Fix You ~Completed~

Act Sixty-Seven

"Mom."

Coraline froze in her place, midway through tugging an air mattress out of the closet in the hallway. Eddie and I were standing behind her with our bags, staring at her action in confusion.

"Yes, sweetheart?" Coraline responded quickly, smiling that sweet Eddie-like smile. It was so welcoming. I had a feeling Ed shared a good portion of his mom's qualities.

"You don't need to get an air mattress out for Clem," my boyfriend (ah, I loved labeling him as that!) explained, somewhat sheepish. When she frowned and asked why, we sort of glanced at each other, trying not to make it any more uncomfortable than it might be if she took this the wrong way. "Well, Clem usually sleeps with me. In the same bed."

"Oh! Okay, of course! I didn't even think of that!" she chuckled, replacing the sunken air mattress. In no way did she waver; the admittance didn't even phase her. "Thank god, because that thing is a beast! You know where your room is, Eddie, so just head on up there."

When we were out of ear-shot, I turned to him. "They still let you keep your room?" I asked, surprised. My parents made me totally strip mine down, even though we were still on okay terms when I moved out. They wanted to make it into an office.

"Yeah," he said with a shrug. "I used to visit a lot when I first moved to Sawyer. Gale and I were homesick practically every other weekend, so we'd drive up here to see our folks."

"That's so sweet," I commented, looking down at my shoes.

We walked up the stairs and Eddie guided me down a plain hallway with baby blue walls and a picture with unfamiliar people hanging up every now and then. A simple white door with the letter E painted across the face in black was our destination. Eddie opened the door and allowed me to go first.

The door shut behind us with a nearly silent click.

Eddie walked past me and lugged his bag onto the queen sized bed with the blue and grey comforter in the corner of the room beneath a Woodstock '69 poster. The walls were pretty barren save for that poster, a National Parks calendar dated 2010, and a few random band posters. Up there were The Zombies and Fleetwood Mac, of course.

My eyes trailed over the room, from the fuzzy blue carpeting to the single window dressed in cowboy curtains I assumed were from Eddie's childhood to the desk set up in the corner of the room. Books were stacked along the sides along with a few picture frames of young boys smiling, holding fish in one photo and a trophy in another.

"Oh my goodness!" I giggled, rushing over to examine them more closely. "Ed, is that you and Ale?"

Eddie sighed. "The one negative about you getting to see my childhood home; you get to see my childhood."

"Aw, you were so cute!" I cooed, careful not to touch any of the pictures. I didn't know if Eddie would be hypersensitive about that. Some people hated to have their stuff disrupted and the last thing I wanted to do was make my boyfriend mad. "You still are, of course, but as a kid you were just... aw."

"Can I see you as a kid sometime, that way we're even?" he mumbled, wrapping his arms around me from behind.

"No, sorry," I apologized, turning my gaze away from the pictures. "My parents never took photos and they never bought the ones the school takes. There really aren't any pictures of me in existence."

"Were they not big on preserving memories?"

"My parents weren't big on anything that had to do with me," I admitted, keeping my voice neutral. I didn't want Ed's pity, not about my parents. They weren't part of my life and that was just how it was. That didn't affect me!

But it did and I knew that. If they'd just given me some type of affection, maybe I wouldn't have ran into the arms of the first asshole willing to feign a little interest in me. I would have felt some sort of self-worth.

I rested my head on Eddie's chest, peeking up at him. "Any fun stories behind those pictures?" I changed the subject quickly. My lips curled into an honest smile that had that sad look wiped clean off my Ed's face.

"Well, in the one where we're lugging that giant Number One trophy around our second grade classroom, we'd just won a contest to see who could run the farthest in one minute. Gale and I smoked our classmates, so we got the chocolate trophy. Oh yeah, that thing wasn't gold or anything. It was pure chocolate," he said, making me laugh like I hadn't in days. (It was nice to be able to say that; I laughed numerous times in only a few days. That never used to happen before.) "And in that one with that ugly fish, Gale's dad had taken us fishing for the first time when we were ten. I didn't catch a single damn fish and I've hated that sport ever since. Gale, on the other hand, caught eight freaking fish! The fish we're holding is his first prize."

"Fishing sucks," I agreed, although I'd never been fishing. I never wanted to either. However, if my dad would have offered, I wouldn't have turned down an afternoon alone with him. "So, Gale is some sort of fish whisperer?"

"The kid has gotta be," Eddie sighed dramatically, releasing me. I spun around, wrapping my arms around his neck simply because I could do that since he was my boyfriend. "I'm sad, though. I really wanted to see you as a tiny Clem!"

"I'm still tiny. Just imagine me as grubbier and shorter. That's pretty much me as a kid. My voice didn't drop that much either," I told him, holding his eyes for that whole time. It was easy to do that with Eddie. When it came to strangers, however, it was nearly impossible. I could never make eye contact with one of the parents or Georgie. "Do you think w-we would have been friends if we all went to the same school?"

Eddie pushed some hair out of my eyes. "I do. The minute Gale saw you alone at a lunch table, he would have pounced and that'd be it. You'd be part of our group."

"I would have been fine with that."

Life would have been beautiful if I'd just met Eddie and Ale sooner. Maybe I would have been able to leave Kyla. I wouldn't of had to wait until he died to be happy.

I was happy, wasn't I?

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