A.N: So, for some reason, the reviews for chapter 10 are not showing up on the review page for me, so I can't reply to them for now. Hopefully that gets fixed in the near future, but anyways, I'm here with the new chapter. Hope you all like it and like where this story is going, and be sure to leave some reviews! P.S: 08SnowWhite20, I like how you're still here after you thought you weren't going to like it at first. Just wanted to tell you that, because I can't reply to your reviews. Oh, and Eigomi, thank you for your reviews too!
Today is the day...today, I get to talk to Ed… I thought as a smile creeped onto my face, knowing that after four years, I will talk to the one person who stayed with me through thick and thin. But my smile faded away as I remember that while he didn't leave me, I left him. And with no warning, at that. I hoped that he would forgive me for that, and I was positive that he would, but the thought of what I had done weighed in the back of my mind. I decided that I would tell him after school, maybe around four or five. The day went by pretty normally, with me talking with Marie in the morning, going to class, talking with the popular group at lunch, and getting on with the rest of my day. However, all throughout the day, I kept twiddling my fingers, or bouncing my leg in nervousness. I knew that everyone could soon know who I was by the end of this day, Why am I so nervous though? I thought. I know that everyone has forgiven me, so why am I acting so nervous? But I knew why I was nervous. Deep down I still had some fear that I would be rejected or hated by the cul-de-sac kids. It was unlikely that that would happen, but it was an irrational feeling that I simply could not shake.
When we were released from our classes, it would have felt like an uninteresting day with no highlights, but I had a feeling that this was the calm before the storm. Fortunately for me, this storm was almost sure to bring in a happy Ed, so I was on board with it. I walked to my house and got there at 2:40, so I decided that I should wait at my home for an hour or two before breaking the news to Ed. I messed around with my guitar as I normally did, but tired of it and went to watch videos on YouTube. While I was in the middle of one of the videos, I heard a knock at my door. I went out and saw that it was Marie.
"Oh, hi! I didn't expect you to come over!" I said surprised.
"Well yeah. After all, you never helped me with my homework yesterday, so I decided that you owed me." She said, and I noticed her backpack was slung over her shoulders.
"Um, actually, I had other plans for today, but maybe tomorrow?" I asked, hoping that she could hold off for today. She put on a disappointed face and her shoulders sagged just a little.
"Aw, really? Dang, I was hoping we could hang out a little today." She replied, clearly down about the circumstances.
"Well, I'm sorry for that. Oh! I never told you what I was going to do today, did I?" I asked, a little more excited than what I intended.
"No…?" Marie said, confused as to where my sudden burst of excitement came from.
"I was actually going to go and tell Ed that I was back! I was going to head over to his house in a little while, so I guess we could hang out for a few minutes." I said, trying to make up my not being able to help her with her homework. She smiled at what I had said, and visibly perked up.
"Sure! Hey, can I go with you to see Ed? I want to see his reaction too." She questioned, and I nodded. I told her to come in, and I watched a couple more videos with Marie before it was time to leave and see Ed. I could hardly wait to see the big guys face when he found out. It would definitely be worth it to see him. Marie and I walked toward Ed's house and as I got up to the door, I got more nervous with each step towards the door. Once again, an irrational fear that he would hate me lingered in the back of my mind, but I still couldn't shake it. Marie must have noticed that when I got up to the door I was shaking slightly. For how much tougher I thought I had become, I always had nervous and shy me poke out quite often.
"Hey, Double D, It'll be fine, trust me." She said laying a hand on my shoulder. I looked toward her and grinned slightly. I looked back to the door and knocked on it. At first nothing could be heard, but then I heard the distant but distinct sound of someone's feet walking toward the door. The door opened...and there was Sarah. I sighed a small sigh of relief, worrying that if Ed had answered the door he would have yelled out my name, alerting all the others of my presence. I would much rather see them all individually if I could.
"Oh, hi Daniel!" She said, quite excited. "...oh, and hi Marie." She said with much less enthusiasm. I don't know why Sarah seemed to have a dislike to Marie, but I brushed it off.
"Hi Sarah, I actually wanted to see Ed, is he in?" I asked.
"Yeah, I think he's in his room doing his homework, why?" She asked, looking inside the house toward his room.
"Well, I just wanted to talk to him, because we didn't finish a conversation we had earlier at school." I replied. She looked back to me.
"So then why is Marie here?" She asked, a little bit of malice in her voice I winced a little at her tone, but kept silent about it.
"I was gonna help her with her homework after I talked with Ed, but she came over to my house a little early, so I had her tag along." I said.
"Alright," Sarah said, sounding a little suspicious. "I'll go get Ed, you can just come in and sit down on the couch." She said as she walked to Ed's room. Marie and I went and sat down on the couch. Marie sat right next to me and looked at me with a big smile.
"I can't wait to see his face when he finds out it's you!" She said in a whisper. "If you didn't know, we're kind of friends too because of how often he hangs out with May, so I know he'll go ballistic!" She whispered and looked back to Ed's room with a grin. A few moments later, Ed came out of his room, towering so high that he had to duck a little to avoid hitting his head on the top of the doorway. Sarah followed him out and looked at me with a smile. I wonder what's going to happen when she finds out. I thought to myself. Ed gave me a weird look as he came up to us and sat in the chair opposite to us. He seemed to stare even harder, and it seemed a little strange, considering that neither of us had said a word to the other yet. I couldn't help myself, and allowed myself to smile, showing the gap in my teeth. When I did this, I saw Ed's eyes open wide, and he leaned back in his seat a little, but a second later, I saw a smile grow from ear to ear on his face.
"DOUBLE D!" He shouted and leapt across the gap between us and almost crushed me with his hug. I had the air knocked out of me, between a happy Ed and a couch, I could hardly breathe.
"Ed…" I said, gasping for air as he sobbed into my shoulder, but I could still see that he was smiling as wide as possible. "Ed...I can't...breathe…" I let out with the rest of my oxygen. He backed up a little bit, just in front of my face. We were both wearing huge smiles, but then I heard a voice from across the room I had forgotten about.
"DOUBLE D?! THAT'S REALLY YOU?" I heard Sarah practically shout from across the room. I looked over Ed's shoulder as he turned to face his little sister.
"It's Double D! Back from the dead! The Gods have given us a gift!" He said back to his sister, his voice shaking from him crying. Before I could get another word out, he crushed me yet again with a hug of his.
"OOF!" was all I could get out before all the oxygen left my body. But this time, Ed picked me up, seemingly without any effort and spun around with me.
"Double D! You're back! After all these years you're back!" He said spinning around with me.
"Ed...put me...down...please…" I said in a quiet voice. He looked at me with sad puppy eyes, but put me down anyways. I looked up at him and he looked down at me, and I finally spoke to him instead of telling him to put me down.
"Ed, it's been a long time, hasn't it?" I asked with a big grin on my face. His smile returned to his face.
"Too long Double D, way too long!" He said as he hugged me again, but this time not crushing me to death. I hugged him back and chuckled a little. I looked over to Marie who had a huge smile as Ed and I reunited. It was great to see Ed again, and I really wanted to get a conversation going with him. We broke the hug but stayed standing right next to each other.
"So, how's it been for you for the past four years Ed?" I asked him, and I saw him get a sort of panicked look on his face before bursting out.
"I HAVE SO MUCH I HAVE TO SHOW AND TELL YOU DOUBLE D! I HAVE SO MANY STORIES AND DRAWINGS ANd comics and movies and…" he faded out as he ran down the stairs into his room to get all the things I think he wanted to show me. I saw that Sarah was still standing there in shock looking at me with her mouth open in shock.
"Edd, that's really you?" Sarah asked quietly. I gave her a smile.
"Yeah, I'm Edd. Feels weird that you saw me a couple weeks ago after I moved in and you didn't find out it was me. To be honest, I was terrified when you came up to me, I didn't want people to know because I thought that you all still hated me after what Eddy had told you guys." I told Sarah. At the mention of Eddy's name, her face twisted into disgust.
"Ugh, please, I'm glad that loser has been out of our hair. Luckily Ed doesn't hang out with him anymore after my parents told him that he needed to stay away from him. And Double D, we couldn't stay mad at you for that, especially after we found out it was Eddy." She said, and she started to walk over to me, but Ed came bursting out of his room with armfulls of comics, movies, drawings, and I'm pretty sure I saw some sponges in there. And is that a… gravy bowl? I thought as I saw a familiar looking object in his arms.
"ANDTHERESASPACEPIRATETHATGOESAROUNDANDFIGHTSOFFALIENS" He shouted, even more excited than when he went down into his room. He dropped everything onto the table in the middle of the room, and I was worried that the whole table would break in half from the amount of items on it. I could see Marie laughing in my peripherals, and I knew that I would have to try to calm Ed down.
"Ed," I said, trying to gain his attention, which worked, but not quite how I expected. He turned to me, and grabbed me by the shoulders looking at me with the most serious face he could come up with and looked into my eyes.
"Have you seen the newest Star Wars movie?" He said in a dead serious tone.
"Uhm, no?" I spoke confused as to why he was so serious and where this conversation was going. His eyes got wide when I said no, and he picked me up and slung me over his shoulder, surprising me.
"ED! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" I shouted as he started running to the front door.
"YOU HAVE TO SEE IT DOUBLE D IT'S AMAZING!" He shouted back and he opened the door.
"ED CALM DOWN, MAN! I DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY ANYWAYS!" I shouted. Ed came to a halt just outside his house.
"Oh, yeah. I forgot about that." He said as he put me down. Some things never change, do they? I asked myself in my head while chuckling. I heard laughing from in the house, and Sarah came out, looking mad at Ed.
"Ed, what were you doing!?" She yelled at Ed, but not in an extremely loud manner. Ed looked at her with a sheepish smile on his face.
"Sorry, Sarah, I just can't believe that he hasn't seen it yet!" He exclaimed.
"Yes, well, I can see it with you later. I think you have things that you want to show me in there, right?" I asked pointing back inside his house. He turned back to the door and looked back at me.
"Oh! Yeah, I have so much to show you!" He said as he grabbed me and dragged me inside. He set me down on the couch where I was sitting before, and Marie was still laughing at what had just occurred. I looked at the pile of comics, movies, and drawings on the table. Ed reached in and grabbed a comic and tossed it to me before looking at me with expectant eyes. The comic's title was "Space Pirates: A Journey to the Unknown." I had never heard of this comic before, but it looked to be halfway decent, which was a plus. It seems Ed has improved his taste in comics, I thought. Before I had time to even look through the comic, another thing was tossed at me, and it looked to be a drawing. I looked at Ed and he looked back with hopeful eyes. When my eyes gazed back down toward the drawing, I figured out that it was Ed's work. It was a half human half octopus pirate, from what I could see. It was a man with two swords, and eyepatch, tattered clothing, and a toothy smile that you almost feel what the menacing glare meant. His bottom half was the octopus part, with his purple and white tentacles in a twisted form as he was standing. It was an amazing piece of art, with many details, and I could see that Ed had shaded and outlined the drawing, even putting in small details in here and there. I felt someone close to my shoulder, and I could see in my peripherals that Marie was looking at it as well. I looked back up at Ed, who was wearing a face of pure excitement, just waiting for my opinion on it.
"Ed, you drew this?" I asked, in complete disbelief. I saw that grin that I thought couldn't get any wider grow even more.
"YES! What do you think Double D?" He asked, I looked at the drawing once again and looked back up at Ed.
"It's extraordinary, Ed. How long did this take you?" I asked and I could see Ed start thinking.
"Well, a couple weeks total. I drew him in a couple days and the rest was everything else." I looked at him dumbfounded. I was never an artist, but I can tell this is amazing!
"How long have you been drawing?" Marie asked from beside me. Ed looked up in thought.
"A long time, why?" Ed questioned.
"Well, it's just that I've kind of known you for a long time, and I've never seen your drawings." Marie was in a state of shock quite similar to mine.
"I don't really like showing it off, so that's why." Ed said embarrassed, looking away.
"Well, Ed, I must say, you have a talent." I said, smiling warmly at him. He smiled back.
"Thanks Double D." He replied.
"This is really good, Ed, you should see if you can get a job at someplace for this kind of stuff." Marie said.
"I've thought about it, and I've sent my art to one company, but they didn't reply to me." He said, a little down.
"Well you gotta send it in to more than one company, man!" Marie told Ed. His face remained disappointed as he thought about the art company.
"I know, but this was the place that I wanted to get into most. They made my favorite comics when I was younger." Ed explained.
"Oh, are you talking about those cheesy comics you used to read when we were kids, Ed?" I asked in a tone that suggested that it was a bad company, but it went completely over his head.
"Yeah! I loved those comics! They were so awesome and fun!" Before he went too far off tangent, I cut him off.
"Ed, are there possibly...any other companies you would like to work for?" I asked, trying not to hurt his feelings over his childhood comics. He thought for a few seconds before replying.
"Yeah, there are some others, but I REALLY wanted to work for this company, Double D!" He said, giving me huge puppy eyes. Some things really never change, do they? I thought.
"Well, are you sure you want to work with that company?" I asked, but I got a reply from Marie instead.
"Just let him do his own thing, Double D. If he wants to work there, then let him. I think he could do it." She smiled at the last part. I decided I wouldn't push Ed a different direction. After all, I was always annoyed if my parents didn't like me making music and learning guitar, because they saw it as a distraction from my learning. I looked over and saw Sarah, who had been quiet the whole time, just listening to our conversation. I asked her what she had been doing while I was away for those four years, and I found out that she had learned to play the piano in those four years. We all exchanged stories, some of which I had already heard from Jonny, but there were a couple new things to learn about, like how Ed managed to get decent enough grades to be on the football team, and how he was one of the best defensive men in the whole school district. We talked about our misadventures throughout our four years, and it was one of the few times I've managed to feel truly happy, and I did not regret coming over at this point. Ed was loving that I was back, and he was thoroughly enjoying my visit as much as I was. Eventually, a couple of hours had passed without me realizing it, and I had to leave if I was going to tutor Marie.
"Don't leave Double D!" Ed said as he put me in a bear hug of his, crushing me for probably the fifth time while visiting him.
"Ed...can't...breath…" I was just barely able to get out that last part, but he dropped me and I almost fell down. I heard Marie laughing behind me, and turned around with a slightly annoyed face.
"Oh, you just love to see me get crushed, don't you?" I said before grinning slightly. Marie just kept on laughing, so I looked back at Ed and hugged him back. It was nice to know that we still had brotherly love for each other. After all, that's practically what he is to me, the brother I never had.
"Promise me, Ed, that you won't go spreading the word around. If the whole cul-de-sac finds out, Eddy's going to find out and I just don't want to deal with him right now." I looked up to him, but he had a confused face.
"Um...can you...say that again?" He asked timidly. I sighed slightly, but chuckled as I did so.
"Just don't tell anyone that I'm back, alright?" I told him.
"Not even Eddy?" He asked.
"Especially Eddy. Don't let him know, ok?" He stood at attention and saluted like a soldier would in boot camp. I just laughed at his response.
"Alright, thanks, Ed. And be sure to let me know when we can hang out again, it was fun catching up!" I spoke as I walked out to his porch, but was pulled back into yet another bear hug from Ed, and I was reminded of how May managed to pick me up, and thought that they had that in common, if anything.
"I'm gonna miss you, Double D!" He said, and he seemed like he was crying.
"Ed, it's ok, I'm not going to be going anywhere, I'm just a street or two over." I said to Ed.
"But you never said anything last time you left, Double D." Ed's words struck my heart. As much as I hated leaving him without so much as a warning, it's what I had to do. Still, those words stabbed into my heart, drawing out that regret and making it bleed out. But I managed to keep a normal facade.
"It's ok, Ed. I won't leave this time." I said, barely above a whisper. We parted ways, and Marie and I went to my house to study. Or, actually, so I could tutor Marie. She needed help in calculus, and while it was easy for me to understand, it wasn't so easy to explain it. However, as I got further into helping her, I found ways that I could show her what to do and how to do it. After an hour, we had all of our math done. It was seven by the time this had happened, so Marie decided to go back home so that we could both get some sleep. She left, hugging me again, and I went to finish the rest of my homework, but all the while Ed's words were still in my mind. After all this time and after knowing that he had forgiven me for what I did, I still felt guilt for what I did. After thinking about this heavily for a while, I realized what was wrong. I wasn't forgiving myself. Even if everyone else could forgive me, I couldn't forgive myself. I heard how people felt when I left, and my mind landed on Marie, and what I had heard about her and what she did to herself. I just couldn't forgive myself. As nice as that day had been, meeting Ed again and everything, that night ended up being a sleepless, thought-filled night, filled with me hating myself for what I did to everyone.
A.N: So, this took a while, even if it wasn't the longest chapter I've written. School is back in and life just decided to sucker punch me in the face with all sorts of other things. Hopefully the next chapter will come out sooner. On the good side though, we've surpassed 100 followers! Thank you to all the people who have favorited, followed, and reviewed! Stay awesome, and be sure to review to tell me what you think of this chapter. Oh, and the problem with the reviews not loading in was fixed halfway through writing this chapter, so I can reply now. See you in the next chapter!