Chrissy knew she was staring, but she couldn't seem to stop.
Eddie Munson was leaning casually against the lockers down and across the hall from her, dressed casually in an open red flannel over a band tee she didn't know, ripped jeans, and a leather jacket partially hidden under a washed-out denim vest.
The leather jacket.
When she really thought about it, she was pretty sure she'd seen him wearing it before, she'd just never thought to commit such a detail to memory. Now, she couldn't help but notice. The coat definitely looked like it was his. It hung well-worn and tailored to his form, like it had been spun into creation just for him.
He looked…really cool.
Her eyes locked on the chains laced at the cuffs she'd admired yesterday, when he raised his hand to brush the hair from his face. Definitely the jacket.
Her shoulders tensed when his eyes flicked over and caught hers. She idly wondered if he'd sensed her gaze on him.
His mouth still moved with words she couldn't hear, but the corners picked up in a playful smile. Her hands tightened to a white knuckled grip over the books clutched to her chest.
"Chris, hello? Are you listening to me?"
Her eyes lingered a moment longer as Eddie turned back to the underclassman Chrissy didn't know.
"Sorry, I was…." Chrissy trailed off and Jason looked over his shoulder but couldn't seem to pick out what she had been staring at. "I have a test next hour and I was trying to run through notes in my head."
Jason looked like he wanted to say something but changed his mind.
"I was asking if you were coming over after class, my parents are out tonight." Jason's hand slipped around Chrissy, skimming under her loose cardigan and across the high waist of her jeans. She resisted the urge to turn away, not wanting to give fuel to further conflict.
She didn't like being touched near her stomach. She'd told Jason before, but he never seemed to get it.
"I can't tonight, I have to go by the Family Video after school. I told Johnny I'd rent the new Star Trek movie and he's probably gonna want me to watch it with him.'' She gave him her best placating smile and a twist of her hips, she hoped came off as casual, that caused him to drop his hand.
Jason sighed and pushed the hair from his eyes. He did that when he was feeling frustrated, he'd been doing it a lot lately.
"You can do that any day, I'm sure your brother'll understand, Chrissy. I feel like I hardly see you anymore."
It was true. Things hadn't been the same, not for a while. Valentine's Day had just furthered the divide growing between them.
He raised his hand to touch her, but the warning bell pierced the halls, interrupting him.
Chrissy pushed off her locker and skirted quickly around her boyfriend.
"Chrissy," Jason called.
"Sorry, I promised," she gave him another smile. "I'll see you later, okay?"
She didn't wait for him to respond before she turned on her heel and trekked off in the opposite direction.
A pang of guilt sang in her gut. She had just lied to Jason, well half-lied. She did tell her brother she would pick up the movie for him, but he was taking it over to a friend's house this weekend. So, being Wednesday, she still had a few more days she could grab it and she certainly wasn't expected to watch it with him. Turning 10 had made hanging out with his older sister super lame apparently. The guilt wasn't from the lie though, it was from the lack of disappointment she felt at standing Jason up.
Jason was a nice enough guy, but sometimes she felt he was a little too into himself to be in a relationship with anyone else. Being with him made her feel more alone than ever most days. Jason felt like another person she had to be good enough for, right in front of her and still out of reach.
They'd been together since the end of last year, there one year anniversary was barely two months away, but she still couldn't talk to him about the stuff with her mom. How just this morning she'd pinched her thigh at breakfast and lamented about how she'd always dreamed Chrissy would wear her prom dress from when she was in school. It was just too bad Chrissy was so much bigger than she was at her age. Never mind that Chrissy didn't want to wear her mother's prom dress.
Or the complicated feelings around her dad's inaction in the face of it all, barely more than another prop in the room. He didn't so much as glance over his morning paper, as her mother continued to mentally prod her until she scraped the remains of her breakfast into the trash to escape it all.
It had tasted like ash on her tongue anyways. Most things these days did.
It wasn't totally his fault. She couldn't talk to anyone about that stuff.
Even the counselor she had been pushed into speaking to, after she'd passed out in History, last month. The result, no doubt, of one of her mom's more successful post-holidaydiets. She liked Ms. Kelly, but when she'd asked if there was anything bothering Chrissy, she'd promised it was from a lack of sleep due to pre-graduation nerves. It must not have been very convincing though because Ms. Kelly still had her come by every other week. Just to check in, she'd assured her.
It was starting to feel like everything was collapsing around her while Chrissy was simultaneously being pulled apart trying to keep it all together.
She was a skip, step, and a hop away from being totally certifiable.
She pulled the sleeves of her baby pink cardigan around herself and was struck by the thought of Eddie Munson and his leather jacket. It was one of the few nice things someone had done for her in a long time, seemingly just for the sake of doing so.
She should thank him. Yes, she was definitely going to thank him.
He couldn't be as scary or intimidating as his reputation would suggest, right? Chrissy didn't think scary people made a habit of giving up their jackets to sleeping women. Besides, if they were going on looks alone, she knew from experience monsters could wear pearls just as easily as they could leather.
She wondered if he went to that spot in the woods often, maybe she could find him there.
.:.:.:.
Eddie's rings knocked rhythmically to the music pulsing through the headphones of his Walkman. Just as they had for the last hour.
He adjusted the arm under his head to get a more comfortable position as he stretched his back out across the table. He closed his eyes to the sun flickering through the branches.
Wayne was picking up a late shift tonight, which meant he was likely home right now and Eddie didn't feel like getting into it about why he was back before the end of the day. He'd try his damnedest to get his diploma this year, but if he had to sit and analyze Hamlet one more time, he was going to lose his mind. Besides, he was passing English…enough. As long as he kept a handle on it, a day here and there certainly wasn't going to change that.
He rolled a cigarette between his lips, blowing a slow exhale. Yeah, this was better than Hamlet.
A tap on the shoulder interrupted his solitude.
Eddie's eyes snapped open, and he jerked so quickly in response he nearly vaulted himself off the side of the picnic table.
"Jesus Fu–-" he barely managed to catch himself, jarring the headphones from his ears.
"Oh my god! Sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't mean – I wasn't trying to scare you. Sorry!"
Eddie blinked at Chrissy Cunningham ringing her sleeves as she sputtered incoherent apologies his way. He quickly pulled the headphones the rest of the way off and stubbed out his cigarette.
"Hey, hey! No problem, alright?" Eddie held up his hands and gave her a smile he hoped would help calm her down. He hopped off the opposite end of the table to put some space between them.
"You just surprised me," he said with a laugh.
Her face burned with a pretty blush that made Eddie's smile pull a little wider.
"I'm sorry," she repeated, looking more sheepish than petrified. At least that was something.
"No apologies needed," he placed his hands on the picnic table between them and leaned forward. "So, what can I do for you, Cunningham?"
The answer was obvious. It's not like Chrissy Cunningham, of all people, would be seeking him out for weed. Another major indicator were her eyes dropping to his chest, or more likely his jacket. Whatever the case, it didn't stop Eddie from enjoying the way her cheeks burned the same cherry red as his beloved guitar.
He'd had the biggest crush on her in middle school. It'd faded over time, but only in the kind of way that distance can dull the senses. Having her standing so close to him again, talking to him, might as well have knocked him back six years. A flurry of dizzy energy was set spinning through him, making it hard to sit still.
"I just wanted to thank you." Her voice was shy and only seemed to get smaller by the end.
"For what, exactly?"
He couldn't help but tease her. Not when she was making a face like that. Besides, it was not like opportunities to talk to Chrissy Cunningham dropped into his lap every day.
She motioned towards him; her mouth open but at a loss for words.
"The jacket," she said finally, her eyes widened. "It was you, the jacket yesterday…right?"
Eddie wanted to draw it out a bit longer, but it felt too close to mean at this point as he watched her shift back and forth on her feet.
He sat with a flourish and hid the growing smile with a casual swipe of his hand. Time to put her out of her misery.
"Yeah, it was me."
The silence stretched between them and Eddie couldn't help but think it was because of him. It seemed unlikely that someone as popular and likable as Chrissy, head cheerleader to boot, could be this shy and awkward. She was starting to make him feel awkward, which, shameless as he tried to be, was a difficult feat.
"You want me to leave or something," he looked away. "Just say the word and I'll-"
"No, it's not that. I don't want you to go, I just…" she took a step forward, leaves crunching beneath her sneakers.
He looked at her critically.
"You want to sit?" His rings knocked against the table, and he shot her another smile.
.:.:.:.
Chrissy decided she liked Eddie's smile.
It was hard to describe, she was sure she didn't know anyone else with a smile like his.
Jason's smile was handsome and manicured. A smile she'd seen a hundred times over, flipping through the Sears catalog.
Her mother's was thin-lipped and forceful, matched with sharp eyes. There was always an air of condescension or judgment just beneath the surface. At least, whenever it was directed at Chrissy.
Her father didn't smile, not since he'd come back from the war. She had vague memories before he'd left of a warm expression and soft pat on the head, but the years had washed the memories down to all but sand now.
Eddie's smile was different though.
It was like staring at the sun.
He smiled with his whole body. His face lit up with a freedom she'd only seen in movies. His eyes sparkled with a joy that seemed to look inside her. The wildly open nature was just exemplified by his long curly hair flying every which way and a devil may care attitude.
And he gave it all freely.
She'd never seen a smile like that before. It was hard to ignore and even harder not to return.
And so, she found herself seated hesitantly across from him at the picnic table in the woods, a tentative quirk of her lips forcing its way through.
"So, you make a habit of sleeping in the woods, or is this like some kind of new Teen Beat ritual?"
That smile again.
Chrissy huffed a laugh.
"No, just looking for somewhere quiet I guess." She shrugged her shoulders, trying to fight back the heat rising in her cheeks as he arched a brow at her.
It felt like he could see right through her. It was a little unnerving.
"The woods are quiet, but you might want to keep that jacket on hand next time," he teased, flicking his hand casually up and down indicating the lavender coat she'd grabbed on her way out this morning.
Chrissy bit her lip, as the silence stretched between them again. She felt a building pressure to fill it. She'd been feeling this kind of pressure a lot lately, a building weight of inadequacy. So heavy, she couldn't even make interesting conversation.
She had to say something. Anything.
"Do you ever feel like you're losing your mind?" she blurted, her hand slapped over her mouth as soon as the words left her.
She hadn't meant to say that.
She could feel his gaze upon her, she could bring herself to look at him. Instead, she occupied herself by picking at her too short nails.
"Oh, you know, just…on a daily basis," her eyes shot up to find his bright smile, eyes alight with humor. She exhaled slowly, hand falling back to her side. "I feel like I'm losing my mind right now, sitting in the woods with Chrissy Cunningham, Queen of Hawkins High."
He laughed then, as freely as he smiled, and she couldn't help the smile that split her own face, soft and genuine.
"You know this isn't the first time we've, uh, hung out," her eyes flicked down to the rings glinting on his fingers as he motioned between them again.
She'd never seen someone with so much jewelry on their hands. The bulky metal highlighted the thin nature of his fingers. A trait Jenna, from the squad, had once called pianist's fingers, long and elegant. It was an intriguing contradiction, like the rest of him.
Soft and hard all at once.
The sun wrapped in the cloak of night.
Her mouth opened, but she didn't -couldn't- say anything. Distracted, she tried searching her memory but kept coming up blank.
She'd seen Eddie in school, he was pretty hard to miss, but she couldn't place a time they'd ever actually spoken. They had Math and English together, not that they'd ever interacted in either of those. She certainly couldn't remember seeing him at any games.
"You don't remember me," he said blankly.
She felt the heat of embarrassment rise in her chest.
"I'm sorry," her shoulders tensed.
"That's alright, that's alright."
His posture was so casual and light, Chrissy couldn't help the yelp of surprise when he suddenly flung himself backwards off the bench, rolling through the leaves and sticks.
He stood with just as much energy and began pulling at his wavy curls, dislodging the leafy brush he'd picked up.
"Do I have something in my hair?"
Chrissy laughed for the first time in what felt like ages.
The taste of freedom on the tip of her tongue.