Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Season 3 spoilers.
It was silly, she knew. That such a simple sentence could cause her to breakdown with such flooding and conflicting emotions that her body didn't know how to react other than to cry.
"Thanks, Yacker…"
She threw a punch into the wet pillowcase that had begun to cling to her face but she couldn't turn off the recording in her head of the countless times and every tone of voice he'd ever said that word to her. It often came as a warning, a laugh, a pleasurable hiss. But more often than not, it had come with a loving softness that scared her and yet somehow broke her walls down all at the same time.
No one else understood it, but Yacker had never been just a nickname…not since day one. It was tied to everything that annoyed her about Eddie and everything she now missed.
To this day she wasn't even completely sure how the absence of it had even started.
Heading into the summer, seemingly overnight, she had inexplicably became Patricia. Just Patricia. Sure, that was her name and he had always sprinkled it in from time to time but… She had never been Patricia for such a lengthy amount of time. Her hope was that when she caught up with him in America everything would be back to normal and she wouldn't have to dwell too much on it.
But as it happens, once there, she had found only more reason for concern.
When Eddie met her at the airport, she took notice that some of his edgier clothes had vanished since the last time she saw him. She might've blamed it on the differences in temperature had the mischievous sparkle his eyes usually held not disappeared along with them.
He greeted her with a half-hearted kiss and she had to repress a scream when he revealed how happy he was to see Patricia.
From there, they'd settled into his little white house rather quickly. His mother couldn't wait to brag on him buying a few books before she'd gotten there. She gushed about how much of a good influence Patricia must be having on her son. The redhead grit a smile and took the compliment, but she didn't want any credit for this Eddie. She wasn't so sure she even knew who this person was anymore.
She would've sworn to you that she was dating Fabian when he admitted that the books he had purchased were actually about Ancient Egypt. The very last thing she had wanted to do away from the Creepy Towers campus was to focus on its soul-sucking Egyptian curses. But she was there to spend time with him, and she would go on to spend late nights over almost the entire duration of her visit helping him look through them for answers.
In all of their studies, they never did discover what an Osirian actually was or what Eddie was expected to do for certain.
Whatever it was that it happened to be…Patricia knew she wasn't ready for it. She wasn't ready for any of this, all of the changes settling in so quickly as if Eddie had been expecting this moment his whole life. It scared her…for herself and for him.
Ready or not, he was just going to have to suck it up and grow up, a lot quicker than either of them would have preferred. He already visibly carried himself differently. He spoke differently…more distracted…more stressed. Over the course of her visit, he even spent less and less time on his hair until one day it didn't even resemble his style anymore. It just wasn't a priority to him now.
A lot of things weren't.
For once in his life Eddie held responsibilities that he just couldn't shrug off and say no to.
He didn't have a choice.
It pained her to accept it, but maybe it was just that Yacker didn't quite fit into this equation anymore.
Maybe now she was just another distraction for him.
It wasn't too far of a stretch to believe that, the pieces appearing to fit seamlessly together. He didn't have time to bicker with her or wait on her stubbornness anymore. They just didn't really click in the same way they used to. Patricia had probably just been his way of trying to tell her that.
He would never admit it, but she knew the truth.
Pat— Yacker had regretted her decision as soon as her plane had touched down in London. It was easy to convince herself during the flight that she was okay with the choice she had made; that it really was the best thing for the both of them…
But now that she was back to where it all started…and back for the first time without being with him, well… Everything just felt empty to her. He was a part of it all now; it just didn't feel right without him.
She had made a huge mistake.
For the first few weeks she had often found herself counting down the days until his flight back to the UK. The reality of the situation never got easier for her to face when she would catch herself planning their reunion. Piper had only had to question her fixation with the calendar once before learning that it would only bring down a furious tongue lashing upon her.
Learning, yet another thing her twin was better at, Patricia supposed.
It had gotten to the point that she wouldn't even bother to pick up the phone when Joy would call her anymore. She had run out of excuses not to talk about Eddie and somehow she felt too guilty to explain her choice and her logic to her.
In all honesty, Patricia was just miserable. Her wardrobe, makeup, hair…everything about her felt silly now. When she would catch her reflection in the mirror and then look at Piper she couldn't deny that there seemed to be a few years difference between them even though she was the 'older' twin. The comparisons between their rooms, possessions, and hobbies made her feel even more ill.
She had broken up with Eddie for what? To hold on to all of this? She knew she really was a child if she had actually been that selfish.
Maybe this was just life's sick way of giving her chance to do some growing up as well. Not to try to get Eddie back, of course…but rather, maybe this whole ordeal just made it easier to accept that it was finally time. It was no secret that she hadn't really changed much since year eight. All that jazz about staying true to yourself and not conforming to society's expectations was her excuse for such a feat. But she somehow wasn't very proud of that accomplishment anymore either.
Somewhere between a box of hair dye and a crash course from Piper on how to properly use curling tongs, the new term had crept up on her in no time. She was hesitant to face him that first day back at school. She was afraid for his reaction, that perhaps he could blow up at her for being so selfish and indecisive. She worried that he would call her out for her immaturity in front of everyone and accuse her of faking this new look out of desperation.
And it was true that maybe he did have something to do with it, she still had some maturing to do in that regard.
But he hadn't even noticed anything out of the ordinary with her. The silence just may have hurt more than anything else she had feared.
What he was able to notice however, was the new girl, KT. But maybe that was just Eddie's forte…falling for the first new girl he literally bumps into in a foreign country.
She knew she shouldn't be jealous of their growing closeness. After all…she was the one who let him go, made him single. And Patricia wasn't stupid, she was well aware that a guy like him wouldn't stay single for long. It was just…
Of all the girls he could've replaced her with…he had chosen her. Miss. Smile and Sunshine, a damsel in distress. From what Patricia could tell, she appeared to be needy and childish. It wasn't fair that she hated her but…
She had seemed to have been in his way, holding him back from his Osirian destiny…but this girl wasn't? How was that even possible?
Maybe it was ill fated timing the day she had walked out into the hall just as they had returned from who-knows-where for the nth time that week. But it was not all for lost as she hurled accusations that might as well had screamed, "DON'T YOU GET IT THAT I STILL WANT YOU?!"
Because his face was vulnerable, full of fear. He looked like the Eddie of old when he stooped to Jerome's level and took the bait of his razzing.
The way he pleaded with her to believe that he wasn't with KT seemed so much to her like the immature Edison Sweet that had chased her down one lunchtime and begged to just be the principal's son, Eddie Miller; her new friend from America. He was still in there after all and it caught her off guard. It had been months since she'd seen any glimpse of him but now…it was as if the maturity spell over him had been lifted.
"Did you do something with your—the all this?" She fixed a cold stare on him as he gestured all around her face and hair because anything less would completely break her.
She almost thought his eyes looked at her again the way that they used to. But perhaps that was just her wishful thinking. That all of it was. "No. No?"
She let his pleading eyes walk out on her and she would swear to you that the tears hadn't returned that night…but the beating water at her back that witnessed them all would tell you differently. She hadn't even made it through her nighttime routine before the frustration and confusion and absolute hatred for that stupid American had set in again.
And that was no exaggeration, she really did hate Eddie…for making her feel emotion again, making her human. He made her care about herself and feel like she mattered to someone. He made her want to drop every act she's ever tried to put on and just be the person she had always been too scared to be because…
Eddie Miller made her need him, he made her long for him.
And somehow, without her permission, that big stupid idiot made her fall in love with him.
…She didn't have a choice.
A/N: Patricia, I love you baby.