100 Ways

79. I'll still be here when you're ready.

Barry hesitated outside of Eddie's apartment. Eddie hadn't talked to him at all for the rest of the day after the run-in with Iris, choosing to remain chained to his desk until the end of the day. Barry had given him the space he seemed to need, but also Barry was being a coward. He knew he had to tell Eddie, but he wasn't sure how, and it was eating him alive.

He unlocked the door and let himself inside. "Eddie?"

"In the kitchen," Eddie said.

Barry walked inside and found Eddie unloading the dishwasher. He hadn't even changed out of his work clothes, just taken his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves.

"Can we talk about today?" he asked, his heart pounding in his chest.

Eddie sighed. "Listen, Barry, I'm sorry about that. I shouldn't have reacted so badly." He turned toward him. "I don't want you to think I'm still hung up on her or anything, because I'm not. I'm completely over her, but I…I'm not over the way she broke up with me."

"I understand," Barry said.

"It's all I can think about when I look at her," Eddie confessed, "and all the anger and frustration and sadness just come racing back. I just…I can't believe she's still never told me why."

"Eddie, I have something to tell you," Barry said.

Eddie looked up at him. "Yeah?"

"Iris came over to the house a couple months ago," Barry said. "It was that time I was late and Singh was breathing down your neck."

"That's why you didn't come into work?" Eddie asked.

Barry nodded.

"Well what did she want?"

"She wanted to tell me why she broke up with you."

Eddie went pale. "She…she wanted to tell you?"

"Yeah," Barry said, then rubbed the back of his neck. "Listen, do…do you want to sit down?"

"No, Barry, I want you to spit it out," Eddie snapped.

"Okay, that's fair." Barry swallowed. "I told her I didn't want to hear it. I told her she should talk to you and not me, but she was too scared to talk to you."

Eddie scoffed, but his eyes were filling with tears. "So what did she say?"

"She told me all about how she wasn't feeling satisfied with her life, and how she was going to therapy for it, and, well, she wasn't satisfied with her friends or her relationship, so she said she was working on it but—"

"Barry, just get to it already!"

He leaned against the counter and sighed. "She broke up with you because she realized she had feelings for me."

The silence was so complete they could've heard a pin drop in the apartment. Eddie's face went from angry to confused to sad to fearful to furious.

"She left me for you?" he said.

"That's summarizing it, but yeah," Barry said. "She said she was in denial about it, but knew she wasn't happy with you anymore, so that's why she broke up with you without giving you a reason. And then that day we came out to her was the day she was originally going to tell me, but then—"

"But then we told her we were together."

"Yeah, and that's why she freaked out so badly."

Eddie ran his hands over his face, pulling at the skin of his forehead. "Oh my god. Oh my god."

"I know."

"How could you not tell me, Barry?!" Eddie yelled.

"I was scared," Barry admitted. "I didn't want to make you upset like that again, and I didn't realize you were still so hung up on the break up. I thought you were over it, so I thought it didn't matter anymore."

"Of course it mattered," Eddie said. "Jesus. What if she'd told you before we got together? You'd probably be with her right now instead of me."

"No, no, Eddie—"

"Oh don't pretend, Barry. It would've at least crossed your mind. You can't tell me if you and I weren't together that you wouldn't have jumped at the chance with her."

"I can't speak to what would've happened or what could've happened," Barry said. "I could've left you when she told me, but I didn't, because I choose you."

"But what if you regret that someday?" Eddie asked. "You loved her for years, Barry! I can't compete with that!"

"I'm not asking you to!" Barry said. "There's no competition, Eddie. You're it for me. I haven't loved Iris in a long time."

Eddie snorted in disbelief, turning away from him and placing both hands on the kitchen counter.

"There's something else," Barry said.

"What else," Eddie said slowly, angrily, "could there possibly be?"

"Iris and I have been texting," Barry answered.

Eddie laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, that's not doing much to convince me you choose me over her."

"Just as friends, just reconnecting," Barry insisted. "And not a lot, just every now and then for the past week. She's still my family, Eddie."

"Don't I know it," Eddie grumbled.

Barry sighed. There wasn't anything left to say.

"I'm going to go home tonight, give you space to process," he said slowly, backing away toward the door. Eddie didn't say anything, didn't even move. "I'm here when you're ready. Just a phone call away. Or a text."

Eddie still didn't say anything, so Barry turned away and walked to the door. He pulled it open with a heavy feeling in his chest, and he hoped that this wouldn't be the last time he was leaving this apartment.

"Eddie?" he said, pausing in the doorway. "I still choose you. I always will."

He closed the door before Eddie could respond.