Edd couldn't believe what was happening. Never, in all his years, could he imagine something like this happening to him. Maybe Ed, maybe Eddy; but not him.

In his hands he held a letter, crumbled up and stained with drops of salty tears from his earlier emotional outbreak. It was a letter from a college far away, Yale. Edd had come home expecting to find the letter lying on the ground, under the mail slot of his door. And, it was. However, it was what was inside the letter, in bold italicized script, that had him in such a weeping mess. He attempted to read it again, hoping that, somewhere, he had misread the fine text. His tears had wet the paper to the point where his last name was completely smudged out. Had he really been reduced to such a weeping Neanderthal?

Dear Eddward Marian...

We regret to inform you that, due to the mass number of applications we have received, you have not been accepted to our campus. Do not be discouraged however, as many of the best and brightest minds in the world apply to our school…

He had to stop reading there. Back when he was a kid, it was him who was known as the 'best and brightest' mind of the Cul-de-sac, and even, dare he say, the entire school. However, as the years went on, it felt like everyone was getting ahead of him in, not only athletics, but also school and extra-circulars.

Ed, after middle school, got a slight increase in intelligence. While he was still well behind the others in terms of grades, he had still radically improved. Ed got accepted to Peach Creek Community College, a feat which amazed even Edd himself.

Eddy had joined the Future Business Leaders of America (or FBLA) as soon as he hit high school. Almost immediately after joining the club, the success ratio of his scams improved dramatically, and he even wound up winning first place at the national conference. Some CEO of a company noticed Eddy's bright, though somewhat unrefined, creativity and offered Eddy a paid internship for one of the company's branches in New York City. The shortest of the Eds immediately agreed to the deal. Eddy would be leaving Peach Creek, for what would be a whole year, next week.

Nazz and her cheerleading team had gotten third place in the Nation Cheerleading completion. They would have had a clear shot at second had Nazz, who was always proudly standing at the top of the pyramid, not slipped and fallen at the last second. Either way, she had gotten a full scholarship to the college of her choice, and he was proud of her for that, he knew of the many hours of work she put in along with her team to get every position correct.

Nobody batted an eye when Kevin got a scholarship to a college in Texas for his achievements as quarterback for the Peach Creek Cobblers. While he had initially been apprehensive to the deal (Edd suspected that it might've had something to do with the rumor that involved a few too many shots of Jack Daniels, his linebacker, and the school showers) he eventually decided to go. Kevin no longer had any ill will towards Edd, or any of the hatted boy's two best friends any longer, so there had been a long standing peace between the four.

Jonny… well… nobody really knew what happened to him and his family. One day, in late June last year, they had all gone for a weeklong camping trip out in the woods. Thing is, they never came back. The authorities spent 3 days looking for them but found no trace of the family and pronounced them dead. Edd, and the others, knew better though. Why, just the other day, he could've sworn that he saw Plank gazing through Ed's basement window during his tutoring session. Or, at the beginning of the fall season, when the Cul-De-Sac kids came back from school to find all of the houses decorated with tinsel and acorns. He was alright, wherever he was. They were all sure of it.

Rolf would be staying home. After his father had passed away in a devastating hit and run accident (Poor man never saw it coming, his cataracts had all but blinded him) Rolf dropped out of school and, along with doing nearly all of the backbreaking farm work that his household demanded, got a job at the local deli. Of course, he was never alone. Since that fateful day in their Sophomore year, everyone had decided to give the boy at hand at home, whether it be getting his chicken's eggs (Ed would come by nearly every hour, on the hour, during his free time to make sure there weren't any eggs left behind) milking the cows, or even helping him sow and harvest his crops. He was happy, and that was all that mattered.

And the thing that choked Edd up the most was that he wasn't happy. It wasn't like he held a negative sentiment for the others, who had found success far greater than any of them could have ever imagined, it was that he couldn't keep up with them.

He found himself sliding down against the door, until his was firmly seated on the cold, hard linoleum that made the floor of his foyer. He had always imagined far greater things for himself. As a kid, he thought that maybe he'd discover a new element. Just a few years later, he decided that, using his then-impressive intellectual ability, he could find a way to end world hunger and cure cancer. And then, when high school hit, he decided that he would, someday, work to win the Nobel Prize for Science. And now, here he was, lying on the floor, tightly gripping a wet and crumbled letter from one of the top schools of the country. He was an idiot, the constant praise he got from his peers had made him overconfident over the years, so confident in fact, that he had only applied to Yale, the very same school that had not accepted him. In a sense, he had put all of his eggs into one basket. One feeble, rotting basket.

Knock knock knock.

Edd tried his best to stifle his constant sniffles before he answered. He suppressed one sob and answered. "Hello?"

"Double D," he recognized that voice, it was May.

May, after middle school, cleaned herself up dramatically. Her once long, unkempt hair had been cut and now bobbed daintily at her shoulders. Even her once puffy cheeks had, for lack of a better term, deflated. She tried her best to separate herself from her sisters and wound up joining the school's Drama Club, where she managed to get the lead in her Sophomore and Senior years (She would have gotten the lead in her Junior year too, if not for the fact that the club had decided to perform Hairspray that year. Honest to God, she tried to size up for the role in the Summer of Sophomore year, where she somehow managed to gain 40 pounds. Alas, the director had found someone better suited for the role and May found herself working the entire school year to drop back down to her normal weight).

He remembered that one day of Freshman year, where Kevin had thrown yet another party at the abandoned house. While everyone else was in the basement dancing and drinking to their heart's content, Edd found himself outside on the porch, with a plastic red cup filled with a light, fizzy liquid he had no intention of drinking, and May.

"You should see the play." She said, before taking a gulp of her drink. Her face was illuminated a light blue by the moon, and Edd, for just a split second, found himself staring at the two round, white reflections in her eyes.

"I'm just a minor role in this one." She broke him out of his trance. "But I really want to get the lead next year. I think we're doing Phantom of the Opera."

And she did wind up getting the lead the very next year. Though, instead of Phantom of the Opera, the school decided on Bye Bye Birdie (A radically inferior play, May had told him that enough times to drill it into his brain). Still, on the play's opening night, there he was, waiting outside the girl's changing room to give the blonde girl (Who played an absolutely splendid Rosie) a bouquet of tulips, her favorite flower.

"Double D, are you okay?" The girl's voice brought him back to the present.

"I… I would like some alone time," he said between sobs. "I apologize."

"Okay."

So May put her back against her side of the door and sat down, as he had done for her many times during their high school career. "Are you still choked up about Eddy leaving?" May then bit her thumb, a nasty habit that, even after her heel face turn, still hadn't died.

"No," he answered, which was partly a lie. He and Ed cried like babies at the party where Eddy had announced that he'd be leaving soon after school ended. The thing was, Eddy's inevitable departure was just a sigh of his growing up and, although it hurt, he had somewhere, deep down in the confines of his heart, known that it was all for the best. It was the dreaded letter he held in his hands that had unnerved him.

There was a pregnant pause for the two where neither Edd sobbed or May talked. Finally, after hearing the girl shuffle onto her feet, she cleared her throat, as if to speak.

"Double D, I love you."

And that was that.