because you didn't tell me. I didn't know why you were upset or how to help you. You didn't want to have sex anymore or sleep in the same bed and you started coming home at night with Billy."

He took a breath, but Alexis could tell he wasn't done explaining himself. She let him finish before she even tried to fight back.

"I only agreed to sleep with Camila because I wanted to hurt him, to take something from him for once. It had nothing to do with the stupid crush I had on her in Sunday school or because I thought she was better than you. It didn't mean anything to me. It was a mistake, and I didn't realize how bad I fucked up until you left."

Eddie saw her face change as he said that. He still cheated, but the fact that he didn't initiate anything or leave the house that night intending to cheat on Alexis made the slightest difference to her.

"I believe you," she said. He let out a breath he had been holding in and she saw his body relax in relief. "It doesn't change what happened."

"I know," Eddie nodded. "I know what I did and I have to live with that. I'd take it all back, you have to know that. I'd give all of this up if it would prove to you that you're enough for me. You're more than enough for me."

"I'm not ready to let you in again," Alexis told him. "But that doesn't mean I never will be."

"I'll be here when you are," Eddie promised. "I'll always be here."