Eddy felt a wave of emotions while sitting in the shotgun of his father's refurbished 1973 Cadillac. The main emotion was anxiety due to the tension between him and his father, scrunched up in the driver's seat both to not take up too much space, and from the tension inside of his body as well. The tension between the two of them wasn't because they were angry with each other, but rather at the unspoken conversation at hand; where they were driving to and who Eddy was going to be talking with today.
The next emotion was a subdued, frustrated anger. He didn't want to be driving with his dad all the way to Lemon Brook just to talk to some old fart about his problems. If he could read his father's mind, he would have been able to tell that he didn't want to drive his son to some shrink just to talk about what had happened. The only reason they were in the car driving there now was because both Eddy's mother and the school had insisted that this would be the best course of action considering the situation. Even deeper than that anger, Eddy felt a deep well of rage in his gut just thinking of the bastard that caused all this, who was too much of a coward to even live to face the consequences of his actions.
However, the person he was most angry at was himself. No matter how much he wanted to pin the blame all on the guy who did it, Eddy couldn't help but take some of that blame. So much of this was caused due to decisions he had made even though he had never even met the guy before this all happened. He also felt a kind of accusatory anger towards three girls in particular: The Kanker Sisters. They were the ones that met the guy and forged a relationship with him, Lee especially. But as soon as that thought came into his mind, it shriveled up and died. He couldn't really feel that way towards the Kankers; being angry at them for all this when he was just as involved, as little of a part as he played, would make him a hypocrite. They knew as little of what was going to occur that day as he did.
Eddy's line of thought came to a stop just as the Cadillac does. He looked outside of the window to see a decently sized house, about the same size as his.
"Hey Dad, what gives?" he grumbled, "I thought the shrink's place was gonna be in some big fancy office building."
"Don't blame me," his father replied, "This was the address they gave. Somthin' about being more open in a cozy, intimate environment." They both stare out the window for a moment at the house. Eddy's father fidgets in his seat a little, and clenches his hands on the driving wheel. He takes a deep breath and sighs, "Look, Eddy," he stares out at the house for a second time, then down at his son, "You don't have to tell her anythin' you don't want to, ya hear?"
Hearing this only makes Eddy groan and roll his eyes, "I know, Dad, I know." He takes off his seat belt and puts a hand on the door handle, but hesitates when he hears,
"Please remember what we talked about Eddy. Don't blame yourself for this. What happened wasn't your fault."
"It sure does feel like it," he replies a little more harshly than he meant to. Before his father can say anything else, Eddy pushes the car door open and steps outside, muttering out, "See ya later, Dad," before shutting the door behind him. The car idles in the street for a few moments, as if hesitant to leave him there, but soon drives away to find a parking spot. It is then that Eddy gets his first good look at the sky all morning; the clouds hang low and dark, giving the air the smell it usually does before it starts to rain. He isn't sure whether the clouds are a reflection of his stirring emotions, or a cliché omen of his imminent experience with the woman that lived inside the house in front of him.
Two new emotions fill his mind while he stares up at the clouds. The first of them being a profound sense of sadness. If staring at the sky made him feel this depressed, he could only imagine the feeling they were giving the families of the deceased. So many innocent lives snuffed out by a coward that didn't know how to handle his own demons. Three of the funerals were going to be today, and there were going to be about three or four funerals every day for the next week. He couldn't even fathom the thought of the possibility of either himself or any of his friends being one of those that got killed. He didn't know any of the dead personally, but the deaths were still all the more tragic.
The other feeling that washed over him was one that had lingered with him since that day occurred. It felt like a thick fog in the back of his mind; light, yet strangely heavy at the same time. It was an emotion Eddy didn't have the words to describe or name, but if he had at least one hope about meeting with this shrink today, it would be that he could figure out just what this feeling was. He desperately needed to; it was the memories that this feeling brought to him that were the real weight that dragged him down:
The blue and red flashes of light. Chief Jackson bellowing orders into a megaphone.
Double D trying so hard not to hyperventilate as the five of them hid in a locker.
The sound of Sarah's muffled cries as she hides her face in Ed's shirt.
Charlotte's screams. Everyone's screams. The shots-
Eddy scrubs at his eyes with his fists before any tears can fall. He takes a deep breath in, then forces the air out of his lungs.
I am not going to cry about this.
He looks at the front door of the house, waiting ever so patiently for him, and finally decides to take the few steps forward to the porch.
Might as well get it over with.
He steps up to the door and presses the doorbell's button. Ding Dong! It sings. One couldn't have heard a more standard chime. Eddy hears a faint sound from inside the house of the groaning of furniture as someone stands up.
"Coming, Coming!" a woman's voice replies. He hears the clicking of heels on a hardwood floor and the sound of the front door being unlocked. The woman that answers the door isn't some old lady like Eddy had originally thought she was going to be; instead, he finds a woman who looks to be around the same age as his mom, if not at least five to ten years older. She is dressed rather smartly, wearing a white dress shirt, tucked into a black pencil skirt that reaches her shins. They the same color as her heels, which are only about two inches high. Small oval frame glasses rest upon her nose and rise up with the rest of her face as she smiles at him, "Well hello there, Mr. McGee! I've been waiting for you," She steps to the side to let him in, "I'm Mrs. Willow."
"Thanks," he replies, "and it's just Eddy." Mrs. Willow smiles and leads him into the hallway. She gestures towards a doorway leading to a room with a large couch in it.
"Alright, Just Eddy," she says, and before Eddy can even stop himself he's snickering at the obvious joke, "The living room is to your left; go on and make yourself comfortable, I'll be right with you in a minute." She walks down the hall into a room that smells of chocolate chip cookies, as he walks into the living room and plops himself onto the couch. It's a lot more comfortable than it looks, Eddy realizes, and soon he finds himself quite snug. Mrs. Willow soon joins him in the living room and places a platter of chocolate chip cookies onto the coffee table between them. She then sits down in an armchair behind her. She offers him some of the confections, "Go ahead, take a cookie."
Eddy leans out of his seat, and does so, taking a small bite to test the waters. It's then that he must admit it: Mrs. Willow makes really good cookies; they could give the cookies the Candy Store sells back in Peach Creek a run for their money. He polishes off the rest of the cookie and leans back into the couch, licking the remains of melted chocolate off of his fingers. Mrs. Willow leans back into her armchair and sighs. The silence between them only just starts to get uncomfortable when she breaks the silence,
"Alright Eddy, would you like to beat around the bush for a bit with small talk or would you rather get right to the point?"
"Well, I, Uh…" Eddy stammers. He did not expect this lady to be so forward with the whole shebang. The one thing he can appreciate about it is that at least she isn't patronizing. He decides to get defensive, "Jeez, Lady, what are ya, my shrink?" Mrs. Willow chuckles.
"Oh, Eddy. I'm not a Psychiatrist, I'm a Grief Counselor." So, she isn't a shrink, Eddy comes to learn. But more questions arise from this revelation; why is he here with her then?
"Grief Counselor?" Eddy asks, "What's that?"
"Basically," Mrs. Willow replies, "It's my job to help students like you process their emotions while responding to tragic events in their school community, such as the death of a student or teacher, or more widespread tragedies—"
"Like the shooting at my school last week."
Mrs. Willow's face falls into a frown, not because she is upset with him, Eddy can tell, but because of how blunt and practically numb to it all he is.
"…Yes," she continues, "Like the shooting at your school." She clears her throat and adjusts her glasses on her face. It is then that Eddy notices that she has a clipboard with her, most likely where she had written the notes from previous visits of other students from the school. He wondered just where the notes from Ed and Double D's visits with her resided. He knows that by the end of the day, his story will join them.
"Now Eddy," Mrs. Willow says, "We don't have to start talking about what happened that day just yet. You can go at your own pace." She takes her glasses off her face and points them at him for emphasis, "These are your experiences we're talking about here."
"Thanks," Eddy sighs, "I was just about to say that it might be easier for me to talk about it if I started from the beginning." This piques Mrs. Willow's interest.
"Intrigue me, Eddy," she asks, "When is the beginning of all this for you?"
This causes him to think back, back to the weeks leading up to the beginning of the school year. When the sun was shining hot, bright, and hazy; just the way he liked it. The summer he and his fellow Eds finally became Kings of the Cul-de-sac, but the joy was short lived; for soon after they returned home from Mondo-a-Gogo, trouble from the outside world started to leak into the neighborhood from the nearby city, and the quality of life in Peach Creek went downhill from there. It wasn't all bad; it was also around the time Charlotte first moved in. Charlotte Jackson, ever the enigma; she had only moved in a couple of months ago, and yet, she already fit in their close-knit group like a glove. She didn't deserve to be stuck in the middle of all this trouble; nobody in the Cul-de-sac did. All it took was one bad seed from a group of questionable delinquents to come in and shatter the world as they knew it.
"Well," Eddy finally says, "There was a lot of stuff goin' on at the same time, but for me, it all started when the Black Shades started to creep in from the city."