Author's note: Back with another, slightly longer, chapter this time. It's so great to see so many people following this story. Thank you for the reviews so far and do leave one if you like this chapter. I hope you all enjoyed (sob) watching Volume 2 over the weekend. I hope to continue the love for Eddie with this story now that the season is over.


Chapter III

"Did you read any of it?" I winced in anticipation of his answer.

"Yeah, I did actually," he said. "Chapters one through three."

"That's great," I said.

"It was cool," he replied. "I liked it."

"Do you think maybe you could come and sit over here?" I asked tentatively.

Eddie was lying across the sofa in the den, one arm draped across his forehead like a Victorian lady in a fainting spell. Anyone would think he'd been here for hours, but really, he'd only just arrived. This was only our second session.

It was a Sunday morning. Unfortunately, I'd been too busy after school to have any other sessions. It was bright and crisp autumnal day and sunlight was streaming in from the small windows of the den.

It was only 10am, not even that early, but I reckoned Eddie hadn't had to be up and out that early on a Sunday morning for a long time. My mom and stepdad had taken my brother and sister to their grandparents for the day, so the rest of the house was quiet. We were alone.

"Can't you come and sit here?" He returned. He shifted his feet slightly to make a small space for me at the end of the sofa. I sighed, picked up my notepad. Giving his feet a small shove, I wiggled into the space he had made for me, feet tucked up on the sofa and my notepad on my lap. It wasn't like I was giving up my weekend as well, I thought, dryly.

Eddie shifted to make more space for me, now sitting with his back propped against the arm of the sofa. I was hyper aware that, despite him moving, my knees still touched his legs.

"I liked your notes," he said, picking up the copy of Wuthering Heights that he had slung on the coffee table when he arrived and waving it at me. He opened a page and pointed to a passage that I'd underlined, a description of Heathcliff. I glimpsed my annotations in the margins of the book in cramped handwriting. "Do you fancy this dude or something?"

I blushed and grabbed the book from him. "No," I protested, not convincing anyone.

"You so do," he teased. "Look, you're blushing."

Unexpectedly, he leapt up from his reclined position and was crouched, feet on the sofa. I uncurled myself and sat poised, waiting to see what he would do next and having no idea how he might behave. He was entirely unpredictable.

He placed one finger gently on my jawline and turned my face to his, as if examining my cheeks. His face was now inches from mine.

I was trying to hold my own. I hadn't been blushing before, he had been winding me up, but now I knew that heat was rising to my cheeks. I hoped they didn't burn too pink.

"Get your feet off the sofa," I reprimanded him playfully. I gave him a shove and at the same time, rose to my feet to get away from him. He fell backwards onto the sofa again, almost dramatically. In the process, he had grabbed my arm and brought me along with him.

Considerably smaller than Eddie, I was completely incapacitated by him. I lay there on top of him, chest to chest, my legs flailing in mid-air. I was unable to move, entirely thrown off by the sudden and uncontrollable movement.

I found his attempts to unnerve me and make me squirm annoyingly childish and yet, there was something thrilling about never knowing what he would say or do next. Was this how he flirted or was he like it with everyone?

For a moment, I did nothing. Our eyes met and held each other. This was the closest I'd been to a guy in a long time, it was disarming for me. I could feel his steady breath, his chest rising and falling beneath me, his lips slightly parted. His eyes were so dark they almost looked black. He smelt of cologne and faintly of cigarettes. My heart was beating fast at our proximity.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have no respect for personal boundaries?" I asked wryly, trying to gain control of my arms again so I could push myself off him.

"You seem pretty comfortable, Hartley," Eddie said teasingly, as if he hadn't just forced me on top of him.

"Veronica," I said lamely.

"What?"

"You never call me by my name," I stated. I pushed myself up so that I looked down on him. This at least created some space between us.

"Veronica," he repeated. My name sounded nice coming from his mouth. I watched as his gaze flitted from my eyes to my lips and back. Was he thinking about kissing me? I wondered. I hadn't been… until then.

"We should get on with the session," I said, as if suddenly realising I was laying on top of him, even though I'd been acutely aware of it the whole time. I clambered up and returned to my seat at the table, wanting to establish some sense of normality between us. I opened my notepad and picked up one of the pens that lay among the stationary on the table. Surprisingly, Eddie followed too. He sat down heavily on the chair. "In chapter one—"

"Do you not like getting close to people?" he probed, completely ignoring what I'd just said. I could only guess that he found it fun to poke me and see what happened. I set down the pen with a sigh. I tried not to roll my eyes again at this further distraction, but my earlier concerns about how these sessions might go seemed entirely well founded.

"There's getting close, and there's getting accosted on a sofa by a guy you barely know," I replied, with a wry smile.

"Let alone, Eddie 'The Freak' Munson," he teased.

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't need to."

We looked at each other across the table, as if in a standoff.

"Don't worry, it's totally fine that you, like, hate me," Eddie said with a shrug. He picked up another pen from the table and began fiddling around with it, twisting it between his fingers. "Everyone at school does. I'm used to it."

From anyone else this comment might seem self-deprecating or full of angst, but Eddie's face didn't change. He looked unbothered by this, I had to admit, factually accurate statement.

"I don't hate you," I returned, intrigued as to why he thought this and why he'd brought it up now – although not needing too many guesses given the company I kept at school.

"No?"

"No," I replied firmly. It was true, after all. I didn't.

"I was just…" I searched for the right word, so as not to offend him. "Indifferent."

He smiled and I wondered if he was trying to bait me into telling him the truth about what was said about him at school by bringing this up. Not that I didn't think he already knew, especially after what he'd just said. But something made me think he wanted me to say it out loud. Like he thought it would be funny, seeing me squirm.

"That's better, I swear," I added hastily, laughing somewhat. Luckily, he laughed back.

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly a hit with your friends so forgive me for assuming you were the same."

The pen he was holding went tap, tap, tap on the table.

"Who cares what they think?"

He seemed surprised at my answer. Probably that I didn't defend them or dispute what he'd said. He shrugged in agreement.

"I didn't know you. And they don't know you," I continued.

"And what do you think now that you know me?" He leaned back in the chair, almost nonchalantly, with a coy smile on his lips.

"I think you don't give a shit what I think of you," I replied with a smirk, not quite rising to his bait and saying whatever it was that he wanted me to say. He laughed, short and sharp.

"Besides, you're just as bad as them really," I continued.

He raised an eyebrow, inquisitively but pointedly. I felt that it was signal for me to go on but to tread carefully.

"You think because I wear a cheerleading outfit and go to all the cool parties that I think the way they do."

I wasn't being antagonistic; I'd just wanted to point out his double standard.

"Maybe," he said cryptically. He cocked his head, in thought. The tapping of the pen stopped abruptly. "But maybe not."

He looked at me with eyes so dark and deep and intense that I began to feel self-conscious under his gaze. I looked down at my notepad wanting to move away from it but not being able to. I knew he kept looking at me, even after I broke our eye contact – I could feel it.

"Do you deliberately like making people uncomfortable?" I asked with a nervous chuckle.

"Absolutely." He flashed a mischievous grin.

"Shall we get back to the book?" I suggested.


Life at school shifted somewhat after my initial few tutoring sessions with Eddie. I started thinking on things that I hadn't thought about before. It was like I was suddenly conscious of the way I lived my life – what I did, what I thought, and who I spent time with – whereas before I had been living on autopilot, not questioning or even thinking much about these things. I just let myself be carried by the current. But now I was waking up to where it had taken me.

I wasn't quite sure what prompted the shift. It may have been spending time with Eddie. He had a defiant individuality and sense of self, especially in the face of a school that was largely against him, that made me feel like I wanted to stamp my own uniqueness on those around me. Or, if I was honest with myself, it may have been the hyperawareness that came with the pills I took every week or so. I liked to think they didn't affect me outside of schoolwork and studying, but really it was becoming harder to tell.

It was a subtle change, almost imperceptible, but there, nonetheless.

On what was an otherwise regular school day, I entered the school cafeteria at lunch. The sight of Eddie and his friends, the rest of the Hellfire Club, sat at their usual table drew my eye, as it often did. Whether you loved him or hated him, Eddie drew your attention. He sat, rather subdued for once, picking at the food on his tray. His familiar metal lunchbox, which everyone knew contained a miscellany of drugs, lighters, and cash from his afterschool dealings, sat next to him on the table. That day, he wore black jeans ripped at the knee and a checked flannel shirt over his Hellfire Club t-shirt. His leather jacket was slung on the back of his chair.

Something about the sight of him there, looking slightly like he'd repeated a hundred years of school rather than just two, while listening as his friends chattered around him, made me want to go and say hi. I had already admitted to myself that I did actually enjoy our tutoring sessions – and not despite his constant distractions but because of them. It felt odd to spend that time with him but to ignore each other pretty much at school. But I knew that I couldn't just walk up to him like we'd always been friends. Like we weren't two very different people. It wasn't that people wouldn't know what to think of it, it was the exact opposite – people would know exactly what to think. My friends would think I'd crossed over into some unknown territory. People who were friends with Eddie were outcasts, losers, in their eyes. If I was friends with him, it would be like I had betrayed them in some way. And I didn't think his friends would be too enthusiastic about the idea either. I was friends with the guys who bullied them. That didn't seem like something they'd take well to. I remembered Eddie's previous comments about me thinking the same way as them and could only assume Eddie's friends felt the same.

Up until that point, I hadn't really thought about it like that, but us spending time together, even if it was purely transactional, seemed to suddenly feel a bit… subversive.

It was an exciting thought, but something that simultaneously made me pretty mad. In my mind, there was no reason why I couldn't just go over and say hi and it seemed silly to be so restricted by these invisible boxes around us. I started to grow angry that things weren't that simple. I began to wonder why any of these rules existed, whether they benefitted anyone, and really, whether any of it mattered at all. Besides, Eddie had shown me, after just a short amount of time with him, that he wasn't at all like everyone thought he was. I felt sure that my friends – well, Chrissy at least, the most kind-hearted of them all – wouldn't find him all that bad if they only spoke a few words to him.

For a moment, I almost went over there. Fleetingly, I imagined me walking up to his table and greeting him, but just as quickly as that image came, I laughed it off. The idea of waving a cheery 'hello' at this long-haired metalhead who didn't scream 'small talk' in any way whatsoever was absurd.

Although, that said, that was the old image I had of him. This new one was a kind of playful, softer Eddie. And I rather liked it.

I looked over to my usual table and studied at the familiar faces sat there. I knew everyone's face, heard their voices and laughter even from my position further away, but after my previous contemplations, I unexpectedly felt quite separate from them. Chrissy, of course, and Jessica were different, I had been friends with them since we were kids. But the others, a few of the girls from the cheerleading team and the guys from the basketball team, now that I thought about it, I wondered how much I really liked about them, or even knew about them. For some, I couldn't recall even basic details about them or times when I'd had an actual conversation with them one-on-one. I was just so used to sitting at that table every day at lunch.

It was one thing to acknowledge this truth, however difficult and alarming, but it was another to act on it. What would I do if I didn't have this group to sit with? Who would I speak to? I felt suddenly caught in a kind of limbo between my old routines and this newfound doubt. I wondered what good it could bring and vaguely wished I hadn't noticed any of it. It seemed difficult to 'unknow'.

Nevertheless, I pressed pause on the thought and pushed it to one side for now and repeated the same actions I had repeated almost every day since starting at Hawkins High. I adjusted my bag on my shoulder, walked to the table, and took a seat opposite Chrissy. She welcomed my presence with a breezy smile. We sat and ate lunch, exchanging stories about our day so far.

"Yo, dude!"

The sound of Jason's voice beside Chrissy broke my attention away from our conversation for a moment. He greeted his friend, Chance, as he sat down beside me at the cafeteria table. I somewhat begrudgingly made space at the table. Chance and I had sometimes hooked up at parties the previous school year and had been on a few dates over summer. However, the previous week I had told him I was too busy to go to the movies with him (a lie), so him sliding into the seat next to me, whilst not an unordinary scenario, wasn't particularly welcome at this time. I hadn't decided if I wanted to continue things just yet.

"Chrissy, Veronica," Chance nodded at each of us.

I mumbled a hello and looked to Chrissy to continue with her story. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by Jason who drew her attention away by putting a hand on hers.

Taking the opportunity, whether by chance or by design, Chance slung an arm around me nonchalantly and leaned in. I tried to shrug it off, but he was firm.

"So, that rain check," he said in a low voice. "How about Thursday?"

"I can't, I'm tutoring."

I tried to wiggle free from his hold. I twisted my body slightly but was wedged between Chance and the person seated next to me. He didn't take the hint and only pulled me in closer to him.

"Skip it."

"I can't," I insisted.

"Who's more important than seeing me?" he joked.

"Someone who needs to graduate this year," I returned. I tried to brush him off with a dismissive wave of my hand and a dry smile.

"At the weekend then?" He suggested.

"I'll let you know."

He seemed to grow slightly impatient and dropped the arm from my shoulder. Seemingly bored of my noncommittal answers, he turned back to his friends. I'd banked on him not wanting the indignity of asking for a third time.

"I'm bored of her, man," I heard him not so subtly whisper to Andy who sat the other side of him.

Chrissy, who had been watching the whole conversation from the corner of her eye, gave me a sympathetic look. I rolled my eyes so only she could see, and we exchanged small smiles. One look between us said exactly what was on our minds.

I'd have been hurt by this before, but I surprised myself at not much caring at this callous comment. Perhaps the separate feeling that I'd felt earlier would come in useful sometimes.


Eddie and I rarely interacted at school. It wasn't that we purposefully ignored each other, but our school lives barely overlapped. We had one class together, History, and I would very occasionally see him in the library. Although, his previous efforts to study harder so he could graduate that school year had dwindled by that time. The only time we spoke directly was to arrange our next tutoring session.

I hadn't made a particular effort to hide my arrangement with Eddie (aside from the illegal part, which I had vowed never to disclose to anyone, even Chrissy), but I hadn't spoken about it with anyone either. However, before long, it became harder for people not to notice that we were suddenly interacting after years of nothing.

It was a Wednesday afternoon the following week and I'd just finished Math class. I was making my way to my locker, bag slung over one shoulder, holding my textbooks in one arm. I'd worn a floral sundress that day, trying to hold onto the last of the mild weather, with a cardigan and sneakers. I remember that I wore my hair down.

I approached my locker only to find the unexpected sight of Eddie, looking like he was trying to break in.

"There's nothing valuable in there, Munson," I called from behind him. He threw a glance over his shoulder, and I felt like I caught a glimpse of a true expression – the one before he put on his usual front – probably worried he'd been caught red-handed by the wrong kind of person. Someone like Jason, who we all knew despised him most of all. His face relaxed when he saw me and he spun round, laughing.

"You got me, Hartley." He leant on my locker with one elbow nonchalantly, no doubt trying to recover some lost bravado. "I couldn't find you earlier. I was trying to leave you a note."

He motioned over his shoulder, and I could see a small square of paper, folded up and wedged in the door of my locker.

"It, er, got stuck," he explained.

"What's up?" I asked.

He grinned widely and reached for something in his pocket. It was an essay. I cringed at the sight of it, the once crisp white paper folded into quarters and stuffed away in his jacket. He unfolded the pages and held them tantalisingly in front of his face so that I could see nothing but the back of it, a blank sheet of paper, with his wide eyes and raised brows above it.

"You got it back?" I asked with anticipation. He'd been working on this paper for the last week or so, and we'd talked a lot about what he might write in our sessions together. He'd had some good ideas that I'd helped him articulate into the essay. I remembered thinking that this was probably the most he'd worked on a piece of homework for a while. I hoped it had worked out.

He nodded eagerly and spun the essay round. It was brandished with a 'C'. I high fived him instantly, smiling from ear to ear.

"Good job, Munson." We'd been aiming for a 'D', so this was pretty damn awesome. I was very pleased to see that someone else was finally able to see some of the intellect that I saw in our sessions.

"All thanks to you, Boss," he returned. Backing away from me, clearly keen to go and celebrate his win. I shrugged his compliment.

"Sunday still okay for you again?" I asked, remembering that we'd only tentatively set the date of the next session. He nodded. "Come at 1."

"I'll be there," his loud voice sing-songed. He was half-way down the hall now, eager to get home.

Once he was out of sight, I turned back to my locker. Unlocking it and opening the door, Eddie's small note dropped out and onto the floor. I knelt and picked it up. I unfolded the scrap of paper to reveal the scrawled message in black ink.

I NEED TO TALK TO YOU

I chuckled out loud at the unsurprisingly vague note. Somehow, I knew that if I'd discovered this in my locker without having seen Eddie put it there, I'd have still known it was from him.

"What are you smiling about?" Chrissy's sweet voice broke my focus on the note. I scrunched it up quickly so she couldn't see and stuffed it into my locker.

"Nothing," I lied.

"Did I see you speaking with that weird guy?" She enquired. Her tone was curious, non-judgemental, despite the fact that she'd called him weird.

"Eddie, yeah," I confirmed. "I'm tutoring him."

"That's your new student?" Chrissy asked. "Maybe he'll finally graduate this year."

I murmured my agreement, trying to sound uninterested. She was non-judgemental now, but despite Chrissy's heart of gold, I couldn't be sure she wouldn't find my strange fascination with Eddie (let alone our secret agreement), its own level of weird.

"Well, he's got the best teacher," she chimed. I shut my locker and turned to smile at her. She was a diamond. I worshipped Chrissy. Not in a sycophantic way, like some people did, wishing they could be her and hating and loving her at the same time, but like a sister. She knew the most anyone could know about me – aside from my recent activities – and we'd been super close since junior high. I wasn't a natural addition to our friendship group, but Chrissy always kept me close.

"Shut up, you," I replied affectionately, pulling her towards me. We walked off down the hall arm in arm.