Chapter Eight

Midterms week came and went without fan fair. By this stage in their freshmen year the students either had it or…well, there was always hope for next semester. In Ed, Edd, and Eddy's case the trio had managed to sneak by with passing grades, with Double D leading the pack with a litany of As.

The young men sat gathered around a table outside the café taking in the last moments of autumn before winter extinguished any more outdoor activities with its bone numbing chill. Ed munched on a pastry, a smile played on his lips as he soaked in the rich chocolate coating of the sugary delight, while Eddy and Double D enjoyed their choices of coffee. A simple latte for the latter and a caramel drenched choice for the former that qualified more as a dessert than anything.

Eddy was having difficulty focusing, he knew his two friends were talking, but for the life of him he couldn't conjure up even enough effort to feign interest. It wasn't that his brain was overloaded from the previous week's workload. No, he had managed to please his professors enough to still be a C to C- student. Something else occupied his thoughts, clouded his perception, and distracted him to the point where he drummed his fingers against the metal table and sipped on his coffee with less vigor than someone with acrophobia had climbing a relay tower. Only it wasn't something, it was someone.

He had played the events of Halloween Night through his mind over and over and each time he came up with the same conclusion. He had made a mistake. It was a hard pill to swallow for the self-described infallible boy who would have rather blamed someone else for his issues than himself. But there was no one else he could blame for this misstep other than himself, he had tried to come up with anyone else to fill that spot for him for days.

He hated feeling guilty and like he owed someone something. It was the same gut wrenching feeling that burst out of him in fits of anger, preferring to lash out than carry the burden. The same feeling that several years ago compounded into the great breakdown spurned on by his brother's abuse that made him reveal the truth to his friends. He didn't like being weak or fragile. He didn't like it when he was faced with the reality that differed from the image he worked so hard to convey to others. But even more than those things, he didn't like how that night had ended.

He wanted it to be his first steps into the legendary college memories that he would carry with him for the rest of his life and laugh about years down the road. He wanted it to have ended with him the hero of his own quest and to embarrass himself only enough to make people talk about him and spread the rumors of his character.

But all he had managed to do was hurt someone. Someone that he cared about. As loathe as he was to admit it, he did care about Lee. It was a fact he had let slip out to her on a few occasions, that night being one of them, but it was met with a criticism that even he couldn't shake. He didn't show it. He never had. It wasn't something he was equipped to do with his upbringing of toxic masculinity and abuse. You never showed you cared about a dame because you weren't supposed to care about her to begin with. But he was already in too deep to ignore the truth any longer. He did care about Lee. It was confusing and scary to him and those were feelings he didn't know how to respond to without false bravado and denial.

"Earth to Eddy!" Ed laughed as he poked his shorter friend in the side.

"Huh?" he shook himself from his thoughts, "What's up?"

"We were talking about going to watch a movie." Ed replied, "They're showing the new It Came from Beyond the Drive Thru at the theater." he outstretched his arms and wiggled his fingers while wearing a dark expression that lightened up as he laughed at his own antics.

"I think it's a great opportunity for us to all unwind before we dive back into your academic adventures this Monday." Double D nodded.

"Eh." Eddy shrugged, "Count me out of this one."

"Is everything alright, Eddy?" Double D asked with a concerned expression.

"Sure, yeah, fine." he muttered as his thoughts began to return to the image of the red haired beauty running down the street away from him with tears in her eyes.

Double D's concern only increased, but he knew his friend well enough to know that trying to pry it out of him would only lead to a confrontation. It was in moments like this where the only two options to help Eddy would be to either try to distract him from whatever was bothering him, a tactic that had already failed. The other options was to get straight to the point.

Double D wasn't the most observant of people. When looking under a microscope or through a textbook he could note, memorize, and catalog information like a computer. But when it came to social queues or verbal gestures he was as useless as his two best friends would be in a chemistry lab. But he wasn't blind, and he wasn't stupid.

"Is this about the other night?" he prodded as he took a sip out of his latte while leveling a curious expression at his friend.

Eddy only shrugged in response and let out an annoyed groan.

"Oh! You mean Halloween Night? At the party? When he made Lee cry?" Ed guessed with more enthusiasm than empathy. It seemed Double D wasn't the only person ignorant of social queues.

"Uh…" Double D started, furling his eyebrows, "Yes."

Ed took another bite out of his pastry and with a mouthful of food he added, "You musta really said something mean to her."

"I didn't say anything!" Eddy snapped, the anger boiling to the surface caused his face to turn a few shades of red. This came as no surprise to his friends. They'd seen this more times than they could count. And Edd could count higher than most.

"Well, you must have done something, Eddy." Double D cut in, "We don't mean to be curt, goodness no. But this is something that seems to be bothering you, and need I remind you that the first step in overcoming something like this is through communication?"

"I'll communicate your face with my fist." Eddy grumbled, which prompted Double D to scoff and roll his eyes.

"Use your words." Ed smiled.

"You guys are going to make me gag." Eddy deflected. He threw his arm over the back of his chair and stared off into the distance.

"Eddy, we're here to help. We are your friends after all. Bottling these things up only leads to further complications." Double D replied.

"What do you want me to say?" Eddy belted out, having met his boiling point, "That I feel like a dick? That I was acting like a dick? That I am a dick?"

"Richard?" Ed asked confused.

"It's a place to start." Double D offered.

Eddy sighed, deflating as he did so. His friends weren't going to budge, and he already felt shitty enough with what had happened. If he kept up with these shenanigans he might piss off his two best friends. "We were..." he started but trailed off, "She was…" he continued to struggle to find his footing. He smacked his palm into his face and released a pent up sigh. "Okay," he started, "you guys may be surprised about this, but…me and Lee kind of have a history. Like together."

He braced himself and waited for the wave of bewilderment to wash over his friends. But it never came. He looked back and forth between them and raised an eyebrow, "Did you hear me?" he asked.

"Yes." Double D confirmed after a sip from his latte.

"Loud and clear!" Ed saluted, as he finished off his pastry.

"You're not surprised?" Eddy asked, his own astonishment evident.

Ed and Double D exchanged a glance. "Should we be?" the smartest of the trio asked.

A new sense of anxiety started to course through Eddy. This was supposed to be his best kept secret. Something that no one, under any circumstances, was supposed to know about. "You mean…" he peeped out.

Double D sighed as realization hit him, "You didn't exactly do a good job at keeping it from us. Or anyone for that matter."

Eddy's face dropped further. At this point, it had to have hit the ground.

"You bragged about your 'hot hook-ups' with a 'fiery red head' that 'made your head spin'." Double D recounted.

"Not to mention whenever you two were at a party you'd both sneak off together." Ed offered.

"Everyone knew about it, Eddy. We didn't even know it was a secret." Double D revealed, finishing off his latte.

"I…" Eddy started as his world collapsed around him.

"There was that time you went into her tent on the camping trip senior year." Ed listed.

"The time the two of you just so happened to leave at the same time that day at the water hole." Double D nodded as he stood and tossed his empty cup away,

"Don't forget about the time we caught you two together in your room and you said she was helping you study for the SAT." Ed remembered.

"Honestly Eddy, you thought we would believe that?"

"Okay! Okay! Enough already!" Eddy shouted, "I get it!" he stood from his seat, not bothering to take his still over-half full coffee with him. "Go watch your stinking movie." he muttered as he stuck his hands in his pockets and started walking away, "I need to take a walk."

Double D watched his friend retreat and knew that this conversation wasn't over. Eddy was just prolonging the inevitable. But he did hope that maybe their brief interaction would help Eddy come to the realization himself. He couldn't help but feel sorry for his shorter friend as he watched him walk away, the gloom hung over him like a cloud.

Eddy mumbled a curse under his breath as he walked away from the scene of his embarrassment. Not only had his friends called him out, they had everything but the receipts to back it up. He was dead to rights. He sighed as he let go of the frustrations he held for his friends. As much as he hated to admit it, they were right. Instead, he looked out over the quad on his trek and the memories started to dance their way into his mind.