california here we go

1- lust for life

eddie kaspbrak was fucking excited to say the least. at eighteen years of age, he'd finally managed to escape the suffocating, homophobic clutches of derry, maine and was moving to los angeles, california. away from the high school bullying, away from the small town lifestyle where everyone knew your business, away from the rumours about his sexuality that had spread like wildfire and, most importantly, away from his mother.

if he could count sonia as his mother. yes, she gave birth to him and yes, she raised him- but did eddie really want to think of her as his mother? she treated him like a child, never even letting him make friends. he had to be perfect, and she gave him bruises when he wasn't. she made him take placebo medications his whole life because oh eddie-bear you are sick, sick, SICK!
oddly enough, that's what she said to eddie when the town gossip that he had been caught making out with a boy reached her ears. sick, sick, SICK! eddie supposed that was better than when the fact that he was irreversibly, absolutely a homosexual had set in. then sonia had said he was dirty. she almost made him drop out of his senior year of high school, insisting that eddie would stop the disgusting act of rebellion if he was cut off from the world.
yeah, right. that's how it works. eddie spent years trying to pray away the gay before he came to terms with it. he didn't choose to like boys, i mean seriously, who would?
so eddie had decided now. he wasn't going back to her. he was staying in los angeles. sonia was getting cut out of eddie's life, in the same way she cut everyone he ever tried to befriend out of his life for him.

los angeles was like a fucking fever dream. eddie couldn't believe it. he was so glad sonia had asked him to get the mail that day, otherwise he would be stuck in derry for the foreseeable future. there was no way she would have given him the letter.

the letter. the best thing eddie had ever held in his hands. his letter. an acceptance letter into the university of california los angeles to study nursing. his dream degree in his dream college. oh sonia kaspbrak wouldn't have let eddie within ten foot of this letter if she had seen it.
which is why eddie didn't let her see it. sonia didn't find out eddie was going to college. he didn't tell her he was going. he confirmed his admission, sorted out accommodation, booked his flight and sonia didn't know a thing about it. eddie felt like a secret agent. he bought himself a brand new phone (and maybe, just maybe, he bought himself airpods- fuck it, he'd earned it) using some of the money he'd earned from his part time job at derry's only record store, night shift, and set the phone up and hid it under a loose floorboard beneath his bed. eddie had been using sonia's shitty old phone from 5 years previous, and he had been forbidden from having social media. sonia checked through the phone, randomly, so that eddie couldn't hide it.
the first thing he did with his new phone was make instagram, and then snapchat and facebook. he eventually caved in, and downloaded tiktok too. eddie felt like he'd missed out on a lot. sure, he'd secretly used social media but these were accounts he didn't have to delete. eddie was pretty proud of himself- he'd managed to get over three thousand followers on instagram in just a few months. he didn't exactly see why, but he wasn't complaining.

eddie had begged for the job in night shift when he was barely fourteen- old mr king, who owned the store, had been reluctant. clearly, he wasn't particularly fond of of eddie's mum. but really though, who was? regardless, he took eddie on. thankfully. eddie told his mum he was studying at the library whenever he was working. he didn't spend a cent of the money he earned in the over four years he worked there, knowing that one day he would get out of derry. he had to.

a week before eddie was due to leave, he started packing. he knew he had to pack light, or sonia would know. he still managed to fill both of the suitcases he had found in the attic, along with a backpack and a hold-all (all of which were gradually hidden in the garage). the hold-all didn't really count to eddie, though, seeing as it only contained his dad's record player and all ten of eddie's records. sonia would have murdered him if she had even discovered that eddie was listening to music. she only permitted him to listen to her favourites- all of which were christian country songs. some of which even had subliminal homophobic messages. truly amazing.
eddie didn't bring many of his day-to-day clothes. no, he packed the clothes he had hidden from sonia- in the back of his wardrobe, under his bed, in the garage, in the attic. anywhere she wouldn't find them. you see, sonia wanted eddie to be prim and proper and a jock. not one of the really popular, super athletic jocks, that was forbidden- eddie was fragile (except he wasn't) and he had asthma (except he didn't). eddie was on the track team- and he was damn proud of that- but sonia expected eddie to dress like his teammates. sweatshirts, shapeless jeans, exclusively white converse. no fucking thank you. so eddie had been living his 1980s and 1990s fashion dreams in secret. that's how he wanted to look, and so that's what he brought to los angeles. fuck sonia. fuck her perfect little vision for her perfect little son. she didn't own him. she didn't control him anymore.