A/N: Just some character development that I'm playing around with. I will do roughly two to four chapters for this, depending on what I'm feeling. I plan on doing several stories like this, actually, for the different Cul-De-Sac kids. I hope you all enjoy and will let me know which paragraphs are your favorite!

1. Bruise -

Edd's parents are not home often. They travel the world on 'business', often disappearing for weeks at a time. Sometimes they call home. Usually the mail their son post-cards with a clipped 'love you' and a new task that they want completed. They have never told Edd what they do for a living but he can easily list all of the places they have been. Grand Paris and wild Borneo, the Great Wall and the Rocky Mountains. Places that Edd has only dreamed of journeying too. And one day, they come home early. Edd has not gotten all of his chores done. So they scream at him and they degrade him and they call him a useless boy; but not once do they raise a hand towards him. In his haste to get to the sanctum of his bedroom and away from them, Edd trips. Slams his shoulder against the dining room table. And cannot decide if he should blame the blossoming bruise on his parents or on his own clumsiness.

2. Group -

They have known each other for years. Since they were just little kids and Edd first moved into Peach Creek. Now, as almost adults, they are an even tighter group. Still known as let downs, mess ups, and disappointments. Still called 'The Eds' by their might-be-friends. Still looked down upon by any and every adult that they have ever come across. But, together, Edd knows that they could take on the world if they wanted to. That they could stand up to anyone who thought other wise - because they were more than friends and more than family. They were a group, and they would never let the others down.

3. Fight -

It started out like any other day. Ed and Eddy stole him from the house in the early morning and drug him down the street. They set up a booth, set up a scam, and, like any other day, they did well for a few hours. But, like every other half-baked plan they have cooked up, it failed in the end. So Edd went home, to a room covered in yellow paper, to an empty house. And he sat there - for maybe hours or maybe minutes, until suddenly he came to a single conclusion. He wasn't going to take it anymore. He was going to start fighting back.

4. Friendship -

It starts out tentative, this strange relationship of theirs. People whisper in the halls when they stop to say hello. Stare when they attend each others events - one football and soccer and baseball, the other science fairs and history fairs and spelling bees. Wonder how they even started to talk to each other. After all, it is the schools biggest nerd and the star football player. Why would they be speaking to each other? They don't see how much the two boys really have in common. And they don't know that the friendship of Kevin and Edd started in the school therapists office.

5. Light -

It isn't a slow change, not really. It's just that, one day, a scam goes a little too far. Kevin's words cut a little too deep, the insults grow a little too scornful, and the house just seems far too empty when Eddward finally returns home. And, the next morning, when the teenagers of Peach Creek line up for the bus, they see it. Sudden. Unwelcome. And blazingly obvious, even for those who don't look at him very hard. It isn't a slow change, not really, it's just that one morning the light is gone from Eddward's eyes.

6. Heart -

Valentine's Day is a teenage boys delight. A day to smooth talk what ever lovely lad or lass they have been eyeing, to get the romance started, and to just relish in the glory of pink and red felt hearts everywhere. And, in Peach Creek High, those hearts really were everywhere. The lockers, the teachers office, the labs, the restrooms. And, no matter where Edd went, those damned hearts always seemed to taunt him. Mock him. Tell him he wasn't good enough - because not a single one belonged to him.

7. Red -

It's a mesmerizing color, red is. None more so than the shade of red that stands stark against porcelain, or so Edd thinks to himself. The dark crimson fluid runs down the crease of his arm, drips down onto the crisp white of his bathtub floor, and then disappears in a swirling mass of pink-tinted water. And it stands for so much - for frustration and anger and despair, for sorrow and hate and loneliness, all at once and not at all. Because it's just a color. Yet it still lifts Edd's soul, if only a little, to see it seep from the slice on his arm.

8. Open -

There are few things that a teacher could suggest that Eddward would find unreasonable and useless. No amount of homework brought those thoughts to mind, no unforgiving stares or look-through-you gazes. But this is different. This is his own personal life, the one thing that he has managed to keep to himself for seventeen long years, and she wants him to just tell this boy, this tormentor, everything? To open up and spill every secret that he has ever kept? Every lie that he has ever told? Ridiculous and unacceptable and not going to happen - especially not with Kevin.

9. Hair -

On his fourth birthday, Eddward is given a black beanie-hat. It is a gift from his parents, given with stiff smiles and fake laughs that seem all to real to his young mind. They have Edd wear it everywhere; to the store, to the park, to his friends houses, and when he starts it, to school. It is four years before he realizes that having to wear this black hat everywhere, even in the house, isn't normal. Another year before he figures out why his parents make him wear the beanie at all times. Eddward is nine and it comes out when he doesn't get all of his chores done before his parents arrive home. His father screams at him - calls him useless and worthless and a bastard son. No one has seen the firebrand locks that lay beneath Eddward's cap since then.

10. Quiet -

Pit-pat, pit-pat, pitter-pat-pat-pat goes the rain on the roof. The wind howls and tears at the shingles of the house, grabbing at them and wrenching them free, slinging them across the yard and into the street. The metal trash can at the front of the house falls over with a bang and then screeches as it is blown across the concrete driveway. Lightning flashes, the only light in the house, and reveals a quiet boy sitting alone in his bedroom. No older than eleven yet all alone in his house. Thunder rumbles and covers up the sound of the front door opening, then closing again - but it isn't his parents because they are in New York, no where near Peach Creek. He cannot hear the footsteps over the sound of the pounding rain. But the noise his bedroom door makes when it creaks open is heard and he yelps as he spins around, pulling the blanket up to his chin. Lightning flashes again. And Eddy gives him a grin.